Heartania Noir: The Case's of Detective Mal
May 10, 2016 20:50:07 GMT
AlexJ, iCaramelBird, and 1 more like this
Post by Jaminx on May 10, 2016 20:50:07 GMT
In one of the many alternate timelines for Heartania there is a down on his luck detective trying to solve the crimes of some familiar names and faces.
{The Hated Man of Heartania}
The morning was clouded with whirls of fog clinging like a babe to their drunken whore mother's breast. It was as confounding to my eyes as the case that was about to unspool before me. It was my first case of homicide since becoming a Detective on the Heartania Police Department. No longer busting drunks and side-lining hookers, unless I was in the mood for a bit of the down and dirty truth of the world.
I stubbed out my cigarette under my worn leather boots adding my own erasable mark to the world. Up ahead stood my newly world wearied partner Monica Johnson.
Monica was a real tough dame fighting her way up the ranks tooth and nail. Female, Puerto Rican, if only she was of the woman love variety she would have been a walking bill board for police brutality on our own colleagues.
"It's a real shit show."
She grumbled rubbing her hands together against the chill.
“He took a swan dive from up at penthouse of the Citadel.”
She informed me waving a hand at the blood soaked sheet marring the usually perfectly clear pavement maintained by The Broker’s impeccably brutal gang of Little mice. A few hovered around the edges preparing for their own revenge.
A drunk in a black canvas trench coat threw a bottle at them screaming.
"I am the Fire and the Steel may my vengeance rain down on you as it did on our father's. May Crimson coat the night, He is the first sacrifice to the almighty. May his Citadel crumble."
The Little Mice faded away from his rage letting him kick at newspapers till one of the automaton low level coppers dragged him away.
“They’re a bunch of crows. My granny would have chased them off with a broom and a bottle.”
She sneered stalking ever closer to the building that contained the secrets we were about to unfold.
“I was on site when he fell managed to make sure no one left the building. So whoever did this. They’re inside.”
“Hah a den of thieves and murderers and we have to pick the correct one from amongst them. A needle from a stack of needles.”
“You don’t need to take such glee from it kid.”
Monica frowned her mouth a thin line in the sand against me.
“I’m going in to see upstairs once more to the scene of the crime. Don’t take too much time down here kid.”
I gave a small nod with a rough and tough partner like mine silence was often the best remedy. I approached the body trying not to add blood to my shoes as I lifted the sheet to a scene of meat even butchers would flinch from. The only hint of life was a small bright pink feather stuck in the viscous crimson.
--
Upstairs there seemed hardly a disturbance except for the gaping new balcony exit that been created before the footing could be put in place. Whoever had done this it was obvious they were strong to have thrown a full grown man straight through a window even if it wasn't the toughest material.
I walked the room in contemplative silence as my partner watched crossed arms at the door weighing me up.
"What do you see kid?"
"He had company. "
I gestured to the half drunk glasses of whiskey that may as well have been liquid amber and gold for the price tag it waved around it's neck like a tie.
"I don’t know if the drink was for a woman however.."
I took a deep breath standing near an oddly open cupboard inside a small hole that would only contain a child or small woman was visible with a slight musk like Jasmine petals.
"We may have a witness." I muttered mainly to myself.
"What was that?" Monica snapped.
"I think there was someone in here."
--
The interviews whiled away into the afternoon with so many staff and customers to wade through it was surprising to slowly reach a short list of those who had the most opportunity and motive to give the Broker flying lessons without a safety net.
A local competitor of The Broker’s own gambling circuits The Wild Card had torn himself away from his own den of iniquity full of illegal booze and high stakes cards that could cost a leg or both. He sat smoking especially acrid cigars.
His own sister Claudia sat there a few tears leaking out as she mentioned how she had been left at dinner waiting for him to come back for dessert but he never had. She stiffened up quick and as I left I could see her giving orders to the staff who looked to her now. A steel lady in a velvet glove of glamour model gauze over a rather homely frame. Mutton as lamb some would have put it.
A brother and sister security team bickering over the details of their last payment. The girl Lily seemed more annoyed with her brother than the boss but he could not hide his deep seated anger as it spooled out. It was more passionate than a night with The Queen of Hearts from the downtown club, boy that woman knew her way around the edge of pleasure.
A trio of chorus girls the most suspect trait being that one of them was actually crying for the bastard while the other older one consoled her, dark shadows forming angry lines around her face that aged her horrifically while their compatriot stood further back ostrich feathers hardly detracting from a cold stare that pinned me to the wall as though she spent her spare time as a lepidopterist. Not to mention their rather fetching tail feathers were dyed the same eye melting shade of pink as the one I had taken as evidence from the not so poor John outside.
Something tugged at me though.
Something familiar dragging me back to the room upstairs. I had to go have a look again.
With all the crime scene labellers in the front lifts I decided to head round the back service elevators.
--
A strange figure waved at me from a back corridor close by. They were a mystery of size and shape engulfed in a thick corrosive smoke pouring from their mouth like a demon bringing the depths of hell up with them, curling the wall paper where we stood.
The only thing I can picture still of them was their burning violet eyes like precious gems enticing but deadly they drew me in with a rough whisper that stunned me while leaving a fear for my life.
“You need to watch your back Detective. No one here had a soft spot for the man upstairs including that partner of yours. Ask them where they were to be so close. You might be surprised.”
I did not believe what I was hearing. I reached forward trying to grasp at the arm but I might as well have been wrestling with snakes in a vat of oil. A powerful shove propelled me arse backwards landing me in an undignified sprawl at my partners feet. Her sneer was just another addition to the growing pile of disdain against me however I was about to start my own pile in no small way.
"How were you so close to the scene of the crime Detective Johnson?" I gave her no pause pushing in for another blow.
"You were here weren't you? A meeting with The Broker."
The intake of breath was all I needed to read her guilt as I stood up matching her height eye for eye.
"You may not want to talk about it but I'm your partner here and I need the truth." I scowled not backing down for a moment.
"He tried to buy me okay." She spat out. Monica was not the kind of person to cry however it was high allergy season then so there may have been a red glitter to her eyes.
"He knew I had a vendetta against him after some events early on in both our careers I shut down his operations every chance I got. He liked to play at vigilante for all his stupid crew."
She sighed a heavy release of noise like a jet taking off.
"Then the last few months my Auntie got sick, real sick. I've been paying for her care but a cops salary don't do so much so when he suggested a meeting . Well I was tempted."
"Monica..."
"Shut up Kid. Let me finish." She snapped angrily. "I was up there the cigar stub from his last guest in the tray along with those whiskey glasses. He said he'd look after my aunt, after me but I had to sell my soul to him. To do whatever he wanted within the force."
She punched the wall suddenly leaving a dent.
"I said no. Even though it kills me to think of my aunt I said no." Monica turned to glare at me once more piercing my heart hard.
"Then I walked down to the bar had a drink and as I headed out his arse of a face was sailing past onto the concrete below. I wanted to kill him but I did not."
"You’re a good officer.. And I believe you but you should have said before." I had a grim face that turned to a smile.
"Though that cigar gives me an idea of where I want to go next."
--
"I wouldn't want to kill him Detective." Wildcard let out a raucous burst of laughter.
"But he was your competitor. Last week you did an interview about how you thought him a crook and a swindler, that you wanted to wrap your hands round his throat and hold tight till no light was left."
"He was. And I would have then." The man smirked raising a glass as though drinking the dead man's health.
"However today we had a meeting and we signed this." He slapped down a heavy looking document that I picked up.
"I'll sum it up for a dumb pig like you. It makes us partners we were merging our operations together more money for the both of us and less for everybody else. From the moment both our signatures dotted these lines he was my crook, my swindler, no need to give him a hemp necktie."
He sloshed a few drops spittling my suit and the paper.
"You can keep it now though. It only lasted while he was alive. it's absolute trash now. Probably all goes to that stuck up sister of his."
He grumbled folding up like a cheap paper bag.
I left him to wallow evidence in hand I needed to find something else familiar from the room. If it wasn't his signature cigar. It hit me then the sickly cloying smell of Jasmine.
--
"Now darling, I can see you are a good girl. You are not in trouble I just have a few questions to ask you."
The nervous form of the youngest girl sat shivering in front of me. She looked so young I just wanted to bundle her up back to her grandma. A sweet kid who did not deserve to be working in a place like this.
"What do you want to know?" She managed to gather herself to answer.
"This may seem strange but what perfume do you wear?"
"It's called Fervour." She clammed up quick again her
"Smells of Jasmine and.."
"Chamomile yes. I was given it by my mother."
I managed to keep my turmoil inside like a quietly boiling pot. I had to go slow not spook her, it was why we had gotten all the chorus girls separated for interviews. No way would she talk when she could try to fade into the background instead. An invisible wall-flower.
"You were up in The Broker's office earlier weren't you."
Her eyes whipped round panicked looking for an exit. I held one of her hands feeling guilty as she flinched at my touch.
"I said you weren't in trouble and I don't lie."
I do but not to her. Not right now. It would be like swearing in front of the Virgin Mary, unthinkable.
"Now tell me what happened."
Still now but quiet.
"How about why you were up there?"
"He invited me up.." She eked out after an uncomfortable minute.
"Go ahead. Say what you need to say no judgement on you." I shrugged as she gave me the biggest kicked puppy dog eyes.
"The Broker.. He often invited up new girls.. Tested them out."
The way she said it could only mean one thing. Still boiling I kept schtum for now.
"Shade told me about it, it's usually just once. I mean even Reaver did it. But when I went up he didn't so any of that just sat there watching me. He invited me up again and again just for this inane stuff but getting closer to me each time. Brushing my hair calling me some other girls name... It was so weird and scary."
Her nails dug into her arms leaving little welts of pain as her face kept totally stiff and dead telling the tale at a distance.
"Today was the same again. I came up to the office and we sat with the door closed. Then the knock came."
My ears perked up then, I may hate the man from what I heard but he was still my victim here.
"He stuffed me in the cupboard I can disappear a bit so that's what I did. I couldn't see anything but I heard.. I heard him die."
Holding her hands once more I gave her a reassuring squeeze.
"It was so scary. He said something to them like; You again? I thought we were done for today. Was Alaska not good enough for you?"
Jade squeezed back then shaking but strong.
"Then I heard the window smashing and the door slam. As soon as I thought they had gone far enough I legged it out of the cupboard and came down to tell the girls by then the Lady Detective had blocked us all in."
"You do believe me right?"
The second woman to ask me that today. I was turning out to be a real sucker.
I nodded with a grim smile giving her one last hand squeeze before heading off to find Claudia.
--
"Ah Claudia."
I called out to her across the lobby.
"Just a question. What did your Brother have to do with Alaska?"
"Nothing as far as I know." Her face showed shock as she answered back quickly. Not even having to think about it, though she screwed up her brow then in thought.
Claudia looked different in the few hours I had been here she had dropped the trollop garb for more sensible wear, even seemed to stand taller like a moth coming out of a gaudy caterpillars chrysalis she had transformed.
"It could be to do with the Jone's siblings. They had a row with him just before he came into dinner. He talked about sending them away. Could have been to Alaska?"
"Also do you know who benefits from your brothers will?"
She smiled sadly then the tears starting to gather in like storm clouds.
"It all goes to me. He was such a kind man when it came to family. He always looked after his own. Whatever it might take."
I patted her hand.
"My condolences go out to you."
"Thank you Officer." She hiccupped before we both split off once more. I stood for a second to watch her as a small child with big green eyes and auburn hair launched themselves at her waist in a hug.
"They want to take Fluffy out without me Auntie Claudia make them stop."
She grizzled jutting her jaw.
I left them to the strange intricacies of this weird building full of the crime family's doings.
--
"I'm glad the bastard's dead." The young man spat before I could even get a word out sitting in a quiet corner of the bar.
His sister stuck a nasty kick at his shin eliciting the classic hurt pride look of someone who assumed they had done no wrong.
"Is that because he was sending you to Alaska?"
"Alaska? You crazy?" They both gave me a confused look. Was Claudia wrong?
"No he was not. He protected us from a gang.."
"We don't need protection. We are protection."
These were two unhappy people.
"You let him own us for no reason."
I raised an eyebrow. Things were hotting up again.
"They were going to kill you Luke. You should have been grateful."
He harrumphed moving a little away from her but as I watched he shifted back like a boat moored to a dock he wasn't getting far from familial ties.
"You were overheard arguing with him yesterday?"
Lilly turned snappily then, the family temper evidently had not skipped her.
"Who said that?"
"Does it really matter?" I replied spreading my hands in an empty if honest seeming gesture, just like my bank accountant might do.
"No I suppose not. We did have a fight."
