by Anthony Ryan
Slab City Blues: A Song for Madame Choi
Slab City Blues: A Song for Madame Choi
Midpoint
Slab City Blues: A Song for Madame Choi
By Anthony Ryan
Copyright 2011 Anthony Ryan
Cover image by Anthony Ryan
Smashwords Edition
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Slab City Blues: A Song for Madame Choi
By Anthony Ryan
Doc Owuga cast a dubious eye over the old 2D I'd given him then took a long look at my face, propped none too comfortably on a chin support in front of his dermal scanner. "You sure?" he asked.
"Sure I'm sure, Doc," I said brightly. "Surer than sure."
Doc Owuga rechecked his screens, he hid it well but I noticed his hands were trembling a bit as he punched the keyboard. We'd done some business back in the war and I guessed I'd left a lasting impression.
"This," he waved at the screens where the face that I wore revolved in all its flawless glory. "This is art. This…" he glanced at the 2D, "…is -"
"It's me, Doc," I told him. "You remember me right?"
Doc Owuga sighed and sank into a swivel chair that was two parts duct tape to one part faux leather. "Sure, you're a tough guy Demon who killed a shit-load of people during our glorious revolution and shit-load more since."
"And you sold the Resistance anti-biotics at a three hundred percent mark-up, when you weren't trafficking organs to both sides of course."
"There was an amnesty…"
"Not from me." I undid the velcro strap from my forehead and freed myself from the scanner. "I can pay. You want the work or not?"
Doc Owuga had been through eight faces in the time I'd known him, each more youthfully handsome than the last. But whilst the faces grew younger the rest of him didn't, he was pot-bellied with liver spotted hands and an old man's stoop. The face he wore now, darkly handsome and reminiscent of some old action-movie star I dimly recalled from late-night free-flix reruns, looked like a particularly bad joke.
"Hear they're doing accelerated, full-body remodelling on the Downside," I pushed. "Asking price is twenty thousand in folding green if you know where to go, and I'm sure you do."
He arched an eyebrow and I got a part fix on the face. Roves was it? Reeves maybe? "Where's a Demon get twenty thou in green?" he asked.
"Fuck d'you care?"
"Why not go to a Yin-Side clinic? Nice and clean and legal."
"There are… ethical issues, apparently. Cosmetic surgeons have a legal code of practice. Who knew?"
He glanced back at his screens, sighed and stood up, moving to the coat rack to toss me my jacket. "Half now, got expenses."
I nodded peeling bills onto his desk.
"Mind if I ask why?" he said as I went to the door. "What you're wearing would cost a lot, and you got it for free."
Consuela's eyes, that first time, taking me in, scars and all, liking what she saw… "It's not my face," I said, yanking the door open. "See you in a week."
I bought noodles from a vendor near the Yang Four Pipe entrance, sat on a bench and watched the crowd as I slurped. Yang Four used to be mostly normo but there were lot more Splices these days, hence Doc Owuga's new surgery. Youthful vamps and cats eyed each other warily from street corners and overpasses, horned and scaly hellspawn muscled past waif like elf maidens, all genres represented in the genetic soup.
My smart buzzed as I wiped away soy with a napkin. ID withheld. That's never good.
"Yeah?"
"Alex." Flat even tones, cultured Yin-Side vowels. Voices from the past, I hate them.
"Mr Mac. How's the criminal overlord business?"
"Fair to middling. We need to meet."
"No we don't. I'll kill you on sight, you know that."
"Not today. Got an opportunity for you to play the hero, be the knight errant, save the day, et cetera. There's even a damsel in distress."
I tossed my empty noodle carton into a nearby hopper. "There's always a damsel in distress around you, y'fucking psychopath."
A pause, maybe I'd hurt his feelings, as if such a thing were possible. "It's a child."
