Chimera (2 page)

He grinned at her, baring teeth as threatening as the orca's. "When dog bites man, pussycat—oh, yeah."

I said, "Arthur. What do you expect me to do?"

He shrugged. "Choose two fingers, Max. Or give me my money. I hate making life harder for you. But you must see that you have responsibilities."

Bruno turned his grin on me as Arthur added, "I suggest the pinky and the ring finger. Tape them together, and you'll hardly notice the inconvenience."

Very aware that the cat was watching me, I said, "You're too thoughtful, Arthur," and extended my right hand, index finger pointed at Bruno. "If you've got to, start here."

Arthur nodded at Bruno. The dogman grinned and reached for my finger—

—and the air around my right wrist went crazy as space warped. The 9-mm SIG Recoilless flew into my waiting hand—

—and the bearman grabbed my wrist and wrenched it behind my back. I grunted to let him know that if all he wanted to do was hurt me, he was done now.

Bruno said, "Where'd a low-rent peeper like you get an Infinite Pocket?"

I shrugged. "I'm lucky with gumball machines."

Arthur said, "Outside. Hurt him."

He and his pets had all their focus on me. My cat client showed them that was a mistake by leaping onto the bear's back and raking her claws down his face. With a roar of pain and anger, he released me to flail at her.

I tried to show them that was another mistake by aiming the SIG at Bruno. Before they had time to be impressed, the orca slugged me, knocking me back across a blackjack table. Chips, cards, and customers scattered in my wake. The tabletop buckled, spilling me hard onto the floor.

The world became brighter and clearer then, in that way it does when your body knows you may die soon. I felt like I was moving through clear gel: I could smell and see and hear everything precisely, as if my senses had heightened to save me. But my poor body couldn't move quickly enough to make use of the information flooding my mind.

I saw my SIG kicked further away from me by a fleeing gambler who never noticed it. Casino patrons screamed and shoved to get clear of the fight. Someone shouted, "He's got a gun!" I wondered who they were talking about, until I realized that it'd taken that long for the rumors of my action to cross the packed room. Arthur was running for his office, for no reason that I wanted to wait around to learn. The orca was caught in the crowd without a clear path for attacking my client or me. Bruno's position was better. I saw him working my way.

I wanted to dive under a table and head for the doors. I might've, if I didn't have the cat to consider. Call that my second chance to drop the case. Credit the decision to stay to professional pride or professional self-preservation: detectives who abandon clients in times of trouble don't get many referrals.

The client in question was no better off than me. The bearman yanked her off his back and threw her at least ten yards away. Her sunglasses flew off her head, but I was too far away to see her eyes. She twisted in midair to land nimbly on her feet on a card table, sending chips and startled players in all directions.

The casino would get a lot of free publicity tonight, I thought. Yet I doubted we'd get any thanks from Arthur.

The bearman growled and charged the cat. She leaped onto the stage, and dancers fled. A heavily-muscled dogman dancer glanced wildly from her to the bearman, then dove under the curtain at the back of the stage.

Bruno had made his way to me by then, so I gave him my personal gold star for effort. I'd like to think my sensei would've approved of my punch, a clean snap from the hips that drove my entire weight through my fist into his chin.

He dropped like a brick. I flexed my hand, grimaced, and said, "Cheer up, Bruno. I think you got your two fingers."

Never be clever in battle. The orca tackled me from behind, and we crashed against a roulette table. I couldn't let him get a good grip, so I rolled desperately, catching glimpses of the madhouse around us as the orca scrambled after me.

Most of the customers had fled the main room. Onstage, the cat was climbing a side curtain. Below her, the bear roared and ripped the curtain down, and I figured the fight was over for both of us. But the cat kicked out, releasing the curtain. She landed lightly beside us and rose with a side kick to the orca's chest that knocked him off me.

I scrambled across the floor, snatched up my SIG, and aimed it at the charging bear. Proving he was smarter than he looked, he halted.

I glanced at the cat. "Thanks."

She nodded. "Likewise."

Her eyes were golden brown with black slitted pupils. They suited her. Her jaguar hair fell in tangles around her face. The tip of a pointed, lightly furred ear protruded from her wild locks. She gave me a defiant look and tucked her hair behind her cat ears.

