Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (25 page)

"I'm not sure how to respond to that since my coat doesn't stink."

"That's why you need this coat rack, so your new coat doesn't become stinky. You can't have clients seeing you without a proper coat rack. They'll think you're cheap and won't hire you. Did I tell you that I have all your messages organized and prioritized so you can start making calls?"

"And you need to get paid."

"Good, you were listening to me."

"Detective Friendly," I said, looking at him on my video-phone. "I didn't think I'd be hearing from you again."

"We detectives have to stick together, you know. I rang for you a couple of times and your secretary said you were away for two weeks. Glad you're back. I wanted to check in and see if you heard anything new on the Charlie case."

"No, why?"

"You know how legal stuff can be. You want to make sure all loose ends are tied up or the whole legal stuff can take forever. My firm doesn't get paid until the case criminally and civilly is closed."

"Is that so?"

"You'll soon find that out if you're getting into the biz."

"Well, I was done with the Charlie case like four weeks ago. You're the only one who has brought it up since then. Should I be looking into it again?"

"No, no. no. Forget I called. I only wanted to check in."

"How did you know I was back?"

"I didn't. It's a Monday, so I took a chance."

"Okay."

"Thanks for taking my call."

"Don't mention it."

I hung up the video-phone.

"PJ!"

"He called every Monday you were gone."

"Why? What did he say?"

"He wanted to know if I knew where you were."

"And?"

"I told him you were out of town."

"He's obviously watching the offices."

"Why do you say that? He's called every Monday."

"No detective does what he does. Checking in with me. Keeping tabs on me is what he's doing."

"Why?"

"Tell me about Box. What did your research show?"

"How do you find these people? Box is a scumbag. How can he have a detective license with his record? What do you want with him? All he does is work for bad people."

"Then I'll be going to visit Mr. Box."

"What about the messages?"

"I'll make calls from the road. If it's promising, I'll call you and you can have them come into the office."

"Okay, because we need some paying clients in here. I need my money."

"You weren't getting money before."

"I wasn't employed before. When you are employed, you get money. I'm French. We like to shop, so get the paying clients so you can pay me. But don't get shot before you do it."

Chapter 39: China Doll

There were pockets in the city that had vortexes--that's what everyone called them. Wherever the rain came down between two heat vents these spiraling circles of water would be created that were fun to look at. Kids loved to run through them, pretending to pass through dimensions or time like in sci-fi movies.

Well, there was one right in front of Eye Candy. I came through the vortex with my new tan coat flapping, my new tan fedora pulled down just right on my head, and I could see Dot and the ladies had already seen me. Damn, I knew I looked cool. I opened the door and stepped inside. Dot, her boss Prima Donna, and her fellow fashionistas were standing there like a pack grinning at me.

The real reason for my swagger was the post-Phishy-shooting-me perception exercise, which was a secret I'd take to the grave when it came to Dot. I felt that my chest was made out of steel. Though I wished I had a darker complexion like Run-Time or the Good Kosher Man because that area of my chest was still red and tender, but that was easy enough to hide.

"Well, look at you," Prima said. "We were starting to wonder if you had gone off-world and left your fiancé behind."

"I knew where he was," Dot interjected. "So you're finished with the box?" she asked me.

"I'm finished," I answered.

"And?"

"And nothing. Other than...tonight is date night."

The women began laughing.

"Date night?" Dot asked incredulously. "You lock yourself up in your place for over two weeks, show up at my job trying to look suave, and now it's date night all of a sudden."

"Well...yeah," I answered. "The hover-cab is waiting."

Prima glanced at Dot.

"He's got spunk, China," Goat Girl said, half-laughing. "Gotta give him that."

"China Doll, you are excused for date night," Prima said to Dot.

"Are you sure? Because I'm not sure I'm sure."

"She's sure," I said. "Guess where we're going?" It wasn't just the ladies, but all the customers within earshot wanted to know. "The Booty Shaker."

Dot let out a yell, jumped up, and ran to the back room.

"Why doesn't my man take me to classy dance joints?" Pinkie asked aloud.

"I don't know," Cyan answered. "Mine doesn't either. I'm thinking we got the wrong kind of man. Hey, Cruz, you got any male friends of the hetero persuasion like you and single? Pinkie and I need to trade up."

"Me too," Goat Girl added.

"I'll put the word out," I said.

Dot reappeared with her purse, which, as always, matched her outfit exactly, of course. "Let's go," she said to me.

Getting a hover-taxi was always like playing Russian Roulette. You never knew what you'd get. Would you get a driver who knew the city and would get you where you wanted fast? Would you get a scammer who'd take the longest possible way to charge you absolutely the most he could get away with? Would you get the idiot newbie who had no clue where he was going? Dot and I got none of that; we got the rudest bum possible.

Why didn't I call Run-Time? One of my corporate clients (who paid his bill promptly) had an uncle. The uncle owned this hover-cab company and it was part of my arrangement to get a good review and more referrals. So here Dot and I were--the first and last time.

"Driver," I said.

Dot didn't see it but I did. There was no reason whatsoever we should have been in the sky lane we were in. The guy was either lost or trying to gouge us on fares. We were heading under a bridge and I knew if I didn't get control of the situation fast, things were going to get very bad.

"Driver," I repeated. "I need you to slow down and pull to the side."

