Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy

by Dana Stabenow

  “No. All noir. Only two of the clubs center on Bogart.”

  “Casablanca?”

  “My favorite. You want to see?”

  Snow, hooked on true love and self-sacrifice? Sell me another bridge in Brooklyn.

  “You must like the hot, dry climate,” I hazarded.

  “Hot is my sexual preference.”

  “It was Satan’s too.” We went through another pair of frosted-glass doors into Rick’s Café Américain bar.

  Bogie was here, in a slightly wilted white evening jacket, leaning over an upright piano on which a black guy played “As Time Goes By.” Customers in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts looked a lot more at home here. Ingrid Bergman sat alone at a table, looking pensive while being chatted up by two surfer dudes. And Peter Lorre lurked around the fringes, having played the same conniving, cringing lowlife he was so good at in The Maltese Falcon.

  I ankled over, and his beady eyes lit up. He wasn’t used to women seeking him out.

  “Hi, cutie, can I buy you a gin rickey?” I didn’t even know what a gin rickey was, except it evoked the name of the bar’s fictional owner… and of my own personal cutie, Ric Montoya, come to think of it.

  He would have looked good at Rick’s place. Much better-looking than Bogart.

  “You can buy me some information,” I said, melding into forties noir-speak. “Have there been any attempts on Rick’s life lately?”

  “This is Casablanca. If the local occupying Nazis aren’t after you, the international rat pack is. Rick can take care of himself.” Lorre eyed Bergman. “That dame is no good for him. That’s the kind of classy dame even a hardheaded guy could lose his sense of self-preservation over.”

  “He did,” I said. “Do you ever trespass on your ‘cousin’s’ scenario in the next club over?”

  “Never! We are forbidden to meet. It’s in our contracts.”

  “Aren’t you even tempted?”

  “No. He’s a weaselly little rat who will never get the girl. Here, I get to talk to you, cutie.”

  “Not anymore.”

  I looked around for Snow. He was hanging over the top of the small, white upright piano, singing along to Sam’s soulful rendition of “As Time Goes By.” I suppose even a rock star harbors visions of crooning classics.

  On the “a kiss is just a kiss,” he turned those blind-man glasses my way.

  A kiss is just a kiss, my eye! His Brimstone Kiss after the show addicted the clamoring mosh-pit females to a repeat performance that would never happen. These pathetic Cocaine junkies attended every performance, living their lives only to support their doomed habit. I was secretly working to rehabilitate them, for my own reasons.

  “We done here?” I asked as I walked over.

  He finished the phrase. Then, since the fundamentals still apply, he escorted me to the Circle One lobby.

  “Got any ideas?” he asked.

  “Just a couple more questions.”

  He waited.

  “The CinSims are strictly tied to their performance areas, right?”

  “Theoretically. It depends how diligent the hotelier is about keeping a leash on them.”

  “And you?”

  “I’d find it more interesting if they would depart from the script. Call me contrary, but tourists like the unexpected.”

  “So you don’t have them tied down as tightly as some.”

  “No.”

  “And Sam Spade might have gotten up to the Inferno Bar on his own.”

  “If he’d had the will. That’s the intriguing part. Does a CinSim have free will?”

  “Humans do.”

  “They seem to think so.”

  “And an unhuman like you?”

  “Are you certain I’m unhuman, or what kind of unhuman I might be?”

  The rumor said master vampire. I wasn’t so sure. “No. That’s your devilish charm.”

  I doubt many people made Snow laugh, but I did then.

  “That’s my devilish charm,” I said.

  But he didn’t answer, only reached down and snapped his forefinger on my bracelet, my bond, his former lovelock, making it chime.

  “What else did you want to know?” he asked.

  “Which other hotels host Bogart CinSim, and what incarnations they use.”

  “Easy. My office computer has stats on all the competition.”

  On the way back up in the elevator, the pink ruby collar buzzed. His forefinger stabbed the black onyx stone.

  “The police and interested CinSim parties are getting restless, boss,” came a deep, growly voice.

  “Keep them busy. I’ll want them in my office in a bit. We may have something for them soon.”