I stared at the crowd, noticing how even the pseudo-demons avoided my gaze. Mr Mac and I had been playing this game for five years and there were rules. Mr Mac was always a stickler for rules, number one being you don't lie to me. He would conceal, omit, prolong or carefully phrase. But he wouldn't lie.
"Where?" I said.
The last time I'd seen Mr Mac he was repelling from a second storey window, nimbly hopping between lines of SWAT team tracer. I was out-ranged with the Sig but fired off a whole clip anyway. He'd waved as he touched down, no irony or affectation, just the friendly greeting of an old friend. I was sprinting towards him, slamming in a fresh clip, when the building he'd just exited blew up taking most of the SWAT team with it. The blast earned me some new scars, oddly none to the face, and a week in hospital. It's fair to say the experience hadn't made me like him any better.
Mr Mac's new abode rested in a corner of Yang Thirty-Three, one of the commercial levels clustered around the main freighter docks. Warehouses and bland two-tier office blocks, anonymous and thinly populated, just the way he liked it.
I circled the place twice before approaching the entrance. It was a mid-size warehouse with flickering holos proclaiming itself the home of Fairweather Import Export: Customs Clearance Specialists. I counted ten unremarkable grey-green boxes on the roof, positioned at the corners and mid-way along the edges. Auto-guns, I decided, noting the inter-locking fields of fire. Each box contained a 7.62mm minigun and sufficient ammo to turn any assault into a Somme rerun. Every passer-by would be scanned and relayed to Mr Mac's smart who could and would deal out instant death with a thumb-flick if your appearance aroused even the slightest suspicion. For someone in his position paranoia was an essential survival trait.
The door's slid open as I approached. In the lobby Nina Laredo waited with two blocky security types, obvious weapon bulges creasing their suits.
"Nina," I said. "Not dead yet?"
"Inspector." She inclined her head, perfect Latin features impassive. Unlike me Nina's beauty was all natural, though like me, entirely skin deep. Six years at Mr Mac's side, uncountable kills to her name and she never picked up a single scar, nor apparently, anything resembling a human emotion. The Department's criminal psychologists had her pegged as either a sociopath or an ultra-rationalist personality. I preferred my own diagnosis of Grade A Evil Bitch.
"Your weapons, please," said Nina, holding out a hand, short nails, impeccably manicured, no rings. Nina had no need of ornamentation.
"Fuck you," I replied amiably.
"You know he won't harm you. It's for his protection."
The knowledge that she was right and I was entirely safe here, did nothing to improve my mood. I unholstered the Sig and handed it over, followed by the tazer in my inside pocket and the knife strapped to my forearm.
"I better not find a tracer on these later," I warned her, knowing it was a redundant threat. Mr Mac had no need of tracers.
"This way please."
Mr Mac's office was a picture of Victorian elegance, as much as an ignorant Jed like me understands Victorian elegance. Antique real oak-wood desk, leather bound books on the shel
ves, horse bronzes and automata, actual oil paintings on the walls. If knowing he would have to move everything as soon as I left perturbed him at all he didn't show it, coming from behind the desk to offer his hand, smiling warmly. "Alex!"
I ignored the hand, gesturing at the office. "Where'd you get all this shit?"
"Downside auctions mostly. Passion of mine for a while now."
I made a mental note to profile a customs search on future antiques imports and sank into the chair opposite his desk. "So? This child."
Mr Mac smiled tightly, resting against the desk, arms folded, dressed in sweater and slacks. He's a tall man, Mr Mac, every inch the blonde, good-looking Yin-Sider. At his age he should have been running Daddy's procurement division, making partner or approaching the climax of a sporting career before commencing a run for political office. Instead, here he was, quite simply the most feared organised criminal on the Slab, which potentially made him the scariest gangster in the populated solar system. He came over the Axis during the war, running medicine through the blockade, then joining up with our Active Service Unit. For three years we blew stuff up and killed people together, even back then I could tell he was really enjoying himself. He disappeared shortly before the Langley Raid, we all assumed he'd been pinched by Federal Security. A year or so later, not long after I joined the Department, rumours started circulating about a Yin-Sider gang boss with a ruthless attitude to conflict resolution.
