Striper Assassin

by Nyx Smith

  Grinning, he opens the door to the crystal-and mirror-decorated spa. Christie and Crystal are there, where they should be, in the huge marble bath, up to their magnificent, cosmetically enhanced boobies in foamy bubbles. They look at him and smile.

  What he wants them for is obvious, and they’re more than willing to comply.

  After all, that’s their whole purpose.

  38

  The glowing neon sign outside reads Ristorante, but the interior of the place looks more like a bar, a dark, dingy little bar hidden along a back street in South Philly. Inside are a dozen stools lined up along the plastic-paneled face of the bar, and a dozen small round tables sit draped in stained linen, each with two chairs apiece. Opera music carries out from some room in the back.

  A fat woman in a dirty apron brings out a cup of some aromatic kind of soykaf romantically described as cappuccino. The old men sitting along the bar keep looking over their shoulders toward the table in the right rear corner. From behind the mirrored lenses of her black visor-style shades, Tikki notes their glances, but considers other things.

  She’s here because this is probably the last place in Philadelphia where anybody would think to look for her, and she needs a few minutes respite from the need to constantly watch her back. South Philly is primarily owned by the Italian mob. What little contact she’s had with them in other cities has been violent and short-lived.

  No one here should have any idea who she is.

  She needs to think about what happened to her at the bank, for it makes no sense at all. A guy like Fat André isn’t going to rip her off and then sit there and lie about it. He just wouldn’t. It would be too much of a risk. Slags running banks in the shadows don’t stay in business by taking that kind of risk. And Fat André didn’t smell like he was lying, anyway.

  The only explanation that makes sense is that someone, maybe someone with magic, got to Fat André and scrambled his head. Made him erase any records of Tikki’s account, made him fabricate that vid tape of her walking in and demanding her money. Made him actually believe that she has no money at his bank. Otherwise, she’d have picked up on his lies in a second.

  The question, then, is simple: Why would someone do that to Fat André?

  She already knows the answer. Somebody’s trying to jerk around with her brain. They want her so busy trying to figure what the frag’s going on that she doesn’t see the kill shot coming.

  No such luck.

  Tikki’s been in this position before. Once in Hangchow, once in Osaka. People got greedy, tried to hose her up. She kept her eyes on the big picture and when things started getting dicey she got the hell out. Only an idiot stands and fights when she’s got absolutely nothing—nothing but money—to lose by running. Later, when things cool down and people forget who they’ve used, there’s always an opportunity to settle the score.

  She’d much prefer to turn and charge straight into the face of an enemy, tear him apart, but this is a case where the urging of instinct is stupid.

  Who wants her dead? The yakuza? Adama? Someone else? She has no real clues. The only thing that keeps coming back to her time and again is that the yakuza would not likely hire anyone like Hammer. They’d do the job themselves.

  What to do now? Get out of town. She doesn’t like it, but it’s the only sensible answer. The safest way out is on the fastest bike she can find. There are only two significant airports and a couple of railroad stations. Those can be watched, but even the cops can’t keep an eye on all the roads. She should head north or south, stay in the main-line traffic of the northeast corridor. Lose herself in the crowd. Heading south, she’d hit Baltimore, then D.C. North gets her to Newark. A very rowdy place, Newark. A person could get lost in the Newark metroplex without even trying. A person could catch a plane to almost anywhere in the world from Newark. It may very well be her kind of town. She’ll give it a shot.

  Coming out of the restaurant, she takes a last drag of her slim Partagas purito, then drops it into the gutter. The night is cool. The city rumbles around her. But what she hears are the words of her mother, whispered into her ear one cool, dark night in Hong Kong: never deal with a dragon, choose your enemies carefully, find your own truth…

  To Chat, Tikki adds her own rule: stay clear of magic-users.

  If her guesses are right, a fairly powerful mage must be allied with whoever wants her dead. All by itself, that’s reason enough to get out. Out of Philadelphia.

  Maybe out of the U.C.A.S. Maybe this whole part of the world.

