by Jean Rabe
The ork continued her tirade. “Another of my mates was killed nigh on four weeks ago outside a high-rise a couple of blocks away.”
“That was Dezi Desire,” Cadi supplied. “She was—”
“A singer at Halfway House. Sydney’s lumpers had no clues,” Gertie said. “Halfway’s House’s lead choreographer and some stagehand were found about a week later. Geeked near an all-hours pub, they were. Before all of that another impersonator from a place down the street was slashed. Don’t remember who she worked for, that one, The Tattered Cat, Shattered Cat, something like that. Had cat in the title. Don’t recall her name. There’d been a few other murders, too.”
“Years ago and not so close to home, those murders,” Cadi supplied. “Tourists getting mixed up in things they should’ve steered clear of. Probably before you moved here, Ninn. Hell, probably back when you were still in the States. The tourists are smarter now.”
Gertie wiped at her nose. “But not the lumpers, they ain’t smarter. Them Ace drongoes are dumb as parrot drek. They solve murders—not, keep the bangers in their place—not, and can’t even prevent the streetlights from getting bashed to bits. Wonder why they bothered to show up for Ella?”
Ninn cocked her head, heard the click of hard soles across the bricks, fast businesslike steps, heard the lieutenant offer a greeting to the coroner, the words being recorded sounding like gnats buzzing around her ear. The coroner was in dress slacks so tight they looked painted on, her waist, breasts, everything in ideal proportion. The coroner was human, but it looked like she’d had some serious augmentations, body shaping, and bio-work done to come across nearly “perfect.” Even her hair, wavy, shoulder-length, red with highlights. Covergirl face. Almost too perfect and plastic, like the way an undertaker can make the deceased look. Fitting appearance for her job, maybe.
“See anything else? Anyone else?” Ninn studied the ork.
“No.”
“Did Ella owe someone nuyen?”
Gertie snorted. “Hand to mouth she lived, spending it all on Renaixement and slips and slips and more slips. Bad habit she had. Her debts were square, I think.”
Everyone had at least one bad habit, Ninn thought. “Did Ella have any enemies?”
“Pigs she did!” Gertie shook her head vehemently. “No! Everyone loved her. I already told the lumpers that. And Dezi, everyone loved her, too. S’why’re you asking me the same questions? I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. I don’t wanna—”
“What about the RighteousRight? They been giving you any trouble?”
“No.” A pause. “Not really. Not anymore than usual. No.”
“How about Ella’s other...” Ninn paused, trying to grope for a word that wouldn’t offend the entertainer. “Him,” she started. “Who was Ella? Did he have any enemies?”
“Miss Ella Gance,” Cadi cut in, “was Adoni Kogung. Adoni…it means ‘sunset’ in some Aboriginal dialect. Sadly appropriate.”
The ork wailed, and Cadi continued. “Adoni came to work for me three years ago, picked her up from the Beat Red down the street. She’d been in the area a long time though, but hadn’t looked quite this good until she started over there, and before that at Halfway House and the Forum, and apparently had enough nuyen to get some significant work done. God, she was beautiful.”
“Yes, she was,” Ninn admitted. “Go on.”
“We came up with the Miss Ella Gance name right away, ’cause she was all that—elegant. Kept getting better and better and better. Was writing her own songs. Pulled ’em into my place like a siren. Beautiful. And then when she got the vocal cord work done…wow. Kept making noise about going to Brisbane. But she fit in here, you know? You’ve been here more than a few times Ninn, you saw her. Honestly, I was surprised I could hang on to her.”
“I did see her. She was pretty incredible.” Ninn remembered Ella singing “Over the Rainbow” some months back when she ducked into Cadigal’s to get off the street during one of the nastier mana storm surges.
Cadi fidgeted as he watched the coroner escorting the AISE men leading a float-gurney, the bodybag atop it. They headed toward the far end of the alley, where the coroner’s sleek, mirror-black vehicle, a Takaya Daimyo, had made the crowd drift back. The car looked perfectly plastic, too.
“Want to talk to the other girls, Ninn?” The troll nodded at the performers standing behind him. “A couple more’re inside. Told ’em I haven’t decided if I’m gonna close tomorrow…er, today. Probably should. To honor Ella. In fact, I’ll have a service or—” Then Cadi’s attention shifted to the AISE lieutenant, who was passing the sniffer one more time over where Ella had been found. He was the only officer remaining in the alley.
