Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  The coppers squeezed out of the undersized squad cars arriving on the scene as if the latter were queen bees laying eggs.

  Piper and Cliff ran into the nearest alley ahead of them.

  “What’s the first thing you notice?” Cliff said, as they paused to regroup, backs pressed against opposite walls of the narrow alley. The rusty-hued masonry flaked where it wasn’t breaking away in outright chunks. Bricks, a sandy shade of limestone several hues lighter than the walls, lined the ground at angles like the scales of a snake.

  Piper ran his eyes up the curving alleyway, its shape extending the analogy of the sleeping snake beneath their feet. Vespas and bicycles dotted the rough-hewn walls. There were similarly narrow streets intersecting this one at odd angles. “This place is a glorified maze. Not even the rats are ever going to find their way out.”

  “Precisely,” Cliff said, relaxing to the revelation as Piper was clenching to it. “Come on.” He ran ahead of them, setting the pace.

  Piper flashed back to when he and Cliff met at the arson scene where an inventor of a time machine had met his untimely death, most likely because someone thought there might just be something to his technology. Back then, he was a failed journalist and Cliff, a frustrated arson investigator, both being squeezed out of their respective occupations by analysts and number crunchers far better at selling newspapers and solving crimes than the two of them. It was a short step from that acknowledgment to deciding on what the one thing was that no one could take away from them, that they could do better than anyone else. And so began the quest to hunt down the predators and psychos that formerly they just reported on and wrote up reports about. It would keep them in the game; better than that, it would keep them sane and possibly from turning into said psychos themselves. So far, things weren’t exactly going according to plan.

  Around a bend that kept them momentarily out of sight of the coppers, Cliff halted before the most fortified door and windows he could find, both covered in wrought iron. He picked the lock on the door and stole inside, then latched the door behind them. “This ought to be the last place they try,” he said, sounding proud of himself.

  They stepped further into the room with the cement floor to see, lurking in the shadows, clumps of women, holding one another for safety. The twin-size mattresses floating on the island of cement were stained with piss and blood. There were used condoms everywhere. “Is this what I think it is?” Piper said.

  “Yeah, unbridled capitalism at work. Sex trafficking is the number two growth industry in the world.” Cliff sought out the girl with the most fire in her eyes. Picked up a metal teaspoon off the floor, fallen there perhaps after being used to stew the heroin over a flame. Perhaps it indicated one of the perks offered the male clientele, or just a way of keeping the women in line, Piper thought.

  Cliff kneeled before the girl with the fiery eyes. “What’s your name?”

  “Katia.” She sounded Russian.

  Cliff held up the utensil. “See this spoon? With my training, it’s enough to take out the next ten men that step through that door, professional killers or no, coming through one at a time, or ten at a time. But for you, I recommend door number two.”

  “What’s door number two?” Katia said.

  “Uri Geller used to bend these things just by staring at them. I’ll let you ponder the ramifications of that.”

  She glared at him as if he were mad. Then an expression took shape on her face, one of hope. She grabbed the spoon out of Cliff’s hands and stared at it. Piper shook his head in disbelief.

  Cliff cracked the door leading further into the building. Once they were on the other side, he locked it back on the women. “You aren’t going to leave it open?” Piper said.

  “They’d be back in here in under an hour.” He hiked the stairs as he talked, on guard for the women’s jailors. “You can bet their keepers have everyone paid off they could make their way to for help. Besides, they’ve been living on the fringe so long, neither the victims nor their persecutors could survive outside the black market.”

  They were halfway up the stairs. They paused between flights to give the guards time to turn their backs on them, or dart into one of the rooms at the sounds of staff getting too uppity with the clients.

  Cliff kept steering them toward the roof.

  “Why did you give that woman false hope?” Piper said, keeping his voice low.

  “Sometimes the only chance you have is to procure a miracle. That’s also usually the only time you see one go down.”