Luke touched her shoulder then in support face softening.
"He wanted us to do something not quite well ethical.. I said no, then Luke said no a bit more aggressively. He flipped told us he owned us. That if we didn't do what he said he would throw us back to the vipers we ran from. Send us away with no support. Away from each other."
She paused to nail me with a cold stare.
"He made us promise to do it. And though he helped us when we needed it I would happily have nailed the bastard myself if he had dared take me away from my brother."
--
I sat for a while at the bar going through my dog eared notebook toting up all I knew. I asked around some other members of staff in the kitchens in the halls. As the sun went over the horizon I had a plan, I knew who had done the deed.
"Gather all the people on the list here to the office upstairs."
I palmed the list off to the poor street plodders close enough to be press ganged into the grand finale I had planned.
"It's all in the execution."
--
"So this is how it went down. The only innocent girl in the city."
Jade let out another sob.
"Was invited up to The Broker's office for a little tète a tète. Now she headed up and just before their ahem discussions could go much further a knock lands at the door and she is forced to hide in a nearby cupboard. Squeezed up inside with not much room to breath let alone see out we have her evidence to say someone came in but did not speak. What was it The Broker said to them?"
The words were soft to her as she stuttered out a reply, gaining confidence as her acting kicked in mimicking the old man's posture and tone to suck a dead ringer degree that you could see goose bumps on the suspects lining the room.
"You again? I thought we were done for today. Was Alaska not good enough for you?"
"These words may seem innocuous enough but they reveal the identity of the murderer in no small way. At first I thought it could have been the destination he threatened to send the Jones family or even a bar name he had chosen for the enterprise he was partnering.."
For each I paused turning my gaze from person to person till I rested my gaze on my partner. "Or even the code word for a pay out to an honest cop thinking of cashing their hard work in."
"Detective Johnson.." Claudia gasped trying to move away from Monica whose hand was unconsciously moving towards a quick draw that would leave me looking like a Swiss cheese after the maggots set in.
"Ah Claudia, I'm sure you miss your brother. You were having dinner right when he had to go off to his meetings."
"Yes of course." She replied haughtily surprised at the questioning.
"Just reached dessert if I'm not quite mistaken? Lovely food here, cake to die for."
I flicked a finger at the chef Danny Wu excellent at some more exotic cuisines if not a bit distrusted by soldiers back on shore leave not quite turning my gaze away from the stalwart woman.
"What was the dessert that night?"
"Baked Alaska..." Their voice slowly petering out as all eyes centred on Claudia her composure hardening into hatred. His presence finally explained to the others present.
"You've always been much smarter, stronger, you could almost say better then your brother.. You built the backbone of his empire, became a Doctor and here you sat without a penny to your name that you did not have to beg from him while acting like a good little lap dog dressed up in all your ruffles just the way he liked you to be, always his little sister. Nothing else nobody important."
"You insult my brother's memory." She spat back tightening tone full of ice and fire ready to rain down on me but I was running away with a lead umbrella to avoid the bomb at this point.
"What was it that broke the camel's back I wonder. All the young girls? The drinking? The corruption... No I reckon it was the deal he made with Wild Card buying him out by making him a partner. Taking in his worst enemy to advise him to be his equal..."
"He didn't deserve a single penny!" She growled launching herself upwards. "I earnt every penny and there he was sharing it with a man he told me not an hour before he thought was the lowest piece of scum possible, a moron with a bit of muscle."
She strode forward to stand closer to the window brushing past me like I was nothing.
"He was so dismissive of me when I came in. I could see the drinks on the desk, the smoking cigar of the brand the bastard smoked. I went to confront him but with that one line about dessert I saw red."
Her hands clenched and unclenched like she was digging a knife into his front as I am sure she had wanted to.
"You were right about being stronger. He was always one to shirk sports made him weak as a kitten it was easy to shove him.. It was only meant to be a little shove to shock him but there he went stumbling backwards straight through the glass."
She walked ever so close to the hole leaning dangerously forward looking down.
"He looked so small down there. Just the way I always saw him."
With that I knew what she was about to do, but moving towards the window as she took a step out I was never going to make it. Another figure darted past pulling her back with a sharp tug holding her out to me.
"No more death Detective. No more Death in his name."
They muttered as I collared my first murderer in cuffs to a general stunned silence all around. It was one of the chorus girls, stage name something like Shadow. Her face darkened till I could not quite penetrate her gaze.
--
A small smattering of journalists were sticking their shoes to the pavement below some even leaving footprints in the sticky brown left overs of the blood.
The beat officer who joined me taking hold of Ms Femme Fatale of today was familiar even if they had the wrong face for before they had an aura of smoke as they quashed a cigarette underfoot. Then I caught their eyes shining purple back at me. I should have known one of the new recruits slowly taking us weaker humans out of the decision making out of the danger.
The cigarette only an affectation to fool the poor johns on the street, this new generation was getting too good at blending in. They would be hard to get rid of when the veterans came crawling back from those death ridden fields out in Europe and more oriental climes.
It was weird to think of the war with it's heroes pasted on every spare brick wall. Lady Magnet says your pans can make a difference. General Ares knows no fear and neither should you. Their fixed grinning countenances out of place next to the grim ones below them.
I dropped back to the grimness as I looked into those purple pits once more.
"Good to see you Officer." I growled. "Watch her she's sneaky."
"Thank you for the warning sir." I swear I heard them say this next even as I strained my ears to levels even dogs would find hard to appreciate.
"But I already know and so do you."
They walked away leaving me to face the scavengers now clamouring even more for my attention after catching a glitter of Claudia's brand new bracelets. One caught my eye amongst the long corrupted men and women wearing their tarnish of digging into the dirty laundry of the world.
Tall with green eyes deep enough to wade in easily visible with her midnight black hair knotted back in that librarian way where you just want her to tear it down and walk over all sultry. She was not oblivious to my wandering gaze soloing in on me, making it personal.
"I'm Grace Scott from The Tower daily, care to tell me about what you've discovered Detective..?"
She trailed off leaving it open for my name.
I was riding high on a wave of euphoria at acing my first case. I leaned in feeling like tomorrow I would conquer the city, next week the world but for now I could conquer this little lady gem here. Putting on by best grin I let out the smoothest reply that led me to what has happened today.
"Detective Marshal, My friends call me Mal."
The morning was clouded with whirls of fog clinging like a babe to their drunken whore mother's breast. It was as confounding to my eyes as the case that was about to unspool before me. It was my first case of homicide since becoming a Detective on the Heartania Police Department. No longer busting drunks and side-lining hookers, unless I was in the mood for a bit of the down and dirty truth of the world.
I stubbed out my cigarette under my worn leather boots adding my own erasable mark to the world. Up ahead stood my newly world wearied partner Monica Johnson.
Monica was a real tough dame fighting her way up the ranks tooth and nail. Female, Puerto Rican, if only she was of the woman love variety she would have been a walking bill board for police brutality on our own colleagues.
"It's a real shit show."
She grumbled rubbing her hands together against the chill.
“He took a swan dive from up at penthouse of the Citadel.”
She informed me waving a hand at the blood soaked sheet marring the usually perfectly clear pavement maintained by The Broker’s impeccably brutal gang of Little mice. A few hovered around the edges preparing for their own revenge.
A drunk in a black canvas trench coat threw a bottle at them screaming.
"I am the Fire and the Steel may my vengeance rain down on you as it did on our father's. May Crimson coat the night, He is the first sacrifice to the almighty. May his Citadel crumble."
The Little Mice faded away from his rage letting him kick at newspapers till one of the automaton low level coppers dragged him away.
“They’re a bunch of crows. My granny would have chased them off with a broom and a bottle.”
She sneered stalking ever closer to the building that contained the secrets we were about to unfold.
“I was on site when he fell managed to make sure no one left the building. So whoever did this. They’re inside.”
“Hah a den of thieves and murderers and we have to pick the correct one from amongst them. A needle from a stack of needles.”
“You don’t need to take such glee from it kid.”
Monica frowned her mouth a thin line in the sand against me.
“I’m going in to see upstairs once more to the scene of the crime. Don’t take too much time down here kid.”
I gave a small nod with a rough and tough partner like mine silence was often the best remedy. I approached the body trying not to add blood to my shoes as I lifted the sheet to a scene of meat even butchers would flinch from. The only hint of life was a small bright pink feather stuck in the viscous crimson.
--
Upstairs there seemed hardly a disturbance except for the gaping new balcony exit that been created before the footing could be put in place. Whoever had done this it was obvious they were strong to have thrown a full grown man straight through a window even if it wasn't the toughest material.
I walked the room in contemplative silence as my partner watched crossed arms at the door weighing me up.
"What do you see kid?"
"He had company. "
I gestured to the half drunk glasses of whiskey that may as well have been liquid amber and gold for the price tag it waved around it's neck like a tie.
"I don’t know if the drink was for a woman however.."
I took a deep breath standing near an oddly open cupboard inside a small hole that would only contain a child or small woman was visible with a slight musk like Jasmine petals.
"We may have a witness." I muttered mainly to myself.
"What was that?" Monica snapped.
"I think there was someone in here."
--
The interviews whiled away into the afternoon with so many staff and customers to wade through it was surprising to slowly reach a short list of those who had the most opportunity and motive to give the Broker flying lessons without a safety net.
A local competitor of The Broker’s own gambling circuits The Wild Card had torn himself away from his own den of iniquity full of illegal booze and high stakes cards that could cost a leg or both. He sat smoking especially acrid cigars.
His own sister Claudia sat there a few tears leaking out as she mentioned how she had been left at dinner waiting for him to come back for dessert but he never had. She stiffened up quick and as I left I could see her giving orders to the staff who looked to her now. A steel lady in a velvet glove of glamour model gauze over a rather homely frame. Mutton as lamb some would have put it.
A brother and sister security team bickering over the details of their last payment. The girl Lily seemed more annoyed with her brother than the boss but he could not hide his deep seated anger as it spooled out. It was more passionate than a night with The Queen of Hearts from the downtown club, boy that woman knew her way around the edge of pleasure.
A trio of chorus girls the most suspect trait being that one of them was actually crying for the bastard while the other older one consoled her, dark shadows forming angry lines around her face that aged her horrifically while their compatriot stood further back ostrich feathers hardly detracting from a cold stare that pinned me to the wall as though she spent her spare time as a lepidopterist. Not to mention their rather fetching tail feathers were dyed the same eye melting shade of pink as the one I had taken as evidence from the not so poor John outside.
Something tugged at me though.
Something familiar dragging me back to the room upstairs. I had to go have a look again.
With all the crime scene labellers in the front lifts I decided to head round the back service elevators.
--
A strange figure waved at me from a back corridor close by. They were a mystery of size and shape engulfed in a thick corrosive smoke pouring from their mouth like a demon bringing the depths of hell up with them, curling the wall paper where we stood.
The only thing I can picture still of them was their burning violet eyes like precious gems enticing but deadly they drew me in with a rough whisper that stunned me while leaving a fear for my life.
“You need to watch your back Detective. No one here had a soft spot for the man upstairs including that partner of yours. Ask them where they were to be so close. You might be surprised.”
I did not believe what I was hearing. I reached forward trying to grasp at the arm but I might as well have been wrestling with snakes in a vat of oil. A powerful shove propelled me arse backwards landing me in an undignified sprawl at my partners feet. Her sneer was just another addition to the growing pile of disdain against me however I was about to start my own pile in no small way.
"How were you so close to the scene of the crime Detective Johnson?" I gave her no pause pushing in for another blow.
"You were here weren't you? A meeting with The Broker."
The intake of breath was all I needed to read her guilt as I stood up matching her height eye for eye.
"You may not want to talk about it but I'm your partner here and I need the truth." I scowled not backing down for a moment.
"He tried to buy me okay." She spat out. Monica was not the kind of person to cry however it was high allergy season then so there may have been a red glitter to her eyes.
"He knew I had a vendetta against him after some events early on in both our careers I shut down his operations every chance I got. He liked to play at vigilante for all his stupid crew."
She sighed a heavy release of noise like a jet taking off.
"Then the last few months my Auntie got sick, real sick. I've been paying for her care but a cops salary don't do so much so when he suggested a meeting . Well I was tempted."
"Monica..."
"Shut up Kid. Let me finish." She snapped angrily. "I was up there the cigar stub from his last guest in the tray along with those whiskey glasses. He said he'd look after my aunt, after me but I had to sell my soul to him. To do whatever he wanted within the force."
She punched the wall suddenly leaving a dent.
"I said no. Even though it kills me to think of my aunt I said no." Monica turned to glare at me once more piercing my heart hard.
"Then I walked down to the bar had a drink and as I headed out his arse of a face was sailing past onto the concrete below. I wanted to kill him but I did not."
