Headhunters

by Mel Odom

  Skater felt a chill suddenly rush through the doss that seemed to freeze him to the bone.

  The dead man opened his mouth and spoke. “Ripley Falkenhayne.”

  And Skater’s brain was so numbed with amazement that he almost forgot to remember the name.

  In the next moment, the smoke exploded out of the dead man, leaving the corpse to tumble bonelessly back into the crate.

  49

  Skater slotted his credstick at the public telecom of the Twilight Cubed Hotel on South Eleventh Street and Pacific at 09:38:16 a.m., almost forty minutes after leaving the houngan’s doss. Skater and Duran had taken a cab to the area while Elvis and Trey took the body back to the safehouse in Auburn. Twilight Cubed was a coffin hotel, catering to the cheap labor that was the lifeblood of the docks. For a few nuyen a night, a chummer got a bed roughly two meters by one meter, then got filed away at the top, at the bottom, or somewhere in between a four-man stack till punch-out time in the morning. Advertised fringe benefits included triple-X rated simsense.

  Skater lounged against the gray plastibrick surface of the hotel and gazed across the City Waterway at Tacoma’s growing dock area. Almost eight and a half hours remained before they could call the Johnson’s employer. Plenty of time to cut the margin real thin between living and dying.

  The telecom at the other end answered the call. “You have reached LTG five-two-zero-six, zero-seven-three-six-zero-five. If that is the number you wished to call, please leave a message.” The voice was a mass-distributed one that could be purchased at any software distributor or downloaded through the Matrix.

  The recording had been Archangel’s idea in light of the fact they were staying at the safehouse longer than they’d expected. Shadowrunners knew some tele-marketing services existed in the sprawl that would call, chat briefly, and then feed recorded voice patterns back into a Lone Star program that searched for matching patterns in a database of missing people involved in investigations. Even a hello could slot a chummer over if it reached the right digital ears and the Star was looking for him.

  The LTG number was genuine, but actually tracked back to Killer Katie, Kween of Knoctume, a small shop in the Menlo Park District that specialized in outfitting people who’d chosen to live like vampires. They weren’t real vampires, but they liked to think they were and went to lengths to emulate the lifestyle.

  Killer Katie’s fulfilled a need, and as a result, her shop was only open from dusk till dawn. Using the LTG number during the day through a utility swap-out Archangel had brewed up was no problem at all. Killer Katie’s real answering machine was programmed not to answer during daylight hours. No self-respecting client would be caught calling during that time.

  “It’s me,” Skater said.

  The answering machine bleeped once, then went off-line. “Jack,” Archangel said.

  “We got a name,” Skater said, watching the tugs work the harbor area, moving barges back and forth between the big ships. “Ripley Falkenhayne.”

  “Do you have a spelling?”

  “No. Is it going to be a problem?”

  “I think the name is unique enough, and Ms. Falkenhayne herself has to be unique among the software programmers we’ll be searching through. I’ll start exploring databases now.”

  “Good enough,” Skater said and disconnected. He slotted the certified credstick and punched in the Lone Star nonemergency LTG. When the dispatch officer answered, Skater asked for the Detectives Division, then requested a transfer to Nina Barrett.

  “Barrett.” The vid popped into place, revealing the troll detective. She looked haggard.

  Skater opened the vid from his end, letting her see him. “You know,” Barrett said, “after that free-for-all up in Everett last night involving someone of your general description, among others, and a bunch of slotters we’ve traced back to Fuchi Industrial Electronics, I’m not surprised I’m hearing from you.”

  That let Skater know she hadn’t been idle since he’d called her the day before. “You tagged them to Fuchi?”

  “Yep. The bad news is we have no way of proving it.” She shifted, settling a little further from the vid pick-up. “The good news, however, is that I may be in a position to issue an APB on your chummer Kylar Luppas.”

  “He’ll know it’s coming.” Skater also knew the all-points-bulletin would cramp the elf's style somewhat.

