* * *
The Continental was a low, deep building of classic, durable stock. Obed gaped as he stepped on the belt and was whisked down the endless corridor. When they stepped off the track and into the room she indicated, Obed approved. "Some fancy digs. You live here?" The gress nodded her head. Her room was a palace to Obed's eyes. "So is this how you get off like, picking up durtys for illegal sex?"
"Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"
Obed shrugged.
"Don't worry," she said, "I like it."
"Of course you do see, but I don't give my card away to just anybody."
"Good for you, but it's not your precious card I'm interested in."
Obed sat down and put his roid kickers up on her expensive furniture. "I knew you had a bank."
"That's the other thing I like about you." She knocked his feet off her table and sat down where they'd rested, sex dripping from her eyes. "I need a roughneck who needs some money."
"How much like?"
"How much do you need?"
Obed stood, smiled, and wagged his finger. "Uh-uh no. You first see?"
"Sit back down. C'mon, let's negotiate." She took one of his hands in both of hers and pressed it to her breast. Obed let her do it. He let her and then some. His fingers spread and he filled his hand with her. As automatic as pushing a button, she began to swell. "Where's your pleasure?" She took his other hand and applied it to her other breast. They swelled to match, but stopped well short of typical offworld tastes. "Refined, despite yourself," she teased.
He sat down again and took his hands off her tits. "You first."
"Fifty."
"I'm listening." But his tone had taken on a new level of skepticism.
"I've got transport lined up. I've got a destination with a safe house and enough bead put away to live off the grid long enough to disappear. But I've only a very narrow window of time."
"Who holds your license, yeah?"
"You anticipate me."
"Yeah, you're complicated like."
"Her name's Cleo. She runs this hotel."
Obed looked punched. He sucked in his cheeks and blew out the words "Fist me. Cleo Nans?"
She nodded, her eyes narrowing. "For an offworlder you seem to know a few things."
"Wasn't born out there. Listen, if you want help to knock over Cleo Nans I'm gonna need more than fifty hey."
"How much more?"
He thought a moment. "Seventy-five, at least."
But she was shaking her head. "I can't go that high, I've got to have enough to live, or I might as well stay here."
"And why don't you stay here?" He indicated the room and her fancy clothes. "You seem to be sitting plush like."
"Obviously, you've never met Cleo."
He got up and paced around the room. "Where's your valve?" She indicated a corner and he went there. He came back a few seconds later, drying his face on his sleeve. "Let me tell you about me and Cleo."
* * *
She pressed the piece into his hand and he tested its weight. It felt good there. It felt like never putting on a deep suit again, telling his crew and pit chief to massage his kidneys and flushing his system for good of the damned dust. "You have something to test this on?"
She led him into her bath where she assured him he could squeeze off a few and brought him some thawed meat. He hung the meat from a towel rack with a nylon cord on the far side of the bath and aimed the piece directly at it from ten feet away. The trigger action was stiff and, on the first pulse, he nearly dropped it, the vibration was so bad. "Where'd you get this piece, hey?"
"Just something I picked up a long time ago and held on to. You never know when you'll need one." She looked worried.
"Guess you haven't needed it till now, no?" He rubbed his right wrist with his left hand. "It hasn't been lubed in what a couple years?" He looked at the power gauge which had drained to about gone. "Or charged. Not going to be able to get another pulse out of it for ten minutes." He held the piece under his nose and sniffed. Then he put it near her face. "Inhale." She did. "It's got a drip too, see?"
She walked over and picked up the meat slab and held it in front of her. It was pink around the ends and featured a circle, three inches in diameter, faded near the edges and black at its center where it was charred carbon.
The pungent aroma of pulse residue tangled with that of cooked meat and the coolant drip and produced a heady mix. She stood close to him and the scent of her hair made him more light-headed than the drip.
"But it looks dangerous," she said and ran her fingers beneath his shirt, sending electric currents through his suit-pruned skin, "And it works once."