"You’re a good officer.. And I believe you but you should have said before." I had a grim face that turned to a smile.
"Though that cigar gives me an idea of where I want to go next."
--
"I wouldn't want to kill him Detective." Wildcard let out a raucous burst of laughter.
"But he was your competitor. Last week you did an interview about how you thought him a crook and a swindler, that you wanted to wrap your hands round his throat and hold tight till no light was left."
"He was. And I would have then." The man smirked raising a glass as though drinking the dead man's health.
"However today we had a meeting and we signed this." He slapped down a heavy looking document that I picked up.
"I'll sum it up for a dumb pig like you. It makes us partners we were merging our operations together more money for the both of us and less for everybody else. From the moment both our signatures dotted these lines he was my crook, my swindler, no need to give him a hemp necktie."
He sloshed a few drops spittling my suit and the paper.
"You can keep it now though. It only lasted while he was alive. it's absolute trash now. Probably all goes to that stuck up sister of his."
He grumbled folding up like a cheap paper bag.
I left him to wallow evidence in hand I needed to find something else familiar from the room. If it wasn't his signature cigar. It hit me then the sickly cloying smell of Jasmine.
--
"Now darling, I can see you are a good girl. You are not in trouble I just have a few questions to ask you."
The nervous form of the youngest girl sat shivering in front of me. She looked so young I just wanted to bundle her up back to her grandma. A sweet kid who did not deserve to be working in a place like this.
"What do you want to know?" She managed to gather herself to answer.
"This may seem strange but what perfume do you wear?"
"It's called Fervour." She clammed up quick again her
"Smells of Jasmine and.."
"Chamomile yes. I was given it by my mother."
I managed to keep my turmoil inside like a quietly boiling pot. I had to go slow not spook her, it was why we had gotten all the chorus girls separated for interviews. No way would she talk when she could try to fade into the background instead. An invisible wall-flower.
"You were up in The Broker's office earlier weren't you."
Her eyes whipped round panicked looking for an exit. I held one of her hands feeling guilty as she flinched at my touch.
"I said you weren't in trouble and I don't lie."
I do but not to her. Not right now. It would be like swearing in front of the Virgin Mary, unthinkable.
"Now tell me what happened."
Still now but quiet.
"How about why you were up there?"
"He invited me up.." She eked out after an uncomfortable minute.
"Go ahead. Say what you need to say no judgement on you." I shrugged as she gave me the biggest kicked puppy dog eyes.
"The Broker.. He often invited up new girls.. Tested them out."
The way she said it could only mean one thing. Still boiling I kept schtum for now.
"Shade told me about it, it's usually just once. I mean even Reaver did it. But when I went up he didn't so any of that just sat there watching me. He invited me up again and again just for this inane stuff but getting closer to me each time. Brushing my hair calling me some other girls name... It was so weird and scary."
Her nails dug into her arms leaving little welts of pain as her face kept totally stiff and dead telling the tale at a distance.
"Today was the same again. I came up to the office and we sat with the door closed. Then the knock came."
My ears perked up then, I may hate the man from what I heard but he was still my victim here.
"He stuffed me in the cupboard I can disappear a bit so that's what I did. I couldn't see anything but I heard.. I heard him die."
Holding her hands once more I gave her a reassuring squeeze.
"It was so scary. He said something to them like; You again? I thought we were done for today. Was Alaska not good enough for you?"
Jade squeezed back then shaking but strong.
"Then I heard the window smashing and the door slam. As soon as I thought they had gone far enough I legged it out of the cupboard and came down to tell the girls by then the Lady Detective had blocked us all in."
"You do believe me right?"
The second woman to ask me that today. I was turning out to be a real sucker.
I nodded with a grim smile giving her one last hand squeeze before heading off to find Claudia.
--
"Ah Claudia."
I called out to her across the lobby.
"Just a question. What did your Brother have to do with Alaska?"
"Nothing as far as I know." Her face showed shock as she answered back quickly. Not even having to think about it, though she screwed up her brow then in thought.
Claudia looked different in the few hours I had been here she had dropped the trollop garb for more sensible wear, even seemed to stand taller like a moth coming out of a gaudy caterpillars chrysalis she had transformed.
"It could be to do with the Jone's siblings. They had a row with him just before he came into dinner. He talked about sending them away. Could have been to Alaska?"
"Also do you know who benefits from your brothers will?"
She smiled sadly then the tears starting to gather in like storm clouds.
"It all goes to me. He was such a kind man when it came to family. He always looked after his own. Whatever it might take."
I patted her hand.
"My condolences go out to you."
"Thank you Officer." She hiccupped before we both split off once more. I stood for a second to watch her as a small child with big green eyes and auburn hair launched themselves at her waist in a hug.
"They want to take Fluffy out without me Auntie Claudia make them stop."
She grizzled jutting her jaw.
I left them to the strange intricacies of this weird building full of the crime family's doings.
--
"I'm glad the bastard's dead." The young man spat before I could even get a word out sitting in a quiet corner of the bar.
His sister stuck a nasty kick at his shin eliciting the classic hurt pride look of someone who assumed they had done no wrong.
"Is that because he was sending you to Alaska?"
"Alaska? You crazy?" They both gave me a confused look. Was Claudia wrong?
"No he was not. He protected us from a gang.."
"We don't need protection. We are protection."
These were two unhappy people.
"You let him own us for no reason."
I raised an eyebrow. Things were hotting up again.
"They were going to kill you Luke. You should have been grateful."
He harrumphed moving a little away from her but as I watched he shifted back like a boat moored to a dock he wasn't getting far from familial ties.
"You were overheard arguing with him yesterday?"
Lilly turned snappily then, the family temper evidently had not skipped her.
"Who said that?"
"Does it really matter?" I replied spreading my hands in an empty if honest seeming gesture, just like my bank accountant might do.
"No I suppose not. We did have a fight."
Luke touched her shoulder then in support face softening.
"He wanted us to do something not quite well ethical.. I said no, then Luke said no a bit more aggressively. He flipped told us he owned us. That if we didn't do what he said he would throw us back to the vipers we ran from. Send us away with no support. Away from each other."
She paused to nail me with a cold stare.
"He made us promise to do it. And though he helped us when we needed it I would happily have nailed the bastard myself if he had dared take me away from my brother."
--
I sat for a while at the bar going through my dog eared notebook toting up all I knew. I asked around some other members of staff in the kitchens in the halls. As the sun went over the horizon I had a plan, I knew who had done the deed.
"Gather all the people on the list here to the office upstairs."
I palmed the list off to the poor street plodders close enough to be press ganged into the grand finale I had planned.
"It's all in the execution."
--
"So this is how it went down. The only innocent girl in the city."
Jade let out another sob.
"Was invited up to The Broker's office for a little tète a tète. Now she headed up and just before their ahem discussions could go much further a knock lands at the door and she is forced to hide in a nearby cupboard. Squeezed up inside with not much room to breath let alone see out we have her evidence to say someone came in but did not speak. What was it The Broker said to them?"
The words were soft to her as she stuttered out a reply, gaining confidence as her acting kicked in mimicking the old man's posture and tone to suck a dead ringer degree that you could see goose bumps on the suspects lining the room.
"You again? I thought we were done for today. Was Alaska not good enough for you?"
"These words may seem innocuous enough but they reveal the identity of the murderer in no small way. At first I thought it could have been the destination he threatened to send the Jones family or even a bar name he had chosen for the enterprise he was partnering.."
For each I paused turning my gaze from person to person till I rested my gaze on my partner. "Or even the code word for a pay out to an honest cop thinking of cashing their hard work in."
"Detective Johnson.." Claudia gasped trying to move away from Monica whose hand was unconsciously moving towards a quick draw that would leave me looking like a Swiss cheese after the maggots set in.
"Ah Claudia, I'm sure you miss your brother. You were having dinner right when he had to go off to his meetings."
"Yes of course." She replied haughtily surprised at the questioning.
"Just reached dessert if I'm not quite mistaken? Lovely food here, cake to die for."
I flicked a finger at the chef Danny Wu excellent at some more exotic cuisines if not a bit distrusted by soldiers back on shore leave not quite turning my gaze away from the stalwart woman.
"What was the dessert that night?"
"Baked Alaska..." Their voice slowly petering out as all eyes centred on Claudia her composure hardening into hatred. His presence finally explained to the others present.
"You've always been much smarter, stronger, you could almost say better then your brother.. You built the backbone of his empire, became a Doctor and here you sat without a penny to your name that you did not have to beg from him while acting like a good little lap dog dressed up in all your ruffles just the way he liked you to be, always his little sister. Nothing else nobody important."
"You insult my brother's memory." She spat back tightening tone full of ice and fire ready to rain down on me but I was running away with a lead umbrella to avoid the bomb at this point.
"What was it that broke the camel's back I wonder. All the young girls? The drinking? The corruption... No I reckon it was the deal he made with Wild Card buying him out by making him a partner. Taking in his worst enemy to advise him to be his equal..."
"He didn't deserve a single penny!" She growled launching herself upwards. "I earnt every penny and there he was sharing it with a man he told me not an hour before he thought was the lowest piece of scum possible, a moron with a bit of muscle."
She strode forward to stand closer to the window brushing past me like I was nothing.
"He was so dismissive of me when I came in. I could see the drinks on the desk, the smoking cigar of the brand the bastard smoked. I went to confront him but with that one line about dessert I saw red."
Her hands clenched and unclenched like she was digging a knife into his front as I am sure she had wanted to.
"You were right about being stronger. He was always one to shirk sports made him weak as a kitten it was easy to shove him.. It was only meant to be a little shove to shock him but there he went stumbling backwards straight through the glass."
She walked ever so close to the hole leaning dangerously forward looking down.
"He looked so small down there. Just the way I always saw him."
With that I knew what she was about to do, but moving towards the window as she took a step out I was never going to make it. Another figure darted past pulling her back with a sharp tug holding her out to me.
"No more death Detective. No more Death in his name."
They muttered as I collared my first murderer in cuffs to a general stunned silence all around. It was one of the chorus girls, stage name something like Shadow. Her face darkened till I could not quite penetrate her gaze.
--
A small smattering of journalists were sticking their shoes to the pavement below some even leaving footprints in the sticky brown left overs of the blood.
The beat officer who joined me taking hold of Ms Femme Fatale of today was familiar even if they had the wrong face for before they had an aura of smoke as they quashed a cigarette underfoot. Then I caught their eyes shining purple back at me. I should have known one of the new recruits slowly taking us weaker humans out of the decision making out of the danger.
The cigarette only an affectation to fool the poor johns on the street, this new generation was getting too good at blending in. They would be hard to get rid of when the veterans came crawling back from those death ridden fields out in Europe and more oriental climes.
It was weird to think of the war with it's heroes pasted on every spare brick wall. Lady Magnet says your pans can make a difference. General Ares knows no fear and neither should you. Their fixed grinning countenances out of place next to the grim ones below them.
I dropped back to the grimness as I looked into those purple pits once more.
"Good to see you Officer." I growled. "Watch her she's sneaky."
"Thank you for the warning sir." I swear I heard them say this next even as I strained my ears to levels even dogs would find hard to appreciate.
"But I already know and so do you."
They walked away leaving me to face the scavengers now clamouring even more for my attention after catching a glitter of Claudia's brand new bracelets. One caught my eye amongst the long corrupted men and women wearing their tarnish of digging into the dirty laundry of the world.
Tall with green eyes deep enough to wade in easily visible with her midnight black hair knotted back in that librarian way where you just want her to tear it down and walk over all sultry. She was not oblivious to my wandering gaze soloing in on me, making it personal.
"I'm Grace Scott from The Tower daily, care to tell me about what you've discovered Detective..?"
She trailed off leaving it open for my name.
I was riding high on a wave of euphoria at acing my first case. I leaned in feeling like tomorrow I would conquer the city, next week the world but for now I could conquer this little lady gem here. Putting on by best grin I let out the smoothest reply that led me to what has happened today.
"Detective Marshal, My friends call me Mal."
{The Jolly Fat Mans Last Drink}
I don't want to ruin any kids dream when it comes to Christmas even if it is a right tear away so I will say that when I saw the corpse on the ground I was pretty sure Santa was going to have trouble doing his rounds this year without a little help.
The air was crisp in Heartania but dry as a bone like the ones showing through the welts on the corpse below my nose's skin. He was a very fat man, it probably helped the ignition when someone had lit him on fire outside the town hall nicknamed by denizens of the city as "The Citadel" for its imposing windowless walls reaching up into the sky. Once you entered it took murdering a bureaucrat to get out any time soon.
"So what do you think... What was your name again?"