  Floor after floor, they snuck past the closed doors and the sounds of men drinking, gambling, screwing, and fighting on the other side, always in a strange smattering of languages. Piper was impressed by Cliff’s composure; he fought only when he had to, disabled men with nerve pinches and a quick twist of the neck. No noisemaking required. Even as an arson investigator, he had never been far from a combat training field. No doubt his unconscious had been seeking a better outlet even back then.

  Overhearing more talk in unfamiliar languages behind closed doors, Cliff whispered, “You’d think we were sneaking around the United Nations building.”

  Piper snorted. “I guess we aren’t the only ones having trouble staying inside the lines.”

  Half-way up the riser to the next level, Piper’s mind returned to Katia. “I’d have taught Katia to spoon out eyes in the darkness to enrich her diet with more protein.”

  Cliff laughed softly. “It takes some skill to express yourself with such creative flair. Without it, honestly, the spoon bending bit offers more hope. Better a million to one chance than none at all.”

  They broke onto the rooftop at last. The sun blinded after the dark interiors of the building.

  Cliff said, “From up here we can figure out the maze well enough to stay ahead of the cops.” They eyed the narrow streets and alleyways below forming a 3D stone mosaic.

  Cliff grabbed some clothes drying in the sun off the line, exchanged them with his own. Piper aped his gestures. “Nothing too colorful,” Cliff said. Piper put back the orange shirt which had struck his fancy, and went with a crème that looked like it would blend better with the stone walls.

  “I want to take in a museum or two,” Piper said.

  Cliff laughed, then thought better of it. “Sure, why not? Give them some time to gather their intel on us and disseminate it to their people. Doesn’t do us any good to stay too far ahead of the coppers. I have your learning curve to consider.”

  THIRTEEN

  “You’re not serious about being an art lover, are you? You’re screwing with me, right?” Cliff seemed almost desperate for a nod of assurance. Piper wouldn’t give it to him.

  “You should expand your horizons.” Piper admired the Kandinsky, though he wondered what that much violence done to a woman on a canvas said about the artist.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Cliff appeared to be studying the threesome admiring a Henry Moore. The two men and the woman passed their hands over its sensuous curves as foreplay, teasing one another. The men stood within an inch of Cliff’s and Piper’s heights. The woman, perched on stiletto lifts, towered over the two men. Her long legs rose like the sleek masts supporting the sails of her gown, which stirred to the slightest movement of breeze. The dress was a shocking fire engine red, as was the lipstick, and the high heels. The two men were clad in expensive suits.

  Piper felt miffed Cliff’s attention wasn’t on the artwork. “What’s your interest in the threesome?”

  “We need to assume other roles long enough to get out of Rome.”

  “Aren’t we going to need acting classes to pull that off?”

  Cliff smiled impishly. “She’ll give us what pointers we need.”

  Piper eyed the two men. “I thought we were limiting ourselves to bad guys, not playing the parts ourselves.”

  “You’re the profiler. You tell me if we should pass on the opportunity or not. Plenty of fish in the sea.” Cliff studied the increasingly crowded museum f
or other potential candidates. “Of course, if we have to go our separate ways to step into other people’s lives, it’ll be that much harder to compare notes.”

  “I see your point.” Piper shadowed Cliff as he moved toward the threesome.

  They casually strolled about the sculpture, hoping to get close enough to eavesdrop, and catch a better look at the ménage a trois. The solidness of the Henry Moore piece confounded their efforts to put faces to the talking heads.

  Female: “Which one of you does hedge funds, and which one does derivatives?”

  Both males: (Laughter)

  1st Male: “He does hedge funds, a polite term for high-risk gambling. Honestly, I think you get better odds at the racetrack.”

  2nd Male: (laughs) “Don’t listen to him. For the uninitiated: a derivative is a financial contract whose value derives from the value of underlying stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, etc.”

