"The cops said something about Roswellians—"
Flash laughed. "That was like fifty years ago. That was some rookie reading from the general database and regurgitating it to his higher-ups without anyone looking at date stamps. All that Roswell stuff was big back then, but again, that's ancient history. But wait..." A determined look came across Flash's face with a slight smile. "My boss will know. He knows the back story for every street in Metropolis. He's better than a computer."
He started to grab his dashboard handset but stopped.
"No, forget that." He looked up at his rear-window. "Ms. Carol, are you game for a ride to see my boss. It'll only be a brief detour."
She smiled slightly and nodded.
Flash felt a new energy as he started up his hovertaxi. "Yes, sir, indeed. My boss will know what we should do. Don't give up hope, Ms. Carol. Dr. King said 'We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.' We have to keep that hope alive."
The hovertaxi rose into the air and jetted into the above sky lane of traffic.
Chapter 4
Street Shakedown
METROPOLIS WAS AN UNWIELDY monolith of a supercity, but defining it more than anything was mobility. Mobile commerce, mobile services, people constantly in motion. Some said that people had to keep moving, even if they were going nowhere, otherwise the rain would wash them away with all the filth.
The Surf Brothers zipped past in their garbage hovertruck, by every other vehicle in the commercial sky lane. Trash trucks were more plentiful than any other vehicle in the city, government, or corporate. There was a lot of work to be done, and if they didn't do it, it wouldn't be the rain that would be the problem, but the growing blob of garbage from the millions of people living on top of each other.
The Dominican brothers smiled as they neared their target.
"There!" the brother in the passenger seat yelled out.
His brother saw it, too, and abruptly took the trash truck down. Only police and fire services could ignore every traffic law there was on the books.
The brother in the passenger seat had already pushed open the door before his older brother had the truck even ten feet down. He held the door still with one hand while he clung to an exterior vehicle handhold with the other. Trash collectors all wore their standard uniform—white jumpsuits with the word "TRASH" on the back and front. The younger brother had slicked-back, black hair and the makings of a goatee.
His older brother looked almost the same, only heavier, a bit taller, and had a slim mustache. He landed the vehicle as his younger brother jumped to the ground to look at the salvage.
People in the city always did the same thing—no matter if it was the upscale areas, working-class neighborhoods, or the downscale and dangerous areas. They dumped their old furniture on some sidewalk or back-alley. But why wouldn't they? Why would anyone pay the outrageous trash collection fees by the City? The trash industry didn't complain. It meant free money under-the-table straight to their pockets—a lot of free money. People left furniture in every possible condition and size; they left statues, old lighting, dish washers, washers and dryers, trampolines, workout equipment and weights, birdcages, dog cages, cat cages (sometimes with the animals inside), bookshelves and books, and even weapons. Once they found an unexploded bomb! Salvage work wasn't all fun, all the time.
The younger brother inspected the complete living room furniture—three couches, a main glass table and two side coffee tables, and a few lamp posts, all arranged neatly on top of each other.
"Good salvage!" he yelled to his brother.
The older brother jumped out of the truck to help. "Don't mention this to anyone, not even the boss."
"I know."
"I don't want to split it with them, anymore. They're worse than the City."
The younger brother laughed. "We are the City, my brother."
He smiled at him. "Well, we're not for the next...ten minutes."
The two men quickly loaded the salvage furniture into the side of the truck. The men were both five-feet-two, but collecting trash packed serious muscle on them over the years. The older brother closed the side panel door, and the men gave each other a double fist bump.
"That's what I'm talking about," the younger brother said as he jumped to the passenger door with one leap. "Trash is cash, my brother."
The older brother jumped up to the driver's compartment of the truck. "Yes, my brother."
"Hey," the younger brother swung into his passenger seat. "You actually are my brother...my brother."
"Brother by the same mother."
"Now that's a brother."
The brothers laughed as the trash truck flew away and back into the commercial sky lane.