“Has AISE—” Ninn began.
“Lumpers already talked to all the girls,” Cadi said as he and Ninn watched the bag floating down the alley. “I’m with Gertie. I don’t need to go over it again. Not right now anyway, talked enough to the fraggin’ Aces. Don’t want to go over it again. But I will, later. Right now I want to drink all of this nightmare away and—”
“Later, then,” Ninn said as Cadi released Hurdy Gertie’s shoulders. “I can get the girls’ statements from Sydney Central records. Talk to them later if I need to.” Talk to them away from here, where there are no distractions. The troll headed toward the lieutenant, leaving Ninn in front of the ork songstress.
Ninn turned up the volume on her receptor, pretended to listen to Hurdy Gertie, who was face-to-face with her now, praising Ella’s performances, spittle and sweat flying. But Ninn was really listening to Cadi and the lieutenant.
“I’ll need you down at Central this arvo,” the lieutenant told Cadi. “Few more questions, finish my report. Won’t take long. Sometime after lunch. You’ll be back in plenty of time to open at night if that’s what you want to do. She’ll be apples.”
“Everything will be all right? Pigs. And finish your report?” Cadi blustered. “There’s no finishing nothing until you find Ella’s killer. Takes what? Five murders to get Ace attention? And then just like that you’ll finish it up tomorrow afternoon?”
“We’re pretty sure it’s linked to the murders of the other drag queens,” the lieutenant said. “That maybe we’ve a serial—”
“Ella wasn’t just a bloody drag queen! The others weren’t drag queens!” Cadi fumed. “Ella was a talent, an impersonator. An artist. The best. You would understand that if—”
“Listen, it’s an ongoing investigation. We’re doing what we can.” The lieutenant let a touch of sympathy drift into his voice, but Ninn wondered if it was practiced or genuine. “There’s murders in other parts of Sydney, too.”
“The bloody bastard’s out there.”
“Yes. And tell your girls to stay out of the alleys. Not to go anywhere alone. When you close up after a show, make sure they leave in a group. Safety in numbers, remember? Be sensible about things, and they’ll be ducky.”
“That’s what you tell tourists? Safety in numbers? If you caught the murderer, they’d be safe. Everyone would be safe.”
“See ’ere, mate, we’re working on it. We’re ’ere, ain’t we?”
“Working,” Cadi growled deep enough that Ninn felt the bricks tremble under her sandaled feet. His fists were balled, white at the knuckles. “If you’d been working hard, been here for the very first victim, you would’ve caught the bloody bastard by now. My beautiful Ella would still be alive.”
The lieutenant glared. “That why you brought in the private investigator? Ninny? Because you don’t think us cops work hard enough? She’s only pretending to be sober. She’s gonna be worthless to you, Mr. Hamfyst. You could do better.”
Ninn bristled and chastised herself. She didn’t have that coveted and expensive nose filter, yet she could smell the booze on herself.
“Don’t think we’ll work fast enough?” the lieutenant continued.
“Yeah, I don’t. That’s why I hired her. This is the fifth murder, and you haven’t done frag-all about it. That�
�s why I hired her. I’m spending my nuyen ’cause Ace ain’t doing its bloody job.”
The lieutenant chuckled.
The laugh. Ninn had never liked that laugh. And he’d called her Ninny. She spun and left Hurdy Gertie behind.
“Hope you’re not paying ’er much, Mr. Hamfyst. Ninny there couldn’t find a clue if it jumped up and bit ’er on the—”
“That’s enough, Lieutenant Waller,” Ninn cut in, at last remembering the name of the man who used to head the AISE squadroom on the morning shift—the shift before she went on duty. Jacob Waller. A man she’d tried to push out of her memory.
“Ninny ’ere was kicked out of AISE,” the lieutenant continued, directing his comments to the troll. “About four, five years ago, if I remember right. She hadn’t been on the force long, fresh from the States. A real prize at the beginning. But it went sour quick. Bad collar on a very big case. Sloppy, she was. Made the news. Then it came out that she’d made a bad collar back in Chicago, too, and meddled with a big fire investigation. We didn’t give ’er a second chance after that all came to light. Told her to rack off. Booted ’er little elf ass.”
