“The thing sounded like it was dying when you brought it in. The hell did you do to it?” Crate asked.
“Uh …”
“Let me rephrase that: how many recharge packs did you slot in before you brought her to me?”
“You won’t like the answer.”
“Yeah, your baby here already told me that.”
“Twelve packs, for three months.” I leaned against a wall of rims and tires, bracing for impact.
“Three months! El, Christ almighty. One pack for a week, that’s the max before you need a full cell change. If you want to buy a new concept car, be my guest, but I can’t fix this engine time and time again if you keep doing this.”
“But I’ll pay you to try. How much do I owe you, outside of favours?”
“Well, to clean out the dirty Fuel Gel, replace the cell itself … And, I mean, you broke a window, put holes in some parts, the frame was warped, and the drive shaft needed serious maintenance … and the parts! A concept car doesn’t have replacement parts. I had to make them myself.”
Called it. “Will this cover it?” I reached into my coat pocket.
Crate’s eyes went wide upon seeing the gold brick in my hand. Allen’s, too. I’d kept a few lying around the apartment after the Cop Killer case. I was sure Crate knew a few people who could give him a good dollar for this.
“Yeah, that’ll more than cover it.” He held out his mechanical arm and grabbed the bar out of the air after I tossed it. He inspected it for a good moment, then nodded. “Grab a seat inside and help yourself to whatever you’d like. I’ll finish up the paperwork in a jiff and get you on your way.”
We spent about a quarter of an hour waiting, Allen motionless on the same chair the entire time, myself wandering the “waiting room” — otherwise known as Crate’s living room. In a jiff, my ass. I was bored out of my mind and unwilling to turn on the TV or radio to hear mindless programming or how shitty the world was.
The room had two couches, three wooden chairs, some taped-up windows, a large desk where Crate did his finances, and a fridge filled with everything from soda to water to liquor. He’d only started stocking alcohol in there after I started coming regularly. I forewent the eggnog I spotted in there and grabbed a cream soda. The place was a shambles. I doubted the electrical systems had worked for the past five years, which meant the single battery bolted to the back of the fridge ran everything in this room, or maybe every room other than the garage.
Allen had been sitting still, like it was in detention, but watching me grab something to drink, it broke the silence.
“Detective Roche, may I ask you something?” it finally said.
“Yes, Allen?”
“Why is your friend called Crate? It’s not a common name.”
“He lifted it off of some engineer a few centuries ago who supposedly worked on machines for Alexander the Great’s army. He sees himself as some sort of catalyst in that regard, I guess.”
“Does he have an Alexander the Great to build for?”
“Good question.”
I cracked the top off the bottle and took a swig. Good stuff, quite tasty. Almost better than alcohol. Almost.
Allen remained rigid and erect. It had another question, and it was counting down the seconds to the moment when it would be acceptable to ask.
“Yes? You always look like that when you have a question.”
“Am I that predictable?” It looked around as though trying to find a mirror to see itself in. “I apologize, Detective. My other inquiry is as to Crate’s … arm.”
“He lost it in the Great War. Got it caught in an artillery piece, sent the shell flying at the Krauts and his hand the other way. He built the new one himself, and it’s been working ever since.”
“Don’t you shun people who augment themselves with mechanical devices like that?”
“That’s quite a low level of modification. He ain’t an Auger until there are tubes running in and out of him, feeding his organs chemical cocktails. Nah, he’s just an amputee. Crate is a good guy.” I took another sip, and Allen slumped back, satisfied with the answer.
Our conversations these days were quick and brief. Allen was thinking up fewer questions to throw at me.
Finally, Crate walked into his little office looking darker than ever, grease caking his hands and face like glazing. He put the pristine gold bar on his desk and sat down behind it in an old executive chair. “All righty, things are in place, everything is good to go. But before I let you out of this room, regarding your engine: one week, one pack. I’m charging you double if you go over that.”
“Yeah, but you’ll still fix it.”