  “I know. But in the meantime, Paulson and I have a hand-picked crew of blue suits assigned to a dragnet for Luppas covering the Seattle sprawl. If we find him, we’ll get the APB logged into the system and pick him up for questioning and possible charges regarding the frag-up at Neon Sunsets. A lot of dead bodies have turned up missing since you claimed the corpse from Shastakovich’s two days ago.” Skater passed on his turn at verbal tennis. He knew Barrett’s ploy was to get him talking, maybe draw out some information before he knew he was giving it.

  Barrett looked back at him, waiting. “I knew this wasn’t a social call. What do you want?”

  “To talk to Quentin Strapp.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s a federal agent,” Skater replied. “Assigned to the Dunkelzahn assassination.”

  “All of which makes me even more curious.”

  “The last I heard,” Skater sad, “anytime a federal investigator comes into an area, they usually liaison with the locals. Even if Strapp has overlooked that professional courtesy, I’m guessing you know where he is. Or can find out.”

  “And if I don’t get a message to him?”

  “Then I’ll find another way.” Skater showed her a smile, feeling the control he had in this situation and relishing it after everything else had been so fragged-over in the last two days. “If I have to do it another way, maybe I won’t feel so friendly toward you in the future.”

  “That,” Barrett said, “would be closely akin to losing a chronic migraine headache.”

  “If I do it through you, however,” Skater pointed out, “I’ll keep you in the loop even if Strapp tries to freeze you out. That’s the best I can do at this point.”

  Despite the impassive look the troll groundhound was giving him, Skater knew she was giving the offer serious consideration. “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked finally.

  “Trust is a funny thing,” Skater told her. “My grandfather used to say you have to earn it to get it, but it still had to be given by the other person too.”

  “How do you figure you earned it?”

  “I called you,” Skater said. “I could’ve slotted the cred-stick a little while, greased some wheels, and come up with another way to the fed in maybe a little more time than I’m using now. The way I’m figuring it, I’m trusting you as much as you’re trusting me. If you go to your captain and tell him about me, he might decide I’d be a good addition to his inquisition, in spite of Strapp.”

  “You’ve got a devious mind, Jack. It’s a wonder you can trust your shadow to follow you around.”

  “Don’t think I don’t check up on it occasionally. Can you make the meet happen?” The retinal read-out showed Skater he was near the end of his time frame.

  “I’ll call Strapp and clear it, then get back to you.”

  “When do you want me to call you?” Skater asked.

  “Give me a half-hour.”

  “Done.” Skater punched the Disconnect, then walked back to Duran.

  “You didn’t mention anything about Strapp,” the ork said as they headed toward the metro bus stop two blocks up. The bus sat in the loading zone, passengers getting on now with packages and small children.

  “I didn’t know if I could make it happen. He can still say no.”

  “What if he does?”

  “Then we’re still looking.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “Somebody to turn Falkenhayne over to,” Skater said. “And you’re planning on turning her over to Strapp?”

  “Falkenhayne’s going to have to deal, Quint.” Skater returned the ork’s g
aze full measure. “She doesn’t have a choice any more. Neither do we, if we want to get out from under the weight of this run. Fuchi’s not going to give up on this. Let’s catch the bus and I’ll explain.”

  * * *

  Kylar Luppas stared down over the Bellevue District from the glassed-in balcony of his hotel room. The sprawl had come alive with the morning, and at noon the streets were filled with traffic. Beyond them to the west he could see the sparkling waters of Lake Washington beyond Interstate 405.

  When the doorbell rang the first time, it was room service. He let the delivery woman in after assensing her and finding she wasn’t masked and was definitely who and what she appeared to be. After she’d gone, he sat at the buffet table she’d laid out and began eating.

  When the doorbell rang again, it was Gunther Octavius. Judging from the grin on the man’s face, he’d been successful in his assigned quest. Luppas waved him to a chair.

  Octavius sat, eyeing the buffet. “Couldn’t make up your mind this morning?”

  “Famished,” Luppas said. “Dig in.”

  Octavius used a fork to move a half-dozen pieces of French toast over to a plate, followed by sausages and bacon. He looked dubiously at the steaming silver pitcher on the table. “Soykaf?”