  I was indignant. “ ‘We,’ white man?” Well, he was literally white from crown to toe, as far as I know, or ever wish to know.

  “You’ve got an idea on this CinSim murder, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. Maybe you can just read my mind and take it.”

  “Maybe I like you working for a living.”

  Me, too. I’d been an unemployed TV reporter until this paranormal investigator gig evolved. Actually, I enjoyed working for someone other than Hector Nightwine, my landlord and somewhat ghoulish mentor.

  Snow’s office sported a lot of glossy black furniture and a huge, tufted white leather executive chair.

  Even the laptop computer case was glossy black.

  I saw myself, darkly, in its reflective surface while his pale hands with their china white fingernails punched keys and scrolled and hunted.

  “All right,” he said at last. “The Gehenna has the only other Bogart film leased.”

  “To Have and Have Not, right?”

  “Is that a proposal or a question?”

  I made a face. I’d always known that Snow had designs on me. I just didn’t know what for. Or why.

  “Not one of Hemingway’s best novels,” he said. “Or Bogart’s best roles.”

  “Can I see the screen?”

  He spun the laptop to face me.

  I started punching my own buttons, looking up the original cast and the reviewer notes.

  Aha!

  That film had debuted Bogart’s future wife, long, lean model Lauren Bacall, and had made them into “Bogie and Bacall” for eternity. Her character in the movie was even nicknamed “Slim.” That was the film where she had taunted the Bogart character that he knew how to whistle, didn’t he? “Just pucker up your lips and blow.”

  It’s amazing what passed for racy seventy-some years ago.

  “I know who killed the Sam Spade CinSim. And why.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s all your fault, you know.”

  “My fault?”

  “You like your CinSims on a loose leash.”

  “Free will is a noble concept, especially for indentured servants.”

  “Sorta free will. Get Captain Malloy and the interested parties in here.”

  “Oh, excellent. You’re going to do the pin-the-rap-on-the-perp shtick. Classic mystery finish.”

  I said no more, waiting.

  Within ten minutes, the interested parties were herded into the room by the huge white tiger, who shifted into a skinny, six-foot-something black woman with long white hair like Snow’s, green eyes, and red-painted nails long and sharp enough to eviscerate an adult male. She was wearing purple leather Escada and it looked good on her.

  “We’ll take the Inferno to court,” croco-man Peter Eddy was sputtering as he took a seat, “if you deny our substantial financial interest in the now-useless CinSim.”

  “We’ll take you to jail,” Captain Malloy told Snow as she took her seat, “if you’re ducking any wrongdoing on your part here.”

  Reggie, the IFX-MS technician, slouched into another leather tub chair and shrugged his disdain for the whole inquiry. “It doesn’t matter what all you honchos decide. I just need to strip our programming pronto. Then you all can fight over the remains.”

  “Sure you really need to deprogram
the fallen CinSim?” I asked. “Let me see your portable programmer.”

  “No! It’s IFX-MS property.” He clutched the slim case to his side, but Grizelle, Snow’s security chief, leaned over to slash through the leather shoulder sling with one red, tigerish claw. She slung the item down on the desk in front of me.

  I tapped around and found I couldn’t get anywhere without an entry code.

  Everyone was watching me. Malloy was irritated. The lawyer was fixated. The tech guy was looking constipated, and who knew what Snow was thinking behind those impervious shades.

  Okay. Time for a little silver-medium work. These CinSim were my people, peeled from silver nitrate and given latter-day life. I let my fingers wander, like a musician’s. I was looking for the one right note in Sam Spade’s key… a code name Sam/Humphrey would know and love.

  Effie. The name of Spade’s loyal secretary. Every private dick in those days had one. Nothing. Iva. Nothing. Brigid. Rhymes with “frigid.” Hammett named the “Fat Man” Gutman, so he was trying to tell us something. Nothing. None of the story dames registered. It had to be a woman. I tried the actress names, Mary Astor, Lee Patrick, Gladys George. Nothing.

  Leather chairs creaked as representatives of three powerful forces in Las Vegas grew impatient.

  Nothing from the fourth and key figure, Snow.

