Deadstock: A Punktown Novel

by Jeffrey Thomas

  “That’s quite the unique revenge,” Stake said, almost too stunned to feel disgusted.

  Tableau faced his guest again, and looked like he regretted his candor. His mood became grimmer as he turned to the subject of his daughter. “I appreciate your help with Krimson. The forcers haven’t done a damn thing, if you ask me. They suck enough tax money out of my ass to fund a half dozen precincts, but they can’t turn up a single clue. And I’ve had my own security men dig around, asking questions, but...you know.” He gestured at Jones as if to say, what can something that looks like that find out?

  “I’ll do everything within my power, Mr. Tableau.”

  “Here, come sit down. Coffee?”

  “Um, sure.”

  Tableau motioned to Jones, who promptly left the room, bowler hat cradled in one arm. Looking back at Stake, the businessman’s hard eyes suddenly narrowed. He tilted his chin toward Stake’s hands, folded in his lap. “Wrist comp not working?”

  “Sir?”

  “You called me from a pay phone.”

  Stake glanced down at the device on his wrist. “Oh, right. No, no it isn’t. It’s glitched.”

  “Ah.”

  Stake, as McMartinez, asked Tableau to fill him in further on the circumstances of his daughter’s disappearance. There had been no note left by her prior to her going missing and no message sent since, no calls to him from her, nothing; she simply hadn’t returned home from school one day.

  With an apologetic expression, Stake asked, “So do you think she might have run away with an older boyfriend, as the rumors have it?”

  Once more Tableau’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw thrust out more pugnaciously. “The problem with that theory is, I don’t know this alleged person’s name. She hinted to me that there was some older guy she liked – she wouldn’t tell me how old – and I told her that any guy who tried to date her wouldn’t be getting any older if he put a finger on her. She’s sixteen! I don’t care who her friends are fuc...seeing. I didn’t want her getting taken advantage of by some horny punk. Well, after I told her how I felt, she wouldn’t tell me a damn thing about him.”

  “But didn’t she confide in any of her friends?”

  “Either she didn’t, or they’ve been covering for her. But I don’t think they’re covering for her now, because they know she could be in danger. And I’ve even offered some of her friends a reward if they put me on this boyfriend’s trail, but they still can’t tell me anything. So I don’t know if there’s a boyfriend involved in this or not. I don’t know if I scared her away from dating him, or if she ended up protecting his identity even from her friends so I couldn’t get to them.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Stake mused aloud.

  There was one bit of information he could provide Tableau, he knew, but he didn’t dare. Not yet, anyway. That one of Krimson’s friends claimed to have heard her voice on a Ouija phone. It looked like no one had shared that rumor with her father.

  Instead, Stake casually introduced the matter that he had been hired to pursue. “Another funny rumor I’ve heard is that she envied a classmate of hers for having one of those kawaii-dolls that are so popular now. A very, very valuable one, belonging to a girl named Yuki Fukuda.” He watched the businessman’s eyes carefully after dropping this bomb. “Evidently this doll has been stolen. Is it possible she might have taken the doll and run off with it? To sell it, or...?”

  Indeed, Tableau’s eyes flashed with a predator’s alertness. “Who are you talking to, to get a story like that?”

  “Well,” Stake stammered slightly, “I’m just starting out on this case, but I did put in a call to the Arbury School, and – ”

  “My daughter isn’t a thief. And she hardly needs to sell stolen goods to make money, if you get my meaning.” He waved his arms to encompass his office. “And for that matter, she has one of those dolls herself! I gave her the money for the stupid thing.”

  “Well, it’s just that I heard she and Yuki aren’t exactly the best of friends.”

  “Yeah, so? And that kid’s father and I aren’t the best of friends either, but my daughter wouldn’t run away from home just because she stole a doll.”

  Stake glanced about the room at the animals behind the clear barrier. He was afraid to continue looking into Tableau’s eyes; they were just too intense. He felt the knit of his face rustle on some nearly subliminal level. Maintaining his casual tone, he said, “Well, it’s just that I’m told that doll was created at Fukuda Bioforms using some very controversial research.”

  “I don’t know about that, and I don’t care. I’m in the meat-making business, not the freak-making business like that arrogant son of a bitch.”

  Stake resisted the urge to bring up the hominid which presently crouched in its cell sifting through its fur for imaginary fleas. Though now Stake wouldn’t put it past Tableau to breed fleas specifically for the purpose of tormenting that pitiful creature.

  “As a product of that research,” he said, “the doll could be very enlightening to another bio-engineer. Hence its extra value.”

  “Are you suggesting...you’re not suggesting my daughter stole that doll to give to me, are you? So I could study Fukuda’s techniques?”

  “I’m just passing along the rumors that – ”

  “Well, she didn’t!” Tableau snapped. “Even if she did steal it to give to me, where is she? Huh? Where is my daughter? This talk about that Fukuda kid’s doll is not helping me out here, Mr. McMartinez. And you said you were going to help me find my daughter. I don’t give a blast about John Fukuda’s freaky research or his spoiled brat’s toys.”