"I heard about Consuela," he said. "I'm very sorry."
"Yeah, mention her again and I'll beat you to death with one of your bronzes." It had always irked greatly me that Consuela had liked him so much. "Tell me about the kid."
He took a smart from his pocket, thumbed up a holo and tossed it to me. The holo showed a pretty little girl, seven or eight years old, Eurasian features.
"Name?" I asked.
"Don't have one."
"Nature of distress?"
"She arrived twelve hours ago, economy class ferry from the Jakarta Hub. Accompanied by a twenty-something male of European appearance. They walk through Customs and security without a blip and promptly disappear. Two hours later the accompanying male is found dead in a dock level warehouse along with two others, both armed. No sign of the girl."
"Manner of execution?"
"Neat made to look messy if I'm any judge. You can double check with Doctor Ricci."
The little girl's image revolved in my palm, it was a still shot but the sadness evident in her face was unnerving. Kidnap or not her expression told me she needed protection. I wondered briefly if she was an avatar, imaginary bait on Mr Mac's hook, but then he didn't lie. Not to me.
"What's she to you?" I enquired.
"A child in need of rescue."
"From what?"
"Nothing good, Alex." He'd moved into dissembling mode. No lies, but no more truth either.
"If I find her there's no way I'd ever hand her over to you."
"If you don't find her I strongly believe she'll be dead very soon."
I switched off the holo and pocketed the smart. No need of tracers.
"I need more to go on than this," I told him.
"Come on, Alex." He laughed and shook his head. "No you don't. You never do."
I levered myself out of the chair and went to the door. "Have fun moving your stuff. And tell Nina I see her within a mile of this I'll put her out the nearest airlock."
"See it?" Ricci pointed a gloved finger at a patch of slightly discoloured skin.
I shrugged. "Not really."
"Needle mark. Easy to miss, if you're not me." He eased the corpse over onto its back. European appearance, mid-twenties, extensive blunt-force trauma and penetrative injuries to the face and torso.
"Bruises don't look post-mortem," Sherry Mordecai observed. She wasn't looking at the body. She was glaring at me over the autopsy table and she wasn't happy.
"Syteline on the needle," Ricci told her. "Paralysing agent. Somebody froze our boy up before doing all this."
"Easy to come by?" I asked.
"Syteline? Shit no. Fast acting synthetic weaponised compound. Strictly controlled and very expensive. Haven't seen it since the war. Federal Black Ops types liked to use it when they disappeared someone."
"ID?" Sherry asked.
"No documents found. No make on any database. His prints are grafts though so I guess he's been a bad boy somewhere along the line. DNA sequencing indicates a high probability he originates from the Mediterranean basin." Ricci paused, he always tries for dramatic effect when he can. "Specifically southern Sicily. Can anyone else smell spaghetti and meatballs?"
"They don't come here," I said. "There's a treaty."
"With Mr Mac?" Sherry asked.
"Yeah," I grated, more forcefully than I intended. "With Mr Mac."
Sherry bit down her anger and turned to Ricci. "What about the other two?"
"Same thing. Syteline needle to the neck, extensive injuries to the upper body. I'm guessing a low velocity dart gun."
Three precisely placed shots in barely two seconds to put them all down so quickly. Using a weaponised compound favoured by Federal Black Ops no less. This wasn't shaping up well.
"Did manage to ID them, though," Ricci went on, calling up files on his wall screen. "No-one you've ever heard of. Fairly long entries on CrimInt, violent assaults and robberies in their youth, numerous criminal associations and a few drug busts as they grew into fully fledged gang members. Affiliated with one of the more high-end Yang Ten crews. CrimInt says they tend to sub-contract a lot, security and courier services."
"Take a team to the crime scene," Sherry told him. "Full work-up. See if anything got missed. Alex, let's talk."