  1st Male: “What he won’t tell you is: they led to to the financial crisis of 2008 in the United States. What’s more, financial reforms within the US since then have served only to triple the risk involved.”

  2nd Male: (shrugging and holding his arms up helplessly.)

  1st Male: “What, no spritely comeback?”

  2nd Male: “I admit there are some kinks to be worked out.”

  (laughs all around)

  1st Male: “Kinks, he says. A speculator can easily expose himself to potentially unlimited losses. Does that sound like a kink to you?”

  Female: “Maybe we should talk about how to save the whales.”

  (Both males laughing.)

  2nd Male: “We’re happy to talk about whale futures, but honestly it’s corn futures that are hot right now.”

  Female: “Smart ass.”

  1st Male: “I have to go to the little boy’s room, and I’m not leaving you alone with him.”

  (Laughs from female and other male.)

  1st Male: “So, either he goes with me, or we all go together.”

  (laughs.)

  Female: “All right, go, both of you. Give me a chance to see if there are any eligible bachelors around here who won’t fill my head with numbers other than their dick sizes.”

  1st Male: “Ouch.”

  2nd Male: “Double ouch. Come on, big guy.”

  “God, they even sound like us,” Cliff said, “in a droll, roundabout way.”

  They were both still trying to catch a better glimpse of the threesome. They decided their best chance was to follow the two males into the men’s room. As they did, they got an eyeful of the female. She was definitely worth all the attention she was getting, and that included all the other eyes on her in the museum, a lot of them attached to married men, their wives on their arms.

  Cliff grabbed the empty box from the bartender, which he’d just used to stock the back of the bar with wine. Piper shared a nonplused expression with the mixologist.

  Once in the men’s room, they got treated to the profiles of the two men, both at the urinals, then later at the sinks. Piper wrestled with ways to implicate themselves into their little drama without being too obvious.

  Finally, talking over his shoulder, he said, “Did I hear you two mention derivatives and trust funds?” Both men turned to one another and smiled. “That’s right.”

  Piper stepped up to the sink and washed his hands. “From what I was reading, getting the world balanced out again after the 2008 crash is about the big, hinge-pin economies cleaning house internally; the U.S., the European Union, China, and Japan. Secondly, China has to play by the same rules as the international economy’s big players, allowing money and business to flow in and out of her freely. Otherwise, all the monetary exchange stabilization is just smoke and mirrors, guaranteed to hide the truth, no more.”

  1st Male: “That’s about the size of it.”

  2nd Male: “Only, telling these countries they need to increase household savings and lower national debt to stabilize their own economies before the world economy can right itself… well, it’s the last thing anyone wants to hear. As it means decades of back-breaking work with little to show for it. Most Americans are hooked on instant gratification, problems solved in thirty minutes like on TV; you’ll never sell them a message like that.”

  1st Male: “So we keep lying to them, and…”

  2nd Male: “… and playing our dirty little games with derivatives and hedge funds because people want a win-the-lotto fix, forget the odds, especially with the alternative: twenty or more years of work with nothing to show for it. Their lives are over; they just don’t know it.”

  Piper shook 2nd Male’s hand. “Piper Shiftly.”

  2nd Male: “Ainsley Denkins.”

  Piper: “And your friend?” He shook Piper’s hand. “Augustin Martin.” Piper noticed Augustin’s handshake was firmer and his bearing more masculine, in general. His Czech accent just added some refinement to the masculine aura without spiking the meter all the way over to the effete end of the spectrum. Ainsley’s ticks, from constantly brushing his hair back behind his ears, to cleaning under his fingernails, already meticulously manicured, struck Piper as more effeminate.

  Piper said, “So, how rich are you guys, you don’t mind me asking?”

  They looked at one another. “Pretty rich,” Augustin confessed.

  Ainsley quickly covered for him. “Of course, that’s this week. Ask us next week, and you might get an entirely different answer.”

  Piper asked, “You boys okay with what’s going on in the world financially?”

