by Brian Parker
Tractors, cranes and forklifts moved everywhere in a carefully choreographed dance of machinery. Men, women and droids went about their jobs, ensuring goods were either loaded onto barges for transport or unloaded from them for delivery into the city.
Business was good for the King of Easytown.
I was back in the Dockyards to meet with Tommy Ladeaux, aka Tommy Voodoo, the self-named King of Easytown. He was as dirty as they come—the department just couldn’t find anything to implicate him. Plenty of underlings had gone down over the years, but nobody would testify against him. In addition to the Marie Leveau Shipping Company, he owned a construction company, and multiple sex clubs, dance clubs and regular bars across Easytown. Now it seemed like the bastard owned the building that the Pharaoh was in; I knew it was another way that Voodoo was using to try to get an edge over me—and it pissed me off.
He’d tried unsuccessfully to get me in his pocket by providing key information on the Sex Club Killer case and with the details about Paxton Himura, whom I hadn’t known was a droid when I began dating her, thereby violating the NOPD’s Immorality Clause that explicitly forbid physical relationships of any kind with prostitutes—human or robotic. Now it seemed he was trying a different angle to make me obligated to him in some way.
Wasn’t gonna happen. I wasn’t a dirty cop.
The Jeep stopped in front of the corporate offices of the Marie Leveau Shipping Company and I took a swig of water from the bottle I’d grabbed before I left. Amir and I had stayed up through the night and into the morning drinking and talking. I’d only gotten an hour of sleep before I had to get up for the meeting that Andi set up to discuss the clones. I was tired and hung over, not a good combination.
I checked my surroundings carefully before getting out of the vehicle. The Dockyards were a dangerous place for a cop, even if Voodoo did invite me down here. I didn’t see anyone or anything near the car, so I got out and took the steps to the office two at a time.
Inside the building, I was greeted with a clean and modern waiting area. It was sparsely decorated, choosing functionality over comfort. Clear plastic chairs sat in a circle around a low table adorned with a local New Orleans magazine that did a feature on Ladeaux. His picture took up the entire cover.
Two familiar receptionists sat at their twin desks. The blonde was a clone and the black haired one was a reformed sex bot. She’d been recycled from a club, given an AI upgrade and put to work here.
“Hello, Anastasia,” I said to the clone sitting at the desk on the left.
“Good afternoon, Detective Forrest,” she replied and then continued her data entry.
“You’re ten minutes earlier than expected,” Betty, the droid, stated.
“One of my tragic flaws,” I answered. “So your boss is expecting me, then?”
“I’ve been instructed to rearrange Mr. Ladeaux’s schedule to accommodate you.”
I felt eyes on me—okay, to be honest, I always felt like someone was watching when I was in the offices of the shipping company, but this was different. I glanced over at Anastasia. She stared down at the paperwork on her desk, but watched me intently through lidded eyes.
“You got a problem?” I asked.
“Yes,” she responded. “And so do you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Tommy will talk to you about it.”
“Bullshit. You’re not a droid; they can’t program you to be quiet. What am I walking into here?” Obviously something was amiss if the clone chose to say something to me. What is it?
She glanced toward the ceiling. I looked up. A parabolic microphone stuck out from the sound-deadening tiles. They didn’t even bother to hide it.
“We’re in danger,” she whispered rapidly. “I feel like part of me is dying.”
“Anastasia, that’s enough,” Betty chided, standing rapidly. “Mr. Ladeaux expressly forbids us from engaging Detective Forrest in conversation. You are violating direct orders from Mr. Ladeaux and I must report you.”
“Go ahead, Betty. I’m worried. Nobody gives a shit about clones.”
“I’m hurt, Anastasia.” I turned away from the drama unfolding before me to see Voodoo walking into the reception area. Every time I saw him, he reminded of a weasel—if a weasel wore a suit that cost three months’ worth of my salary.
“I give a shit about you, dear,” he continued. “That’s why we’re talking to the good detective today.”
“Ladeaux,” I stated matter-of-factly.
“Detective Forrest, nice to see you again.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake. I ignored it, choosing instead to stare at his beady little eyes.
He took the hint and dropped his hand.
“Really? I thought we’d moved past all of this unpleasantness. After all, I helped you unravel the Sex Club Killer case. That earned you quite a bit of local fame, if I recall correctly. Oh, and that state trooper. I bet she was a blast, huh?”
“Are you keeping tabs on me, Ladeaux?”
“No, of course not, Forrest. It’s hard not to notice things like that when pictures of the two of you end up on every cybersphere tabloid site. Not very discreet, friend.”
“I ain’t your friend, Ladeaux—regardless of how hard you try to make it that way.” Talking about my failed relationship wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I changed the topic and turned back to Anastasia. “You said the clones are in danger. What do you mean?”
She stared past me to where Voodoo stood. Her eyes spoke volumes that her mouth didn’t. Voodoo was involved in something, but didn’t want me to know about it; something that was harmful to clones.
I glanced at Tommy Voodoo and then back at the clone. “Let me try a different approach. I’d like to ask you a few questions about—”
“That’s quite enough, Detective,” Voodoo said. “My clone is done talking to you.”