  She catches the Broad Street subway, rides it as far as Race Street, then walks east into Chinatown. An alley off Tenth brings her up alongside a three-story brick tenement. The alley door opens onto stairs that lead down to a metal door. She taps the entry code into the lock. The door clicks. She pulls it open and steps in.

  The room she enters is a concrete box, little more than two meters on a side. A single bare bulb set into a fixture on the ceiling comes on as the door swings open. Against the left-hand wall sits a black steel footlocker. Tikki’s emergency kit. The footlocker’s contents include a Kang, an exact mate of the pistol holstered at her back, and ten clips of ammunition. There are also a few certified credsticks and various forms of ID. Almost anything she might need to get out in a hurry is inside that box. Tikki likes to be prepared.

  What she isn’t prepared for is the man seated on the footlocker. She’s got the Kang in her hand before she sees anything more than the man-like shape and dark clothing. The neatly trimmed beard and the sleek black suit and shoes don’t really sink in till several instants later. The thing foremost in her mind is the fact that no one should be here because no one else is supposed to know about her cache. Tikki drops to one knee and puts her shoulder to the door frame as she brings the Kang to bear. That’s when she realizes the man is Adama. He smiles at her indulgently, as if wholly unaware of the mankiller pointed squarely at his face.

  The bare bulb on the ceiling makes his eyes seem agleam.

  “Forgive the intrusion,” he says quietly, gesturing vaguely, as if to brush something inconsequential aside.

  “You’ve been out of touch for a few days. I was… concerned.” He adds a smile.

  Tikki lowers the Kang, straightens up. A dozen questions flash through her mind. How did Adama get through the door? How did he know this place even existed? How could he have guessed that she would come here now? She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. Tikki is so completely confounded she can’t even figure out what question to put to him first.

  He extends a hand toward her, palm-up. “You haven’t stepped into harm’s way, I see.”

  Tikki shakes her head. “You?”

  “I’m quite well, thank you,” Adama replies, idly turning his walking stick between his fingertips. Tikki rubs at the back of her neck, feeling an itch. “Your efforts seem to be intimidating the competition,” Adama says. “I’m very pleased. I presume that I can count on your continued service.”

  One thought comes to mind. “My money.”

  “You’d like to renegotiate,” Adama says, smiling, briefly waving a hand. “That’s only natural. I’m sure we can agree on an equitable price for your next job.”

  Yeah, right…

  Her next job. Adama mentioned he had another job for her. Up until this moment. Tikki hadn’t really given it serious thought. Something about it bothered her, but she can’t remember what. She supposes if Adama’s willing to renegotiate her terms of service, she’d be stupid to tell him no. Money, after all, is a primary issue. Money is the incentive humans use to encourage her to see the human domain in their terms and to take other humans as prey. Money buys her a pleasant urban lifestyle.

  “Why don’t we go have a bite?”

  She could use some food.

  Adama gestures. Tikki reholsters the Kang and steps back through the doorway. Adama joins her at the bottom of the stairs. She makes sure the door is secure, then precedes him up the stairs, into the alley and out to Te
nth Street. Adama’s gleaming black Mitsubishi Nightsky limo is waiting at curbside. Tikki didn’t see it there before. It must have been parked around the corner. She follows him into the rear compartment, and the limo glides smoothly away from the curb.

  Adama offers her a Dannemann cigarro. She accepts it, and a light. “I know a wonderful little place,” he says. “Marvelous food. Chinese. If you’ll forgive the indiscretion.”

  Indiscretion? Like her Asian background is some big secret? She supposes that this is just another of Adama’s little jokes. Oddly, she feels inclined to smile. Really, it’s such a stupid joke she feels compelled to do so.

  The limo rolls over to Front Street, rides up to Kensington Avenue and heads into northeast Philly. Before long, they’re rolling up in front of a restaurant called the Hunan Mayfair, a dinky little place. The vid display in the window flashes: Moo Shu Pork! Sautéed with cabbage and eggs! All fresh! All real! Wrapped in mandarin pancakes with plum sauce!

