Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (12 page)

"Really?"

"Yeah. You should do it for real."

"I don't have the money to get a detective license."

"Then save for it and work under-the-table like everyone else does until you do."

"I'm not sure I'm suited for it."

"Why not? You hate inside-office work. You hate cubicles. You hate 9-to-7 jobs. You hate same-thing-everyday jobs. Detective work would be the opposite of all that."

"Maybe."

"Maybe? Cruz, you're always complaining about being just a laborer and now you have your chance to be more than that, and something cool on top of that and you're making excuses."

"No, it's not that. I'll try it."

"That's all I'm saying. Try it out and see."

"I just don't know how good I'll be."

"You say that after one day? What's wrong with you? What do you think my skills were like after one day, my first day on the job? Was Run-Time a mogul after one day?"

"Okay, okay. I didn't mean that."

"Cruz, don't flake out on this. An opportunity is sitting in your lap like a baby. Don't throw the baby out the hover-car window." (Now she's talking about babies.)

"That's an image."

"Imagine if I could tell my parents that you were a
bona fide
detective!"

"Please don't do that."

I suddenly had images of her parents, dressed like gangsters, machine-gunning me in a dark alley.

"I'm going to hold you to it, Cruz. Go be a detective. I don't want to see you moping around or complaining anymore."

"Yes, dear. I'll go be a detective."

Of course, I didn't tell her that my glory days as a detective lasted for a sum total of one day. My case fizzled out before I even got started. I thought I was being all sophisticated in Fat Nat's office worrying about uber-gangsters and cyber ninjas--all to be felled by the great, grand conspiracy of whole life premium insurance.

Chapter 14: Run-Time

It was the Irish VP guy this time that had escorted me into Run-Time's office.

There I sat, giving Run-Time the rundown of the case that was never to be. From here I would head over to Fat Nat and company.

"I have to admit that it was quite exciting, all of it."

Run-Time was smiling at me. "You believe the wife?"

"I checked in with Dot. She personally does the wife's beauty stuff."

Run-Time laughed out loud. "Beauty stuff? You're going to marry her, so I'd advise you use more precise language than that."

"You know I'll be ready. Well, Dot said there was nothing out of the ordinary with the wife. She never said anything that would make anyone believe she was distressed about anything. Quite the opposite actually."

Run-Time nodded. "Then Fat Nat and I got our money's worth."

"Run-Time, I can't take all that money for just a few city stops in the Pony."

"Cruz, the money is yours. I'm satisfied. Nat's satisfied. What do you plan to do now?"

"I'm not sure. I have a few construction gigs coming up and a big car restoration job at the end of the month."

"You can still do those. What do you plan to do career-wise?"

"I don't know a thing about being a detective."

"What's to know? It was like asking me what's to know about being a company CEO. You do it and you do it long enough, you become it. And it would seem to me that you already have a head start on the promotion front."

"What do you mean?"

"Who's this guy called Phishy?"

"That Phishy!"

Run-Time laughed. "He could be your marketing genius, so be nice to him."

Run-Time was all about encouraging people to do more in their lives. I had seen him do so a million times, so this was my turn. As a legacy baby, I did, after all, have more free time than I knew what to do with.

"I'll give it whirl and see what happens."

"Get some business cards."

"Business cards?"

"Everything becomes real when you have some snazzy business cards. People take you seriously, because serious people, at the very least, have business cards. You know that. Sidewalk johnnies have business cards."

I laughed this time.

"That they do," I said.

I stood from my chair and did a patented Run-Time handshake. Shake the hand but don't let go until you finish what you have to say.

"I really appreciate your faith in me on this. I know how serious it was and how serious it had the potential to become. I won't forget it. I owe you one."

"You owe me nothing. We've been friends for years and that's what friends do."

I let his hand go and said no more. He gave me a playful pat on the shoulder and, this time, he walked me to the elevator capsules.

Chapter 15: Punch Judy

It was pouring! Rain, thunder, and lighting--the complete trinity.

The Concrete Mama's residential parking was all subterranean for those of us not blessed to live in the upper half of the tower. The problem with that is that in heavy rain, it would leak virtually everywhere--the ceilings, the walls, and the many parts of the floor would flood. My parking stall, in particular, always turned into a mini-lake. It took me a good forty minutes to get everything I needed from the trunk, towel dry my Pony properly, wrap it in a cloth tarp then in a waterproof, anti-static car case, and finally set-up a cheapy, auto water pump that would shoot any accumulating water out of my stall ten feet away into the drainage ditch.

The ritual began. Into the elevator to the dreaded lobby.

"What did I tell you?"

That was the annoying French voice that greeted me as soon as I came out of the elevator.

"What are you babbling about, Judy?" I asked.

Punch Judy stood there with her bionic arms on her hips.

"So you're a detective now? A fake detective. A stupid detective."

I was going to beat Phishy senseless when I saw him again. I ignored my frenemy and walked to the residential elevators.