I got up and shook his hand, the two of us grinning like idiots. I was lucky to have people like him and Sinclair around to keep my morale up enough and prevent me from falling into depression. Allen stared at us, still trying to wrap its head around human friendship, or companionship in general.
Back in the garage, Allen and I entered the Talbot and pulled out. Crate waved goodbye and dropped the garage door down. Soon his home was another silhouette in the distance.
“Detective,” Allen began. “What was the War like?”
I looked at the machine. “Wasn’t very fun.”
“And dealing with the … nature of war?”
“You mean the constant presence of death?”
“Yes. It’s been almost a month and I feel … like a coiled spring all the time. It’s hard to go to sleep or do anything. I always feel like there’s a crushing weight on my chest or my head or my stomach. It never really stops. Will it ever?”
I didn’t answer, because in all honesty, it never would. The best you could do was numb yourself to it, but I knew that would be traumatizing for Allen to hear. I hadn’t realized it was this affected by killing someone. Had I been the same way back then, right after the War? I couldn’t even remember. It felt like I’d always been an apathetic mess.
I should help Allen find someone to talk to so it could get its mind off of this stuff, lest it end up like me. God help this city if there were two of me in it …
CHAPTER 6
ANOTHER WEEK PASSED. Another week of snooping, prying, searching, and attempting to find the Edison Hotel killer. And we came up with nothing.
Sure, Maranzano pulled out of Chelsea Piers, and the Eye now owned everything there. And sure, recent skirmishes between her Automatic battalions and his guerilla mobsters were now as frequent as the nightly news. But given the rivalries there and the bad blood they’d had between them since ’30, nothing surprises me, not even the fresh bodies. In the meantime, Allen, with its infinite patience and intelligence, hadn’t been able to find out anything more about this killer. How did someone kill four Upper City officials and walk away free? No hair, no discernable footprints, nothing but some dust and tripod divots. He was good. Then again, I was slacking, and Allen was doing all the real detective work this time. At least I’d gotten my Talbot back.
With the frequent civilian Night Calls, I’d made some side cash, and I decided to splurge tonight at the Brass and Pass. It was December 20, and the cold was beginning to catch up with the time of year. Man and machine alike wanted to be behind warm walls, which was why Allen and I were huddled against the metal door of the entrance as I knocked. Well, Allen was up at the entrance, I was a few feet to the side.
The Red-eye Titan on the other side opened the slot and looked Allen up and down. When it opened the door, I pushed my hand out so I could walk in first. The big guy on the other side slammed me back so hard I almost fell over. A massive chunk of its cranium was missing. Only scrap metal kept its Neural-Interface from falling out of its head.
“No derms allowed.” Its heavy mechanical grumbling rattled my bones when it spoke.
“Let me talk to Tiny,” I responded.
“No … derms.”
“Tiny! Get this big asshole out of my way and let me inside!”
The customers of the machine-filled speakeasy all turned
to look at me. Unlike the people at the Maranzano Kompound, these people — machines, whatever — were unconcerned, unsurprised that I was trying to get in. Many returned to their drinks and talk.
A loud, high-pitched voice rang out. “Oi, Dallas, out of the way, let ’em in!”
The bouncer moved aside, and Allen followed me inside. The warmth hit me in the face like a slap. A Tapper bot with six legs and only about a foot in height crawled toward the nearest booth and beckoned us in. It had one cracked glass eye, but both bulbs were red and functioning.
“Roche, ya bastard, how ye been holdin’?” Its flanging voice melded with the programmed Irish accent, making its English sound almost alien to the untrained ear.
“I’ve been holding as best I can, Tiny.” I nudged Allen. “Meet the new partner, Allen.”
“Allen, good to meet ya.” The tiny machine scuttled over a table and extended a pointed leg. Allen shook it gingerly. “Keepin’ ol’ Roche in line?”
“As best I can, sir.”
“Ah, fantastic! What’ll it be, gentlemen?”