The Bosnian café near the morgue sold cevapi - chopped up sausage meat in pitta bread with a yoghurt dressing. Sherry loved the stuff but I always found it a little bland. We sat next to the window, the blue holo-sign outside making her scars stand out, red and angry. There were four of them, traced across her face like badly drawn tiger stripes, the legacy of some wartime escapade she never talked about. She'd been a marine, an archaic term adopted by the poor bastards who put on armoured pressure suits and tried to fight their way into Fed ships and defence stations. Their casualty rate had been predictably appalling and the few survivors tended not to bother with reunions.
"You got a take on this?" Sherry asked around a mouthful of sausage and pitta.
"Hand-over gone wrong and Mr Mac's got the contract to clean up the mess." It's what he does, Mr Mac. He deals no drugs, doesn't steal, doesn't smuggle. All societies require rules and the enforcement of rules, criminal society being no exception. That's the service he provides and anyone who does business on the Slab is required to put him on retainer. It's not just a protection racket, it's a genuine insurance policy, for times like this.
"Hand-over?" Sherry said. "The girl you mean?"
"What else?"
"Child prostitution? Organ trafficking?"
I shook my head. "Plenty of home grown fodder for that. This is something new."
She washed down a mouthful with a gulp of Dragon Fire, the only beverage produced on the Slab that could rightfully lay claim to the title of beer. "We're handing this off to the SOCU."
Specialist Organised Crime Unit. A parade of time-servers with an average case turnaround of three years if you were lucky. I took out Mr Mac's smart and called up the little girl's image, placing it on the table between us, her sad face revolving in slow accusation. Sherry gave it the briefest of glances.
"I don't like you dealing with that evil piece of shit," she said. "I especially don't like you meeting him face to face with no back-up."
"He'd never kill me, you know that."
She snorted. "Code of honour bullshit."
"No, I saved his life a few times true enough, but it's more than that. He genuinely believes we're friends. Probably thinks my repeated attempts to take him down are just a bad patch we're working through."
Sherry took another pu
ll of Dragon Fire and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "There's something else, had a call from Professional Standards."
I straightened up a little. My welcoming attitude to life-threatening experiences gives me a generalised immunity to most fears but to any Slab City Demon the words Professional Standards always provoke a certain unease.
"If it's about Nielson, he was dead when I got there…"
"Not that. You made a large cash withdrawal from your personal account two days ago. You know they profile stuff like that."
Doc Owuga's twenty grand. Should've taken it out in smaller batches.
"There's an innocent explanation, I'm sure," Sherry pressed.
"My face," I said.
"Ah." She sat back, beer bottle clasped in both hands, eyes appraising. She'd never seen the old me, our working relationship was entirely post-war and if perfect male beauty ever stirred her womanly loins she'd been expert in not showing it. "You'd have to go Downside for that." No judgement, no surprise. I remembered she knew what it was like to carry a disfigurement.
"Yeah," I evaded, knowing my consult with Doc Owuga wouldn't go down well and she was sufficiently pissed at me already. I gestured at the holo. "So?"
She gave the girl another brief glance. "I'll give you a day. Then we're handing it off. Need anything?"
"Yeah, I need to borrow Joe."
I found Joe cleaning up after the regular bi-monthly riot on Yang Eighteen. At first glance he seemed like an unusually large Demon in riot gear, dragging narc-gassed suspects to the holding pens with barely any sign of exertion, but look closer and the splice heritage was obvious. The cut-price desplicer I'd hooked him up to had given out after only three months, taking the fur and claws but leaving him with patches of discoloured skin on his face and most of his body, plus an enlarged musculature and prominent canines. I'd offered to send him to the African Fed to complete the treatment but he refused, said I'd done enough already. With his impeccably forged new identity, plus a personal recommendation from me, it had been easy to find him a place on the riot squad. Six months in he was already a Section Leader.