The garbage truck almost clipped their taxicab. The two knucklehead drivers didn't even care, the passenger thought to himself. The air had a faint smell of garbage, even though the truck was long gone, but trash trucks were always flying through the sky, and he could see more in the distance—a main sub-station was only five miles away from this squalid business section of the city.
The cab arrived, and before the man could fully close the door, the cabbie was already flying away from the curb. The man gave him a parting middle finger gesture and proceeded into the lobby of the business building.
The Fat Man could stare at his room-sized aquarium all day and all night long. What he particularly enjoyed was watching his luminescent piranhas feed—little fish, big fish, snakes, rats, whatever he had a mind to throw into the tank to watch the frenzy. He was a very large, pale-skinned man, no muscle, all fat, in his bright lime suit and tie. Every one of his stubby fingers had a gold ring, and his smile was one of all gold teeth. The only hair he had was the short fuzz on his scalp.
The door opened, and a smaller man entered, wearing a purple tie and suit to match his purple shades. "Mr. Ergo. Your four o'clock is here."
He reached into his inside breast pocket for his shades. "Show him in."
The Fat Man forced his blubber into his executive chair behind the fortress of a desk and rested his arms on the armrests. His assistant entered again, leading another man.
"Mr. Box," the Fat Man said, watching him through his tinted yellow glasses. "Peri, pull over a chair for Mr. Box. Mr. Box, I'm eager to see what you found and anxious to conclude our business, as I'm sure you're anxious to get paid."
His assistant grabbed a wheeled chair from the other end of the room and pulled it to the front of his boss's desk. Box sat and crossed his legs.
"I'm curious as to how you found me," he asked. "Or knew to call me without a recommendation."
"Why, Mr. Box, the Yellow Pages." The Fat Man laughed. "They have a sub-category for unscrupulous private eyes. Is it private eye or detective? What's the proper term these days?"
"Makes no difference to me as long as the money is good and on time."
"Of course." The Fat Man interlaced his fingers as he rested them on his belly.
Box noticed the room-sized aquarium taking up the wall adjacent to them and leaned forward.
"My pets," the Fat Man said.
"They really eat anything?" Box asked.
"Anything alive, they can reduce to bones within minutes."
"Cute." Box leaned back in his chair and looked at the Fat Man.
"Do you have it?"
"I do. I'm a detective. I find stuff." Box reached into his jacket and pulled out a round three-inch silver disk. "Not too difficult to put a file together." He leaned forward and placed the disk on the top of the desk.
The Fat Man smiled. "Peri."
The assistant appeared next to him with a small briefcase computer. He picked up the disk and inserted it into a portal at the top of the case. He watched a light flash green on the side of the case before placing it on the desk as he opened it. He stepped back.
The Fat Man's fat fingers scrolled through the file by moving the briefcase computer's embedded trackball.
"Hmm," he said. "Our friend has been
a very, very bad...rabbit." The Fat Man began to laugh again.
Box was not amused, but kept it to himself as the assistant reached into his own jacket and pulled out an envelope of cash. He tossed it to the detective. Box caught it with one hand and immediately fingered through it. Satisfied, he pushed it into his inside jacket pocket.
"Thank you, Mr. Box," the Fat Man said. "If I need an unscrupulous detective again, I won't even need the Yellow Pages."
Box stood from his chair.
"Since you've been a straight-up client, Mr. Ergo, let me verbally add something to the report as a bonus. This psycho freak is crazy."
"I imagine all psycho freaks are crazy, Mr. Box."
"Yeah, but he's new and already has a serious rep as a contract killer among certain segments on the street. What I'm saying is, I don't know what you plan to do, and it's none of my business, but be careful with this one."
"Thank you, Mr. Box. As you said, it's none of your business."
Box smiled and nodded. "I'll show myself out."
"And Mr. Box, be careful with taking a cab from this part of town. The cabbies are nothing short of highway robbers with the surcharges they tack on. I'd walk up to Null Street and hop on the monorail from there until you get back to civilization."
"Thanks."
The two men watched the detective walk out of the office and close the door.