It took him three seconds to overrule his good sense and decide it was worth the risk. This time if he took his shot at Cleo Nans and missed, she'd have him castrated and displayed in the lobby. Either way he figured he'd never work on any lousy offworld drill again. The gress slipped her slender fingers into his pants. He didn't need the convincing, but didn't bother to tell her. Instead he said jokingly, "Where's your card, hey?"
She put her tongue into his mouth and then his ear where she whispered, "Where's yours, durty? You think you're better than everybody else?" She bit his earlobe hard and he pushed her to the floor.
He reached down and ripped the expensive blouse off her customized body. She looked hungry for it. "Yeah," he said, "I guess I do."
* * *
Afterward, he watched her bathe, then, when he was sure she couldn't see him, turned his head and popped another Soothie Q. She was washing orange residue down her thighs and he felt a twinge of guilt. She wasn't so bad, a gress, yeah, but he wasn't in any place to judge her for that. But he knew she was using him and decided that tide turned too. He wouldn't waste any more time feeling guilty about what he'd just done.
She told him Cleo would visit tonight and to expect at least one security guard. If he could resist the urge to shoot the bitch on sight, he should make out nicely. She felt that he needed to be continuously sold on the plan and he did nothing to convince her otherwise. It kept things pleasant. She spoke sweetly and flattering to him, ordered him some new clothes, and bought his dinner. Afterward she offered him a booster and he accepted.
When Nans came through the door it was after midnight and he was hiding in the closet. Cleo looked modified since he'd last seen her, younger, more robust, but with that unmistakable haughty air and cool meanness in her gait. "Where are you, Olly?"
The gress came into the front room dressed in a silk kimono opened near to her navel. She was good, Obed thought, "Olly" was. She looked like she'd been asleep for hours, but was happy to see her pimp and lover.
"Hey Cleo, baby. I'm all sleepy warm. Come see me." Cleo's ape followed the two women into the bedroom. What a job, thought Obed as he slipped out of his hiding place. He waited at the door, figuring he'd give them a few minutes to get started. The ape's guard was bound to be a little lowered by that point.
When he did come through the door Olly was facing him, straddling Cleo's face. Nans' wrists were bound to the bedposts and she didn't see him. The ape did, though. Obed felt a sharp pinch in his neck where the bodyguard had grabbed him and with a strong hold, slammed his head into the wall.
Obed kicked the ape in the balls and then stomped on his toes. The big man doubled over, but was raising a pulser at the same moment. Obed gave him a knee to the chin which took the fight out of him and stomped on the hand that gripped the gun for good measure.
Olly was smiling, but not at him. Her gaze was nowhere in the room and he realized what she was doing—smothering Cleo Nans with her crotch. Nans' legs were kicking and her hips bucked, but Olly dug in and pressed down harder.
Obed said "Stop it hey! Olly, stop it, now like!" But she wasn't hearing him. He reached for her, but she slapped his hands away and warned him with her eyes.
"Back away, durty. This is between me and her."
Obed stepped back and then punched her in the side of her head wit
h the gun in his hand. Olly slumped to the floor. "Sorry, hey, you're not paying me enough for murder." Cleo Nans wore a mix of anger, relief, and confusion. Obed looked closely and saw that her face was slick with sex. He rubbed it into her mouth and nose good. "Cleo, you ugly cunt, hiya hey?"
"Who the fist are you?"
"Let you think on that one a while like. Meantime, I'll be escorting you upstairs and we'll retrieve some goods hey."
"The shit we will. You don't know who you're fisting with."
Obed leaned in close and was it his imagination or was there a slightly orangish hue to the smear that covered her face from her chin to the tip of her nose? "I've got a pretty good idea see." He knelt down on the other side of the bed and checked on Olly. She was out cold. Fist. He hadn't meant to hit her that hard, but she'd surprised him and he'd had to act fast.
Before untying Cleo and after borrowing the bodyguard's jacket, he lashed the big man's wrists and ankles together behind him with a belt and some plastic cuffs he found beside Olly's bed. When the gangstress was free and dressed, they left the apartment and stepped on to the belt for the long ride to the penthouse.