  “I understand, sir,” Stake said, trying to calm the man.

  Mr. Jones reentered the room then with a tray containing two coffees and a plate of croissants. “About fucking time, Jones,” Tableau grumbled to the clone, taking his own coffee.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry,” the war vet intoned.

  Tableau addressed Stake again. “Okay, look, you keep in touch with me and I’ll keep in touch with you. But you’ll only be helping me if you stick to a realistic scenario.”

  “Mr. Tableau, I just feel it’s in your daughter’s best interest if we consider every possibility, no matter how far fetched it might seem at this point. As you say, Krimson is only sixteen. It’s a volatile age. She might have done something impulsive and then, out of fear of the consequences, decided to run off. Either alone, or with her mystery man.”

  “I admit that mystery man angle is one we need to keep looking into.”

  “Well, that I’ll do, sir.”

  Stake had finished about half his coffee when Tableau announced he had a business meeting coming up in fifteen minutes. Stake rose and the men shook hands again. The older man’s grip was crushing. “Okay, then. Like I say, you keep in touch,” Tableau said.

  “Thanks for your help and hospitality.”

  Jones preceded Stake to the door and held it open for him. “I’ll drive you back to your office now, sir.”

  “Jones, let Mr. Doe drive our guest back. I need you to be in that meeting with me.”

  “Very well, Mr. Tableau. Then I’ll be right back.”

  The clone walked Stake down a carpeted hallway and into another office, its door labeled SECURITY. In this large room, Stake was disconcerted – if not surprised – to see two clones identical to Mr. Jones sitting at two of the desks.

  “Mr. Doe – would you give our guest Mr. McMartinez, here, a ride back to his office at 969 Trade Avenue? The Center for Missing and Exploited Children?”

  One of the two other clones stood up promptly, retrieving a bowler hat from where he’d set it down. “Certainly. Come with me please, sir.”

  Stake smiled over his shoulder at Jones as he was led out of the security office. “Thanks. Mr. Jones. See you again.” He couldn’t resist the playfulness of the words. As he accompanied the black-suited Doe to the heliport on the roof, it was as though his escort had never been changed.

  ***

 
The next man on Adrian Tableau’s computer screen looked furtive because he was hiding in a toilet stall, and he was hiding in a toilet stall because he didn’t want his coworkers to see him take this call on his wrist comp. And he didn’t want that, because this man – Gordon Fester – worked for Fukuda Bioforms.

  Jones stood by his boss’s desk as Tableau spoke to this man, whom he had approached and offered money shortly after Fukuda Bioforms had assimilated Alvine Products. “I had a terrible thought a little while ago, Fester, and I wanted to run it by you.”

  “Yeah?” the furtive face whispered. Tableau heard a toilet flush in another stall.

  “You know my daughter Krimson is missing. Well, it’s come to my attention that a rumor at her school has my daughter stealing a doll belonging to John Fukuda’s daughter, one of those blasting kiwi things or whatever they are.”

  “Kawaii-dolls; yeah. His daughter Yuki’s doll got stolen out of her locker, I guess. It’s got to be worth a lot to him, because I hear he had a special team make it.”

  “Some kind of experimental research?”

  “Right. The team was headed up by Pablo Fujiwara. Pablo was a designer at Alvine Products, who survived when the earthquake ripped through it.”

  “So Fukuda is hot to get this thing back.”

  “Yeah. I hear he hired a private investigator to look for it.”

  “Really? Do you know that person’s name?”

  “No.”

  “Find out. Because the terrible thought I have is this, Fester. If people think Krimson stole this doll, then that means John Fukuda might blame Krimson for it, too. And if Fukuda believes that, then maybe the son of a bitch has done something to my daughter.”

  On the computer screen, Gordon Fester widened his eyes and nodded in horror at the thought. “Wow. Yeah, I don’t know.”

  “Well look into it! And get me the name of the detective he hired. If Fukuda has done something to Krimson – kidnapped her or...whatever – then he might have hired someone like that as muscle.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Tableau’s inside man promised, knowing that he’d be well compensated for his efforts.

  Adrian Tableau disconnected, then looked up at Mr. Jones, who loomed above him like a statue. “If Fukuda has hurt a hair on her head,” he growled, “I’ll skin that fuck alive. And I’ll skin his daughter alive in front of him, before I do.”

  A peripheral movement caused Tableau to look up and see a blob of fresh feces splatted against the inner wall of the hominid’s cell. It was glaring out at him defiantly.

  “Jones,” Tableau said, “you know how people crack open the skulls of living monkeys to eat their brains?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Find me a chef who can do that.”

  TWELVE: GOING DOWN

  With her long hair gathered up in a loose ponytail, Javier put a hand on the back of Mira’s neck, but lightly, not so much guiding her head’s movements as integrating himself with them. Meshed gears in a machine of pleasure. He leaned back slightly against the edge of the sink. His navel was at the level of her forehead. Both of them had removed their clothes, but neither had stepped into the shower. He stared down at her body. Her entire legs – plump and awkwardly bent – didn’t even reach the level of his knees, but her torso was nearly of regular proportion and he admired the distended sphere of her bottom.

