Nerves of Steel

by Lee Hayton

  So smart, yes, but Nika’s memory was poor. Not for faces or for favors owed, but for names, addresses, and locations.

  There’d be a diary, a notebook, something with everything I wanted laid out in minute detail. Even if it was written in code, it offered a starting point.

  So long as that notebook wasn’t tucked down the front of her bra now, it should be somewhere in these four rooms. If the journal turned out to be a memory chip a millimeter thick, then I could search in vain for days.

  I walked through each room again, not touching anything, just looking, scouring them for any strange details. A glass out of place, a cushion puffed up too fat. Anything that could give me a clue.

  In the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator door and immediately wished I hadn’t. A severed finger sat in a pool of blood, congealing in a saucer.

  Was that for me?

  Me, or any of the dozen other contacts who’d be knocking down Nika’s door in search of favors or information. A warning or a promise of payment? It meant nothing but a leveling up of fear in my case.

  I forced myself to continue onward and look through the items in the fridge. Nothing there to signal a depository for information and all I found in the freezer was a tray of ice cubes.

  The sense of purpose that I’d arrived with departed, leaving indecision in its wake. Should I stay and continue to look for something I may never find? Did I take to the streets and question other patrons in case they remembered the man I sought?

  I continued to look while my mind oscillated between the two options. The futility of my attempt began to sink its fangs in deeper—even if I did find the man I couldn’t turn back time. I couldn’t go back to a world where I had the sense to question things when they weren’t adding up.

  A car squealed to a stop in the street outside. Its doors banged shut just before the apartment building entrance slammed open.

  The boots on the stairs prompted me into action. They were headed straight up to me. They’d be here in a moment, and I had nowhere to hide.

  I sat on the couch, crossing my legs and picking up a magazine to page through. When the apartment door crashed open, kicked with force though it was sitting unlocked, I didn’t have to try hard to put the surprised expression tinged with fear onto my face.

  “What are you doing?” I leaped to my feet and tossed the magazine aside. “This isn’t your apartment.”

  The two bots in front parted, letting a man stride through. The average man, the one who’d hired me for a job that didn’t matter, to solve a problem that didn’t exist.

  “Where’s Nika?” he asked, and I shrugged, more scared for her safety than I’d been before. “Who took her?” His eyes alighted on the blood smears along the wall.

  “I thought you had her.”

  “Why would I have her?” He frowned at me as though the proposition was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard.

  “Because…” I trailed off, waving my hand in the air for inspiration that failed to eventuate. I didn’t know why except he was the only person I knew had a connection to Nika. She was trouble, though, always had been. She attracted it to her like she was flypaper.

  “Your bounty’s lifted.”

  I stared at the man, my gaze shifting from him to the bot goons that flanked him on each side. I didn’t know what to say but “Thank you” was a definite non-starter. “Piss-off” seemed closer to it but I needed information from him that wouldn’t be forthcoming if I put him on the defensive.

  “I wanted to talk to you, actually,” I said. “It was one of the reasons I dropped by here.”

  He raised his eyebrows, already shaking his head, though I hadn’t yet asked a question. “I’m not the one who’s going to give you answers, love. That’s not my job.”

  “What is your job?”

  I should have asked that question days ago. Still, better late than never.

  “I gave you my card.” He smiled and tilted his head forward. “That’s all you need to know.”

  The card still sat in my front jeans pocket, scrunched in behind the replacement stakes for a weapon that had been altered so it wouldn’t fire. I fished it out and held it up, showing him the number and defunct address. Nothing useful.

  Except, now that I looked in the light of day there was.

  The card was plain. The text on it mimicking a typewritten font. Nothing gilded, nothing fancy. It suited the man before me to a T. The paper though, that was thick, luxurious. It was also pressed into the shape of a logo. So subtle that I hadn’t noticed it before.

  The large looping P only showed up when I tilted the card in the sunlight. It disappeared the moment I turned it away from the window and dipped it back into the shade.

  A glut of bile rose up in my stomach, stinging an acid trail up the back of my throat, making it hard to breathe.

  “I thought you worked for a construction firm,” I said.

  The man tilted his head to one side, picking a speck of dust from the breast of his jacket. “Not me,” he replied. “I work for whoever’s willing to pay me. If you see Nika come back, tell her I paid a call.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  I thought for a long moment that he wouldn’t answer. The man pursed his lips as though blowing invisible bubbles of doubt into the air. Then he smiled, his face relaxing into the guise of normality. The stone-cold analyst visage tucked away for a rainy day.

  “She left a husband behind a few years back. Seems he’s come looking.” The man nodded and winked. “Some men just don’t accept the word no.”

  “Harold?” I asked, even though it was obvious what the answer would be. The chink of fear that I’d put into his brain at the thought of Nika must have finally shaken free. “If you lead me to him, then I’ll take care of that problem for you. There’s no need to bother finding his ex-wife. I can patch it up, so he won’t care for a few years longer, or just eradicate him altogether if that suits your purpose better.”

  “And what would I have to do in return?”