The lieutenant turned to Ninn, a sneer twisting his thin features. “Was that why you moved ’ere to the Cross, Ninny? All that bad publicity in Sydney proper kept you from getting work anywhere else ’round ’ere? No little cop shop would take you on? You ’ad to go private?”
Ninn formed a fist and drew back, but Cadi’s meaty hand shot up and caught her arm, throwing her aim off.
“Now why’d you have to go and stop ’er, Mr. Hamfyst? There’re plenty of witnesses around. Tsk, tsk. Could put Ninny away for better’n a year for assaulting an AISE officer.” Waller glared at Ninn. “Just give me an excuse, Ninny. Any excuse at all, and your little elf ass’ll be locked up all nice and proper.”
Ninn dropped back a step.
“Sure you don’t want to take a shot at me, Ninny? But then where would Cadigal’s precious entertainers be without a hard-drinking private eye poking around for them? You raise your fist to me again, and I’ll be happy to file the paperwork. You might like jail. Free tucker and a free place to stay. Might thank me for that. Last I ’eard, you were living in your office. ‘Course, last I ’eard of you was a couple years ago, when you got into a fight with a security cop posted by the opera.”
That ‘law’ was harrassin’ a friend of mine, he was in the wrong, and you know it. Nothin’ came of the incident, charges dropped. He baited me. Just like you’re baitin’ me.
Ninn took a deep breath and tried to look composed, took another step back and put her hands out to her sides as a peaceful gesture.
Don’t need a confrontation. Not here. Not now. Let it go. Let him go. He’s looking for any excuse to arrest me. Push him to the back of my memory again. Forget his name again.
“Yeah, I’m still livin’ in the office,” she replied. “It’s homey. Rent’s reasonable. The landlord’s a real peach, and doesn’t even mind if I have guests.”
Waller shook his head. “You’re wastin’ your nuyen, Mr. Hamfyst. Ninny ’ere is bad news, one bad collar after the next.” He chuckled, shook a finger at Ninn, and then patted the nightclub owner on the arm. “Sorry about your girl. Really. Nobody should die like this. Just not right. Tomorrow arvo at Sydney Central, anytime after brekkies, actually.” He whirled on his leather heels and headed toward the coroner’s vehicle.
“You was a lumper? Ace?” Gertie strutted up to join the pair, wrinkled her nose at Ninn. “You was with them Aces?”
“A while ago,” Ninn answered numbly, staring as the coroner pulled away.
“Better find someone else then, love.” Gertie was talking to the troll. “Even if you claim she’s a mate of yours, Cadi. Don’t like the lumpers, especially a bad one. All of ’em drongoes are as dumb as parrot drek.”
Ninn mentally clicked off the inscriber as the ork prattled on about the lack of interest the police had in the Cross, and how Ella’s murderer would never be found.
“Would be different if a tourist had been killed!” Gertie taunted when she was sure the AISE investigators were out of earshot.
Cadi escorted the big woman toward the other performers, herded them to the back door.
Ninn stared at the spot on the alley where Ella’s body had lain. The pounding in her head matched her heartbeat. She rubbed her temples harder. She heard the voices again.
“Where will you start?” Cadi had returned.
Ninn shut down her receptors and listened to Cadi with her own ears.
“Your investigation?” The troll continued. “Where will you start?”
“Sure you still want me involved? You saw it yourself. Lieutenant Waller, the guy in charge...we don’t exactly get along.”
Cadi shrugged. “Sod him. It doesn’t bother me none, mate. Besides, I figure since the lumpers don’t seem to like you, if I keep you around, they might actually try to find who killed my beautiful Ella, and Dezi before her. A race maybe. And if you do beat ’em to it, I still win.” His quick smile faded. “I want my girls safe, Ninn. Safe in a hurry. Will you accept nine hundred a day?”
The known-to-be-stingy troll was deadly serious to offer that much nuyen. Ninn nodded.
Cadi thrust a voucher chit for twenty-seven hundred at her. “For starts,” he said.
“Hopefully this won’t take more than three days.”
“If it takes less, I don’t need a refund, Ninn.”