  I entered an all-American name. Betty. Betty Bacall, before the “Lauren” became her screen moniker.

  Suddenly I was in the Sam Spade file. Yes! What was left of it. Hopefully, all.

  “You’ve already uploaded the Spade and Bogart personas.” I looked up to accuse Reggie, the tech guy. “You erased the canvas. You stuck the dead man’s chest with a redundant corkscrew to hide the fact that the canvas was already empty. Why?”

  “Me? I’m only the tech zombie. I just do my job.”

  “The whole CinSim was right in your porta-puter all the time. You were going to pretend to upload the personas from the ‘mysteriously’ dead CinSim body. Why the subterfuge?”

  Reggie squirmed in his chair, but Grizelle’s red-taloned hands held him still. She leaned her face close to his and gave one of those Big Cat snarls

  “S-s-secret orders. Get this thing away from me!” Grizelle backed off her face, but not her claws. “There’s nothing illegal here. No murder. This CinSim was rogue. The chip told us he was trying to leave his venue. That’s why I had to waste him in the Inferno Lounge. One CinSim wanders off its contracted premises, it’s history, like it was before.”

  “Why not just withdraw the lease?”

  “Too many questions. Money loss. Besides, Mr. Christophe is not a team player.” He glared at our host.

  I tapped some commands into the console. Up came a screenful of gobbledygook.

  “Why?” Captain Malloy wanted to know. “Why get a crime-scene team out here for nonsense? You can’t kill a CinSim.”

  “Only by computer” I said. “I’m guessing the IFX-MS brass didn’t want to antagonize Christophe. He’s a good customer, if willful. They canceled the contract without having to pay a kill fee. Created a mystery. A philosophical conundrum. The CinSim is indeed their property, but it was wandering and the contract hadn’t run out. An executive decision. This tech man is only the hired hand who did the take-down.”

  Captain Kennedy arched a pale eyebrow. “Not everybody can take down Sam Spade.” She eyed Christophe. “You want to charge fraud?”

  “I want my CinSim back. I’ll say if it’s out of bounds, not IFX-MS.”

  I spun the tech’s computer across Snow’s desk to face him. “Be my guest.”

  Captain Malloy stood. “There’s no crime here. Don’t call the police the next time you corporate zombie-lovers have a spat. There are some things we expect you dealers in immortality to work out for yourselves. We work the real-dead beat.”

  She left.

  The lawyer bowed out too. “It’s obvious that a CinSim can’t die. My job is done. You tech geeks and ghouls and girls work it out between you.”

  It was just the three of us. And the gigabytes of Sam Spade and Humphrey Bogart.

  “Your company doesn’t like my operation,” Snow said softly, “you come to me. You don’t sneak onto my premises to off my CinSims. Got it?”

  The guy was just a low-level techie, following orders. He swallowed, glanced at Grizelle, then fled, leaving his porta-puter.

  “He’s all here?” Snow asked me. “Role and actor?”

  “I think so.”

  He nodded at Grizelle and she left with the computer and file, walking with one Jimmy Choo spike swaggering in front of the other, like a big cat stalking. Sam Spade would soon be restored to his rightful starring place in the Inferno firmament.

  Snow leaned back in his infinitely programmable executive chair, running his dead white fingers through his dead white hair.

  “So, Delilah. It was just unsanctioned industrial sabotage. The Immortality Mob needed a comeuppance. Thanks for the quick solve. Your fee will be waiting at your cottage on Nightwine’s estate.”

  “That may not be enough in this case.”

  “No? We had a deal.”

  “You realize why Sam was wandering.”

  “He could.”

  “You’re a generous slaveholder, but no.”

  “I give them leeway. Why leave my hotel?”

  “Because you don’t lease Betty Bacall.”

  “What? You’re saying he needed a girlfriend?”

  “I’m saying Bogie needed his wife.”

  Snow was silent, taking in all the implications. Then he sat up, wired.

  “The CinSims want a life? Real life?”

  “They’re a blend of actor and role… and corporeal canvas. The role is written. The actor has a soul. Humphrey Bogart wanted to play a part that united him with the woman he loved in the real world.”