I peered sideways at my enforced partner, Monica had left me behind a real rising star that one, give it a few years and she would be head of the force that was for sure. My new partner was a wolf pretending to be a dog. The first time I think I met them they knocked me down but you just can't be sure with these bloody robots.
"Kay is what they call me Detective."
I chewed at the end of a tooth pick and spat it out which was what I wanted to do with my superior James Witt.
"You need to take a partner and Kay is the only one who is willing to go along with your toxic arse. You're a dead man walking a total leper."
Witt always did know how to sweet talk me best, one day he'll sweet talk my fist into his face.
"Well then Kay what do you see."
"The burnt end of Christmas."
I raised my eyes at that, giving them the once over. Robots though intelligent and swift like a good dog were not known for a good turn of phrase, it was a bit unnerving to see one so human.
"Keep it to useful information."
"A dead Fat Man who has been lit on fire maybe before death."
They bobbed down the scent of a long pork barbecue not as gut wrenching as I felt it to be. Their hand came back up with a corner of paper the words obscured except a few stand outs and the half crest of the town hall. The groan I let out was a long death rattle.
"Dammit we're going to have to storm the Citadel."
"Mhm it definitely looks like an amateur job. I think I can smell whisky spilt on the pavement."
"Whiskey on the streets in this town just means someone has been on their lunch break come on let's go play with the bureaucrats."
--
We sat on coffin like chairs set slightly too low for the desk with a figure sitting with clasping hands looking down at us.
Turns out government buildings are just as empty as my love life on Christmas day, other than a few clerks we had already spoken to the only person of any real rank was turning this into a reverse interrogation.
Alfred Jones a well weathered politician of the old school sat on the other side of the slab of oak desk, he had been Mayor once but those days were behind him now he was a prominent influencer always parading out at charity events pulling a few secret handshakes to oil the wheels of government.
"So there is a body outside our building?"
"Yes sir." The second word tasted bitter on my tongue coming out as a spiky slur full of sarcasm that was duly ignored by both of the dead faced members in the room
"And why are you in here then?"
"We thought that someone in this building might have something to do with it."
"Why?" His tone was suddenly sharper, higher in pitch. I wanted to smash the self assured look on his face into the table but I resisted. Getting angry did not have to mean acting stupid.
"Because of certain pieces of evidence that are better left private. Now did you see anything unusual happening today. Also have any files gone missing recently?"
He flinched a little with the loss of a Sir. I was on the job and the old magic came rolling back. I was in the thick of death and murder, the only place I felt alive any more.
"Not really. It's a holiday no one sticks around long enough to be unusual."
I pursed my lips leaving him a silent gap to fill.
"I can get Mr O'Crowley in here he might have seen something. He's my new assistant and keeps track of all the paperwork."
A small buzzer press on the desk and a handsome young man with blonde curly hair came in towering over us in our low slung chairs.
"Mr Jones. How can I help?"
"Blake I was wondering if any paperwork has gone missing. Also have you seen anything unusual happening lately?"
I didn't watch Alf as he spoke it was more interesting to see the confusion and anger on the young man's face that settled into calm as Alf gave a performance level cough.
"No sir. Nothing out of place." The words were quick and tight. "Is there anything else Sir?"
"Nothing more, you should be heading home Blake. To family."
He wavered for a second a temptation to speak twanging through him like a bandits guitar string.
"Of course Sir."
It was all smiles then, I got nothing more useful out of him than the weather as I escaped with Kay into the freezing air a welcome relief from the tomb like must inside that crypt.
--
"Why did you keep quiet in there?"
"Most people don't want to answer me. Must be my animal magnetism getting them all out of whack." Kay replied dryly, the perfect
deadpan straight man. They needed to get into comedy or at least out of here.
"It shouldn't be that way." I surprised myself with the words.
"But it is."
They shrugged,a fluid motion that even with my bias caught me as elegant.
"They were hiding something weren't they."
It was a plain hard facts no question marks to be seen in the vicinity.
"Yes they are. Something to do with this project... I&I." The letters came out clipped as I read the paper once more.
A young uniform came running up puffing and panting small clouds that escaped into the sky.
"Detective Mal! They've caught the bastard that burnt that guy. They're a woman!"
---
"Now Miss Trop I've heard a lot about your love of fire."
"What's not to love?" She leant her head to one side a tiny impish grin surrounded by red curls.
Her big baby blue eyes made her look like a sweet little girl off an advert hiding her greater age and long rap sheet of arson, several leading to suspected deaths. Unfortunately when this firecracker lit up she burnt hot enough to leave no remains.
"It's a beautiful thing it whispers to me, lets me dance free."
"I doubt some of your victims are dancing free now."
"They got to have a private dance with me before they went. It's just me and you in here Detective would you like to have a last dance too?"
Her grin widened cat like, watching a baby bird with a broken wing. It vanished into anger as my silent partner placed a folder on the desk in front of her, apparently Miss Trop did not like to be surprised.
"Where the fuck did they come from? " She caught the eyes then her cuteness evaporating faster than yellow snow on a sidewalk as her smile became a snarl.
"Bloody robots."
I slapped the table grabbing her attention. No one insulted a fellow officer even if it was similar to what we said on the force.
"Please do not insult a member of the police force. We do not take to it lightly. In fact we take to it with heavy boots."
She rolled her eyes and leant back on her chair the little girl schtick evaporating away like snowflakes on a hotdog stand.
"What do you want from me?" Her fingers twitched on the top as though flicking on the lighter we had confiscated from her while she was a suspect.
"You remember taking a visit to a Fat Man today?" I placed the paperwork on the top in front of her showing pictures of the smouldering corpse. She tutted as she ran her fingers over the images with a gentle caress.
"Shoddy work. Good ignition but not fast enough." She put them back down with a scowl, the words a mutter of one craftsman watching an apprentice.
"You saying its not your work then?" I asked taking my seat once more across from her.
She gave a gravelly laugh.
"This piece of crap is not something I would do, though if I had I wouldn't be admitting it to you. You have nothing on me."
"We have a witness."
Her eyebrows raised angrily then a strong grip on my throat.
"Who the fuck has been trying to fit me up? Was it you? Is that fucking feebie trying to get rid of the evidence through you huh!"
I saw all the big stars then from Marilyn to Fred as my oxygen was abruptly cut off. Miss Trop yelped as stronger hands than mine hauled her backwards by her hair banging her solidly down onto her chair, a tight grip resisting all the screams, biting and scratching.
"I think that's enough." I coughed. "Go let her cool off in a box."
--
Still a little sore around the neck I dragged Kay to find new leads as a couple more robots dragged off our main suspect not helping herself by screaming bloody murder.
"Dr C, what do you have for us?" I asked with a tight grin tugging at my cheeks. Dr Clueless was our one and only scientific mind of investigation. Sure some others looked at finger prints but if you wanted to find out what this weird powder was or the secret of the corpse you went to Dr C. His curly red hair hiding all the marks of a true genius.
"Mal?" He replied untangling himself from the remains of a floater unhooking his goggles onto his forehead.
"I've told you before to call me by my full name. Shortening is too messy."
He brought out a second pair of goggles and gave my purple eyed lump a once over.
"Hmmph you aren't a standard model."
His fingers twitched like dancing spiders a sure sign he wanted to investigate.
"And neither are you. Could you please tell us about the meat suit Doctor Clueless?"
I hid a smile at their reply the hunk of junk had a sense of humour you had to give it that.
"Yours was the Fat Man right? I thought you were on the Paige Syndicate, Mal."
My blood ran like ice and fire. The Paige's were a bit of a sore spot, after my darling time of solving the Broker's murder I had been saddled with career killing cases like that one, it seemed someone high up had it in for me. One day I would get my revenge on them but not today.
"Not right now Dr C."
"Fine. I haven't looked at the samples you gathered yet but I did take some samples of his clothing he was coated in ethanol of the Whiskey variety by the looks of it before he was lit up like a Christmas tree. Shame I didn't get to start that autopsy before it was dragged away."
Old purple eyes got there before I even turned. They were fast I would have to grow eyes in the back of my head if they came for me.
"Gone?"
"Kay back off." I growled. They dropped him slow without watching me, good dog.
"Who took them?"
"Some guy called Blake he had all the relevant paperwork and with the usual rush of hypothermia deaths this time of year I just let it go. Shit he wasn't one of yours?"
There was a pleading in his eyes and though I was tempted to let Kay loose on him for his idiocy I let it go. Blake was the one we needed to crucify. I had heard that name at a place I really did not want to visit again so soon.
---
The calm demeanour of earlier was laced with anger lie rat poison in the garden. Apparently Alf had expected incompetency from the police department honestly I couldn't blame him for thinking that.
"What is it now Detective?" He scowled as I walked past him into his assistant's room where Blake sat taking notes from his magnificence.
"Nothing you need worry about." I smiled shooing him out the door Kay was kindly keeping open.
"I don't get how a whiskey coated likely homeless man can cause so much trouble.." He grumbled.
The little click where it hit his heels on the way out was music to my ears.
Returning to my aim i couldn't help thinking how Dr C's description of Blake had been perfect down to the clothes he still wore.
"Where's the Fat Man Blake?" He seemed to jump at the name but then a smug smirk rose to the surface, he was mocking us.
"Fatman? Do you mean Santa or the corpse from earlier?"
I gave Kay a small nod and they twisted the key in the door before leaning against it.
"Don't you play bloody silly buggers with me. We have bloody witnesses to you walking off with him. That's a very serious crime messing with evidence."
"You don't scare me Detective." He seemed to look past me and out through the door. I resisted the urge to turn around the hulking shadow of his boss hovering I the back of my mind as though he could hear all that was being said. I felt so small like an ant climbing to the top of a building only to see a mountain in the distance.
"Now who said anything about scaring you. " I gave my widest drinking buddy grin.
"We are just questing for the truth here of where you have relocated the Fat Man to. Though honestly the scary one out of this partnership is Kay over there. A real killer."
He seemed to come back to the room eyeing my partner nervously. There were many rumours of killer robots, that they lubricated their joints with blood, that they could pull your spine out while you still lived with their strength. Nasty stuff, all untrue as far as I knew but it seemed Blake had heard the tales and believed them.
Kay came away from the door moving to the window behind him with a loping purpose and a dead expression not even pretending to blink or breathe. Unsettling for me pants wetting for our friend.
"He just said I had to bring them back." Blake rived in his chair trying to get as far from Kay without getting up.
"I took it to this warehouse and these guys in suits of armour too them from me. I didn't have anything to do with his death but he was in the office a week or so ago. I don’t know why, I stopped him going through the filing cabinets. He wouldn't tell me anything more about it."
"Who's he?" I had an idea who but I needed him to say it aloud. I needed a witness.
A fit took over his body then, if I was given to the fantastical I would say it looked like he was pulled at by invisible hands tugging him too and fro.
"Shit! Call an ambulance in." The locked door was barged open in the rush as I held him in my arms trying to stop him swallowing his tongue.
--
Called into the office alone I was annoyed. There was so much to do and our main lead was stuck in the hospital unconscious.
"Stop investigating." James sat with his hands resting on the edge of his desk his rear end shoving the paper around. "The case is dead."
"I disagree sir. We have leads we're getting there, the fit was unexpected but..." My voice was strong and stiff, a ruler to measure my achievements by.
"No it's dead. And if it's not dead you will be."
"Excuse me sir but is that a threat." I growled.
He rubbed a hand over the heavy creases on a brow, being Chief was a great exertion on anyone's beauty sleep regime.
"A promise. It's an order come from on high."
"It's a load of horse shit is what it is. I've got that bastard Jones in my sights and he's sweating I can get him."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." The bass rumble of a volcano getting ready to blow. "You continue, I'll find out then shit will go down and I will not give back up even if you find a knife in your back."
Defeated I gave a small salute which just received a sad shake of the head. I wanted to wrap my hand around his throat and squeeze till the cold air came out. Eyes watched me as I stalked towards the station door to the warmer climes of the frozen world outside.
--
"You're an idiot Mal."
I jumped out of my skin from my perch on the icy pavement outside the precinct, a deep regret and anger put on hold.
"You need to look at the bigger picture here. I know the small one sucks, we could have nailed him eventually."
"I can't do anything in the bigger picture. I'm a washed out cop who has been trodden down by those above to the point where I'm a leper."
Their purple eyes flashed under a scowl as they let out a long sigh for my benefit.
"Get your head out of your arse this isn't a lone gunman waiting for death by one last gunfight. Do you want to know why I accepted working with you?"
I kept silent, honestly I cared as much as if they asked whether I wanted a purple rhino as a pet, the thought had not crossed my mind.