“I’m not done talking to her.”
“Please, don’t make this difficult. The laws regarding clones are few and far between, so the federal government has passed stopgaps stating that the same rules that apply to droids are enforceable for clones. I’m within my legal rights to refuse you access to discussing anything with my property without a warrant.”
“Your property? I thought you were different when it came to clones, Ladeaux.”
“I am. However, I know my rights and if I want the discussion to end, I can do so at any time.”
“Are you afraid she’s gonna say something to incriminate you? Is that why you don’t want me to talk to her?”
“No, I—”
“Do you know anything about three tortured, mutilated—and very dead clones that were dropped off in a dumpster on Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Ladeaux. Wait, what?” Sometimes it took a moment for my mind to catch up to my mouth. I was shocked that he admitted knowing anything about the case—or whatever this little side investigation ended up being.
“Yes, I know about them. That’s why I wanted to speak with you today.”
“Alright. What do you know about it?”
“Let’s go to my office,” Voodoo suggested. “If certain associates of mine saw me speaking to you about this, the consequences could be severe.”
I laughed at his statement. “Are you worried that your street reputation will take a hit?”
“No. More like I’m worried that I’ll become a target. There’s a lot of money involved in this game, Forrest. More money than I’m worth; far more than you could ever hope to see in your lifetime. The people making that money don’t want it to stop coming in.”
I thought about it for a moment. How appropriate that he was afraid for his life because of the type of people he chose to associate with. I didn’t have any sympathy for him, but I wanted to get the answers as best I could so I agreed to go back to his office.
He led the way woodenly, nodding his chin only slightly when he passed anyone in the hallway leading to his office. We turne
d suddenly, going a different way than we’d gone the last time I was here a few months ago. Voodoo stopped in front of a seemingly random panel in the wall and pushed on the upper corner.
I heard a soft click and then the side he’d pushed on came away from the panel next to it. He pried it open and indicated that I should go through first. I stepped into a small corridor that ran behind the walls of the Marie Leveau Shipping Company. I felt Voodoo step in behind me, so I moved forward a few feet and turned to watch him close the panel. Complete and total darkness enveloped the passageway.
Movement in the dark told me that he was doing something. I didn’t trust the man as far as I could throw him, so I drew my service piece and stepped across the corridor to the other side. A moment later, a small, bright light illuminated the space as Voodoo held a lighting orb.
“You can put that away,” he whispered. “I’m not going to try anything.”
I relaxed slightly now that I could see, but chose not to let him know that. “I’ll keep it in easy reach,” I assured him.
“Come on. It’s this way. We’ll be there in a minute.”
We followed the passageway straight for what felt like a hundred feet, then took a right when the passageway came to a T-intersection. Another hundred feet and Voodoo stopped in front of a locked door. He pressed his hand onto a flat scanning panel and then a retinal scanner assessed the retinal blood vessel patterns in his eye. It was a lot of security for a simple meeting.
Voodoo wasn’t worried; he was terrified.
The door unlocked and we entered what appeared to be an office space. It looked almost exactly like the one we’d met in before.
“Did we just take a secret passage to get to your office?”
He sat down at the desk and smirked. “Yes—and no. This is my real office. The one we met in last October is a duplicate. A clone, if you will.”
“So all that sports memorabilia in the other office?”
“Fake.”
“This?” I asked as I gestured around the room at the signed pictures of him with players, footballs signed by entire teams, jerseys encased in picture frames and all sorts of other pieces. I’d say all of it looked like it belonged in a museum or at least a sports bar, but the dedication to Mr. Ladeaux made them worthless in my eyes.
“These are the real ones. Everything in here was gifted to me by the players or their team. It’s absolutely priceless in my opinion.”
“Okay, so we sneaked through your building and we’re skulking in a private office. Why?” I asked.
“My other office is being watched.”
“So won’t they know we didn’t go there?”
“Betty has already hacked the security system so the video shows you leaving after your little altercation with Anastasia.”
“What? How?”
“Video is easy to manipulate, Forrest. You should remember that.”
The last time I’d dealt with Voodoo, he’d shared erased video footage from the sex clubs and droids that he owned. The hacker had made his changes imperceptible to the police techs, the only way we knew anything was different about it was because of the criminal sitting across from me.
“Anastasia is right,” Voodoo continued. “She’s stupid to say something publicly, but the clones are in danger.”
“Like the ones in the dumpster?”
“Yes. Have you ever heard of torture tourism?”
I thought about it for a moment before answering. “No, I haven’t heard that term before. It sounds like that virtual reality game that swept through Easytown ten or twelve years ago. People got their rocks off by torturing and killing others in VR.”
“It’s similar to that, in a way,” he affirmed. “VR torture made people a lot of money. The levels of depravity in the human soul are truly amazing. But I’m sure you know this all too well, Detective.”
Unfortunately, I did.
“So, what is torture tourism and how does it relate to my case?”
Voodoo smiled, reminding me that even though he’d helped me in the past and it seemed like he was willing to help me now, he was still a snake.