We backed across the deserted room toward the front door. Arthur's three guardians watched sullenly. I kept my pistol high to remind them that what some people called the great equalizer should be called the great promoter: with the gun in my hand, I was the most deadly species in the room.

I told the cat, "I don't work for chimeras. Nothing personal. It's my policy."

She said, "Fine. Where's my refund?"

She had me there. I couldn't think of a way to get out of the job that would leave any white showing in the poor knight's armor. "All right. One day's work."

Police sirens approaching Wonderland cut off any response she might've had. We turned our backs on Arthur's pets to run for freedom—too late. Steel fire walls dropped soundlessly in every window and archway, sealing the room.

Bruno and his buddies trotted toward us. I spun around with the SIG to let them know that nothing was going to happen to us until we'd talked to the cops. As they skidded to a halt, I said, "Why don't you boys wait on the far side of the room?"

They didn't like that, but when Bruno nodded, the other two gave in. All three retreated.

I whispered to the cat, "I'm not a priest or a lawyer. If you've done something illegal, don't tell me."

She pulled a tissue and something else out of her pocket, keeping them close to her body. "Can you hide this?"

I thought she was hiding the second object from Bruno and Co., but realized later she was keeping it out of sight of the casino's surveillance system. I let her drop it in my hand.

While she vigorously scrubbed her forehead with the tissue, I glanced down at what she'd given me: A perfectly spherical black opal with two thin gold rectangles passing through it like knives, attached to a gold earring hook. The opal and its rectangles looked like something from a Beverly Hills jeweler, but the earring hook looked cheaper. There was a small imperfection in the solder joining the hook to the opal, as if someone had altered or repaired it in a hurry, without the skill of the artist who created the opal and its intersecting rectangles.

I nodded at the black opal earring. "What's this?"

"That's what I hired you to find out."

"Did you steal it?"

"No."

I pointed at a smudge of make-up on the cat's head tattoo on her brow. "You missed a bit."

"Thanks." She scrubbed the tissue across her forehead again.

This wasn't the time to push for answers. I opened the Infinite Pocket and released the SIG. It flew into the shimmer of space at my wrist as if sucked by a supermagnet. I dropped the earring in after it and closed the Pocket.

The cat watched the process with an eyebrow raised. "How did you get that thing?"

"A long, dull story. Sorry about your watch."

"Counterfeit. Twenty K in Ensenada."

She didn't crack a smile, so I didn't, either. "Huh. Which means I only owe you half a day's work."

"Sure. If you want to reimburse the cowboy for the watch."

"Hmm."

"A full day?"

I nodded. "A full day."

The fire walls rose. Two copbots entered, followed by four human cops, all with sleepguns out and ready to fire. I put my hands up. The cat kept staring at the bots as if she was ready to run without warning. I elbowed her, and she imitated me.

A hard-looking Asian woman stepped forward. "I'm Sergeant Ling. You two look guilty."

I lowered my arms very slowly, so she would have plenty of time to tell me to keep them up if she wanted to. "Can't go by appearances, Sergeant. We wanted you to know we're not armed and would do nothing that might seem threatening to a guardian of public safety." If you think it's hard to say that with a straight face, you've never had to deal with a police force provided by the lowest bidder.

Behind me, Arthur said, "He has a pistol in an Infinite Pocket in his wrist."

Well, in Arthur's place, I wouldn't have done me any favors, either. I grinned as he came up beside me. The effect was spoiled when a copbot grabbed my right arm and jerked up the sleeve, revealing the pale circular scar on my inner wrist.

"Open it," Ling said. "Carefully."

"Damn," I said. "It's jammed." As Ling frowned, I added, "Don't worry. It'll stay closed."

Ling said, "It better."

I said, very nonthreateningly, "I'm a P.I. I'm licensed to carry. Want to see the ID?"

She did. I drew the card from my hip pocket with my left hand and gave it to her. The second copbot stepped in front of me for a blink test. When my soulful browns jibed with CityCentral's records, the bot stepped away and nodded at Ling.

She handed the card back to me. "Doesn't say anything about an Infinite Pocket."