  “No. That’s a rather fine breakfast wine out of Tir Tairngire. I was surprised to find it on the menu. It’s bottled by the Nilestian.” The restaurant was a favorite of Luppas’s when he was in the Tir. “Very light, very spicy. They do most everything spicy there.”

  “You’re celebrating early,” Octavius said.

  “We’ve won,” Luppas stated simply. “When we make that telecom call later today, the woman—and her tech—will be ours.”

  “It’s not like you to be so confident so early.”

  Luppas sprinkled shaved almonds over raspberry drenched crepes. “What’s not to be confident about? I have Fuchi and that fragging Fishbein over a barrel. And if Falkenhayne could have fled, she’d have already done it. She was depending on Caber. Fuchi was depending on Caber. He betrayed them both. No, you and I have hit the big-time with this one. All we have to do is get her.”

  “Skater may not be out of it,” Octavius said.

  “Skater?”

  Octavius nodded. “The guy heading up the shadow team that snatched the corpse. I got the skinny on him about five minutes ago. Jokers we’ve got gleaning the riffraff about the trouble at the bar last night turned up Skater’s name. He’s known to run—maybe—with Quint Duran and a combat mage named Cullen Trey. There’s also a street samurai named Elvis. Two or three other people too, but they didn’t get much on them. I had to pay off four fixers before I got what information they had verified enough that I could figure it for gospel. Skater’s the real deal. A working shadowrunner doing contract work as a pro. The team also has a decker, and a rigger, and maybe a woman samurai as well. They work together and don’t let outsiders in. Very tight. It’s no wonder we’ve had the trouble with them that we have.”

  “After last night, they’re history.” Luppas refused to let anything spoil his good mood. “They didn’t talk to the man they went there to meet. I made sure he was dead before they had the chance later.”

  “You’d think they would be history,” Octavius agreed. “But when I was on my way up here, I met Kossuth. He said the permanent files that are in place on Ripley Falkenhayne were accessed. She wasn’t SINless, remember? There’s quite a bit of data on her. Property, credit, a divorce, and an ex-husband. Kossuth said he layered the white IC around Falkenhayne’s files with some kind of passive alert that would signal him if someone accessed the files. Whoever tagged the files also got the ones Dulce Tech maintained on her presence there.”

  “When were those files accessed?”

  “This morning,” Octavius replied. “Skater and his team have holed up somewhere, but they’re still active.”

  Luppas felt most of his appetite slip away. He placed his fork on the plate. “Did you find out anything we could use against Skater?”

  “I found out someone else has been looking for him among the shadows too. Turns out Skater may have fathered a child by a woman named Larisa Hartsinger, who’s now dead because of some biz Skater mishandled a few months ago. Some dancers at the CyberSpace bar in Seattle passed on rumors about that.”

  “What biz?”

  “No idea. But it sounds like heavy doings—both the Mafia and the yakuza involved. And Skater is supposed to have geeked a local Mafia don named Conrad McKenzie before the dust settled. Joker took the long fall from the monorail in downtown Seattle. Skater walked away from it.”

  “Any idea what the prize was?”

  Octavius shook his head.

  “Okay, so you’ve got a history for Skater. I didn’t hear anything in there about leverage.”

  Octavius smiled. “The person looking for Skater? That was Larisa Hartsinger’s step-sister. Deja Chilson. She worked for Renraku up until almost four weeks ago. They canned her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Dataslave. She was pretty low in the food chain at the corp.” Luppas forked up another bite of crepes and chewed thoughtfully. “Any idea why she wants to talk to Skater?”