"Don't you want to know what I mean?" she asked.

"No."

"I am not your secretary!"

"Thank God."

"You're lucky I was here."

"Yes, lucky."

"They knew what floor you're on."

I stopped now and looked back at her.

"What? Who knows what floor I'm on?"

"The men looking for you."

"What men?"

"They wanted to know about the detective asking around about Easy Chair Charlie."

"I am not a detective!"

My outburst startled Punch Judy as much as me.

"And people say I'm crazy. Okay, Mr. Not-a-detective, those men were looking for you and they went up to your floor."

"What? How can strangers go up to the residential floors?"

"Don't yell at me. I'm not responsible for security in this building. It's not my fault that you legacy residents are too stingy to hire building security like every other civilized building."

"I've had it with this building! I swear Judy, no one better have been near my place. What did these men look like?"

"Don't yell at me!"

"What did these men look like?"

"Like that," she said, pointing to an elevator that had just opened.

Two men exited and stopped.

"Mr. Cruz," one of them said. "We hear you're asking a lot of questions around town. We should talk. Detective to detective."

Chapter 16: Detective Friendly

"What floor did you just come from?" I asked angrily. "Were you snooping around my place?"

"We were on floor 87 to wait for you, just like your woman said," the man said.

"She's not my woman," I said.

"I am not this stupid man's woman," Punch Judy yelled.

"Yeah, whatever. You two behave like husband and wife to me. Mr. Cruz, are we going to talk or what?"

"Sure, let's step into my office."

For me to use an umbrella was a major event in itself. I never used umbrellas. With my tan fedora on my head and my tan retro-jacket on my body, I could weather most of the rain Metropolis threw at me. But then there were storms like these. I stood under one umbrella and the two men stood under their own separate ones.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"To compare notes among fellow detectives," the man answered. "We were hired by one of the families killed in the shoot-out."

"Why would you need to talk to me?"

"Motive, Mr. Cruz. It's an open question as to whether it was this Easy Chair Charlie or the cops that killed our client family's loved one. The cops had a righteous motive of course, but we need to know all about this guy. Is your investigation ongoing? If it is, we'll wait on ours. We told the family we'd consult with the cops and any other parties on the case, meaning any other detectives on the case. There's like twenty of us, all together."

"I didn't know it would be so many."

"When it gets kicked to the civil courts, there'll be tenfold that in lawyers."

"I believe it. Well, I wish I could have saved you a trip. My case is closed. We're all satisfied that it was nothing more than suicide-by-cop."

"He went gun crazy?"

"That's it. I actually wrapped up the case before I arrived."

"Okay, then. That's what we found to be indicated too, and the same with all the other detectives on the case. Well, thank you, Mr. Cruz, for the help. Hopefully in the future we can return the favor."

"No problem. You have a business card?"

The man patted his suit jacket with one hand as the other held the glowing umbrella handle with the other. "Left them in the damn hover-car. Look me up.
I'm in the Yellow Pages. Bar is the name."

"Okay. Maybe, one day, I will."

"Thanks again, Mr. Cruz. I'm sure you won't mind my colleague and I getting out of this hurricane storm."

I waved at them with a smile as the men waved back and, looking both ways for any traffic, disappeared into the rain.

Chapter 17: Flash

Fat Nat marched through Joe Blows with a single purpose.

"Stop admiring that!" he yelled at the waitress, Tab, now fitted with the skin for her new bionic arm, surrounded by the other waitresses.

They scattered as he walked past them and out the main entrance to a hovering taxicab. He leaned into the open passenger door.

"I didn't call for no taxi," he said.

The driver, Flash, held a mobile phone with the video screen illuminated. "I know," he said and faced the tiny screen to Nat's face.

"Hey, Mr. Nat," I said to him.

"Mr. Cruz." Fat Nat was genuinely surprised.

"I just wanted to let you know that I'm not finished with my discreet poking around on the matter we're both familiar with."

"Why would you be doing that?" he asked.

"When two plus two comes out five then you have to wonder what the hell is going on. Maybe nothing, maybe a whole lot of something. I'll poke around some more until I'm satisfied, otherwise, I won't be able to sleep. I need to be able to sleep nights."

"The unscratchable itch," Fat Nat said.

"The unscratchable itch," I repeated.

Fat Nat nodded and gave me a thumbs up. "I won't say a word to no one."

"Next time you see me, it will be either to tell you the last chapter of the book is over, or we're only getting to chapter two."

Part Five

The Case of the Guy Who Scratched My Vehicle

Chapter 18: The Guy Who Scratched My Vehicle

My Pops always told me that the more you pretend to be a thing, the more you become that thing and realize that you're not pretending anymore. He used the word "pretend" instead of his more favorite phrase "work so hard you bleed." No one wanted to hear the "work hard and you'll make it" mantra. Metropolis was stacked to the sky with people working hard but were never going to make it.