"None of the other robots will work with me. I'm not designed to be the same as them I was thrown in as a bargain work assignment, give the force a bit of military training into the mix. I have a contract of employment, they have a receipt makes it awkward and well working with a human is impossible without a lynching rising to mind."
I just stared blankly like a dead fish trying to absorb this, apparently I looked as dumb as the fish because Kay continued.
"So I'm a leper like you boss, except at least when you're off duty you can be another drunk arsehole no one wants to hurt. Still you'll find there are a lot of lepers out there who will help you out."
The soft smile made words form on my lips that died in my throat, how do you apologise sincerely for something you do not control? Kay cut me off, for which I am thankful.
"Go on, go get wasted. Tomorrow we'll get back to work."
Now that made the most sense out of all they said.
--
It seemed I always ended up at the peak of an emotion when a case came to its conclusion, this time it was a deep depression. The whiskey in my hand was a drop in the ocean compared to the amount inside me and it was not even midday yet.
"You shouldn't do this to yourself. You're not a fish you'll drown."
Grace had found me. I didn't ask how she was here beside me how she had found out about this quiet case, why she kept approaching me over and over again, it was getting to be a habit that when I was at my best or worst she was my companion. I doubted I would ever know the answer to any of it, that girl has more secrets than the beach has washed up junk.
"Well what else are you meant to do with your sorrows." I slurred draining my glass and attempting to refill it with the bottle but her hands stopped me.
"What happened?"
I squinted at her looking for a notebook, nothing no obvious record keeping.
"You can't solve it when a higher power intervenes." I pointed to the ceiling with a long finger before looking at my salvation in a bottle ignoring her.
"So it was one of the Citadel? Not the Arsonist?"
"She didn't do crap. You can't publish any of this so I'll tell you. It was the head honcho." And she knew what case I was on marvellous, a small nasty voice noted that she used to work with old Alf Jones.
"The Mayor?"
I gave a dark chuckle managing to disentangle the bottle from her limp fingers, damn so little left of everything.
"He hasn't got any real power. He's a puppet. No I'm talking about Alf. He's good at controlling things from a distance and he knew about the Whiskey, no one else did other than Kay and the Doc who I trust explicitly."
Her soft face twisted into a frown it was like watching a puppy try to attack its tail.
"You sure about that. I mean one of them is a robot could get talked into anything..."
Grace must be a comedian because she had me chuckling once more.
"A week ago I might have agreed with you but I think its high time I got to knowing them better, tricksy little bastards. One day they'll take over this city and when that happens I'll be standing behind them out of the way of the charge. Kay won't say a word."
"The Fat Man will be gone back to where ever he came from and so has the mysterious Blake. Whatever they are covering up its big."
"You going to do something about it?"
My smile was wide, feline not dissimilar to the crooks who had escaped me this week. If she worked with them it was a warning if not it was the unadorned truth.
"Let's just say if you get in my way Grace you won't be walking away safely."
I don't want to ruin any kids dream when it comes to Christmas even if it is a right tear away so I will say that when I saw the corpse on the ground I was pretty sure Santa was going to have trouble doing his rounds this year without a little help.
The air was crisp in Heartania but dry as a bone like the ones showing through the welts on the corpse below my nose's skin. He was a very fat man, it probably helped the ignition when someone had lit him on fire outside the town hall nicknamed by denizens of the city as "The Citadel" for its imposing windowless walls reaching up into the sky. Once you entered it took murdering a bureaucrat to get out any time soon.
"So what do you think... What was your name again?"
I peered sideways at my enforced partner, Monica had left me behind a real rising star that one, give it a few years and she would be head of the force that was for sure. My new partner was a wolf pretending to be a dog. The first time I think I met them they knocked me down but you just can't be sure with these bloody robots.
"Kay is what they call me Detective."
I chewed at the end of a tooth pick and spat it out which was what I wanted to do with my superior James Witt.
"You need to take a partner and Kay is the only one who is willing to go along with your toxic arse. You're a dead man walking a total leper."
Witt always did know how to sweet talk me best, one day he'll sweet talk my fist into his face.
"Well then Kay what do you see."
"The burnt end of Christmas."
I raised my eyes at that, giving them the once over. Robots though intelligent and swift like a good dog were not known for a good turn of phrase, it was a bit unnerving to see one so human.
"Keep it to useful information."
"A dead Fat Man who has been lit on fire maybe before death."
They bobbed down the scent of a long pork barbecue not as gut wrenching as I felt it to be. Their hand came back up with a corner of paper the words obscured except a few stand outs and the half crest of the town hall. The groan I let out was a long death rattle.
"Dammit we're going to have to storm the Citadel."
"Mhm it definitely looks like an amateur job. I think I can smell whisky spilt on the pavement."
"Whiskey on the streets in this town just means someone has been on their lunch break come on let's go play with the bureaucrats."
--
We sat on coffin like chairs set slightly too low for the desk with a figure sitting with clasping hands looking down at us.
Turns out government buildings are just as empty as my love life on Christmas day, other than a few clerks we had already spoken to the only person of any real rank was turning this into a reverse interrogation.
Alfred Jones a well weathered politician of the old school sat on the other side of the slab of oak desk, he had been Mayor once but those days were behind him now he was a prominent influencer always parading out at charity events pulling a few secret handshakes to oil the wheels of government.
"So there is a body outside our building?"
"Yes sir." The second word tasted bitter on my tongue coming out as a spiky slur full of sarcasm that was duly ignored by both of the dead faced members in the room
"And why are you in here then?"
"We thought that someone in this building might have something to do with it."
"Why?" His tone was suddenly sharper, higher in pitch. I wanted to smash the self assured look on his face into the table but I resisted. Getting angry did not have to mean acting stupid.
"Because of certain pieces of evidence that are better left private. Now did you see anything unusual happening today. Also have any files gone missing recently?"
He flinched a little with the loss of a Sir. I was on the job and the old magic came rolling back. I was in the thick of death and murder, the only place I felt alive any more.
"Not really. It's a holiday no one sticks around long enough to be unusual."
I pursed my lips leaving him a silent gap to fill.
"I can get Mr O'Crowley in here he might have seen something. He's my new assistant and keeps track of all the paperwork."
A small buzzer press on the desk and a handsome young man with blonde curly hair came in towering over us in our low slung chairs.
"Mr Jones. How can I help?"
"Blake I was wondering if any paperwork has gone missing. Also have you seen anything unusual happening lately?"
I didn't watch Alf as he spoke it was more interesting to see the confusion and anger on the young man's face that settled into calm as Alf gave a performance level cough.
"No sir. Nothing out of place." The words were quick and tight. "Is there anything else Sir?"
"Nothing more, you should be heading home Blake. To family."
He wavered for a second a temptation to speak twanging through him like a bandits guitar string.
"Of course Sir."
It was all smiles then, I got nothing more useful out of him than the weather as I escaped with Kay into the freezing air a welcome relief from the tomb like must inside that crypt.
--
"Why did you keep quiet in there?"
"Most people don't want to answer me. Must be my animal magnetism getting them all out of whack." Kay replied dryly, the perfect
deadpan straight man. They needed to get into comedy or at least out of here.
"It shouldn't be that way." I surprised myself with the words.
"But it is."
They shrugged,a fluid motion that even with my bias caught me as elegant.
"They were hiding something weren't they."
It was a plain hard facts no question marks to be seen in the vicinity.
"Yes they are. Something to do with this project... I&I." The letters came out clipped as I read the paper once more.
A young uniform came running up puffing and panting small clouds that escaped into the sky.
"Detective Mal! They've caught the bastard that burnt that guy. They're a woman!"
---
"Now Miss Trop I've heard a lot about your love of fire."
"What's not to love?" She leant her head to one side a tiny impish grin surrounded by red curls.
Her big baby blue eyes made her look like a sweet little girl off an advert hiding her greater age and long rap sheet of arson, several leading to suspected deaths. Unfortunately when this firecracker lit up she burnt hot enough to leave no remains.
"It's a beautiful thing it whispers to me, lets me dance free."
"I doubt some of your victims are dancing free now."
"They got to have a private dance with me before they went. It's just me and you in here Detective would you like to have a last dance too?"
Her grin widened cat like, watching a baby bird with a broken wing. It vanished into anger as my silent partner placed a folder on the desk in front of her, apparently Miss Trop did not like to be surprised.
"Where the fuck did they come from? " She caught the eyes then her cuteness evaporating faster than yellow snow on a sidewalk as her smile became a snarl.
"Bloody robots."
I slapped the table grabbing her attention. No one insulted a fellow officer even if it was similar to what we said on the force.
"Please do not insult a member of the police force. We do not take to it lightly. In fact we take to it with heavy boots."
She rolled her eyes and leant back on her chair the little girl schtick evaporating away like snowflakes on a hotdog stand.
"What do you want from me?" Her fingers twitched on the top as though flicking on the lighter we had confiscated from her while she was a suspect.
"You remember taking a visit to a Fat Man today?" I placed the paperwork on the top in front of her showing pictures of the smouldering corpse. She tutted as she ran her fingers over the images with a gentle caress.
"Shoddy work. Good ignition but not fast enough." She put them back down with a scowl, the words a mutter of one craftsman watching an apprentice.
"You saying its not your work then?" I asked taking my seat once more across from her.
She gave a gravelly laugh.
"This piece of crap is not something I would do, though if I had I wouldn't be admitting it to you. You have nothing on me."
"We have a witness."
Her eyebrows raised angrily then a strong grip on my throat.
"Who the fuck has been trying to fit me up? Was it you? Is that fucking feebie trying to get rid of the evidence through you huh!"
I saw all the big stars then from Marilyn to Fred as my oxygen was abruptly cut off. Miss Trop yelped as stronger hands than mine hauled her backwards by her hair banging her solidly down onto her chair, a tight grip resisting all the screams, biting and scratching.
"I think that's enough." I coughed. "Go let her cool off in a box."
--
Still a little sore around the neck I dragged Kay to find new leads as a couple more robots dragged off our main suspect not helping herself by screaming bloody murder.
"Dr C, what do you have for us?" I asked with a tight grin tugging at my cheeks. Dr Clueless was our one and only scientific mind of investigation. Sure some others looked at finger prints but if you wanted to find out what this weird powder was or the secret of the corpse you went to Dr C. His curly red hair hiding all the marks of a true genius.
"Mal?" He replied untangling himself from the remains of a floater unhooking his goggles onto his forehead.
"I've told you before to call me by my full name. Shortening is too messy."
He brought out a second pair of goggles and gave my purple eyed lump a once over.
"Hmmph you aren't a standard model."
His fingers twitched like dancing spiders a sure sign he wanted to investigate.
"And neither are you. Could you please tell us about the meat suit Doctor Clueless?"
I hid a smile at their reply the hunk of junk had a sense of humour you had to give it that.
"Yours was the Fat Man right? I thought you were on the Paige Syndicate, Mal."
My blood ran like ice and fire. The Paige's were a bit of a sore spot, after my darling time of solving the Broker's murder I had been saddled with career killing cases like that one, it seemed someone high up had it in for me. One day I would get my revenge on them but not today.
"Not right now Dr C."
"Fine. I haven't looked at the samples you gathered yet but I did take some samples of his clothing he was coated in ethanol of the Whiskey variety by the looks of it before he was lit up like a Christmas tree. Shame I didn't get to start that autopsy before it was dragged away."
Old purple eyes got there before I even turned. They were fast I would have to grow eyes in the back of my head if they came for me.
"Gone?"
"Kay back off." I growled. They dropped him slow without watching me, good dog.
"Who took them?"
"Some guy called Blake he had all the relevant paperwork and with the usual rush of hypothermia deaths this time of year I just let it go. Shit he wasn't one of yours?"
There was a pleading in his eyes and though I was tempted to let Kay loose on him for his idiocy I let it go. Blake was the one we needed to crucify. I had heard that name at a place I really did not want to visit again so soon.
---
The calm demeanour of earlier was laced with anger lie rat poison in the garden. Apparently Alf had expected incompetency from the police department honestly I couldn't blame him for thinking that.
"What is it now Detective?" He scowled as I walked past him into his assistant's room where Blake sat taking notes from his magnificence.
"Nothing you need worry about." I smiled shooing him out the door Kay was kindly keeping open.
"I don't get how a whiskey coated likely homeless man can cause so much trouble.." He grumbled.
The little click where it hit his heels on the way out was music to my ears.
Returning to my aim i couldn't help thinking how Dr C's description of Blake had been perfect down to the clothes he still wore.
"Where's the Fat Man Blake?" He seemed to jump at the name but then a smug smirk rose to the surface, he was mocking us.
"Fatman? Do you mean Santa or the corpse from earlier?"
