Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (9 page)

The Concrete Mama was a piece of work--architecturally speaking. It was like chunk of granite set down on Earth from space. It was a no-frills monolith tower of legacy housing. If there was ever a planetary shockwave from a nuclear blast or an asteroid crash, you could bet that the Concrete Mama would still be standing. It was ugly but it would be here until the end of time in its ugliness. It was also my home for fifteen years.

My legacy housing was willed to me from my maternal grandparents. My parents had their own so it was passed to me. Those of us who lived in the Concrete Mama were not rich and we weren't the working-class. We were just legacy babies--laborers. We had free housing for life, made a meager living to cover any other incidentals, and nothing more. I hated it here, but free is free.

Unlike modern buildings, you couldn't take the parking elevators directly to your floor. You had to go up to the lobby first and then take the elevator capsules there to your floor. The lobby was a cesspool of sidewalk johnnies and looky-lous, all minding your business. I despised it. I exited the parking elevators and walked to the residential elevators as fast as I could, ignoring everyone.

I waited as I always did, in a huff. The lobby was always a madhouse. Strangers all over the place, watching you, looking to see what you were carrying, and staring at anyone with you, if there was anyone with you. The indignity of it all. Lobby scum. It was like an episode of the Island of the Doctor Moreau with animal people crawling around, hopping around, chasing their own tails, and sniffing each other's private parts.

"Did that girl of yours find you?"

I turned and it was Punch Judy. I almost didn't answer her.

"She did."

"Tell her not to call me! I am not your personal secretary!"

The elevator arrived and I got in and pushed the button to force-close the doors. Punch Judy got mad and proceeded to curse at me in French.

The other thing I hated was that I was halfway up in the building. If I had been even one more floor up, I'd be in the premium section where the apartments were double the size and almost as good as the penthouse levels. C'est la vie, as Punch Judy would say. Such was my unlucky life.

The hallways were always dimly lit, but I never felt uneasy walking to my place. I reached my suite--apartment 9732. With a sigh of relief, I pulled out my key, fastened by chain to my belt, and unlocked my deadbolt. Immediately, a blast of air and mist enveloped me to eradicate all those external germs (more on that later). I was really home now.

I laid on my bed with my right forearm on my forehead. I thought about what Run-Time had said. He was right, of course. You create your own destiny by altering your own perception of things. Maybe I did over-exaggerate a bit earlier. Besides Punch Judy, there was only three other sidewalk johnnies in the main lobby, and the only sniffing they were doing was from the cigarettes they were smoking. I chose to view the situation as negative, so it was. I always got a little soft before I fell asleep and it always took me awhile to do that. It was the sounds of pouring rain from my side table radio that always helped me sleep best. The Concrete Mama's walls were so thick that even if there was a hurricane force rainstorm outside, you wouldn't hear a thing. That's why I had the sounds radio. The rain could always lull me to sleep. Unlike most of the population, I didn't hate it. I hated the lack of sun, but not the rain.

"Capitalize," I heard Run-Time's voice in my mind. "Capitalize on your opportunities, or someone else will."

I guess it was better to focus on a friend's life advice rather than the fact my future parents-in-law threatened to kill me by poison or knife-attack at the dinner table. But to me opportunities were like the elusive electric butterfly in a video game. You see it, but you can never get to it. It's the programmer's demented idea of a joke. Like the story of Prometheus. Eat all that heavenly food in the temple that you want, only a flock of cannibalistic harpies will rip your guts out with their claws afterward. Only a lucky few can ever really capture the real opportunities. After all, this was Metropolis, not fantasy land. Fairy tales are as rare in this city as a full day of direct sunlight.

"Yeah?"

I had answered the phone, with the video off, and was talking, but my conscious mind had not yet engaged. My eyes were still closed and I could have been dreaming actually.

"Cruz," Run-Time's voice continued. "I need a favor."

"Yeah."

"I need someone to kick around a bit and do some investigating."

"Investigating?"

"Technically, anyone can do it, but I want a third party. Someone reliable with street smarts and can do things discreetly. I thought of you. You're not on any gigs now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Come on down to the office tomorrow morning."

"Yeah."

"And Cruz."

"Yeah?"

"Take a look at the newspapers before you come in. The story about an Easy Chair Charlie and his ill-advised shoot-out with the police."

"Yeah."

I was a true vocabulary virtuoso when I was half asleep.

The electric roller coaster of life was about to snatch me.

Part Four

A Case or Not?

Chapter 10: Fat Nat

Run-Time's business empire, Let It Ride Enterprises, took up most of its monolith tower in the trendy, but wealthy, Peacock Hills on Electric Boulevard. There were the business districts of "old" money and there were the "new" money business districts like Peacock Hills. There wasn't a president or CEO of any business on this street over the age of 45.

Let It Ride's clientele was always treated like royalty, whether they were a foreign dignitary or celebrity, or some working stiff who paid for no more than a simple hover-taxi ride from one end of the block to the other. But I was more than clientele today, I was expected by Founder, President, CEO, and COO, Mr. Run-Time, himself.

He had three VPs and it was the Lebanese female one that escorted me from the lobby after I greeted the reception staff--I was on a first name basis with all three of the receptionists--straight to the Man's office.

Run-Time greeted me with a handshake and a hug as he did with all his friends. It was always as if it were the first time he ever met you, but that was part of his charm.

Run-Time only wore slim fit business suits, the expensive kind, with slim ties, along with his trademark Kangol hat. He had suits to match every color of the natural and synthetic rainbow. Yesterday when he came to see me, he was in greens; today, it was powder blue.