Ninn pressed the chit against her credstick, tried not to visibly savor the transfer of the nuyen into her nearly empty account.
“You’ll keep me posted?”
“Every day.”
“Where will you start?” he repeated.
Ninn looked all around, taking in the alley, the crowd behind the barricade tape. “Right here, of course. And, I’ll begin by—”
The rain came without a single warning flash of lightning. It poured out of the sky like someone had turned on an immense water faucet. There were no drops, just a solid deluge that soaked everyone in the alley in a heartbeat.
Hail spat down as the assemblage dashed for cover, rat-a-tat-tatting off the bricks and garbage bins.
“Pigs!” Gerti cursed as she swung open the rear door of Cadigal’s Corner. “Pigs! Pigs I say!” Cadi was a step ahead.
The water sluiced across the bricks on its way toward the park at a lower incline. The alley had turned into a stream in the water-and-hail onslaught, and Ninn pressed herself against the back of the tawdry house, finding the barest cover under the overhang of a fire escape. She watched the crowd the flimsy barricade had held back vanish. Then the barricade washed away.
Don’t like weather in Sydney? Ninn recalled an old local comedienne quipping. Stick around a minute or two. It will change for the worse.
If there’d been any evidence left behind, it was gone now. There was Ella’s dressing room to search, but that could wait, couldn’t it? Her flat, too. Ninn inched her way along the wall, paused until the hail stopped and purple and pink threads of lightning arced overhead.
She slogged through the street, back to her office, passing a dwarf clinging to an outmoded streetlight. He’d been turned to solid stone, granite limbs wrapped tight around the post, his face forever locked in an expression of terror.
The mana storm had that effect on some people.
Five
Cross Hatchings
The alley felt more oppressive now than it had under the AISE spotlights hours ago—not because of the summer heat, which was considerable, but because Ninn could see everything more clearly. The spots had been trained on the slain singer, not on the backs of the buildings that rose like poised talons. The noontime sun poked through a rare gap in the clouds and revealed an astonishing display of graffiti. Ninn swore the layers of paint added enough to the brickwork that it physically narrowed the alley. It gave her the creeps.
Blind Freddy is Dead, Ginger is a RATBAG, S.F.A., Mangy Bastards, Suck It Ace, Hurl the Squirrel, FrEeDoM, P
oker Rocks, Belt Up Wez, Sulene for Prez.
“Australian Graffiti, 2025, Dantzel Walager and Brent Tulley.”
Ignoring Mordred, she noted symbols from one go-gang or another, arguments between warring bangers displayed in fluorescent greens and oranges that somehow all of Sydney’s storms had not washed away. Beneath the most recent spray-painted scrawls were remnants of previous tags, including Greek Mafia slogans, threats posed by factions within the Yakuza and Triads, and coup tallies of Vietnamese Gang recidivists who posted their prison numbers like badges of honor.
Ninn recorded everything, figuring her encephalon could pick through it and call up anything that might be related to what the area residents were now calling the Cross Slayer.
She’d waited until now to come back here, certain Cadi was away to the AISE office and the lumpers were long gone, wanting the alley to herself. Cadigal’s Corner was closed tight; she couldn’t get inside to take a look at Ella’s dressing room. Well, she could pick the maglock, but didn’t think that would be polite to her employer.
What little she’d gleaned from the AISE reports and interviews this morning—that they’d been willing to share—showed that Ella/Adoni had no arrest record, none of Cadi’s girls believed she had any enemies, and apparently she’d not been mixed up in anything untoward that might have put her in the sights of the gangs or local mafia. Hurdy Gertie had, however, repeatedly mentioned that Ella was Aborigine, and that some people had retained a centuries-long prejudice against the indigenous Australians. Too, Ella Gance and all of the other victims in the past month or so had received RighteousRight holocards encouraging them to “repent for redemption.”
There were no public records of any sort to be had on either Miss Ella Gance or Adoni Kogung, apparently SINless and paid under the table by Cadi. It was not uncommon for Aborigines to fly under the proverbial government radar; especially someone like a female impersonator usually paid in cash for everything and, according to her fellow performers, lived largely hand-to-mouth, spending everything on vices and enhancements. Sounds familiar, Ninn thought.