From a casual glance he'd look like just another big man guarding the goods, but he was nervous about other security she was likely to have around. Cleo stared at his face the whole time, picturing how it would look with a dozen new nostrils, no doubt, until she smiled and said, "Wexler." Obed's mouth tightened and he tipped his imaginary hat. "You're junior, huh? Look like him too. Bet you get that a lot."
"Used to, yes."
"Yeah, condolences, but hey, you're almost paid up now that he's not around to run up a higher tab."
"Guess there is a silver lining like."
"Tell you what, Junior. Give over that cute little ray gun and we'll take a good look at the books. Probably square the whole thing in an hour."
Obed sneered. "That what you used to tell him, too hey?"
"Hey, kid, that was just business. I do what I do and I don't break nobody that don't ask me to first. Rotten luck being related to a degenerate like that, but don't take it out on me, huh?"
"Shut your clam lapper and let's get some bead quick-like."
They walked off the belt in front of her door and she waved her wrist in front of the pad. Whish, the door opened. Whish, the door closed. They were alone in her apartment with her Chihuahua, who nipped at his heels till he kicked it and sent it scurrying to momma. This was easier than he thought. "Where're the goods?"
She walked calmly over to the safe beneath the throw rug in the bedroom and opened it, but Obed stopped her before she could reach inside. "Just have a seat on the bed, hey?" He hovered over the safe and kept the pulser pointed at her face. He reached inside and felt for a weapon and, finding one, he tucked it into his pants. "Now, I want you to find Olly's card. Hand it over fastish and put all paper you find inside a belt now."
Cleo found Olly's card among a collection of dozens. She handed it over and Obed inspected it. There wasn't much paper, but he didn't really think there would be. In the end he just wanted to burn Cleo Nans.
Cleo looked up at him, bored. "You know what happens now?" The dog began to yip. Cleo shushed him.
"Tell me, hey," said Obed and reduced the dog to muted growling with a hard look.
"You take that bead back to your little girlfriend and she dumps you at the first port. You'll stumble around wondering how it all went to shit for a few days, weeks maybe, and then we'll find you. Olly'll have just a bit longer, but that's not much paper for a proper run. She'll have her card back, but the kinds of places she'll have to work, probably wouldn't even ask for one. You two had it alright. You're gonna think that in a little while, and I'm gonna hear you say it before I'm finished with you."
Obed stood and strapped on the belt. The dog jumped up on his leg and he kicked it across the room a second time. He smiled and felt the pulser in his hand. "You're probably right see, but it does feel pretty good like right now, yeah, and that's more than I can say for the last few years. Who knows though? Maybe we'll beat the odds, hey."
Cleo snickered. "Even a dumb fist like you wouldn't believe that. I've got all the time and the resources I need to find you, so go ahead and—"
He never took his eyes off of her face even as the pulse vaporized the dog. Cleo yelped as the smell of pulse warp and burnt hair ruined her appetite. "—Now you've done it you sick fist! We're gonna go slow with you retard. I got a surgeon like your old man, degenerate too, can't stop wagering, owes me huge. He's gonna make you a woman and you'll earn back every stone lubing your gash with axel grease."
Obed punched her in the nose and sat on top of her when she fell back. He raised the obsolete pulser so she could see the red circle at the end of the barrel. A drop of coolant dripped from the grip onto her cheek. "I just wanted to burn you, Cleo. Bad see?" He pressed the overheating piece into the flesh of her forehead and she screamed.
It was everything he thought it could be. He tied her to her the bed post and concentrated hard in order to remember her in this moment with the bright, angry circle between her eyes.
* * *
He took a cab to the medical market and left Olly, still groggy, waiting inside. He found the head pharmer at the center of the market. "What can I get for you?"
Obed held out a pill. "Soothie Q."
The pharmer laughed. "Got a dose, huh? Next time check her card real good. Or go to one of the licensed places. Continental—that's a good one if you're looking. How much you need?"
"How much you got?"
The pharmer shrugged. "A hundred? Maybe."