I gave Kay a small nod and they twisted the key in the door before leaning against it.
"Don't you play bloody silly buggers with me. We have bloody witnesses to you walking off with him. That's a very serious crime messing with evidence."
"You don't scare me Detective." He seemed to look past me and out through the door. I resisted the urge to turn around the hulking shadow of his boss hovering I the back of my mind as though he could hear all that was being said. I felt so small like an ant climbing to the top of a building only to see a mountain in the distance.
"Now who said anything about scaring you. " I gave my widest drinking buddy grin.
"We are just questing for the truth here of where you have relocated the Fat Man to. Though honestly the scary one out of this partnership is Kay over there. A real killer."
He seemed to come back to the room eyeing my partner nervously. There were many rumours of killer robots, that they lubricated their joints with blood, that they could pull your spine out while you still lived with their strength. Nasty stuff, all untrue as far as I knew but it seemed Blake had heard the tales and believed them.
Kay came away from the door moving to the window behind him with a loping purpose and a dead expression not even pretending to blink or breathe. Unsettling for me pants wetting for our friend.
"He just said I had to bring them back." Blake rived in his chair trying to get as far from Kay without getting up.
"I took it to this warehouse and these guys in suits of armour too them from me. I didn't have anything to do with his death but he was in the office a week or so ago. I don’t know why, I stopped him going through the filing cabinets. He wouldn't tell me anything more about it."
"Who's he?" I had an idea who but I needed him to say it aloud. I needed a witness.
A fit took over his body then, if I was given to the fantastical I would say it looked like he was pulled at by invisible hands tugging him too and fro.
"Shit! Call an ambulance in." The locked door was barged open in the rush as I held him in my arms trying to stop him swallowing his tongue.
--
Called into the office alone I was annoyed. There was so much to do and our main lead was stuck in the hospital unconscious.
"Stop investigating." James sat with his hands resting on the edge of his desk his rear end shoving the paper around. "The case is dead."
"I disagree sir. We have leads we're getting there, the fit was unexpected but..." My voice was strong and stiff, a ruler to measure my achievements by.
"No it's dead. And if it's not dead you will be."
"Excuse me sir but is that a threat." I growled.
He rubbed a hand over the heavy creases on a brow, being Chief was a great exertion on anyone's beauty sleep regime.
"A promise. It's an order come from on high."
"It's a load of horse shit is what it is. I've got that bastard Jones in my sights and he's sweating I can get him."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." The bass rumble of a volcano getting ready to blow. "You continue, I'll find out then shit will go down and I will not give back up even if you find a knife in your back."
Defeated I gave a small salute which just received a sad shake of the head. I wanted to wrap my hand around his throat and squeeze till the cold air came out. Eyes watched me as I stalked towards the station door to the warmer climes of the frozen world outside.
--
"You're an idiot Mal."
I jumped out of my skin from my perch on the icy pavement outside the precinct, a deep regret and anger put on hold.
"You need to look at the bigger picture here. I know the small one sucks, we could have nailed him eventually."
"I can't do anything in the bigger picture. I'm a washed out cop who has been trodden down by those above to the point where I'm a leper."
Their purple eyes flashed under a scowl as they let out a long sigh for my benefit.
"Get your head out of your arse this isn't a lone gunman waiting for death by one last gunfight. Do you want to know why I accepted working with you?"
I kept silent, honestly I cared as much as if they asked whether I wanted a purple rhino as a pet, the thought had not crossed my mind.
"None of the other robots will work with me. I'm not designed to be the same as them I was thrown in as a bargain work assignment, give the force a bit of military training into the mix. I have a contract of employment, they have a receipt makes it awkward and well working with a human is impossible without a lynching rising to mind."
I just stared blankly like a dead fish trying to absorb this, apparently I looked as dumb as the fish because Kay continued.
"So I'm a leper like you boss, except at least when you're off duty you can be another drunk arsehole no one wants to hurt. Still you'll find there are a lot of lepers out there who will help you out."
The soft smile made words form on my lips that died in my throat, how do you apologise sincerely for something you do not control? Kay cut me off, for which I am thankful.
"Go on, go get wasted. Tomorrow we'll get back to work."
Now that made the most sense out of all they said.
--
It seemed I always ended up at the peak of an emotion when a case came to its conclusion, this time it was a deep depression. The whiskey in my hand was a drop in the ocean compared to the amount inside me and it was not even midday yet.
"You shouldn't do this to yourself. You're not a fish you'll drown."
Grace had found me. I didn't ask how she was here beside me how she had found out about this quiet case, why she kept approaching me over and over again, it was getting to be a habit that when I was at my best or worst she was my companion. I doubted I would ever know the answer to any of it, that girl has more secrets than the beach has washed up junk.
"Well what else are you meant to do with your sorrows." I slurred draining my glass and attempting to refill it with the bottle but her hands stopped me.
"What happened?"
I squinted at her looking for a notebook, nothing no obvious record keeping.
"You can't solve it when a higher power intervenes." I pointed to the ceiling with a long finger before looking at my salvation in a bottle ignoring her.
"So it was one of the Citadel? Not the Arsonist?"
"She didn't do crap. You can't publish any of this so I'll tell you. It was the head honcho." And she knew what case I was on marvellous, a small nasty voice noted that she used to work with old Alf Jones.
"The Mayor?"
I gave a dark chuckle managing to disentangle the bottle from her limp fingers, damn so little left of everything.
"He hasn't got any real power. He's a puppet. No I'm talking about Alf. He's good at controlling things from a distance and he knew about the Whiskey, no one else did other than Kay and the Doc who I trust explicitly."
Her soft face twisted into a frown it was like watching a puppy try to attack its tail.
"You sure about that. I mean one of them is a robot could get talked into anything..."
Grace must be a comedian because she had me chuckling once more.
"A week ago I might have agreed with you but I think its high time I got to knowing them better, tricksy little bastards. One day they'll take over this city and when that happens I'll be standing behind them out of the way of the charge. Kay won't say a word."
"The Fat Man will be gone back to where ever he came from and so has the mysterious Blake. Whatever they are covering up its big."
"You going to do something about it?"
My smile was wide, feline not dissimilar to the crooks who had escaped me this week. If she worked with them it was a warning if not it was the unadorned truth.
"Let's just say if you get in my way Grace you won't be walking away safely."
{The Baby Doll Rescue}
Most days start rough, I crawl out of bed before the sun rises after going to bed long after even the neon signs have stopped shining. Its often noisy and nasty especially when I hear the distinctive knock of my partner at the door all smartly dressed while I look like a crumpled diner napkin. Not needing sleep has its perks, for me coffee with a bit of Dutch courage mixed in has to do the work.
That oddly quiet morning there wasn't time for coffee. The knock came but the figure in front of me was not the carefully uniformed purple eyed menace. Kay was rough they wore street clothes crumpled up and full of holes the size of dimes which oozed black liquid. The shine was gone and all was rust as they collapsed into my nearest chair a strong hand grabbing my wrist to the point where it creaked.
"Shit. Kay we need to get you to a doctor." I exclaimed before they wound up to speak. It was as though they couldn't hear me where they were.
"They got the little girl. I tried to stop them but they had a gun to her head and I wasn't fast enough."
The words spilled out like the liquid spilling onto my once clean floor. Their eyes shone lavender beams through me. I felt my damsel in distress reflex kick in even as I knew that was exactly what they weren't but there was a girl in need somewhere. Kay had never lied to me, I doubted they would start now by shooting themselves through like a colander for nothing and nobody.
"Slow down. Tell me from the beginning while we take you to get fixed."
Kay sighed then releasing my wrist, gathering back themselves to the cool smart mouthed bastard I knew.
"Yeah sure. We'll go see the Doc, i'm not trusting the company mechanic to burn my beautiful shirt here."
The smile was small and bitter but enough for now. I dragged them to my car where the story spilled out as I drove as fast as I could through the morning jam without killing any of the men on dust carts.
"Elle, her name is Elle. She's got a smile like sunshine on snow and enough curiosity to discover a whole new world. I meet up with her every evening, we go for a walk or to some new exciting place, but tonight they were waiting and they took her away."
"Sounds like you're in love."
"Like a parent for a child. She's two months old."
"Two months!!" I hate to admit it but I got one of the dustmen's shins. "A damn baby? They took a baby! We can get the whole force out on this."
I could feel the other shoe dropping before I hit the brakes in front of the station.
"No we can't its why I came to you.. She's an unregistered AI and you're the only one I trust to help me get her back."
--
"An unregistered AI?" I whispered as we headed through the morgue bay at the back. I felt as cold inside as the stiffs we held on ice back there. I wonder if I looked as grey as they did, my partner was too preoccupied to comment.
"Where the hell did she come from? There are so many regs on you guys let alone blokes with big guns at the labs that slap you together that none of you should be unregistered."
I hate to admit it but there was a growing panic to my normally cool and calm demeanour. Death, politicians and romance often left me angry at the worst but AI's. Well knowing my partner here had not settled my qualms about an uprising, just changed which side of the fence I would be rallying with.
Kay laughed that same bitter laugh I had grown to cherish. They found my uneasiness a never ending well of mirth as it came with a helping of no ill will and a well fought against prejudice.
"Just get me to the Doc and i'll explain." They sputtered as I got them inside and onto a bench as a familiar voice reprimanded me like a naughty school child caught sticking tacks on the teachers chair.
"Mal. What in the high heavens are you doing sneaking into my domain?" His hair was wilder than ever, it seemed a haircut had been pushed back once again.
Doc looked severely annoyed though his face etched into new lines of worry as he spotted Kay and began to shuffle them into his own cubby hole. A room that no one dared enter, the windows obscured by piles of paper work and known to emit odd clouds of smoke at random intervals.
"No not here, come on we'll have to be quick about it." The way his room was organised and how Kay found a familiar spot told me this wasn't the first emergency visit to the Doc. I was injured by that, my partner keeping dangerous secrets from me, we were meant to trust each other weren't we?
"Thanks Dr Clueless." Kay smiled, which only engraved the lines further into his face as he grabbed materials and cut open their shirt. I averted my eyes. It felt wrong to look at first but when they spoke I was drawn back to those purple pools, my eyes tracing upwards unusually slowly.
"There are at least three ways an AI can be unregistered. Firstly broken products with defects are often just chucked onto the scrap pile, some escape or are stolen to be rigged for good money. Elle isn't one of them."
"Too much sunshine in her smile." I butted in as the Doc grabbed a soldering iron and received a stoic nod from his patient. I was looking at their bare flesh then, there were older pock marks. I half wanted to reach out and trace them, but that was too intimate a thing to do. Just like the strange jealousy I felt as I watched the way the Doc worked so responsively with them. Still he didn't get to receive the smile they gave me, if Elle was supposedly sunshine, Kay was the Moon. Shining in the darkness, reflecting back the harsh light of day in a way that made everything softer and easier to take in.
"Second option is they are a prototype, prototypes tend to go unregistered at the very least till they are tested. In fact i'm not officially registered myself for this reason."
I did a double take but just as I attempted to interrupt Kay continued after a low hiss of pain from the soldering.
"I'm working with a criminal. I shoulda known after last weeks bust with the hot dog peddler, all that evidence you destroyed." I joked.
"Hey i'm not the one who decided that taking twenty hot dogs into a hungry police station unsealed was a good way of gathering evidence." They shook their head the smile eclipsing itself back into the worry. At least they kept their expression honest with me if nothing else.
"The third option is the least likely but its where Elle comes from. Sometimes people outside the companies make AI's.."
The Doc stiffened at Kay's words. His eyes questioning their decision to tell me with a large amount of derision.
"Elle's yours Doc?"
"No Mal." He replied to me shortly, as skittish as a new born colt. His hand tightened on the soldering iron as mine eased toward my gun. Kay's small hand eased in over his lowering the device.
"He's okay Doc." Kay said softly, a voice like silk on satin. "Though he's being honest Elle's not his. He has little Belle."
I watched hawkishly the way they moved their lips the careful tilt of their head. I had seen it before when talking to a victims family. That contained anger and sadness. That emotion that was more than words or actions. A terrifying force to be reckoned with.
"Elle's mine. I made her. And I will do anything to get her back. Absolutely anything."
--
"You have a daughter." I was really playing the dumb fool today, repeating sentences like a toddler learning the alphabet. "A daughter you've never told me about."
"Do you need to sit down?" Kay asked as they caused a small landslide retrieving a musty shirt that had the bonus of being a lot more intact than their bullet riddled decor.
"I just, I'm fine. Why didn't you tell me?"
"You don't tell me everything. What about the thing that's in your closet? Why should I tell you everything?" The warning snap behind the coolness pushed my righteousness straight out the window to splat on the pavement. I sighed and brought myself back to the case at hand.