He led me to his
huge
ivory desk, exquisite in every possible way.

The female VP had already moved a third chair to the front of the executive desk next to the two other men who were already seated. I recognized them as soon as I was led into the office. Fat Nat of Joe Blows Smoking Emporium was the bigger man. I wasn't a smoker myself, but if you were part of the classic hover-car restoration or racing scene, you would have set foot in his place. Fat Nat was not fat at all, but I guess Musclebound Nat didn't sound so good. With him was one of his buddies, who I had also seen before, Mr. G Plus, but you called him G. He actually was fat, and had the man-boobs to match. The men stood.

"Fat Nat," I said as I shook his hand. "Mr. G." I shook his hand.

We all took our seats.

"I've seen you before," Fat Nat said.

"Yeah," I answered. "Been to Joe Blows quite a few times. I'm into the hover-car restoration scene and I've done some racing, just for kicks."

Fat Nat nodded with satisfaction.

"Cruz, did you have a chance to read the news?" Run-Time asked.

I leaned forward in my chair. "Easy Chair Charlie is dead?"

"Shot dead by cops," G said. "Well, shot dead in a shoot-out with cops."

Fat Nat looked at Run-Time. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but what can a hover-car hobbyist and some-time sky-racer help us with? We need someone serious on this."

I chose not to be offended. "I may not be as serious as a heart attack, but I've been known to exhibit my share of seriousness."

"Cruz, here, can check around for us," Run-Time defended.

"Why can't it be one of your guys?" Fat Nat asked.

"For the exact same reason you don't want one of your guys involved," Run-Time answered. "None of us can have our names directly connected."

G added, "We need a fall-guy to give us plausible
deniability
."

"It's not like that," Run-Time interjected. "We need a trusted third-party to poke around discreetly."

"Poke around can mean a lot of things," Fat Nat said. "I still don't know why him?"

"Easy Chair Charlie, a mad gunman?" I looked at the men. "Impossible. Easy Chair Charlie was no gun-toting street gangster. He was a numbers guy. I heard he also got into the acquisition business, too, but nothing hardcore criminal. And a shoot-out with police? Impossible. He wasn't stupid or crazy."

"You seem very sure of that," Run-Time said.

"I knew him."

Fat Nat and G glanced at each other.

I answered the question before they could even ask. "I was a client of his." I looked at Fat Nat. "You're in the classic smoking business; I'm in the classic hover-car business. Sometimes you have to be able to get things that aren't available on the local legit market or through regular channels. Someone like Easy Chair Charlie was the guy to get those things for you." I could see Fat Nat nod. "He got me a few hard-to-find and semi-technically-illegal things for my vehicle. Again, nothing hardcore criminal. He was an operator, not a mad gunman. He also was a family man."

G nodded and started pointing as if my words were hanging in the air. "Exactly," he said. "A family man. He would never do such a thing."

"But he did," I said. "Or that's what the papers said happened, because that's what the police say happened. What do you say happened?"

I didn't know quite what to make of these two men staring at me without answering a simple question.

"Am I missing something?" I turned to Run-Time. "You want to hire me to poke around to do what? What is it that you're saying happened that's different from what the papers and the cops are saying?"

"It's nothing mysterious," Run-Time replied calmly. "If he did do what they said, completely contradictory to his nature and good sense, then why? That's what we want you to find out. That's all."

Run-Time placed an envelope on the top of his desk.

"Kick around for a few days and see what you come up with," Run-Time said. "You'll be our detective."

"Is this how they pay detectives? Wad of cash in an envelope?" I asked.

"That's how we're doing it," he continued. "I have a lot of interests with the City, including the police, so I don't want my name anywhere near this. Fat Nat, the same. People got shot up and killed on this thing, so there is also public opinion to contend with. Pro-criminal businesses don't tend to do to well in this city. Fat Nat and I could get hurt bad business-wise if any investigation, no matter how logical, were to get back to us. That's why I told Fat Nat that you were our man. I wouldn't trust this to anyone else."

I leaned forward and took the envelope. "I appreciate that," I said. "I know how important your business is to you. Okay, I'll poke around. No one will ever know anything. It's not like I'm a real detective."

I could see Fat Nat and G glance at each other.

"For this though, you are," Run-Time said.

"Of course." I realized I shouldn't have added my little commentary at the end. "I'll get started. Should I contact you or Fat Nat?"

"Me," Fat Nat answered.

"I'm only the matchmaker between parties on this one," Run-Time said. "Whenever I can help a friend out, I will. And if that help can be provided by another friend, even better."

I stood and the two men shook my hand again. I could see that they weren't particularly thrilled at my involvement. Run-Time's female VP returned to the office--I didn't even notice she had disappeared before--to escort me to the elevator capsule.

When I left Run-Time's, I hopped into my Pony and went straight to Joe Blows on Sweet Street in Old Harlem. I double-parked on the street and waited until I saw the hover-car in question appear in the sky flying into the emporium's own parking structure. I not only knew what Fat Nat looked like, but what his hover-car looked like, too.

"Cruz," I said to the front door girls.

"Cruz?" one of them asked.

"Yeah. Tell Fat Nat that Cruz is here to see him. He'll take the meeting."

One of the three girls disappeared from the front desk to go into the back.

"Looks new," I said.

"Oh yeah," the girl said as she raised her cybernetic hand. "I lost my hand in the shoot-out. I get fitted for the skin next week."