"Check. Also, find everybody else with it on hand like."
He laughed again as he punched up some queries on his computer. "Buddy, I don't envy you. I had a dose once from a dirty gress, back in the day, before the crack downs. Wanted to peel the skin off my prick, it burned so bad before I got the pills, but, you know, it's even worse for ladies. Gets in there deep. Showed us footage in med school of a woman who eviscerated herself with a steak knife trying to get the burn out. Was a scary thing, so easily spread, a kiss, a bj, any kind fluid exchange, really, but that was before it was all but eradicated." The computer fed him some information. "Huh." He looked closer at the screen. "You're in luck, buddy. I'm the only game in town. There's not even a black market for the stuff anymore. There's no demand."
"I'll take it all. You're sure nobody else has it?"
"I'm sure. I could order you some, but it'd take a couple weeks to get here. They don't call it deep space for nothin'."
"Don't bother. I won't be around long see." Obed took some paper from the belt and paid the pharmer. "Thanks hey."
* * *
Back in the cab, Olly was alert and agitated. "Here see." He gave her a pill. "Take this now like."
"What is it?"
"Just take it yeah, trust me hey." He put her on her transport and gave her most of the pills along with her card. "I hope you've got a good plan, kid."
Cleo was right. She'd find Olly before long. Hell, maybe the kid was smart. Smarter than Obed, anyhow. Cleo'd find him too, but he wasn't going to hide. He wanted to see this.
Jedidiah Ayres is the author of A F*ckload of Shorts and Fierce Bitches, and the co-editor of the anthologies Noir at the Bar and D*CKED.
SPLIT THE TAKE
Eric Beetner
"He ain't coming." Haji crushed another cigarette underfoot. He ran a palm over the bare skin on the side of his skull, then let his fingers drag along the bristly line of his mohawk.
Mario kept his eyes turned to the mouth of the alley. "No," he said. "It looks like he ain't coming at all."
The two young men had been waiting over an hour, the smell of the alleyway passed into normal as their noses got used to the funk. A yellow street light blazed over the mouth of the alley while the two men stalked the distance between brick walls. Mario's jaw clicked as he ground his teeth, top row into bottom.
"He really think he's gonna keep it all for himself
?" Haji asked. "Who the fuck does he think he is?"
"I don't know," Mario said. His eyes burned on the spot where their partner, Raul, should be standing. "But I'm gonna find out."
* * *
The sharp steel of Mario's knife indented the skin below Ricky's eye.
"You seen him?"
"I told you, Mario, I haven't seen him since before you guys went out."
The knife edge started to tear a line in Ricky's skin. He sucked in a quick breath as he felt the split begin.
"You and him do everything together," Mario said.
"Not everything, man. I swear, I didn't know shit about your job until you just told me."
"So you don't know where he's hiding out?"
"Maybe something happened. Maybe the cops?"
Mario lifted the knife away, a line of blood rolled down Ricky's cheek like a tear.
Mario looked to Haji who shrugged, cigarette dangling from his lip. "Could be," Haji said.
"Bullshit." Mario turned to look at Ricky who put three fingers under his eye, pulled them away to check the blood, and then put them back to slow the leak. "He ever do anything this stupid before?"
"Nah, man." Ricky shook his head, streaking a line of blood across his jawline. "I mean, he knocked up that girl the one time, but that's it, man. When it comes to a job, he's tight, man."
"And he would know how serious this is, right?" Mario's gaze tore into Ricky almost as sharply as the knife.
"Yeah, Mario. He knows not to fuck with you."
Mario nodded, satisfied his reputation preceded him. "Alright. If you see him, you tell him all we want is our take. I'll listen to why he was late for the split. I'll listen." Mario bent low in front of Ricky until he could smell the fresh blood. "And I better like what I hear."
"He knows, Mario, he knows. But I bet I won't even see him. You'll see him before I will."
Mario turned to Haji. "Break his knees."
Haji stood straight, pulled a last drag off his smoke. Ricky pulled his bloody palm away from his face.
BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 Page 6