  I shrugged. “I want to know what information you have on me. Why you came to me when there were a dozen other places you could have gone. How long have you been following me? How long did you plan for my cooperation in the show that went down the other night? Once you tell me that, I’ll do the job for you and then I’ll move on.”

  “That would be a pity,” he said. “I’ve grown quite fond of you.” The man smoothed down his eyebrow with one finger, looking at the tip to ensure that a hair hadn’t worked loose. “I’m afraid it’s not a deal that I can strike. For that, you’d need to talk to my employer. Good luck with that.”

  “Wait,” I said, reaching out to catch his arm and holding on, even though his steely gaze fixed on it with a look of horror. “How is Nika involved? Why do you even know her?”

  When it became apparent he couldn’t talk with my filthy fingers still prodding his suited arm, I loosened my grip. Frustration flooded up, filling my mouth with heavy spit and making my pulse beat so loud it sounded like thunder in my ears.

  He walked toward the door, one step more and he’d be gone. But he didn’t leave. The man turned around and met my eyes, holding the gaze steady as he answered.

  “Nika’s also an employee of the Pennyworths,” he said. “I believe they have her listed on the registry under the position of housemaid.”

  All roads lead back to the Pennyworths. I pictured Nika’s cheeky grin turned up to full volume on Madeline’s stony mask. I shook my head. The images didn’t fit together. Even the maids employed by that family came from a higher stratum of society than Nika and I ever hoped to be.

  “If she comes back, then you’ll be able to enter the Pennyworth’s mansion if you can manage to slip past the guard house. They have fingerprint technology. Even if they fire her for not turning up to work today, the computers won’t catch up until tonight.”

  The man walked out, his bots clearing the way in front of him. I looked at the closed door of the fridge, m
y mouth dry.

  A finger on a saucer, dripping with fresh blood. Not a warning to an imposter, poking their nose where they shouldn’t. A keycard left behind for a mate, from someone who wanted her to know more than they did.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I ended up on the roof overlooking Joe’s bar again. So much had happened in the meantime that the experience was bittersweet, bringing back memories of a simpler time.

  A time when all I had to worry about was being on the run from the law and trying to bring home enough bacon to keep the landlord off our backs. I had a friend. I had a home. I understood where I belonged.

  Now, I was a leper, and I wanted to know why. If I had to claw the eyes out of every half-wit staggering in or out of Joe’s Bar to find that reason, I could make my peace with that.

  The roof was greasy, the tiles coated with a slime composed of smog and condensation from the steam of the nearby restaurant. Heights and uncertain footing. A few weeks ago, they’d been my nemeses.

  Now, I had other things on my mind.

  The chances of seeing the same vampire turn up to the same location were almost nil, but there’d been another man who’d been my target that night. I never got to perform my little love spell on the Pennyworths. I presumed that he was still chasing strange while his missus filed for divorce.

  And sure enough, there he was. Large as life and twice as foul. You could have fit a cheerleading squad in the age difference between him and his latest conquest. I bet it also beat her IQ.

  Women should stick together and all that—feminists rule—but you have to draw a line somewhere, and this little minx would always dance straight over it, shrieking and throwing her hands into the air.

  I jumped down into the alleyway. The distance from the roof was a good five yards, looking like ten from my angle. I did the classic superhero landing, crouched with one fist punching into the ground.

  Impressive, no?

  Turned out, all it took to conquer my fear of heights was to take away all that I valued in a human being. You couldn’t root for an underdog when they were the ones feeding new slaves into the machine.

  Despite my executing a perfect landing, Mr. Pennyworth didn’t turn his head. He had a night of slap and tickle on his mind and paying attention was the last thing a guy his age wanted.

  Paying attention was what your wife made you do, not your teenage mistress.

  So, my grand entrance may have gone unnoticed by my target, but it didn’t go unremarked.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” a man cried, staggering down the alley toward me. “Superman Barbie?”

  I cut his snigger short with a punch to his midriff. I was pretty sure I counted three ribs cracking, but I may have been underselling myself, it could easily have been four.

  “Hey, what the fuck?” his friend called out, disturbed enough to flick his cigarette butt away. I turned and stared him down, my fists raised. It soon transpired that he didn’t want a fight. At least that’s what I gauged as he ran away.

  “One of your patrons needs your help,” I told the barman as I stepped inside. The swamp of noise and the strong odor of spilled beer assaulted my senses. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the lighting. Dim, even in comparison with the neon-lit night outside.

  “I’ll have a scotch and water, heavy on the scotch,” I told the barmaid when I’d pressed my way through to the counter. When she passed it across, I took in a long swallow, relishing the fire it traced down my throat into my hungering belly.

  “Ten coins,” she said, and I shook my head.

  “Run a tab, love. I’m good for it. You can check with Mr. Pennyworth.”

  At the name drop, she frowned and took a step back, looking over at him. With his back to her, she wrung her hands together. The barmaid wasn’t confident enough of her position to interrupt the man just to check.