"Peri, bring the car around. Let's go find this Red Rabbit." He looked at the piranha in his aquarium. "Now there's a thought. I've never served a live rabbit to my babies." He smiled with his gold teeth.
A black hovercar sat in the rain with the Fat Man in the passenger seat and his assistant at the wheel, waiting. Both were wearing dark shades but could see clearly through the rain and fog as they watched the building entrance about twelve yards away at the end of the street. A sidewalk johnny in a blue slicker coat, holding an umbrella, was right at the main door. He saw something then turned towards them and waved. With that, he ran off.
Red exited the dimly lit elevator and walked down the steps to the big revolving door of the entrance. He came out onto the street with red-tinted shades on, paying no attention to the weather.
"Mr. Red."
The voice made his head jerk to the side from the shadows. Two figures were waiting for him—a fat man and a smaller, shorter man.
"Don't be alarmed, Mr. Red," Mr. Ergo said. "I'm a simple business man. A class of people you are well accustomed to dealing with. Excuse my unorthodox way of seeking you out, but true businessmen make their opportunities. They don't wait for them. That's for losers."
Red was quiet and motionless in the shadow of the building; his rabbit ears stood up straight.
"I'm sure we can arrive at a mutually satisfactory dollar amount," the Fat Man continued.
"For what?" Red snapped.
"Silence, Mr. Red. You see, my assistant and I were in the vicinity of a street by the curious name of Alien Alley at the very hour that some poor child was, shall we say, borrowed away from her mother. The fact that we're here and talking to you should be evidence enough that what I say is true."
"You're shaking me down?" Red's voice was angry.
"Shakedown? No, Mr. Red. A simple business transaction. You should have taken more care not to have been seen when you were doing what you were doing. Quite a busy night for you, I'd say. Kidnapping and shootouts. The police are so overworked these days. They are always asking for tips for one unsolved crime or another. Now the police will pay X for said information, but as a businessman, I wanted to give you the fair chance to pay Y and not take said information to the police."
"Before you think about going psycho, psycho, know that we're heavily armed," the assistant interjected, his hand already holding something inside his jacket.
"Oh, no need to tell him that," the Fat Man cheerily said. "This is a calm discussion among businessmen."
"How much you want?"
"I was thinking about a figure Y, of say, one hundred thousand."
"Who's psycho? I'm not paying that to any shakedown artists."
"Then, give me a figure you think is fair, Mr. Red."
"Where do you get off calling me Red? You're not my friend, and you're not a client."
"No, Mr. Red. I'm a fellow businessman. You can call me Mr. Aquarius, if you like, since we're all using our super hero names today."
"I'd call you Captain Stupid if you think I'm going to give you anything near one hundred big ones."
"Mr. Red, I've done my due diligence," the Fat Man continued. "You make much more than that for an hour's work. And I hear you work all the time. Though I must say, I never see the aftermath of your deeds in the paper. Journalism is not what it used to be. Fifty-thousand by tonight, or do I make an anonymous call to Police Central? And, Mr. Red, we both know the kidnapping of the little girl is a mere incidental. What if the police were tipped off that the kidnapping of the little girl is connected to the larger event of the shootout."
"Forty-eight hours."
"Tonight."
"I don't have that kind of cash lying around."
"Tonight, at ten o'clock, I make that call to Police Central, Mr. Red. If you contact me before then, I will not make that call."
"I can't—"
"Mr. Red, this isn't the Middle East. I'm not interested in haggling all day long. Fifty-thousand dollars by ten o'clock. I believe we have arrived at a fair dollar amount to protect your dark deeds from the police authorities. I will leave a few associates in the lobby of your building, and you can pay them before ten o'clock...or not." The Fat Man turned back the way he came, but his associate remained, closely watching the killer. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Red. Don't mind my assistant here. He'll simply wait and watch you until I'm safely in my dry hovercar. I wouldn't want you try to do something unfortunate. That wouldn't be nice of you. Bye-bye, Mr. Red. I've never conducted business with a red rabbit before. But then, all is possible in the city of Metropolis."