"So where do we start partner?"
"We need to see the other young ones."
--
It seems I am a big fat sucker. The kind of sucker who ends up calling in sick, using up precious sick leave to stand outside a dingy apartment waiting for a door to be opened while I stand in awkward silence with an impatient AI. Kay was actually twitchy, their feet tapping a tango out on the bare floorboards. After a long while the door in front of us creaked open a crack. A shining eyeball eying us from the shadows.
"I'm sorry but could you tell me what business you have here." His voice was clipped almost to British tones.
"Twelve just open the door this is important." Kay replied, holding back their impatience barely.
"Oh its you Kay!" He exclaimed closing the door excitedly before ushering us in. "Where's Elle? We were meant to be going all three of us to the Museum today, some big display about heroes of the city."
He chirped, like a bird. Bobbing round us as he guided us to chairs. Kay didn't sit so neither did I. Instead they reached out placing a hand on his shoulder and making him sit. They started slow so I kept my mouth shut, my gaze registering finally something I thought a statue at first until they blinked up at me.
"I'll answer you in a moment. First I need to know if you've been followed lately, specifically by humans with metal augments in their skin."
"I think so.. Why are you asking this Kay? Where's Elle? Whats going on?" His voice raised in pitch. I guess that was his nervous tell, we all have one. Except maybe my partner.
"Elle's been taken." It came after a long pause where all eyes fell on Kay. It was an itchy silence, full of invisible ants crawling over your skin.
His face scrunched as the words hit home, a total ball of panic. Then there was a sound like a bulb breaking and he collapsed, a puppet with their strings cut. The blue girl just stared in shock.
"Damn it. Belle's meant to be the one who needs emotional dampers."
"I think that just means i'm more used to this." The girl had a soft voice, child like not quite what I would imagine from someone so alien looking. She knelt down beside Twelve fiddling with a panel she opened in his wrist. He whirred back into life, the girls hand not leaving his.
"Twelve you need to tell them about the men you kept spotting."
"Men?" He seemed bleary eyed even as his speech remained even. I wanted to help but felt like a mouse in a crowd of elephants.
"Oh the ones with the metal in their skin and one with purple eyes like you but still a man of flesh.."
"Do you know their names? Where they come from?"
"Yes and Yes." He smiled happy to help, but his eyes still muzzy and his hand tight on Belle's. "In fact I can show you now. They're based in the warehouse across the road."
--
The nursery outing was an odd affair. I wanted them to stay behind, they were civilians, they were obvious and technically they were very small children. If we had a yappy dog with us we would have the ultimate combination of idiots about to get killed. Yet the unified front of me and my partner crumbled as they brought up the crucial point that Twelve knew where to go and we didn't.
So here we were outside a large forbidding warehouse hiding in the shadows.
"You're staying out here." Kay shot quietly at the two.
"But.." Twelve began as though he was about to recite an encyclopedia entry.
"No. It's not safe. We'll get her back, stay out here or go home. I don't want to worry about you as well."
They nodded realisation seemed to have finally dawned as the motherly words hit them. Was this how Kay was with Elle? I guess I would have to see.
"Mal."
I nodded following as Kay picked the lock of the back door open.
Inside we climbed the back stairs up to a balcony office trying to move to a place we could hear voices coming from. Each creak of the floor boards was like an explosion of sound, each breath I took a clap of thunder. It was so tense I could use the emotions in the room to string a grand piano.
After the trek f a life time we could peep through the window to the gathering inside the little office. A man like an evil wizard out of a children's book, long silver hair and beard with sharp glasses perched on a strong nose behind which peered angry purple eyes. He was scowling across the desk at one of the five cyborg meshes in the room. This one was different he stood a little taller and his limbs were painted black while the others were silver and slack jawed like they were sleep walking.
"Are you sure this was worth it?" The black cyborg asked. "Its not a bad unit but she isn't exactly practical for combat. Especially with the pacifist core inside there.. If you let me replace it with.."
"No. She is perfect for this job." The purple eyed man snapped his gaze drifting to behind him where a teenage girl sat shackled to the wall, she was reasonably pretty, but as the cyborg said didn't look anything special at first glance. Except now my partner was vibrating with tension ready to pounce. I caught their gaze away and shook my head. They nodded back but remained tense. Mumma bear ready to murder them all.
"What is most special other than the way she blends with the population is that this is a creator we've never seen before. Each part hand crafted.. I need them."
He grinned a nasty smile then
"And maybe our guests will help us there."
I felt Kay attack back as a blow took me by surprise from behind. I slid nastily down the stair as the world left me behind.
--
I awoke blearily at the wrong height, legs and back stiff. Just like my average morning except for the copious amount of cable keeping me attached to my chair.
"Ah it seems your friend is awake robot. Maybe you'll be a bit more responsive with him around."
From my view point I could see the old wizard pacing back and forth where Kay was chained to a wall, they were coated in black and congealed red. I could only see one cyborg other than the noir special and they looked pretty roughed up. I crowed with joy.
"You got four of them then partner. Shame about the rest."
Kay laughed. I received a jarring slap, which cut the laughter short.
"Shut up. The only reason we haven't killed you both yet is we need information."
He came over to me. A swishing motion of anger that blurred across my fuzzy gaze. I felt like i'd skipped to one of my unfortunately regular hangovers.
"The robot won't tell us why you are here officer. You're not on the job.. We would have an alert about it if you had. So did its creator send you?"
"Not a clue what you're talking about. We came to investigate the funny smell." I mimed sniffing. "It appears you're the culprit."
"Hmm lets test if you truly don't know it then."
The cyborg stepped out bringing back Elle untied up. She spotted Kay and with a sob started to run right for them.
"Ah. It seems there have been some lies."
"Now Robot.. Who is Kay? The one who made it."
Kay rolled their eyes a laugh at their captor but then a frown of thought. They had a plan.
"If I tell you. You'll take them. Get them to make more?"
He sighed, the condescension at the question was palpable. Just because it was obvious didn't mean it didn't need to be said. "Of course."
"I'll tell you. Give them to you but for a price."
Were they stalling? I started to work on my bindings maybe Kay was trying to get me time to escape or for the cavalry to arrive.
"Your not in a place to bargain." The cyborg snapped. "We'll kill you if you don't."
"But I am. If you destroy me or my partner here you'll never find them." Kay purred. "I want the girl and my partner set free."
"The partner is not much of a loss but the other robot.."
"Will be easily replaced by someone who can make you tailor made AI's who are untraceable. I can tell you it took their creator only two weeks to put her together once they gathered the right tools."
He let a small gasp out before going back to pacing. Then quiet muttering with his friend.
"Fine." He scowled at them."But you tell us where we can find them then we'll leave them."
I wanted to scream not to trust them. That whatever Kay said we would die but my mouth was dry watching Elle in a cyborg grasp, Kay dejected on the wall and no hope on the horizon.
"I made her."
"Liar. No deal it seems." He snapped.
"Check the ID in my pocket. It has my designation with the numbers you found."
He checked. Then he smiled. I wanted to punch everyone of his teeth out.
"Don't think about it." Kay growled, stopping him as he was about to motion my death most likely.
"I will kill myself if you don't leave them safe. Then no profit for you."
He sighed changing the motion to remove Kay still chained from the wall. The world was treacle and I was drowning. It couldn't end like this.
"Look after her and yourself." Kay yelled to me as they were dragged off. I struggled at my bindings the cord cutting into my flesh as I chucked my weight forward only managing to push myself onto the floor with a nasty crunch of cartilage and wood. I could feel my nose bleeding, mixing with the tears streaming from my eyes.
"Kay!" I yelled but they just took them away. My partner. One of the only people in the city who thought of me at all. One of the only ones who would risk standing near a man with the sword of a conspiracy dangling above his head and they were gone, taken.
"Man up." The purple eyed man laughed, kneeling beside me. So close I could taste his breath. "You've got what you came for. And that's more than we wanted to give."
He left with his entourage then, leaving me and the bedraggled Elle in the emptiness. Her small fingers untied me from the chair. The baby girl held me tight as we both cried. No sugar coating it. I cared. And anyone who wants to take the piss out of that deserves more than hell.
--
"You're looking rough Mal. Nose a bit more crooked." It was her. Grace.
"I swear you must be my conscience with how often you crop up." I downed another shot of Whiskey before turning. It was only my second and it would be my last tonight.
"I'm real enough Detective." She returned with a scowl crinkling up her porcelain smooth skin. It may have been me but she seemed colder more distant each time we met.
"I hear you got rid of your partner."
"No." I growled. It was still too soon, too sore a gap to poke. It always would be. "They were kidnapped."
"No one else at the station believes that. They reckon you ripped it apart and sold them for scrap." There was a smugness, a cynicalness that had permeated her. She was becoming one of them, a tabloid journalist through and through. Chasing ambulances and pain.
"Their name is Kay. They are a person not an it." I turned to watch her, noting the bags under her eyes, the long sleeves she itched at. She had been broken by the city. "I will get them back"
"Hey Barkeep a shot for the lady." He pushed across a whiskey and handed it to her as I gathered my coat.
"You're broken Grace, this helps the pain a little but honestly you should run out of town." I said it softly but she returned hackles up, the venom slipping into her voice.
"Is that a threat? You going to hurt me like you hurt it?"
I smiled wryly. "Kay saved me. Maybe someone will save you if you're lucky. Now excuse me I have an appointment with my niece and her friends. She's a good girl. Got a smile like sunshine."
Most days start rough, I crawl out of bed before the sun rises after going to bed long after even the neon signs have stopped shining. Its often noisy and nasty especially when I hear the distinctive knock of my partner at the door all smartly dressed while I look like a crumpled diner napkin. Not needing sleep has its perks, for me coffee with a bit of Dutch courage mixed in has to do the work.
That oddly quiet morning there wasn't time for coffee. The knock came but the figure in front of me was not the carefully uniformed purple eyed menace. Kay was rough they wore street clothes crumpled up and full of holes the size of dimes which oozed black liquid. The shine was gone and all was rust as they collapsed into my nearest chair a strong hand grabbing my wrist to the point where it creaked.
"Shit. Kay we need to get you to a doctor." I exclaimed before they wound up to speak. It was as though they couldn't hear me where they were.
"They got the little girl. I tried to stop them but they had a gun to her head and I wasn't fast enough."
The words spilled out like the liquid spilling onto my once clean floor. Their eyes shone lavender beams through me. I felt my damsel in distress reflex kick in even as I knew that was exactly what they weren't but there was a girl in need somewhere. Kay had never lied to me, I doubted they would start now by shooting themselves through like a colander for nothing and nobody.
"Slow down. Tell me from the beginning while we take you to get fixed."
Kay sighed then releasing my wrist, gathering back themselves to the cool smart mouthed bastard I knew.
"Yeah sure. We'll go see the Doc, i'm not trusting the company mechanic to burn my beautiful shirt here."
The smile was small and bitter but enough for now. I dragged them to my car where the story spilled out as I drove as fast as I could through the morning jam without killing any of the men on dust carts.
"Elle, her name is Elle. She's got a smile like sunshine on snow and enough curiosity to discover a whole new world. I meet up with her every evening, we go for a walk or to some new exciting place, but tonight they were waiting and they took her away."
"Sounds like you're in love."
"Like a parent for a child. She's two months old."
"Two months!!" I hate to admit it but I got one of the dustmen's shins. "A damn baby? They took a baby! We can get the whole force out on this."
I could feel the other shoe dropping before I hit the brakes in front of the station.
"No we can't its why I came to you.. She's an unregistered AI and you're the only one I trust to help me get her back."
--
"An unregistered AI?" I whispered as we headed through the morgue bay at the back. I felt as cold inside as the stiffs we held on ice back there. I wonder if I looked as grey as they did, my partner was too preoccupied to comment.
"Where the hell did she come from? There are so many regs on you guys let alone blokes with big guns at the labs that slap you together that none of you should be unregistered."
I hate to admit it but there was a growing panic to my normally cool and calm demeanour. Death, politicians and romance often left me angry at the worst but AI's. Well knowing my partner here had not settled my qualms about an uprising, just changed which side of the fence I would be rallying with.
Kay laughed that same bitter laugh I had grown to cherish. They found my uneasiness a never ending well of mirth as it came with a helping of no ill will and a well fought against prejudice.
"Just get me to the Doc and i'll explain." They sputtered as I got them inside and onto a bench as a familiar voice reprimanded me like a naughty school child caught sticking tacks on the teachers chair.
"Mal. What in the high heavens are you doing sneaking into my domain?" His hair was wilder than ever, it seemed a haircut had been pushed back once again.
