by Joseph Pryce
Standing a hundred feet away partially hidden in a nearby cul-de-sac was Iron Killah, who watched Heiro fly away in the hover. He walked up to the Amin’s doorway and snapped a photograph of the home’s facade with a digi-cam mounted on his index finger before walking away.
********************************************************************************************
The illegal drug trade in Slum Village had been extremely lucrative to Sugarhill Sammy. It had afforded him to be able to purchase two dozen high quality air- hovers, his own private suborbital hover-jet and the penthouse apartment in the highest skyscraper in Slum Village. An extremely exclusive residence known at The Premier Towers. The skyscraper was an impressive L-shaped glass tower that rose four hundred and fifty stories into the night sky. The long limbed narcotics dealer was stretched out in a long divan situated in the middle of his living room. A short squat copper coloured medi-droid tending to Sammy’s wounds that had been caused by Heiro’s beating of him. The droid sprayed a fine mist of microscopic nano-machines from her left fingertip onto Sammy’s face that took less than a minute to repair his broken nose and seal the broken skin on his cuts and bruises.
Sharkmoat and Iron Killah stood off to one side watching with bored interest.
The medi-droid held up her fingertip once more and a blue scanning light ran across Sammy’s body. “The broken bone in your right cheek and the two broken ribs on your left side have been mended. Please rest tonight, Mr. Sugarhill”.
Sammy ignored the droid and glanced instead at Iron Killah. “Are you sure it was Heiro coming out of the inspector’s house?”
“One hundred percent sure. I followed your hover’s tracking device to that address and when I arrived there he was just leaving”, the bodyguard replied.
Sammy chuckled menacingly. “Fucking a law enforcement’s officer’s wife? Heiro sure likes to lead a dangerous live doesn’t he?”
“What do you want to do with this information, Sammy?” Iron Killah asked.
Sammy impenitently waved the droid away from him and rose to his feet. “What am I going to do? Do you think that I am going to let that piece of shit Heiro get away with embarrassing me in front of my customers like that?! And on top of that steal my hover to pay a visit to fuck another man’s wife?! I am going to make sure that bastard pays and I know just the man to sort him out!”
The Iron Bar was only a one hundred metre walk from The Slum Village Central Law Enforcement Division which suited Amin fine. He had plans to drink his fill tonight and walk back to his office to spend the night there.
Candace won’t like that much but she’s usually asleep by the time I get home these days. He thought to himself and ordered another pint of black ale from the square shaped robo-server. The automation filled Darr’s glass mug from an opening in its metal chest and turned to face to Lexxa who sat in the seat beside her superior.
“A refill for you as well, Assistant Inspector?” The robo-server asked in a soothing female voice.
Lexxa glanced down at her own glass and saw that it was still have full. She was as heavy drinker as Amin but had a lot of work waiting for her back at the Division. “No more for me, Nerka. Thanks”.
Darr chuckled at his assistant. “You slowing down on me, Lexxxa?”
She downed the contents of her glass in one gulp and slammed it down on the table. “Too much work to do tonight, D.I.” The young assistant district inspector stood up and patted her boss on the shoulder. “See you back at the division?”
Darr lifted his mug of ale at her. “Two more of these first”, he replied with a half drunken smirk. He was slightly crestfallen to see her go. He rather fancied the tall woman and was thinking up ways to use his position as her superior officer to arrange a quick shagging.
“Alright, governor”, Lexxxa waved at few of the other officers on her way out of the bar.
The District Inspector finished his ale and ordered another from Nerka. He was about to take his first sip when he was interrupted by the persistent buzzing of his com-link that sat in his back pocket. The communication device instantly flashed the image of the caller and transmitted their location into Darr’s mind’s eye. “Bloody hell!” He cursed aloud. What the devil is this scum contacting me here for?!
Amin quickly drained his mug of ale and stormed from the bar in a huff.
Slum Village’s harbour front was not an area of the city that any citizen would want to travel to during the day let alone under the cover of darkness. It was a dark and desolate place filled with scores of rats, both the four legged kind and the two legged kind. Three decades prior, the twenty acre site nestled along the shores of the Ebony Sea had been a thriving energetic part of town that offered year-round events and hundreds of yearly live performances by local artists. The city’s populace would travel there from every neighbourhood to take leisurely strolls and relax by the water’s edge. But that all changed when The Slum Village Ion Power Generator exploded in the middle of the night. At that time the power generator had been responsible for all of the city’s energy needs. But all it took was one drunken technician to miscalculate his entry into the power grid input system to end the days of the harbour front being a viable part of town. The ion waves that emanated from the power generator made it unsafe for anybody to be in the recent vicinity for ten years. Businesses packed up and left the area and the harbour front became an empty trash filled memory.