"Yeah, bye-bye, Captain Stupid," Red said under his breath.
The Fat Man couldn't stop laughing as he watched. His aquarium piranhas devoured the large white rabbit he tossed into the tank.
"That's how you make rabbit stew!"
He began to walk back to his desk when the corner of his eye caught a shape moving to him. Red came out the shadows into plain view of the ceiling lamp. The Fat Man ran to his desk as he pushed a button on his belt. Red ran up behind him and rabbit-punched him in the back of the head—Crack! Ergo's eyeballs popped out of their sockets and his tongue shot out of his mouth.
The alarms screamed from the office. Large footsteps could be heard and the door was kicked open. The assistant ran in with his compact machine-gun. "Mr. Ergo!" he yelled. "You!"
Peri fired at Red, who stood there as the bullets riddled his body, but with no effect. Peri's face was overcome by terror as Red was on him, throwing him across the room. His face slammed against the center aquarium, and he saw it. The Fat Man in the tank, being finished off by the piranhas, gold teeth and gold rings sinking to the bottom.
Peri picked himself up from the ground, yelling hysterically. He started running.
"Wrong way," Red said, grabbing the man by the collar and directing his flight of fear in the opposite direction.
Peri ran right out the window.
Two sidewalk johnnies sat in the brownish couches of the lobby of Red's building.
"Do you suppose this Rabbit guy lives here?"
"How would I know?"
"What is this place? Is it residences?"
"Yeah. Hotel residences. The whole building."
"What a dump."
"We don't have to live here. We're just waiting for a drop-off for a few bucks."
"Do you see these couches we're sitting on? It's like they've been here since the founding of the country. Look at the mildew and muck on these." He wiped his hand on the side of the couch with a look of disgust.
"We don't have to live here, and we don't ha
ve to sit here ever again if we don't want to."
"Imagine the rats and roaches this place must have. They must be so big that the landlord can legally charge them rent."
"Hey, is this the guy?"
The other sidewalk johnny looked at the revolving door, too. Red walked through the door with some kind of glowing blue stick.
"What's that in his hand?"
The men stood from the couches in fear.
"Is that some kind of gun?"
Red walked to the men with no shades on his face; only the dark, ominous eyeholes of his mask. They could feel his stare as he cocked the electric rifle.
"Wait a minute, Mister! We were just asked to wait here for a few bucks. We're not involved."
Red's furry head mask turned bright red as he shot the man with a blast of blue energy, sending him sailing through the air and crashing into the elevator doors. The other man ran as fast as he could, crying, before he was shot in the back by another energy blast. Red's mask slowly reverted from red to a reddish white as he walked to the elevator door and pulled the dead johnny away so he could open it. He entered, closed the door behind him, and pushed a button. The elevator began to ascend as the ratty, brownish carpet began to catch fire from the discharges from his electric rifle.
Officer Break and Caps arrived for their first real call of the day. The cruiser set down, and both policemen walked to the scene. The police tape had already been set up to keep everyone out, but this time, all the police were on the other side of the cordon, too. The buildings first few floors were engulfed in flames.
They walked over to another police duo.
"Officers," the policeman said.
"Officers," Break said.
"What do we got?"
"Dead body drop. At least two people."
"Burn down an entire building to cover up a murder."
"Very enterprising of our city's murderers."
A red hovercraft appeared in the sky, above the crowds, with sirens flashing, and police moved the crowds back to allow the craft to land. Everyone still called them fire trucks, even though they became much more than that a long time ago. Police were in silver-and-black. Firemen were in red-and-black gear with the word "FIRE" on the chest and back of their uniforms. Their mechanical uniform enhancements were much more pronounced than the police's and made them appear to be eight-foot tall, muscle-bound giants. The Fireman's Union wouldn't allow one single, solitary fireman—or firewoman—to be replaced by robots, so they did the next logical—and more expensive thing—they merged the two.
These Mean Streets, Darkly (The Liquid Cool Prequel) Page 4
