Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (34 page)

"I bet if the victim was an Up-Top girl you wouldn't be doing this."

"Are we making sense to you now, Mr. Cruz?" he asked again.

"He understands completely," Run-Time said for me.

The Interpol man and I glared at each other. I decided right then and there that I hated him.

"I'm going to men's room," I said angrily.

"You do that and cool off." Chief Hub was standing next to the Interpol man now. "As I said before, you should never have been here."

I stormed out the room as they all watched me in conversation. As soon as I came out the door, I stopped and let it close after me. Then I ran, not for the men's room, but for the elevators.

Chapter 47: Mrs. Easy Chair Charlie

I had been a busy bee. Besides being in Mad Heights, there was one other place I had been that they didn't know about. Before I went to the Soldier of Fortune Meet-Up meeting, I had made one other stop--back to the Free City apartment of Mrs. Easy Chair Charlie.

My day may have ended with gangster punks (Mad Heights), but it began with them too. I strolled into Free City and I knew that the Free City gangs were going to try to jack me up again and no business card was going to stop them this time. As I approached the tower of Easy Chair's widow, they appeared. It was the same kids, one after another they walked to me.

"It's the detective again," one said.

"I didn't think he was dumb enough to come back a second time," said another.

I was in no mood.

"Get away from me," I said.

"That's it, Mr. Detective? You got no more fake business cards to show us?"

I really was in no mood for this.

"Guess where I'm going after this?" I asked.

"Why?" one of the punks responded.

"Mad Heights."

They all laughed. "You're not going to no Mad City, you square."

"When you go to a place like that, you have to be prepared to do what needs to be done. I should practice."

Instantly, the expressions changed on their faces. They knew where I was going.

The first mistake was drawing their weapons on me. The second mistake they made was not firing at me immediately. I pulled my
omega-gun the same time they did, but I didn't hesitate. My mind was set to shoot them, not kill them--they were still young enough that they had a chance to get on the right path in life; however, I was going to torture them, viciously. Medium-yield plasma discharge rounds. I did need something to practice on to see their effectiveness. The mayhem commenced. Lucky for them, it was not set to kill; unlucky for them, they were going to be showered with burn
ing, excruciating painful rounds. The punks were all reduced to whimpering wrecks; bundles on the ground. They cried and begged for me to stop.

"She hired us?"

"Who?"

"She told us to stop you from coming up to her place, no matter what!" one of the punks yelled at me.

"Who?!"

As I approached Easy Chair's place, I noticed that people were watching me from the windows. I couldn't tell if they approved or not of what I did to their resident juvenile delinquents.

Then I saw them. Two high-tech robo-dogs optically targeted me, their metal teeth extended out, and they raced at me. You didn't ever want to be attacked by a robo-dog and these were pit-bull models which were among the most lethal--along with Doberman and German Shepherd models.

Every city, even super-cities like Metropolis, were inseparable from their automation and machines--never use the word "robot" around my fiancé, Dot. Machines and technology were built to last, and last a long time, and that's exactly what they did. Even the technology infrastructure of the nouveau-rich Peacock Hills had existed for centuries. Everything only looked new, including the robots you saw. But these robot dogs were straight-out-of-the-box new. They were genuinely something to behold. The flawless, shiny-silver metal parts; the supple plastic connector pieces; the blue-metal, razor teeth and retractable front-paw claws. You wouldn't find such beautiful mechanical specimens in any tower mansion in uber-rich Silicon Dunes; but the two killer machines were coming at me here in low-life, no-money, Free City.

The robot pit bulls were fast! I was faster. The beauty of my gun was that I could switch its setting with a flick of a thumb. I shot them and the robots wobbled around for a bit and then blew up. I shielded myself from the debris with my coat and angrily kicked the door, but it was already bolted back. There I stood, locked out. I sat on the ground next to the apartment door as I took out my mobile.

The video-phone answered and Mrs. Easy Chair Charlie was glaring at me. "How did you get my number?"

"Open the door!"

"No!"

"Where did you get the money to buy expensive security robot dogs, pit-bull models, like that?"

"My life insurance! I told you that before."

"Oh so we're sticking with that story?"

"It's not a story. It's the truth."

"What was Easy going to acquire that was going give him such a payday that he was going to get you and him Up-Top?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"People who can afford those kind of robots shouldn't be in Free City. I'm going to report you to the government. Free City is for people without legacies and no money. You have enough money to buy not one, but two fancy security robot dogs that you would find in Silicon Dunes." I stood up from the ground.

"No, don't do that."

"Don't do what? Stand up from the ground or report you to city services?"

"Why don't you go away? Leave me alone."

"Seems like I care more about your husband than you do!"

"That is not true!"

"Jumping in with his murderers."

"That's not true!" She suddenly broke down and started sobbing. "Will you please go away and leave me alone?"

"When you tell me what Easy was into that got him killed that night, I will."

"He wasn't killed. He was shot by the police righteously."