“It’s a mix of extreme gambling and murder. Clones are brought in and things are done to them—we don’t need to go into the details, I’m sure the bodies you discovered had plenty of evidence as to what they are subjected to. Players make bets on mundane things like which one will scream first and it goes up from there, including what it will take to kill the clone. There’s really no limit to what they could bet on.”
“How do you know so much about it, Ladeaux?”
“Because I sold the clones to the club before I knew what they were going to do with them. Those three you found originated from the company that I own sixty percent of.”
“Who’d you sell them to?”
“A broker named Joseph Kleer. I’ve been told, after the fact of course, that he runs the torture tourism ring. We’ve looked for him, but I can’t find him. He’s become a ghost. The best I can tell, he’s set up torture houses across the city and the gamblers are told where they will go at the last minute to keep the location a secret.”
Fuck me. It seems like Voodoo has done all the background research… Again.
“Alright, so they’re gambling illegally. That I can arrest them for.”
Voodoo seemed surprised, for once. “That would be a way to put a stop to this. I hadn’t thought about that aspect. I wanted to brainstorm with you about how to charge them with murder.”
“Can’t be done,” I muttered. “Clones aren’t protected under the law. Like you mentioned earlier, they’re property. They can be disposed of at any time by the owner. I couldn’t even get an autopsy done by the coroner. Once he found out those three were clones, he stopped working on them.”
“That’s bullshit—pardon the expression. Biologiqué International has perfected the cloning process. They are exact duplicates of their counterparts, down to the minute they were cloned. With our memory implant technology, they even retain the memories, mannerisms, and personalities. If lawmakers would talk to a clone or spend time with them, they would know that they’re just as human as the next person. Maybe more so since all the genetic deformities and undesirable traits are removed before the body is grown.”
“So you’re on the side of the clones?”
“Certainly. You may think I’m only one misstep away from Sabatier Island, Detective, but I’m much cleaner than you give me credit for.”
“Hmpf. I doubt it.”
He let the insult slide. “My company has been in the development phase for years. Clones feel; they have emotions, they reason and they seek self-preservation. Seems like they’re pretty human to me, even if they are grown in a laboratory. Genetically, they are one hundred percent compatible with humans and I believe they are a viable option for companionship for millions of lonely people. Part of that is affording the clones certain rights; chief among those is granting them basic human rights—like protection against murder.”
“Companionship. If that takes off, you’d be one of the richest men in America. Maybe even the whole damned planet.”
“Yes, I will be. However, as a compassionate person, I want to see the clones treated fairly, but it’s not entirely altruistic. We’re on the brink of earning billions, maybe even trillions, in the clone industry and I don’t want that opportunity spoiled because the government can’t see the truth and grant the clones rights.”
“Hmpf,” I grunted again. “How many clones did you sell to this Joseph Kleer?”
“Thirty-eight. Of those, we’ve recovered the bodies of four more, all of them mutilated beyond belief. Those, plus the three from Saturday still leaves us with thirty-one unaccounted for.”
“That’s a lot of clones to track down.”
“I know,” Voodoo sighed, making a face like he’d taken a sip of curdled milk. “I swear to you, I didn’t know what these people were going to do when I sold the initial batch. I figured they’d end up as prostitutes or
private house servants for people who mistrusted droids. Nothing like this though.”
“Since you know so much about this stuff, please tell me you know where they’re hosting next.”
“I do. And I want you to bring them back to me—alive.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” I asked.
“No. I know the block where the club is located. It’ll be up to you to determine which building it’s taking place in.”
He’d thrown me a softball. If I wanted to put an end to the torture tourism, it was up to me to hit it out of the park.
“Give me the details,” I hissed.
NINE: MONDAY
The darkness concealed me as I stalked toward what I believed was the target building. Out of the four buildings on the block, the warehouse was the logical choice to host the events that Voodoo described. It was a giant, dilapidated building with roll-up doors that the clients could drive their cars into and be hidden from view.
I’d briefly considered requesting official police backup before going in, but since this was so far outside the realm of my responsibilities, I knew that Brubaker wouldn’t authorize it. I settled instead for a drone and my partner. Unfortunately, Drake called out sick, so it was just me and the drone.
“I want you to scan the warehouse,” I ordered as I pressed my back against a building to get under a slight overhang. Heavy sheets of cold rain fell out of the sky above, adding to the concealment that I desired, but made for a miserable experience. “Tell me how many people are in there.”
“Understood,” the drone responded. “Unit One Six Four needs to achieve an altitude of one hundred fifty-seven feet to properly scan the entire building.”
“Uh… Sure. Go on, do your thing.”
The drone drifted upward slowly, the whirring of its rotors the only thing that gave away its presence in the inky darkness. I watched until I couldn’t see it anymore and then slowly continued toward the building.
I didn’t know what I expected to find. Hopefully, we’d make some quick and easy arrests and that would be the end of it. Too bad I’m a realist and didn’t believe my own line of BS; this was probably going to get ugly. There was apparently way too much money involved for the assholes to just roll over and let me take it away from them.