  Augustin threw his hands up. “We made a world so complicated, only a handful of us could benefit from it financially. It’s how we keep the ninety-nine percent nipping at our heels, but no real threat. It’s not pretty, but then, there’s not enough to go around, is there?”

  Ainsley added, “I hate to agree with my friend here, but we didn’t make the rules. We just benefit from them. If it wasn’t us, it’d be someone else.”

  “I don’t know,” Piper said. “Seems like a savvy pair like yourselves ought to be able to do a little more to give back than that.”

  “Like what?” Ainsley said. “You want us to open schools in Africa like Federer? Been there, done that. How about build homes for those wiped out by Katrina? Me and Brad Pitt were on that before the water was all the way back out to sea.”

  “More smoke and mirrors, huh?” Piper said.

  Augustin said, “Doesn’t change a damn thing. In fact, it’s good PR that helps keep things just the way they ought to be forever.”

  “I’m done profiling,” Piper said, turning to Cliff. “I think a Roman counsel said it best.” He turned his thumb down. Cliff reached for his gun. The silencer was attached to it.

  Augustin and Ainsley sported dumbass smiles, like maybe this was performance theater. It was just too far out of their venue for them to respond appropriately.

  “You do one,” Cliff said. “It’s time you got your hands dirty. Don’t worry, I got your back.” He tossed Piper a Swiss Army knife. Piper fiddled with the blades, looking for the right one.

  “Guys, if this is a joke, it’s gone far enough,” Augustin said.

  Ainsley chimed in, “And if it’s not, what’s the buyout figure? I’ll have it wired to your accounts right now. No worry about a check bouncing.”

  “I’ll go for that,” Cliff said. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said to Piper. “For the right figure my pragmatism trumps my idealism.”

  “That’s true for most of us,” Ainsley said, chuckling. “What’s your account number?”

  Cliff rattled it off for him and Ainsley keyed it in on his cell phone. “There, it’s done. Ten million to your account, five for you, and five for your friend. That ought to do it, I’m guessing.”

  “You guess right,” Cliff said. He put a call through on his cell phone to confirm the deposit. He just keyed in the #bal# to get all the information he needed. “He’s a man of his word, Piper. How does that affect your profile?” He held the ph
one’s display up to Piper’s face.

  “’Fraid it doesn’t change it much,” Piper said.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.” Cliff put a bullet straight through Ainsley’s skull. Augustin turned to flee and his right eye plunged straight into Piper’s Swiss Army knife.

  Ainsley crumpled at the knees, putting the only wrinkles in the suit Piper could see. Augustin was just seconds behind him.

  Cliff commended Piper on his handiwork, “Nicely done.”

  “I got tired waiting, so I figured I’d bring the champagne…” the lady in red said, bursting in on the scene. It took her a while to realize she wasn’t addressing Augustin and Ainsley, but Piper and Cliff. Only then did she come to the end of that tunnel she was in, and her vision widened to include the two bodies on the floor.

  Her grip loosened on the bottle. Piper caught the champagne before it fell to the ground. Pulled the knife out of Ainsley’s eye, and used the blade from the Swiss Army knife to ease the cap off the bubbly.

  Her mouth agape, the sound of the cork popping was permission enough to come uncorked herself. She screamed, but Cliff stifled her by clamping his hand around her mouth.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Cliff advised. “We were just planning on stepping into their lives for a while. Admit it, at first, you couldn’t tell us from the two of them yourself. Only, we’re a hell of a lot more interesting.”

  She nodded.

  Piper sniffed the bouquet on the champagne. “That’s all right if you can’t summon the necessary sincerity right away. We plan to earn your loyalty a lot better than they did. These bastards were happy to crash the world economy a second time over and a third, given half a chance. So you can think of us as social workers. We’re friggin’ Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. And you, Maid Marian.” He poured the champagne and took a swig. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. But I assure you, compared to those two, we’re quite the upgrade.”