"I don't how it was done yet, but he was murdered. I don't know if they shot up the police and then threw him out there, or what, but I'll find out how. And when I do, I'm going to say you were in on it."

"That's not true! I had nothing to do with it!"

"You're spending your dead husband's life insurance even though to this day you never even filed the claim. Where's the money coming from?!"

She erupted into a bawling mess.

"I'm not leaving here until you let me in and tell me what Easy was into. I got past your Free City gang punks you hired to keep me out and I got past your robot dogs. You think hiding in there crying is going to stop me?"

She disappeared from the video screen on my mobile. In a minute or two, I heard the locks unlocking and the door was opening.

That's where I went before Mad Heights. And I went to an even more dangerous place when I ran out of Police One, instead of the men's room. I wasn't eager to do so and I surely wasn't brave. It was my OCD-self locking on one singular purpose, and pushing every other thought and fear out of my mind--I was going to rescue that girl and no deranged punk in a rabbit mask was going to stop me.

Chapter 48: Red

The two hulks stood at their posts smoking drug joints. I stood about a couple a feet from them, pretending to smoke an e-cigarette.

There really wasn't any such thing as a small building in Metropolis, but this was a twenty-story auxiliary corner building and the only light on the street was the tall lamp that the three of us were standing under with an accompanying drizzle of rain.

The first bald man must have been 350 pounds, easy. Plenty of fat, but unfortunately, plenty of muscle, too. His leathery face had pierced eyebrows, a pierced lower lip, a pierced nose, and ears with multiple piercings. He was covered in tattoos right up to an imaginary line under his nose, and was topped off with his glowing midnight blue shades. His outfit was all black except for the bright gold buckle that he held with his joint-free muscled hand.

His partner had shoulder-length blond hair, tattooed-up arms only, and his shades of choice were glowing black. He sported a goatee and Fu Manchu mustache, meaning it ran down either side of the corners of his mouth.

"Who are you?" the first man asked.

"Johnny," I answered.

"Johnny?"

"Yeah, like sidewalk johnny."

"You're a sidewalk johnny named Johnny?"

"Yeah."

"Why are you here?"

"I'm standing on the sidewalk. That's what sidewalk johnnies do."

"We've never seen you before."

"I'm new."

"From where?"

"Dog Town."

"They got skater slacker and hackers there."

"Yeah."

"Why come here?"

"I was chased off by the gangs and the cops. I'm tired, so I came here. This sidewalk is as good as any."

"You better find another sidewalk to hang at."

"What's wrong with this one? It's big enough for three of us."

"It's only made for two. And two ain't you."

"Why you gotta be like that?"

"I'm being like that, so get away from here."

"Is this building dangerous?"

"Why you say that?" the second man asked me.

"I saw cops patrolling."

"Where?"

"Couple of blocks down. That's why I came here. They're congregating or something."

The two thugs looked at each other. I pointed behind me.

"Back there a block. That's why I asked if this building is dangerous, because if it is then I will move to another sidewalk. But if it's empty, then I should go inside and dry my feet."

The first thug put his joint in his mouth and pointed at me. "You're not drying your feet in there. Who are you? Get out of here, you sidewalk johnny bum."

"My name is Johnny. I told you that already. You two smoke too much dope. You're getting stupid."

"I'm about to stupidly punch you. Who are you? Get out of here!"

"All right, all right."

I marched around them to the door they were guarding, opened it, and closed it behind me.

I peeked through the peephole of the door and the two thugs just stood there looking at each other.

"What did he just do?" asked the first one.

"He walked right past us and went inside."

"How did he do that?"

"I don't know."

I leaned back and locked the other locks; each made a loud noise. I looked through the peephole again.

"Why did he do that?"

"I don't know."

"He locked us out."

"I know."

I shook my head. I spent two hours pretending to be a doofus with them, but they actually were doofuses of the dope kind.

Inside was very dimly lit. The ceiling had low ambient light, but the long hallway was pitch black. But at the end, I knew someone was there. I had my night glasses on. I only wore glasses in the dark and I saw him--Red.

"I see you," I said.

"I see you," Red said sitting in the dark on a stool against the wall at the far end of the hallway. His voice slightly echoed.

There was banging on the front door.

"Open the door!" said one of the two dope doofuses.

"You were out there quite a while with them," Red said.

"I have no interest in you or your two playmates outside."

"They're not my playmates. They're the hired help. Good help is so hard to find nowadays. That's why I have to do all my work myself. So it's done right."

"They have employment agencies you know. Even for criminals."

"Do they now? Any good workers?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm not a girl-kidnapping criminal."

"There it is. You should have played it out longer."

"You try standing out in the rain with a couple of doofuses and see how long your patience lasts."

"You got a point there."

"Give me the little girl and I'll be out of here like mice on ice."

"Nah, I don't like that plan."

"Why not?"

"I kidnapped her for a reason."

"Is the reason worth dying for?"

"Who's going to kill me? You?" Red laughed.

"That's not nice. Laughing."

Red forced another bout of laughing.