Allen started. “Sugar —”
“No, not sugar water,” I interrupted. “Two pints, imported, Canadian. Heard they make some good brews up there.”
“Aye, damn good brews. Back in a jiff!”
Tiny jumped to the floor and ran off. I heaved a long sigh, returning to some semblance of calm and feeling my jitters cease. We’d had nothing but typical jobs lately, finding lost things or solving minor murders. I was starting to prefer these civilian Night Calls, though it was best not tell that to Allen; it would never let me live it down. But having gotten so many easy jobs under my belt did make this whole Edison Hotel thing feel more manageable.
Allen didn’t feel the same way, apparently; it was still the most rigid robot in the room. And that was saying something, considering where we were.
“You’re quieter than usual, Al. Nothing some beer won’t fix,” I said, melting into the booth.
“I’m exhausted. Things have been rough at the 5th lately.”
“You’ve all had to start doing your jobs, eh?” I smirked.
“Yes, actually,” Allen retorted. “Ever since your jaunt to Kips Bay, Mafia-driven violence has skyrocketed across the Lower West Side and Chelsea. It’s been worse in the last couple weeks than the past half year. I can’t imagine why.”
“Jeez, Sinclair’s sarcasm sure is rubbing off on you.”
“You do have to admit it is warranted,” Allen said offhandedly. “Besides that, I’ve spent many late nights pursuing information on these murders.”
“The usual ones, or the serious ones?”
The waitress came by and slid us two mugs of beer before departing.
“All murders are serious, Detective,” Allen responded gravely.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I unfortunately do.” Allen practically rolled its eyes. “I used whatever leverage I had in the precinct to do more digging into our prime victim, Desmond Hartley. On the record, people are up in arms about his death, and they want his killer found as soon as possible. The assassin is wanted on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of manslaughter, as well as a variety of other unrelated crimes they want to pin on him.”
I took a swig of the beer and slid farther down. “And off the record?”
“Robins says he’s heard that GE doesn’t want anyone to investigate further. The state is pushing a bill that will be a precedent for the rest of the country, called the America First Bill. It will prevent the import or purchase of any Chinese or French Automatic parts, reducing the number of bootleg items that can be brought in and distributed. This will impact the entire bootleg industry, from the Mafia to small shopkeepers like Jaeger.”
“How does our vic play into that?”
“He was fighting against it.”
My eyebrow popped up. “So he wasn’t just any official?”
“No. He was no doubt tied to one of the cartels in the city. I believe Maranzano was the one who purchased his vote to put the bill down, seeing as he had some very fresh parts that have only seen circulation in the Upper City. At least, that’s what my research has told me. But with Hartley dead and the money now drained away from campaigns against the bill, it will no doubt pass, and decimate Maranzano’s business in the Automatics sector.”
“Who are our possible perps for this kind of operation? Not many people have access to hardware like a Von Whisper rifle. We’re looking at paramilitary, or a deeply rooted Mafia running heavy weapons. Maybe the Iron Hands, or maybe Gould’s group.”
Allen shook its head. “Perhaps not Gould. While he has motive as an active supporter of the bill and the resources, his people would have left a trace. I should know. Gould’s people came down to the precinct a few days ago. They clearly spare no expense on personnel. If Gould wanted Hartley dead, he would have sent a team, not a lone gunman, and there would have been much more evidence. The Iron Hands are a possible suspect, too. But let’s not rule out the possibility of this being an inside job. Agent Masters’s previous actions have made me wary of the government’s actions. It’s possible that someone within GE itself, or part of the New York legislature, wanted him dead in order to push the bill.”
“That leaves us with an awful lot of suspects, then. All of GE must have hated this guy, and the number of people with the money to hire a well-equipped assassin isn’t exactly small.” I rubbed my chin. The clinking of glasses and the small talk of the machines around me pulled at my brain, distracting me. “We need help. Someone to walk where we can’t and ask questions we shouldn’t. You’re too suspicious, and I … I have a reputation.”
