by Jean Rabe
Barega’s mouth worked, but nothing came out.
“You have no bedside manner, Keebs,” Mordred said. “That came out pretty cold.”
Ninn was forced to agree with her gun. “Barega, I’m sorry. I’ll still get to the bottom of this, Ella’s…Adoni’s…death. My friend Cadi’s death. I found the Cross Slayer. Briefly.” The tale spilled quickly about the basement, the fight, the fire, and the Slayer’s escape. “He must have come back. Maybe another tunnel. Cadi must have found him, and paid for that. Hell, the Slayer almost had me.” She stopped her story at the magnesium blaze that took down her building. The fires were not related. “That’s how I got wounded so badly, the Slayer’s heater. And I was so certain the Right was involved.”
“They’re not?” This from Tarr.
“The arson, yes. Killing the entertainers, no. The RighteousRight wouldn’t use someone like I fought in the basement. A metahuman, certainly, and tech, certainly. His pointed teeth looked stainless steel. The Double-Rs weren’t responsible for Ella’s—”
“I will see my brother’s body, Nininiru Tossinn. I will make the coroner understand. I will—”
“Sorry, old man, but the elf’s right,” Tarr cut in. “SINless, Miss Ella Gance ain’t going anywhere with you. But—” She let the sentence dangle like a biscuit in front of a starving dog. “—I can get you into the coroner’s body stash tonight. Well…in what’s left of tonight. I’ve got an arrangement with Serra and her night technicians. It’ll—”
“—Cost me, yeah. I can pay,” Ninn said. “For getting us into the stash.” Her fingers, working fine now, reached for the opals in her pocket again. She had four left—but Barega had promised more if she was successful. She pulled out one opal and passed it to Tarr. “And for a couple of slips, a half-dozen slips…for pain…for when whatever you gave me wears off.” Maybe Cadi’s body would be at the morgue by now, too. She’d like to take a look at the troll.
“Make it one more,” the dwarf said. “If you want the slips.”
“Easy Come, Easy Go,” Mordred said. “Elvis Presley, Dodie Marshall, 1967.”
“Yeah, that oughta cover it,” Tarr said, holding the stones up to her cybereyes. “We better get moving. Before any organleggers—other than yours truly—get to Miss Ella Gance.”
Fifteen
The Dead Sing a Melody
Passing on a shop that sold tourist attire, they instead stopped at SHINE, an all-hours glitter boutique so Ninn could replace the overlarge scrub that was drawing the wrong sort of attention. Two opals remaining, she spent one on a purple sequined halter-top, a matching pair of shorts that rode low on her hips, sandals with silver ribbon laces that twisted up to her knees, and a shimmery violet rain cape with a row of fringe on the bottom. She wore the cape askew to cover her bandaged arm. The cape had a pocket just big enough for Mordred. She thumbed a catch and the barrel folded back along the receiver, easier to conceal now. It took six seconds to open him out of his box form. She might not have six seconds, and so left him be and kept her hand on him as much as possible.
“Good thing you spent some time on the nude beach. No tan lines,” Mordred said. Ninn was looking at herself in the boutique mirror, the gun seeing through her eyes. “You look like a joygirl.”
“I do indeed,” she snarled. But she also looked wholly unrecognizable. She was certain if she went nose-to-nose with Lt. Jacob Waller, he wouldn’t know who she really was. Ninn had never used a disguise during her various private eye gigs—but if she got herself out of this current mess, she’d have to reconsider that. “I look—”
“Joyful?” Mordred mused.
Ninn was going to say “awful.” She’d never considered herself attractive, rather plain-looking actually, in part because she never made any concerted effort on clothes, her hair, or with makeup. This get-up didn’t make her look attractive either, despite the spangles and the tattoos. But she certainly was no longer plain.
And she was closing in on broke. The clerk refused to give her any change for the opal, and had to be persuaded to accept it as payment. That left her the one nested next to Mordred in her pocket. Ninn added a silvery chain belt, which was actually a necklace she’d spotted at the counter. It had glittery charms dangling evenly spaced—hearts, stars, shells, and half-moons.
“Joyful, no. Wrong word. You look unhappy, Keebs. And gaudy, gauche.”
“You hide well in plain sight,” Dr. Tarr pronounced when Ninn joined them on the sidewalk.
“You’re paying for the ride to the morgue,” Ninn told Barega. Her credsticks had burned up in her office, and she couldn’t access her meager savings at a bank—not with AISE having her on their wanted list.
“Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1932, Bela Lugosi,” Mordred said. “A real classic.”
Doctor Tarr got them in through a back door off a deserted parking lot; the dwarf had a security card that let her in just like she worked there. Ninn noted no obvious monitoring equipment in the hall, and recalled she’d never noticed any on the few occasions she’d come here on AISE business. But she knew there’d be some security with the bodies—they were a valuable commodity.
A janitor was working the handheld panel of a radio-controlled floor sweeper. He gave Ninn a serious up and down and smiled slyly, and then nodded to the dwarf.
“A little late in the evening for you, ain’t it, Doc? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“What hath night to do with sleep?” Ninn whispered.
“Quoting Milton again, Keeb?”