  “Lauren Bacall, not ‘Slim’ Browning?”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  “I understand that this is a most… interesting development. More interesting than IFX-MS’s tawdry attempt to confuse the issues with a phony homicide.”

  “I agree.”

  “I’ll have to pay a bundle for the Casablanca cast. Ingrid Bergman was a much bigger star than Mary Astor. The Gehenna will want more for To Have and Have Not and Lauren Bacall. On the other hand, I always thought she was a classy dame.”

  “Noir does not become you, Snow. And while you’re arranging for new CinSims, I have a suggestion.”

  “Suggestion?”

  “Demand.”

  “And you want—?”

  “Given the soul you’ve now discovered in the CinSims, I think, at the least, that Nick Charles deserves a Nora Charles at the Inferno bar.”

  “What a romantic you are, Delilah Street. And pretty pricey yourself.” Snow made a note on the laptop. “I’ll look into a Myrna Loy/Nora Charles lease in the morning. I suppose you want the damn dog too?”

  My hand unconsciously went to the damned silver bracelet, once a lock of Snow’s hair as white and supple as my lost Lhasa apso’s floor-length coat.

  “And Asta, the wire-haired terrier,” Snow said as he typed, long, white fingers playing the keyboard like a piano. “One dead dog, coming up.”

  Didn’t I wish.

  Looks Are Deceiving

  Michael A. Stackpole

  For a murder victim, Duke Serean Darikean looked surprisingly lively. The Iron Duke sat there amid a pack of hunting dogs, lazily scratching one of the Wurmhounds behind an ear. He looked better than he had when I last saw him, but none of us retreating from The City Beyond The Sea had been at our best.

  The death of an Age will sap life from even the most resilient.

  The dogs dwarfed every man there save one, Kellach, whom I thought of as a friend, but who likely saw me as a curious acquaintance. By temperament Kellach was more wolf than man. Had the Duke set one of the hounds on him, the beast would have fared badly. The Iron Duke’s having again empl
oyed Kellach underscored the seriousness of his situation. Darikean could have called up Legions, but this problem was one to be handled in secrecy and shadows.

  The hawk-nosed Duke smiled as if wondering how quick a meal one of the brindle Wurmhounds would make of me. I’d be a bite. Barely. I could have walked beneath one and only touched its belly if I stretched.

  Touched physically, that is.

  Two servants dragged a chair over, and the Duke waited until I struggled up into it before speaking.

  “We had our differences in Aviantis, Primin. I would apologize, but…”

  “An apology without remorse means nothing.”

  The man’s dark eyes sharpened. “I regret having lost your home.”

  Only for the tarnish on your reputation.

  “We did what we could.” I shrugged. “My friend convinced me to come because he said you’d been murdered.”

  “And you wanted to see for yourself.” The Skorpantine noble raised a hand and flicked a nail against a dark ring on his little finger. “I am being poisoned. Someone switched another ring for mine.”

  The Duke’s new house wizard tugged on his beard sagely. “You are familiar with a Bloodlock?”

  I scratched my chin. “Old magick, Sepheri magick, but common enough now. The curse had to be sworn through a god.”

  “I have made the temple rounds, made the right sacrifices, paid the proper bribes.” Darikean frowned. “The ring remains.”

  I shook my head. “If a god won’t release you, only the oathtakers’ blood can.” I opened my arms and looked around the hunting villa. “Did you fail to pay the artists for these murals?”

  Darikean’s hand closed into a fist. He would have struck me, but he wanted my help. More importantly he feared me. All of them did save Kellach. What my twisted body lacked in physical stature, it made up for beyond the Veils.

  The Skorpantine sorcerer waved that suggestion away. “This is far more vile than some ruse to extract payments. Whoever it is truly wants our lord deceased.”

  “Not a short list.” The sorcerer and the two courtiers grew angry, but the Duke just stroked Wurmhound fur. “Who benefits from your death?”

  “Another long list.” The Duke shook his head. “Of those who benefit, only four could have made the substitution. My wife, two sons, and my daughter. None of them, however, has the skill to work such magick.”