“Surely we can’t add another person to our investigation? The last thing we need is for our hunches and evidence to become public.”
“First off, don’t call me Shirley.” I grinned. Allen didn’t. “Never mind. Second, trust me, this is already just about as public as it gets. The front of a ritzy hotel was just blown apart. There was glass raining down on civilians. The Prince and Greene thing was easy to hide, but this crime is of a magnitude that not even the 5th could contain, if they tried.”
“So you want to find someone to assist us?”
“Maybe … maybe. I don’t know, we’re stuck. Our only angle now is to wait for another attack and then hope for more evidence. Not the best plan, but it’s the one we got.”
Allen took a moment to let this sink in. “It’s a much sloppier plan than I’d hoped for.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, bud, but you said yourself no one wants this thing solved. Half of me wants to let this whole thing slide, since they didn’t kill anyone too important. But at the same time, I don’t like how high-profile this is for GE and for the Mobs. The way it was done, either he’s professional enough that this was a cakewalk, or he’s been doing hits like this for a while leading up to something this big.”
“We don’t have much to go off,” Allen remarked. “We can try to guess. There were five dead, but four targets. Focus on that. Try to dig up cases or files regarding four-person murders. Specifically, try to find connections to hits on the Mob or possible Mafia contacts.”
Allen rolled its eyes again. “Do you know how many coincidental matches could come up where four people got killed during a hit or a raid or something else?”
“You’d best be patient and thorough.”
“Four targets in a hit isn’t a signature, Detective … but I will try.”
I sipped down more beer with a smile. “Good man.”
“Any developments from that kidnapping case we solved two weeks ago?”
“Oh!” I almost choked on my beer as I began to speak. “I went to see the kid in the hospital. He was pretty shaken up, but otherwise seemed fine. He told me about what happened, and it was odd.”
“Odd how?” Allen perked up, seeming to forget its annoyance with my request.
“He said something jumped him, but remember, there were no footprints. N
ot sure who could have managed that. Actually, it’s more like I have a semblance of an idea, but I don’t want to be right.”
“You did mention you might know who —”
“Anyway,” I interrupted, “other than that, nothing much else to talk about. Violence as usual, but that’s the Lower City.”
There was a short silence. Allen kept glancing at me, while I continued to drink. I sighed and broke the tension.
“You look like you want to ask me something.”
Allen was surprised. It had no idea I was picking up on its mannerisms. “The Tapper …”
“Tiny.”
“He has red eyes, but he hasn’t tried to … kill us …”
“Oh, you must think all Red-eyes are psychopaths after the last case, eh?” I enjoyed more of the beer. Allen grimaced as it watched me suck it down. “Being a Red-eye doesn’t mean you’re a monster, despite the fact that most of them are little else. Some, like Tiny, just want to run businesses without being hampered with the linear thinking ability of a toddler. No clue who Red-eyed it, but what the process does — though I’m no engineer, mind — is turn off certain inhibitors that keep Blue-eyes from thinking like us. Not a perfect explanation, but close enough.”
“But couldn’t he replace his red bulbs with blue ones?”
I shrugged. “If it could be done, it would’ve done it.”
“And if only some Red-eyes are dangerous, why are they so feared and persecuted?”
“Most people Red-eye Automatics in one of two ways. The first is to just unhook them from their hard coding and let them run amok. The other way is to basically enslave them to a direct set of programming or to certain orders, making them like violent Green-eyes. Both methods are barbaric, but the former kind of Redeye gets a bad rap from the latter. Tiny is as much of a threat to humans as a rat would be.”
“But if he wished to, Tiny could be violent, even kill.”
“You could, too, Allen. Don’t be judging too hard.”
My last comment struck a chord, and Allen froze, obviously hurt by it. I played it off and went back to drinking, but the divide had been made. Recovering from it would be difficult.
Midnight Page 6