The janitor pointed to Ninn. “You got a CeeCee with you, Doc?”
“Corpse Cuddler,” Mordred translated.
“You know the techs don’t like it when someone—”
“Not your worry. She’s with me, Curtis,” Tarr said. The dwarf continued bantering with the janitor. Ninn thought they looked like old chums, talking about soccer scores and local politics.
“Craps game was last night,” the janitor said. “Magualy made a haul. We missed you.”
“Had an eye implant with some complications. Catch the game next week.”
“Summer’s going too fast, Doc.”
“Ah, the days float by at their own pace, Curt-my-man.”
“And the old man, Doc? What’s his story?”
“In town visiting,” Tarr said. “An old friend from a neighboring tribe. Showing him the sights.”
“Ah, the joygirl’s for your old mate, then.”
“Something like that.” Tarr played with one of the wires plugged into her neck.
“If he’s sightseeing, there’s better things to look at than dead bodies, Doc.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll be getting to that. I just had to make a stop here first.”
“Not your usual night, Doc. You got an unscheduled pickup?” The janitor sent the sweeper down a side hall, its brushes making a pleasant shushing sound against the tile. “Serra didn’t say you were coming by. It’s Victor’s night for being the poddy-dodger, and he’ll be by in a bit. So you better do your grabbing—”
“Haven’t seen Victor for a while. He still running that clinic in Ultimo?”
The janitor shook his head. “Got a place behind a chemist’s on Bathhurst. He fixed my brother up with a new leg a few weeks ago.”
Ninn started tapping her foot. Tarr got the message.
“Just here for a few parts tonight, Curtis. Nothing major. Nothing Serra’s gonna give a flip about. But I’m in a bit of a hurry. I want to take my mates here pub crawling on Clark.” Tarr patted him lightly on the arm and strolled past, Barega and Ninn following.
“There’s some sights to see on Clark, all right,” the janitor said.
Ninn looked over her shoulder; the janitor idly scrubbed at a spot on the wall with his free hand and continued manipulating the sweeper controls with his thumb on the other. He didn’t give them a second glance.
The “body stash,” the room they headed to, had an obvious camera above the door and a secondary one across the hall from it. N
inn held back, Barega behind her. The dwarf tugged one of the wires free from her neck port and plugged it into a panel by the door, then touched a few keys on a pad.
The red lights on the cameras winked out. Tarr did the same with the cameras inside the room.
“Told you I had an arrangement. I’m a regular here.”
“Obviously. And the call you made on your comm—”
“—was to get the night techs to step out for a time, look the other way so to speak. They don’t need much encouragement to take an extended soykaf break. I figure we’ve got thirty or so minutes before they wander back. Not that they’d give me no never mind…but you and the old man? The old man would raise some eyebrows. Spent a bit too long jottering with Curtis. But he’s a regular Nosey Parker, and if I hadn’t talked to him, get the words out of his system, he would’ve followed us for some convo.” The dwarf gestured. “After you.”
Ninn plowed ahead, Barega so close behind her she could feel his breath.
AISE referred to this part of the morgue as Slab City. It resembled a city only in that its towers of cabinets of uneven heights cast shadows like a city skyline. They were refrigeration units, the older ones four and five drawers high. As the old ones broke down, they were replaced by new units a dozen drawers high, just shy of touching the ceiling, each drawer containing a stiff. A ladder on wheels allowed for access to the upper drawers. One bank of six had massive drawers for trolls.
Ninn recalled that the city policy was “no body rests for more than three days.” Sometimes remains stayed only a few hours, but since Ella and Cadi were murder victims, they’d likely get the full seventy-two hour treatment. The corpses of vid stars and politicians sometimes got to stay longer.
“I should’ve come here before now.” Ninn was angry with herself. She wasn’t anything close to the investigator she used to be. Before she wandered into the dual realms of booze and slips and relying on her purchased enhancements to help with cases, she’d relied on her wits. In her sharper days, she would have come to the morgue as soon as Ella’s body had been transported here, waited around to get a gander at the coroner’s report, which would be impressively thorough and delivered quickly because of the latest equipment the department boasted. She would have checked the reports on all the Slayer’s victims before traipsing around the Cross, so confident that the RighteousRight was involved.
She wouldn’t have ruffled the feathers of the Right in the bar. Well…maybe she wouldn’t have.
They wouldn’t have put her in their crosshairs and firebombed her building. Maybe they wouldn’t have.
Talon would still be breathing.
She’d devolved into a shoddy investigator, and her workload lately reflected it…following spouses and exes, spying on competitors’ restaurants, finding lost designer dogs, nothing of any great consequence, nothing that encouraged her to be better, and nothing that challenged her. Nothing that brought her a decent salary. Just enough work to pay for her addictions. But the Slayer case, that could change things. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Crystal Dream slip, took it when Barega wasn’t looking. Needed to save Tarr’s slips; she was sure they’d be more potent.
Maybe if she could get her act together, return to her prior form, she could turn things around, maybe make a difference to someone. To herself. Maybe go back to Chicago with her head held high. Go back clean.