Amin parked his hover behind an abandoned warehouse that had once made sugar sweets for children and climbed out. His hand dropped unconsciously to the butt of his patrol blaster sitting in its holster. A wild pack of scraggly alley dogs dashed by him barking wildly in the night. The big white moon in the inky sky above moved behind a nearby cloud and the harbour front became even darker than it was before. The district inspector leaned his back against the wall of the warehouse and took refuge in the shadows. Two minutes later he spotted a luxury pearl white hover descend silently from the night sky fifty yards behind him and come to a stop on the nearby pier. Sugarhill Sammy climbed out of the vehicle bedecked in a long white fur coat and diamonds necklaces dripping from his neck. He looked around the area cautiously when he did not see any sign of Darr.
“Inspector Amin? Where are you?” He called out.
Sammy pulled out a long brown gasper out of his jacket pocket and it automatically lit aflame. He deeply inhaled the smoke from it gratefully into his lungs and let it unfurl slowly from his nostrils. Sugarhill did not like being down at the sea front at night, he had heard that a lot of people had been murdered there over the last three months.
“What do you want, Sugarhill?” Came Amin’s voice from the darkness of night. The tall Degox drug trafficker almost jumped out of his skin from fright. He did not even hear the district inspector approach him.
“What the bleeding fuck, guv?! Are you trying to give me a bleeding heart attack?!” He yelped.
Amin ignored Sammy’s protest and jerked his thumb toward the long boardwalk that ran along the waterfront. “Take a walk with me”, he ordered.
Sugarhill followed Amin onto the boardwalk without a word. “You want a smoke, Inspector?” Sammy asked casually.
“What was so important that you thought to contact during my working hours, Sammy?” Darr asked roughly. He glanced around the boardwalk and surrounding area. He wanted to ensure that the two of them were completely alone. He knew from his position as a division Inspector that none of the digi-cams were functional at the harbour front.
“I found out some information tonight that you might need to know about”, Sugarhilll took a puff of his gasper and coolly exhaled the smoke. “Something every married man should want to know about”.
Darr stopped in his tracks and grabbed Samy roughly by the coat sleeve. He jerked the tall criminal around to face him. “Easy, guv! Easy! Do you know how much this coat cost me? I had it custom made from Demon dog fur!”
“Shut your mouth, Sammy”, Darr told him. “And don’t call me guv. I am
not your blodclot governor, you smiling savage! Just tell me what it is you came down here to tell me!”
Sammy yanked his coat sleeve out of Darr’s hand with some impertinence. He hated the inspector as much as the inspector hated him but having a law enforcement officer in your pocket was better than not having one and Sammy made sure that he paid Darr well.
Sugarhill leaned up against the boardwalk railing and stared out at the black sea in front of him. There was a strong wind coming in from the north stirring up white capped waves. “How is Mrs. Amin doing these days, District Inspector?”
Darr yanked out a silver flask from the breast pocket of his three quarter length peacoat and swigged the dark rum inside. He liked the way the spirits burned his chest on its way down. He shot the drug dealer a looked of both curiosity and irritation.
“Why are you asking about my wife?” He took another deep sip from the flask before putting it away.
Sugarhill flicked his depleted gasper into the dark water below. “I got it from a good source that she was not alone tonight”.
That comment set off Darr and he grabbed the tall man’s testicles in one hand and his throat in the other. “What did you say to me?! What did you say to me?! You lie!”
Sugarhill Sammy’s blue eyes bulged out in pain and his pale skin became even whiter as Darr mercilessly squeezed his vital body parts.
“I swear that I am not lying, inspector!” He groaned.
Amin let go of Sammy and gave him a hard shove to create some distance between them. He forced himself to calm down and took out his flask and took a hard pull from it.
I know that Candace has been unhappy for some time now but enough to actually fuck another man behind my back?
Darr gave Sammy a hard glance watching the tall Degox painfully rub away the red marks from his neck.
“One of your men saw a man leave my house?” He asked him.
“My bodyguard, Iron Killah”.
Darr paused not sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question. “Who was it?”
Sugarhill pulled out another gasper and watched the tip of it light up as soon as he put it to his lips. He inhaled on it deeply and deliberately let the district inspector’s question go unanswered in the chilly night air.
“Who did your bodyguard see leaving my house, Sammy?” Darr’s words came out of his mouth through clenched teeth this time. His mind for some reason flashed back to the conversation that he had with Candace back in his office a couple of hours ago. She was wearing her robe…..in the middle of the afternoon….. “Are you heading into the shower?” He had remembered asking.
“What is worth to you to know the answer to that question, inspector?” Sammy sneered dryly. There was a rival gang leader across town that he wanted Darr to incarcerate thus eliminating his biggest competitor for the city’s vast drug trade.