Doc looked severely annoyed though his face etched into new lines of worry as he spotted Kay and began to shuffle them into his own cubby hole. A room that no one dared enter, the windows obscured by piles of paper work and known to emit odd clouds of smoke at random intervals.
"No not here, come on we'll have to be quick about it." The way his room was organised and how Kay found a familiar spot told me this wasn't the first emergency visit to the Doc. I was injured by that, my partner keeping dangerous secrets from me, we were meant to trust each other weren't we?
"Thanks Dr Clueless." Kay smiled, which only engraved the lines further into his face as he grabbed materials and cut open their shirt. I averted my eyes. It felt wrong to look at first but when they spoke I was drawn back to those purple pools, my eyes tracing upwards unusually slowly.
"There are at least three ways an AI can be unregistered. Firstly broken products with defects are often just chucked onto the scrap pile, some escape or are stolen to be rigged for good money. Elle isn't one of them."
"Too much sunshine in her smile." I butted in as the Doc grabbed a soldering iron and received a stoic nod from his patient. I was looking at their bare flesh then, there were older pock marks. I half wanted to reach out and trace them, but that was too intimate a thing to do. Just like the strange jealousy I felt as I watched the way the Doc worked so responsively with them. Still he didn't get to receive the smile they gave me, if Elle was supposedly sunshine, Kay was the Moon. Shining in the darkness, reflecting back the harsh light of day in a way that made everything softer and easier to take in.
"Second option is they are a prototype, prototypes tend to go unregistered at the very least till they are tested. In fact i'm not officially registered myself for this reason."
I did a double take but just as I attempted to interrupt Kay continued after a low hiss of pain from the soldering.
"I'm working with a criminal. I shoulda known after last weeks bust with the hot dog peddler, all that evidence you destroyed." I joked.
"Hey i'm not the one who decided that taking twenty hot dogs into a hungry police station unsealed was a good way of gathering evidence." They shook their head the smile eclipsing itself back into the worry. At least they kept their expression honest with me if nothing else.
"The third option is the least likely but its where Elle comes from. Sometimes people outside the companies make AI's.."
The Doc stiffened at Kay's words. His eyes questioning their decision to tell me with a large amount of derision.
"Elle's yours Doc?"
"No Mal." He replied to me shortly, as skittish as a new born colt. His hand tightened on the soldering iron as mine eased toward my gun. Kay's small hand eased in over his lowering the device.
"He's okay Doc." Kay said softly, a voice like silk on satin. "Though he's being honest Elle's not his. He has little Belle."
I watched hawkishly the way they moved their lips the careful tilt of their head. I had seen it before when talking to a victims family. That contained anger and sadness. That emotion that was more than words or actions. A terrifying force to be reckoned with.
"Elle's mine. I made her. And I will do anything to get her back. Absolutely anything."
--
"You have a daughter." I was really playing the dumb fool today, repeating sentences like a toddler learning the alphabet. "A daughter you've never told me about."
"Do you need to sit down?" Kay asked as they caused a small landslide retrieving a musty shirt that had the bonus of being a lot more intact than their bullet riddled decor.
"I just, I'm fine. Why didn't you tell me?"
"You don't tell me everything. What about the thing that's in your closet? Why should I tell you everything?" The warning snap behind the coolness pushed my righteousness straight out the window to splat on the pavement. I sighed and brought myself back to the case at hand.
"So where do we start partner?"
"We need to see the other young ones."
--
It seems I am a big fat sucker. The kind of sucker who ends up calling in sick, using up precious sick leave to stand outside a dingy apartment waiting for a door to be opened while I stand in awkward silence with an impatient AI. Kay was actually twitchy, their feet tapping a tango out on the bare floorboards. After a long while the door in front of us creaked open a crack. A shining eyeball eying us from the shadows.
"I'm sorry but could you tell me what business you have here." His voice was clipped almost to British tones.
"Twelve just open the door this is important." Kay replied, holding back their impatience barely.
"Oh its you Kay!" He exclaimed closing the door excitedly before ushering us in. "Where's Elle? We were meant to be going all three of us to the Museum today, some big display about heroes of the city."
He chirped, like a bird. Bobbing round us as he guided us to chairs. Kay didn't sit so neither did I. Instead they reached out placing a hand on his shoulder and making him sit. They started slow so I kept my mouth shut, my gaze registering finally something I thought a statue at first until they blinked up at me.
"I'll answer you in a moment. First I need to know if you've been followed lately, specifically by humans with metal augments in their skin."
"I think so.. Why are you asking this Kay? Where's Elle? Whats going on?" His voice raised in pitch. I guess that was his nervous tell, we all have one. Except maybe my partner.
"Elle's been taken." It came after a long pause where all eyes fell on Kay. It was an itchy silence, full of invisible ants crawling over your skin.
His face scrunched as the words hit home, a total ball of panic. Then there was a sound like a bulb breaking and he collapsed, a puppet with their strings cut. The blue girl just stared in shock.
"Damn it. Belle's meant to be the one who needs emotional dampers."
"I think that just means i'm more used to this." The girl had a soft voice, child like not quite what I would imagine from someone so alien looking. She knelt down beside Twelve fiddling with a panel she opened in his wrist. He whirred back into life, the girls hand not leaving his.
"Twelve you need to tell them about the men you kept spotting."
"Men?" He seemed bleary eyed even as his speech remained even. I wanted to help but felt like a mouse in a crowd of elephants.
"Oh the ones with the metal in their skin and one with purple eyes like you but still a man of flesh.."
"Do you know their names? Where they come from?"
"Yes and Yes." He smiled happy to help, but his eyes still muzzy and his hand tight on Belle's. "In fact I can show you now. They're based in the warehouse across the road."
--
The nursery outing was an odd affair. I wanted them to stay behind, they were civilians, they were obvious and technically they were very small children. If we had a yappy dog with us we would have the ultimate combination of idiots about to get killed. Yet the unified front of me and my partner crumbled as they brought up the crucial point that Twelve knew where to go and we didn't.
So here we were outside a large forbidding warehouse hiding in the shadows.
"You're staying out here." Kay shot quietly at the two.
"But.." Twelve began as though he was about to recite an encyclopedia entry.
"No. It's not safe. We'll get her back, stay out here or go home. I don't want to worry about you as well."
They nodded realisation seemed to have finally dawned as the motherly words hit them. Was this how Kay was with Elle? I guess I would have to see.
"Mal."
I nodded following as Kay picked the lock of the back door open.
Inside we climbed the back stairs up to a balcony office trying to move to a place we could hear voices coming from. Each creak of the floor boards was like an explosion of sound, each breath I took a clap of thunder. It was so tense I could use the emotions in the room to string a grand piano.
After the trek f a life time we could peep through the window to the gathering inside the little office. A man like an evil wizard out of a children's book, long silver hair and beard with sharp glasses perched on a strong nose behind which peered angry purple eyes. He was scowling across the desk at one of the five cyborg meshes in the room. This one was different he stood a little taller and his limbs were painted black while the others were silver and slack jawed like they were sleep walking.
"Are you sure this was worth it?" The black cyborg asked. "Its not a bad unit but she isn't exactly practical for combat. Especially with the pacifist core inside there.. If you let me replace it with.."
"No. She is perfect for this job." The purple eyed man snapped his gaze drifting to behind him where a teenage girl sat shackled to the wall, she was reasonably pretty, but as the cyborg said didn't look anything special at first glance. Except now my partner was vibrating with tension ready to pounce. I caught their gaze away and shook my head. They nodded back but remained tense. Mumma bear ready to murder them all.
"What is most special other than the way she blends with the population is that this is a creator we've never seen before. Each part hand crafted.. I need them."
He grinned a nasty smile then
"And maybe our guests will help us there."
I felt Kay attack back as a blow took me by surprise from behind. I slid nastily down the stair as the world left me behind.
--
I awoke blearily at the wrong height, legs and back stiff. Just like my average morning except for the copious amount of cable keeping me attached to my chair.
"Ah it seems your friend is awake robot. Maybe you'll be a bit more responsive with him around."
From my view point I could see the old wizard pacing back and forth where Kay was chained to a wall, they were coated in black and congealed red. I could only see one cyborg other than the noir special and they looked pretty roughed up. I crowed with joy.
"You got four of them then partner. Shame about the rest."
Kay laughed. I received a jarring slap, which cut the laughter short.
"Shut up. The only reason we haven't killed you both yet is we need information."
He came over to me. A swishing motion of anger that blurred across my fuzzy gaze. I felt like i'd skipped to one of my unfortunately regular hangovers.
"The robot won't tell us why you are here officer. You're not on the job.. We would have an alert about it if you had. So did its creator send you?"
"Not a clue what you're talking about. We came to investigate the funny smell." I mimed sniffing. "It appears you're the culprit."
"Hmm lets test if you truly don't know it then."
The cyborg stepped out bringing back Elle untied up. She spotted Kay and with a sob started to run right for them.
"Ah. It seems there have been some lies."
"Now Robot.. Who is Kay? The one who made it."
Kay rolled their eyes a laugh at their captor but then a frown of thought. They had a plan.
"If I tell you. You'll take them. Get them to make more?"
He sighed, the condescension at the question was palpable. Just because it was obvious didn't mean it didn't need to be said. "Of course."
"I'll tell you. Give them to you but for a price."
Were they stalling? I started to work on my bindings maybe Kay was trying to get me time to escape or for the cavalry to arrive.
"Your not in a place to bargain." The cyborg snapped. "We'll kill you if you don't."
"But I am. If you destroy me or my partner here you'll never find them." Kay purred. "I want the girl and my partner set free."
"The partner is not much of a loss but the other robot.."
"Will be easily replaced by someone who can make you tailor made AI's who are untraceable. I can tell you it took their creator only two weeks to put her together once they gathered the right tools."
He let a small gasp out before going back to pacing. Then quiet muttering with his friend.
"Fine." He scowled at them."But you tell us where we can find them then we'll leave them."
I wanted to scream not to trust them. That whatever Kay said we would die but my mouth was dry watching Elle in a cyborg grasp, Kay dejected on the wall and no hope on the horizon.
"I made her."
"Liar. No deal it seems." He snapped.
"Check the ID in my pocket. It has my designation with the numbers you found."
He checked. Then he smiled. I wanted to punch everyone of his teeth out.
"Don't think about it." Kay growled, stopping him as he was about to motion my death most likely.
"I will kill myself if you don't leave them safe. Then no profit for you."
He sighed changing the motion to remove Kay still chained from the wall. The world was treacle and I was drowning. It couldn't end like this.
"Look after her and yourself." Kay yelled to me as they were dragged off. I struggled at my bindings the cord cutting into my flesh as I chucked my weight forward only managing to push myself onto the floor with a nasty crunch of cartilage and wood. I could feel my nose bleeding, mixing with the tears streaming from my eyes.
"Kay!" I yelled but they just took them away. My partner. One of the only people in the city who thought of me at all. One of the only ones who would risk standing near a man with the sword of a conspiracy dangling above his head and they were gone, taken.
"Man up." The purple eyed man laughed, kneeling beside me. So close I could taste his breath. "You've got what you came for. And that's more than we wanted to give."
He left with his entourage then, leaving me and the bedraggled Elle in the emptiness. Her small fingers untied me from the chair. The baby girl held me tight as we both cried. No sugar coating it. I cared. And anyone who wants to take the piss out of that deserves more than hell.
--
"You're looking rough Mal. Nose a bit more crooked." It was her. Grace.
"I swear you must be my conscience with how often you crop up." I downed another shot of Whiskey before turning. It was only my second and it would be my last tonight.
"I'm real enough Detective." She returned with a scowl crinkling up her porcelain smooth skin. It may have been me but she seemed colder more distant each time we met.
"I hear you got rid of your partner."
"No." I growled. It was still too soon, too sore a gap to poke. It always would be. "They were kidnapped."
"No one else at the station believes that. They reckon you ripped it apart and sold them for scrap." There was a smugness, a cynicalness that had permeated her. She was becoming one of them, a tabloid journalist through and through. Chasing ambulances and pain.
"Their name is Kay. They are a person not an it." I turned to watch her, noting the bags under her eyes, the long sleeves she itched at. She had been broken by the city. "I will get them back"
"Hey Barkeep a shot for the lady." He pushed across a whiskey and handed it to her as I gathered my coat.
"You're broken Grace, this helps the pain a little but honestly you should run out of town." I said it softly but she returned hackles up, the venom slipping into her voice.
"Is that a threat? You going to hurt me like you hurt it?"
I smiled wryly. "Kay saved me. Maybe someone will save you if you're lucky. Now excuse me I have an appointment with my niece and her friends. She's a good girl. Got a smile like sunshine."