"Or anything about where I can carry."

"If a gun appears while we're around, you'll carry it up your ass. Sideways." She looked at the bot holding me. "Let him go. Trank him if he gets annoying." Then she asked Arthur, "What's the story?"

I massaged my wrist as I glanced at the overturned furniture and the torn stage curtain. I had the feeling that my day's work for the cat would consist of sitting in an L.A. county cell trying to look like I didn't need a boyfriend.

"We don't serve critters," Arthur said. "When I asked her to leave, she and her friend decided to make trouble."

I thought it was decent of Arthur not to mention that the cat had been passing. Then I realized he had nothing to gain by revealing it now and could always mention it later if it seemed useful.

Ling glanced at the cat. "Scan her." As a copbot read her retinas, Ling asked Arthur, "Do you want to press charges?"

He looked at me. "You broke a table."

"With my back," I said.

"Can you pay for it?"

"You know I'm good for it—"

"Right."

"I can't make money in jail, Arthur."

He considered that. It's not precisely true. Even before trial, you can join a prison work force. But they pay a hundred dollars a day, and food, laundry, and rent cost ninety-eight. It's a great system for prison barons, but not so good for creditors.

"True." Arthur turned to Ling. "Thanks for responding so promptly, Sergeant. The club won't be pressing charges."

Ling nodded.

I said, "We're free to go?"

A copbot stepped up beside Ling. "Sergeant?" It put its head by her ear, and she glanced at the cat.

The cat looked around the room, then at me. I shook my head slightly. I would help her against Arthur's little carnivore club. I wasn't about to take on L.A.'s finest, what our Libertarian mayor proudly calls "the best police that money can buy."

Ling said, "Zoe Domingo?"

The cat said, "Yes."

Ling looked at Arthur and me. "She comes with us."

The cat said, "Don't I get any say in this?"

Ling looked at her with surprise. "Where are you from?"

"Minnesota."

"Oh, yeah. They passed some kind of critter rights bill, didn't they?"

The cat nodded.

Ling said, "You should've stayed there."

"I'm here as a visitor—"

Ling said, almost kindly, "We won't sell you, girl. Not if you're innocent, anyway."

The cat glanced at me. That was my third and final chance to drop the case. But she had helped me with Arthur's pets when she didn't have to. I said, "I'm responsible for her."

"You haven't been doing that great a job." Ling shrugged. "All right. You can come along. But you're both getting searched, and any activity from the Pocket will be treated as a potentially lethal threat. ¿Comprende?"

I raised my arms. A human cop patted me down, then smiled a bit too much as he headed for the cat.

Ling said, "I'll do it," and searched her. They didn't find anything interesting on either of us.

Arthur said, "Would you mind taking them out the back way?"

"Not at all," Ling answered, and I remembered that the casinos are major contributors to the Police Officers Association.

Bruno and his friends with fangs smiled as we passed. I ignored them and asked Ling, "What do you want her for?"

"Questioning."

I glanced at the cat. She looked away.

As we went through the back doors, a band began a Ragtime Revival tune in the main room. Chimera janitors and cleaning bots hurried in to tidy up. Within a few minutes of our departure, customers would once again be happily presenting their hard-earned money to the priests of the gods of chance.

A cruiser pulled up in the alley to meet us. Its doors sprang open, and Ling said, "Hop in." The cat and I climbed in front, the doors closed and locked, and the cruiser drove silently away.

I looked back at the cops in the alley. "She didn't even wave."

"Can we get out of this thing?"

"If for some reason we wanted to—" I met the cat's slitted eyes. "—we'd find the windows are shatterproof and the drivebox can't be opened without special tools. But since we're just trying to help the police with some problem they have, it's reassuring to know that we're safe in here. And if, God forbid, something put us in danger, we're fortunate that the car's microphones will pick up our cries for help."

"My. That is a relief." The cat leaned back in her seat, brought her knees up to her chest, and hugged her legs as she watched L.A. speeding by the window.

I watched the scenery, too. I know this town well, but it was odd to travel the streets without stopping to pay to use any of them. The cruiser slid into the automated lanes of the Ventura Tollway, and we raced silently at 200 hundred kilometers an hour toward downtown.