“Are you heading into the shower?” The question reverberated throughout his brain. He was too hung-over at the time to notice that his wife had been wearing makeup and she was too coiffed for someone that was about to “Wash the smell of food out of my hair”.
Are you heading into the shower?
Amin was a detective and was trained to catch what might have been missed by a normal person’s eyes. The holo-image of his wife from what he remembered had revealed her to also be wearing stilettos.
She told me that she was preparing supper. Why would she be wearing heels in the kitchen?
He turned slowly to the drug trafficker standing beside him. “What are you looking for, Sugarhill?
“I need you to arrest Ashy Whyte”, Sammy replied. “That piece of shite has been stealing half of my business”.
Darr did not hesitate. “Consider it done. Now tell me what I need to know”.
Sammy pulled hard on his gasper and blew the smoke out toward the churning water of the sea. “Iron Killah told me that he saw Heiro Thothe exiting the backdoor of your home. My condolences, Inspector”.
Darr heard the sound of rolling thunder rip through his mind. Heiro Thothe?!
His face revealed nothing to Sammy although his stomach churned with anger. “How sure are you of this information? How reliable is this bodyguard of yours?”
“Iron Killah does not make up stories, Inspector. Heiro had stolen my hover from me earlier today but the homing beacon in it led Killah directly to your place”.
I knew we have been unhappy, Candace. I knew that you resented me for some time now losing my job in the capital and forcing you to move here to Slum Village with me. But to disrespect me with the biggest thief and brigand in the city? If news of this ever broke….if any of my superiors at the Division were to find out?
Although Darr himself had been unfaithful to his wife more times than he could count, he just considered that to be an occupational hazard. A side effect to being a law enforcement officer in the most crime ridden city in all of the three kingdoms. He required some form of release to counter the many horrible things that he saw while on the job and sometimes drowning himself in alcohol was just not enough.
“Who else have you told about this?” He asked evenly.
Sammy flicked away his gasper onto the ground and stubbed out the still smoking cylinder with the toe of his leather boot. “I came straight to you with this”.
“And your bodyguard?”
“Killah is a good soldier. He knows to keep his mouth shut”, Sammy replied with confidence.
Darr nodded assuredly as if he had just come to some internal decision. Without warning he drew his pistol from its holster and shoved it into Sammy’s midsection. “Good-bye, Sugarhill”. The energy setting was at maximum and the blast instantly disintegrated the tall Volgag from all existence.
I will have to erase the blaster’s memory core. Darr thought matter-of-factly to himself. He knew that every time a law enforcement issued blaster was fired that it logged the activity in its internal memory just in case the evidence of the lethal action needed to be used in a future court case.
The District Inspector glanced around to ensure that there were no prying eyes that may have witnessed him murdering the drug dealer. Then he bent down and casually picked up the remnants of Sammy’s gasper and shoved it into his pocket.
No need to leave any evidence around. He reasoned silently.
BELTA BEL
The Platinum House was the oldest and most reputable brothel in all of the Three Kingdoms. It was a tony two level stone mansion that was located in a once rich locale in Slum Village known as White Acid Creek that had fallen on hard times several decades ago. Belta Bel was Trane’s mother. A fifty and five year old woman who had chosen to age gracefully. Her dark chocolate coloured skin was taut and wrinkle free due to years of daily exercise in addition to several nano-machine injections that slowed the aging process of her body at the molecular level. The nano-treatments were extremely expensive and could only be afforded by the very rich and powerful portions of society. Belta may not have been powerful but she had been working as a pleasure lady since she was fourteen years old and it had made her exceptionally rich. Instead of looking fifty-five years old, the madame of the house appeared to be only in her thirties.
She had birthed Trane twenty-years ago right out front of The Platinum House. Not by choice of course. She had just ordered a robo-cab a few minutes prior to pick her up and deliver her to the local medi-clinic but her baby right there and then decided that he no longer wish to wait to join the land of the living.
It was the deputy-mayor that had given Trane the last name of Mudd as a jest. She reminisced to herself.
Deputy-Mayor Deng was one of her best customers and to this day dropped into the brothel from time to time whenever his wife was out of town and he tired of the girls at The Pleasuredome.
When Trane was born the night was dark and rainy. He came tumbling out of me onto the muddy pathway outside the house.
Belta never wanted children. Her own childhood had been a never-ending nightmare of abuse both physical and m
ental by a father that she was convinced hated her more than the devil himself. The only times he chose to speak to her was to tell how her how stupid she and her younger brother were or to order Belta to retrieve his thick leather belt so that he could beat her again. Trane only came about because Belta was unlucky enough to get herself raped one night after working late at The Platinum House. Her apartment at that time had been only a short twenty minute walk from the brothel but by the time the neighbourhood had gone to seed and plenty of unsavoury men found many shadows along the street to hide in.