  “We’d have to ask her.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “Yeah. She’s got a SIN and a full-time job fending off bill collectors who knew her back when things were pretty good at Renraku. Looking at her finances, she obviously never heard of a rainy day. She’s in debt up to her eyeballs, and facing her last month or so at the doss she’s renting until she’s out on the street.” Octavius paused. “I’m figuring since Deja Chilson is the step-sister to his dead girlfriend, and his daughter’s aunt once removed or however that drek works, maybe Skater would be interested in seeing she keeps breathing. I thought it would be worth a try. In case we do need leverage. If not, maybe the bill collectors can attach her life insurance when the body’s found.” Luppas nodded. “Get her.” He took another bite of crepes, concentrating on his appetite again. “Skater might be out there somewhere, but he isn’t big enough to be more than a stumbling block. We’re going to make this work.”

  50

  Skater watched the trid screens through the crystal-clear plastiglass window of the DocDrama trideo outlet. All of the thirty or more he could see carried different channels, but all of them were broadcasting stories concerning Dunkelzahn’s will. He was only able to see bits and pieces over and through the crowd that ranged four and five deep in the Tacoma Mall, drawn by the magic of the incredible wealth that had been doled out by Nadja Daviar.

  Checking the time again on his retinal clock and finding it was 14:22:57, Skater moved toward the public telecoms available in a short hallway beside The Naughty Nineties, an antique store that carried pre-Awakening curios. Today’s special, according to the banner strung over the door, was an old-fashioned telephone pager circa 1996 in an assortment of day-glo colors for only fifty nuyen.

  Slotting his credstick, Skater punched in the Lone Star LTG and got pushed through the switchboard. Nina Barrett opened the vid at the other end.

  “Jack?” she said.

  Skater opened the vid at his end too. When he’d called the troll detective back shortly after ten that morning, she’d let him know Strapp was willing to talk but wouldn’t be able to make it till two. And the fed wanted to talk from the Star’s precinct.

  “Okay, sister,” a rough male voice said, “I can handle things from here.”

  Nina shot a look of distaste off-screen and pushed up from her chair. “Just want you to know I think you jokers make a fine pair,” she said sarcastically. “Testosterone’s so thick you could cut it with a knife.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So skedaddle already. My god, who pays you to be a pain in the hoop? Not me, I’m telling you.”

  Skater experienced momentary vertigo as the telecom’s viewer jerked around, almost covered briefly by a thick, broad hand. Then the viewer centered on Quentin Strapp. Skater recognize
d the man from the files Kestrel had sent him.

  Strapp possessed a jowly face that made his head look like it had been carved from a block of cedar, maintaining the squarish feel. Wrinkles cut deeply into the flesh, mixed in with a few scars that hadn’t been erased by the cosmetic surgery that had made his cheekbones baby smooth. Drinker’s veins still showed under the skin, though, and in the muddy brown eyes that stared flatly back into the viewscreen. Fair hair had turned silver over the years, and he wore it combed straight back. He wore a weathered olive trench coat over a dark suit and red and silver striped tie.

  “You wanted to talk to me,” Strapp said. “Detective Barrett thought it might be a good idea.” He turned his blunt-fingered palms in toward himself. “Me, I’m looking for a few good ideas, but I’m looking for them quick.”

  “I’ve got a situation.”

  Strapp interrupted, hooking a forefinger into his shirt collar to loosen his tie. “We all do, Jack. But I ain’t got time to listen to every fragging one, you know?”

  “I’m not here for me,” Skater said, realizing just how hard of a sell the federal agent was going to be.

  “Well, now that’s very altruistic, Jack.” Strapp paused. “Especially for a guy with no SIN and who refuses to come across with a name. But I’m kind of in the mood for altruistic jokers. Providing they ain’t boring.” He looked away from the viewer and made a show of shuffling papers on Nina’s desk, running his fingers across the noteputer there. “I’m a busy guy.”

  “I can put you next to Ripley Falkenhayne. Do you have anybody else that can do that?”

  “What makes you think I’m interested in anybody by that name?”

  “A player who moves through the shadows,” Skater said, “leaves ripples. Especially if he’s from out of his home sprawl. It doesn’t matter whether he’s a runner or he’s a cop. If you start asking me questions about things I know or how I know them, I can tell you now I’m going to get damn boring to talk to. Let’s save ourselves some grief. If you’re not interested, let’s just disconnect now.”