  There’s something about the place that bothers Tikki, but she can’t decide what it is. Maybe it’s just that she’s never seen Adama eat Chinese before. Despite the name he goes by, Adama Ho, he’s never shown a predilection for any food other than the routinely Anglo. She follows him inside. They take a corner table. Tikki checks the menu and decides on the Kung Po beef.

  “Make it hot,” she tells the old man who takes their order.

  “Yes. Very hot.” The old man bows and leaves. Tikki looks to Adama, but he merely smiles. She’s wondering why the old man answered her in Mandarin. Mirrorshades cover her eyes, concealing the most obvious physical clue to her Asian background. What the hell is going on here?

  “It’s all right,” Adama says, smiling benignly, briefly waving a hand in dismissal. Tikki decides not to worry about the old man. “It’s been some days since I’ve heard from you,” Adama says, still smiling, still turning his walking stick between his fingertips. “I take it you handled the problem involving my principal weapon.”

  The attempt on her life? She handled it fine. She tore Hammer and his band of stupid amateurs into bloody ribbons. She slaughtered them. Literally. “They got what they needed.”

  Adama regards her, smiling as if amused, gesturing at her vaguely. “You sound quite ferocious this evening.”

  The idea makes her smile again, a vicious smile this time. She’s actually feeling kind of ferocious, now that Adama mentions it. She can’t imagine what she must have been thinking before. There’s no need for her to leave the city. She’s got nothing to fear. Nothing can stop her. She’ll kill anything that tries. Kill it, tear it to shreds, devour it. Frag the yakuza. Frag them all, all humans. Skinny weaklings. Sloppy two-legged bags of meat. They’re just breeders, breeders and prey. She should slaughter every last one of them. She’s had enough of their stink.

  Over dinner, Adama starts to fill her in on her next job. He’ll give a fuller briefing later. The important thing for now is that her next target is a high-level yakuza executive who poses the most serious threat still facing Adama and his organization. This man, this next target, must be slaughtered most viciously of all.

  His name is Bennari Ohashi.

  39

  Raman sets the stand on the chopper and looks at Eliana. For a moment the she does nothing more than work her fingers through her pale blonde hair: smoothing, fluffing, primping. That she should waste time in so trivial a way does not surprise him. She is obsessive about her appearance, her looks, her cleanliness, to a degree that makes other females seem almost slovenly by comparison. She spends whole hours merely bathing, and hours more applying makeup, arranging her hair and putting on clothes.

  Tonight, she wears a clinging black blouse and matching short skirt with a broad golden belt around her waist. Supple black boots with towering spike heels climb her legs to beyond the hem of her skirt. Over that, she wears a cloak that falls almost to her ankles, black on the outside, gleaming gold within. Dozens of wire-thin bangles slither up and down her forearms; rings adorn every finger. A host of delicate chains and necklaces hang from her neck.

  Abruptly, she draws the cloak around herself, concealing even her arms.

  “This way,” she says, pointing with her chin.

  Eliana turns and heads up the alley, into the garbage-laden dark. This is what Raman finds surprising, that she would come to such a place, an alley amid all the decaying slums near the House of Corrections. He’s dealt with Eliana in various ways for close to three years. How many times has she ever come out into the streets, into the dark recesses of the city? Two times? Perhaps three? This is a very rare event. Eliana, the obsessively clean and finicky she, actually exposing herself to the risk of becoming soiled or smudged. Remarkable.

  They turn a corner, Eliana in the lead. A short distance away they see a group of black-clad youths, laughing and grinning. Their grins grow vicious as the youths spot the she. Eliana looks much too diminutive and daintily female to pose much of a threat. Raman puts a hand to his knife, the killing knife sheathed inside his jacket, but no need.

  “Yo! Scope the biff!”

  “You got urges, honey?”

  One of the youths comes up to Eliana, reaching toward her hair. The she makes a sound like a grunt, then flings her hand out from under her cloak like a cat, slashing at the youth’s face. The youth flips back off his feet as if struck by the hand of a giant, crashes over a metal drum, then lays still. Blood pours from the smashed wreckage of his face and throat. The other youths hesitate. Eliana thrusts one arm toward the darkness of the sky, her fingers curled like claws. The air in the back alley suddenly begins to swirl. A cyclone arises. The youths gape, then turn and run, pelted from behind by every form of garbage.