The driver either was ignoring me or had music playing in his ears.

Dot saw the approaching bridge and screamed out. Now, the driver reacted and glanced back at us.

"Pull the cab to the side and stop!" I yelled.

"What's happening?" he yelled back.

At this point, Dot's eyes were closed tight, her teeth were clenched and she was in the beginning stages of a violent fit.

"Pull the cab to the side!"

"Why? What's happening?"

My anger took me and I pulled my piece from my jacket and pounded on the glass partition between the driver and the passenger seats. I grabbed it and slid it to the right so the only thing separating us was his seat. In the rearview mirror, I saw the driver's eyes had opened to the size of baseballs as he knew what I was about to do. He jerked the steering wheel to the right and took the hover-cab out of the main sky-lane to the side and stopped just as I was about to yank his head back through the space between the front and back.

"Move into the passenger seat!" I yelled.

"Are you crazy? We're three hundred feet in the air..."

"Put it in park!"

He continued to protest but I had already opened the passenger door and was out, my foot on the side steps. I clung to the hover-cab as I looked down, then kept moving. We were more than thirty stories hovering in the air, as every kind of hover-car and van whipped past us. I opened the driver side and was ready to pummel him, but he was already in the passenger seat.

"Don't shoot me, mister. You can have the hover-cab."

I jumped into the driver seat and fastened the seat belt. "You bum! Why didn't you do what I said?"

"I'm sorry."

"I should shoot you."

"You can take it."

"I own a classic Ford Pony free and clear. Why would I want your dirty ol' hover-cab!"

"You can take it."

I disengaged the air-brake, looked into traffic, and pushed the cab into drive. I took the cab down to the lowest sky-lane--one story up, then move to practically touching the ground.

"Dot!"

The driver looked at me and then to the backseat where Dot was fighting a complete mental collapse.

"It's okay. We stopped and we're close to the ground. We're close to the club so it makes no sense to turn around now. Come up to the front and get in your position." I leaned towards the driver with menace and yelled, "Get in the back!"

The driver leaped out of the seat and climbed over the seat into the back.

It took Dot awhile to calm down and slowly come out of it. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked around. The driver was quiet as a mouse but watched both of us. Dot climbed into the passenger seat next to me and reclined it as far back as it would go, as the dumb driver moved to behind my seat.

"It's okay," I said. "I'm putting it in drive, but I'll go slow."

The one thing drivers in this city hated more than hover-bikers was slow drivers. They hated them with a passion. They'd shoot them out of the sky or have someone else do it if they could legally get away with it. We were the slow driver. I never exceeded fifty miles an hour with an uproar of honking hover-cars all around us. We were far from the fast lane, but it didn't matter. We were a moving hazard.

As we passed under the bridge, Dot closed her eyes again and gripped the armrests with all her might. We were under, through, and out. Dot's eyes opened slightly and her breathing started to get back to normal. When we were far enough away, I put it in gear and we were off. I was up and into the fast lane. We made it to Booty Shakers in no time.

Booty Shakers wasn't just a dance club. It was one of the platinum dance clubs and you didn't set foot inside unless you planned to dance all night long non-stop and have obscene amounts of fun. No one ever left there unsatisfied and when you did, you were ten to twenty pounds lighter from all that sweating on the dance floor.

I pulled up to their valet service, self-park was not allowed, and immediately got out before the valet could get to the drivers' side and then opened the back passenger door. I yanked the driver out.

"Please don't shoot me. You can take it."

I leaned close to him. "When my girlfriend was a little girl, she was a go cart champion. Won races all over the country. At one of those races, they had this brand new course, the hardest course ever for the kiddies. One of the obstacles was a path that went under a bridge. Well, you can see where I'm going with this story. Those kiddies were going around the course at 80 miles per hour. My girlfriend was in the lead but she had to win and pushed her go-cart to 100 miles per hour. Her go-cart hit a bump and jumped the course just as she went under the bridge. She was decapitated. Lucky for her and me, there was a medical team right there and they were able to save her. Her neck and all up to her shoulder is bionic. So you can imagine what such a trauma like that would do to a child, especially when you remember very clearly your head lying on the ground and your entire body in the go-cart ten feet away from you. You can imagine what going under any bridge as an adult could do to you. You could imagine what a driver not stopping his dirty hover-cab and ignoring her boyfriend's call to pull to the side and stop could do."

"Mister, your point has been made in the clearest possible way. There's no charge for the fare."

Dot didn't want to go in the club, and she was in no mood for dancing or any kind of fun.

"Let's just go inside and call another cab," I said.

"Cruz, I'm not going to fall for it. I'm not dancing. I want to go home."

"I understand. Let's go inside and I'll call Flash. He has a spotless cab and he's probably on duty now."

"Cruz, it's not going to work. I'm not dancing."

"Yeah, I know. We'll go in and call Flash."

"Where's your mobile?"

"I left it at home. It's date night. Where's yours?"

"I'm not falling for it, Cruz. I'm not dancin' and I want to go home."

"Let's call Flash then."

We walked inside and I immediately told the bouncers that we were only going inside to make a call. They were fine with that, as long as we paid the full price. I handed them my pre-paid tickets and we were in. Booty Shakers first got you with the beat. The music was so loud that the sound waves practically levitated you up in the air and the beat forced your feet to mover whether you wanted to or not.