“This is a sad, sad place,” Barega said, shaking Ninn out of her funk. He stood in front of one of the newer units, fingers touching a drawer. The holo label read: Adoni Gance. In smaller print she zoomed in on death date, weight, relatives/claimant: none. “Very sad.”
Tarr shrugged. “There’s worse morgues, places they keep bodies longer, refrigeration fails or is nonexistent, makes you gag at the smell. Ghouls prowl the alleys, waiting.”
“There is no respect for the shells here,” Barega said. “The spirits are sad. My brother sings, but no one has been here to listen to him.”
Listen? Ninn thought she heard voices again. Maybe the Crystal Dream was bad.
“An old proverb of my tribe goes something like this: ‘We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love…and then we return home.’ Fits the morgue, ya ken?” Tarr rubbed her cheek. “See, I look at it this way, old mate. We’re in the dead’s realm here. This room belongs to them, and we’re just visiting, observing, learning. We don’t stick around here long enough to find out if any of ’em are singing. When they die out on the street, they’re in our realm. Has a whole different feel to it, ya ken? This place to the street, it’s all different. When they die, they’re in our space, until they’re moved here. Now we’re in theirs. Like I said, half an hour.”
Barega pulled open the drawer.
Ninn looked away, figured she’d give the old man a few minutes alone with the corpse. How could he possibly believe Adoni was his brother? Let him have his fantasy, he’d paid her…and had promised more.
She’d spotted a terminal with a lit screen, three files open above it. Apparently a tech hadn’t signed off when he vacated the room for Tarr. Free and easy access to the coroner’s—and maybe AISE’s—records. She wished Talon was here; it would be effortless for him to dig through files. Easy as breathing.
“Which he isn’t anymore,” she said. Ninn sucked in a deep breath; the cool air was artificially scented with lilac.
Tarr and Barega talked softly in the background, and thankfully Mordred was silent. Ninn discovered she was familiar enough with the record systems; she wasn’t that long removed from AISE. This wasn’t going to be terribly difficult.
She found her way into their “murder books,” they still called them that—reports meticulously logged about a victim, and started with the commonalities on those killed by heaters. She noted several shared traits.
The Slayer’s victims—details on Cadigal Hamfyst hadn’t yet been recorded, though his body was noted in drawer 112—were all killed between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. And all in alleys.
Cause of death in all cases was a single slash to the jugular with a heated blade, with death coming almost instantly. The coroner believed the killer had at least rudimentary medical training, knowing where to strike so precisely.
Interesting…Ninn had thought there were seven victims, with Cadi being eight, but the records entered this morning by Officer Michael “Mickey” Dern showed a dozen. She accessed her encephalon, the microprocessor that helped her manage information. Dern was on the scene at Ella’s death, the young lumper who’d made a reference to Billie Holiday. According to Dern’s report, the first three Slayer victims were night security, and the fourth a biologist, all at the Sydney Aquarium, all killed around midnight twenty days ago. The latter seven on the AISE list were the entertainers in the Cross plus Cadi, who was no doubt collateral.
She found one of Draye’s files that he’d entered a half-dozen hours ago, probably shortly before he’d been called to the Cross magnesium fire. It was separate from one of the murder books. He initially disputed Dern’s belief that the aquarium deaths were related. Too far from the Cross, nothing in common with the tawdry house entertainers. Still, Draye said he would pursue this angle, as he agreed with Dern’s notion that the Slayer was a sailor or dockworker, the killings committed on a night away from work, traces of seawater found at two of the Cross murders, a heater involved in all of them. Draye went on to speculate that it was a cybered-up dockworker trying to intimate the RighteousRight because he despised them; the Cross victims had all received Double-R “repent” materials, were slain in alleys where multiple ЯɌ tags were evident on the brickwork. Draye pegged the killer as a man because the angle and depth of the cut indicated a tall individual possessing considerable strength, likely a metahuman, probably an ork. Too, Draye pointed out that historically serial killers tended to be male, and the two most recent serial killers in Australia were orks. He’d begun to collect names of ship’s complements in port
during the various slayings for matches.
“He got that bit right,” Ninn said. “Male, metahuman, considerable strength. I suppose an ork is possible, but it’d have to be a real big one. A man? Yeah, though I’ve known some awfully strong women.”
It was the first two victims in the Cross that had a significant trace of seawater on their clothes, again hinting at Sydney’s Darling Harbour—or maybe the Slayer was a fan of saltwater tanks and kept one in his flat. Ninn had smelled saltwater in Cadi’s basement. “Or maybe he wasn’t a dockworker. Maybe he works at the aquarium.”
“The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Nininiru, too.”
“So I stop looking in the Cross for a while,” Ninn whispered, “and I go down by the bridge, poke around the docks, a change of scenery.”
“On the Waterfront, 1954, Marlon Brando,” Mordred said. “Dogging the AISE Draye, eh? So he’s a smart lumper.”
“You seeing this, Mordred?” Ninn tapped the screen and dropped a hand into her pocket to touch the gun. The “screen” was a projection in the air above the surface of the desk. “These reports?”
“Through your eyes, Keebs,” the gun said. “Seeing all of ’em. You want my take?”
“Yeah.”