  The cyclone dissolves and fades. Eliana smooths and fluffs her hair, again wraps herself in her cloak, then leads on, further down the alley, not too far. Turning to face the rear door of one of the houses on the right, she flings back her cloak and thrusts both hands at the night sky. The door bursts inward as if smashed from the frame by a giant’s fist. Dust swirls and then settles. Eliana brushes at her clothing, fluffs her hair, then leads inside.

  The interior of the house is a gray and dusty ruin, dimly lit by starlight and the orange-tinted glow from streetlights on the road out front. Holes in the walls, broken bits of furniture scattered around. Water softly drips somewhere. The smell of mold and decay. Eliana grunts with obvious distaste. A narrow hallway leads to the front door. An open doorway on the left leads into a modest-sized room like a living room.

  In the middle of the floor sits a cat, Eliana’s black cat. The she stands facing the cat for a moment, then crouches down as if to stroke the animal or perhaps pick it up, but when she straightens up the cat is gone. It is neither on the floor nor in Eliana’s arms. Raman did not see where it went. Apparently, Eliana sent it somewhere else with her magic. It would not be the first time she has done this or something like it in his presence.

  There is something about the cat and its relationship to Eliana that goes beyond the purely mundane. Raman suspects that the cat may itself be a worker of magic. It surely is no ordinary feline. Of that he has no doubt.

  Eliana of course explains only when she must and when she feels so inclined. Most often, she prefers to leave others guessing.

  Now, the she shakes out her cloak, then her hair, and turns to the large front window. The window pane is veiny with cracks, as if it had been struck by a brick but not broken. Eliana points to a row house almost directly across the street. “That is where you will find her,” she says quietly. “In one of the rooms on the fifth floor. Striper is not there now, but she will be soon. This is her special place. Her safe place.”

  Eliana turns and looks at Raman. The faint light from the street glints in her eyes. The spike heels of her boots so add to her height that she need barely lift her chin at all to meet Raman’s gaze. Faintly, she smiles.

  “Be careful.”

  “Why?”

  Eliana inclines one eyebrow and aga
in looks across the street. “This Striper is most unusual. I saw it in her aura. She is very strong. Very dangerous.”

  “What makes her so dangerous?”

  Eliana turns her head slightly, looks at him from the corners of her eyes, but says nothing.

  It is typical.

  40

  Tikki turns in off the street, goes through the door of the row house in northeast Philly, and briefly pauses in the foyer. On the stairs the slag with bright orange hair and teeth filed to points looks at her a moment, then lowers the muzzle of his shotgun toward the floor. Tikki stares at him an instant longer, then heads up the stairs. She doesn’t like people pointing guns at her, even if it is their job.

  Otherwise, the evening has gone well. Adama laid out his plan for her upcoming assassination of Bennari Ohashi, yakuza executive. It’s a good plan. Tikki doubts she’ll have any problems. Whatever doubts she may have entertained about Adama must have been the product of her own paranoia. The man is too much a predator to betray her. He takes too great a pleasure in the kill to ever turn against her. What could possibly have been wrong with her head that she might have suspected him of treachery? She ponders that at some length, but comes up with nothing. She must have been crazy.

  Out of her head.

  She reaches the top of the stairs, tugs the door open and steps into the fifth floor hallway. A strange smell stops her cold. Before she can identify it, something hits her hard from above and behind, driving her flat to the floor.

  What’s going on? She’s being attacked, ambushed. Tikki realizes that even as she feels the impact against the back of her head and shoulders as some incredible weight thrusts her down onto her belly, banging the breath from her lungs.

  Before she can even start to fight, she feels a cold hard pain starting somewhere around her right kidney, then rising, tearing up through her back, and then it’s too much. Over before it began. Weakness assails her. The pain smothers her mind.