  “I’ll cover her tab,” a man called out from behind me a second before he planted his hand where it shouldn’t go. I elbowed him in the gut, turned and kneed him in the groin. When he fell on all fours, I lifted his wallet and let him do what he’d said.

  Gosh, life was simple when you didn’t care.

  “Shout a round,” I told the blinking barmaid, handing across his credit cards. Before she could shake her head or take a stand, the customers within hearing shouted their appreciation. I let them swamp her, cutting through their bulk to arrow over to my target.

  The blonde Mr. Pennyworth was entertaining wasn’t the same broad I’d photographed him with a few weeks before. If he had a type—young and stupid sprang to mind—then they had a reasonably short use-by date.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” I said, speaking by his shoulder in a blind spot that would force him to turn his head. When he did, it took a second for him to recognize me. His expression turned from curious, to lusting, to pensive in less than a second.

  “Buzz off, love,” I told his companion. “The adults need to talk.”

  I pulled up a stool and sat beside him, dismissing the young woman with a flick of my hand.

  “I don’t have any business with you.”

  He almost hit the right tone. Almost. If only the man—what had Madeline called him? Andrew?—hadn’t spun the last note up instead of down.

  He turned it into a question with that inflection, betraying a lack of confidence that I seized upon.

  “Yes, you do.” I leaned across and helped myself to a sip from the departed blonde’s cocktail. More fruit than alcohol, but I downed it in one. Along with my earlier drink, it would have to do the trick.

  “Or,” I amended, “I have business with you, and that amounts to the same thing.”

  “If you have business with anyone, it’s with my wife. Out spying for her again, are you? Well, you may not have gotten the memo, but there’s nothing left of our marriage vows to break.”

  “Excuse me!” A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. Without bothering to turn and ascertain the identity, I sent a punch over my shoulder, backed up with the crunching power of titanium. A squeal and the hand dropped away. It looked like the move had distracted Andrew, however, so I clicked my fingers in his face.

  “Here, love. Don’t look away when we’re in the middle of a conversation. It’s disrespectful.” I would’ve followed up with, ‘Didn’t your wife teach you that,’ except it was patently obvious that she hadn’t.

  “I was hired by an employee of yours,” I said. “He wanted me to investigate a minor vampire insurrection. The trouble is, he led me on a goose chase, and I’d like an explanation for why.”

  Mr. Pennyworth stared at me, his face blank of any comprehension. I frowned and tried again, leaning forward to grab his shoulder and crunch the bones together to be sure he concentrated on what I had to say.

  “These vampires, they’re connected to your business somehow. I’d like you to explain exactly how that fits together.” When the man’s grimace told me, I’d taken the squeeze too far, I dropped my hold and left my fist on the tabletop as a warning instead. “I’ve been taken for a ride, and I’d at least like to know who was playing the driver.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he sputtered, rubbing his shoulder. His expression was creased in severe distress.

  What a baby. I hadn’t crushed him that hard. What happened to the iron men I remembered dominating the theaters in my youth?

  “The vampires,” I repeated. “The incident in midtown.”

  He shook his head, baffled. I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to give him another squeeze in a potentially more pain-receptive place. I didn’t want the guy to mistake my intentions for flirting.

  “Why did you wife hire me?” I asked. “Was it because you told her to?”

  Andrew shrugged, his brow furrowed in a deep crease. “I’ve never told my wife to do anything,” he said. “I think you have me confused with another man.”

  I saw it then. Mr. Pennyworth was telling the truth. I’d thought I was talking to the dog, but
I’d been yelling at its wagging tail.

  “Where’s your wife, then?” I yelled the words out just as the bar lulled into silence. My words sounded louder than a freight train.

  “We’re not looking for any trouble here,” a voice said from behind me. This time, when a hand descended on my shoulder, I didn’t punch the owner away. The mood of the bar had changed in an instant. I turned and stared into the pockmarked scars of Joe’s face.

  You know you’re in trouble when they have to call out the owner of the place.

  I held up my hands and took a step away. “I’m not interested in trouble, either. I just needed a few seconds of conversation.” I looked at the sulk-laden fear on Andrew’s face, then turned back to Joe. “I think that we’re done.”

  “You owe one of my patron’s some money.”

  I pulled out the business card from my pocket. For no good reason, I kept shoving it back in there. Useful, though. I held it up, and even in the bar’s dim light, there was enough shadow to show the embossing.

  “How about I leave this with you, and you can call the number for payment?”

  Joe held his hands up, palms out. He didn’t want to take the card.

  And here I’d thought Mr. Pennyworth was the brains of the operation. Whatever scam his lawyer’s referral business was, it had apparently been brought with the power of his wife.

  Here I was with egg on my face. How many years had I gotten one over on people because they always underestimated a woman? Shots taken and points won. A taste of my own medicine was bittersweet.

  “You’re not just letting her walk out.” The man who’d been generous enough to shout a round for the bar looked disgusted with the current turn of events.

  “Seems like he is,” I said sweetly. Bad girl. I should have just let things lie, but I was scrambling to fit together the new information. Instead of finding my way escorted by the owner, I found a blockade of indignant faces instead.