  The pleasure was becoming too intense. He pulled back from her, reached down to that rounded bottom, took its cheeks in his hands and hoisted her up. Her legs hooked over his. With a gasp, looking in his face, she let him inside. He was afraid to hurt her, watched her eyes, but her mouth gaped open in something other than pain or protest. She put hands as small and dimpled as those of a toddler on his face, drew it to hers. Their tongues slithered over each other in a frenzy.

  Javier turned them around and lowered Mira to the counter beside the sink. Bent over her. Her squat legs poked up, tiny feet resting on his hips. Again they stared into each other’s eyes. Her face was beautiful; anyone would say it. His gaze drifted down her smooth chest, perfect skin pulled taut across it. Back to her eyes again. Her head was at a slight angle. He saw the purple veins almost lost in the black hair at her temples. Remembered her gift. Was she reading his mind just then? It unsettled him. If so, what was she seeing? Because he wasn’t sure what was inside there, himself.

  Then she panted, “Patryk.”

  “What?” Javier rasped, working toward his orgasm. He flinched. There was a loud knocking at the door of the bathroom, and Patryk’s voice on the other side of it.

  “Javier, you in there?”

  “Yeah, hold on!” he yelled, angry. “I’ve gotta finish my shower!”

  “Okay. Um, I just wanted to show you something.”

  “I’ll be right there!” In a softer voice he hissed, “Can’t leave my babies alone for a second!”

  Mira smiled up at him, embarrassed. And flushed. And with something else shining in her large dark eyes that made Javier uncomfortable, weirdly sick in his guts. Something that made his heart beat faster with more than just exertion.

  ***

  Javier showered quickly so he’d reappear with wet hair, but from the looks that greeted him and Mira it didn’t seem like the others were buying it. Satin, in his cybernetic pony, remarked, “Feeling all refreshed now, are we?” Javier ignored him, turning his attention to Patryk. Nhu pouted as Patryk extended the wrist comp that had been confiscated from her.

  “I found blueprints for Steward Gardens on the net,” he announced. “Filed with the Paxton Zoning Office.”

  “Good man,” Javier told him. “What can we use?”

  “There’s a generator in the cellar, like she guessed.” The tall youth nodded at Mira. “And a brainframe tied into all systems.”

  “An organic brain? A, what do you call it...”

  “Encephalon,” Mira said.

  “Yeah,” said Patryk.

  “Nhu.” Javier turned to her. “You’re the techie. You think you could tap into that? Shut off these Blank People?”

  “I could try,” she sulked, “but...”

  “I think there’s something better than that idea,” Patryk cut in. He tapped the device with a finger to draw Javier closer. The gang chief positioned his face directly above the little screen. Suddenly, the connection with his brain made, the image there filled the much larger screen of his mind. Patryk explained what he was seeing. “There’s a maintenance chute down there. It connects up directly with the town system.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It looks like we could get into the sewers. If we can do that, then we can pretty much go anywhere we want in the city.”

  Javier looked up at him, slipping his brain out of the wrist comp’s enveloping sleeve. “Yeah?”

  “It will be locked, I’m sure. The town doesn’t want just anybody getting down into the sewers. But they do, anyway. So there’s got to be a way in. If me or Nhu can’t hack it, then maybe we can just force our way. Blast it if we have to.”

  Javier showed his sneer-like grin. “Man, I’ve gotta give you a raise.”

  “You’ve got to give me a salary first,” Patryk replied.

  Javier turned to address the others in the conjoined gangs. “Hey. Saddle it up. Looks like we’re getting out of here, peoples.”

  ***

  At the rear of Steward Gardens’ B-Wing, behind the central area which on the ground level had served as a function room, the five remaining Tin Town Terata showed the seven remaining Folger Street Snarlers to the elevators that gave access to the two floors above. And to the basement level below.

  They had taken all their essentials. Patryk had his backpack with their scant food and collected communication devices. And everyone had their weapons. As they neared the elevators, Satin – moving along in his insect-like manner – said to Mott, “If you were smart you’d dissolve the body of your friend before you go. If the forcers find him here later, they’ll come to Folger Street and questi
on you.”

  “Blast you! I’m not melting my friend. Anyway, I don’t have any plasma.”

  Satin held up his formidable Decimator .220 revolver. “I do. Green plasma, man, the best stuff. It won’t leave anything. Eat his flesh, his bones, his clothes, his...”

  Mott stopped and looked ready to go for his own gun. “I told you, freak, nobody’s gonna melt my friend!”

  “Hey.” Javier looked back at them. “You two shut it and get over here.”

  “Anyway,” the dreadlock-headed Choom grumbled, “our insignia is sprayed outside. If the forcers want to find us, they’ll find us. Nothing we can do about that now. You got some bodies of your own back there in 5-B, don’t forget.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t have tattoos and gang gear like you punks do.”

  Javier contemplated the twin elevators. “I don’t know. I’d hate to box myself in one of these and have it get stuck. If that brain down there is controlling the Blanks and the trash zapper, who’s to say it won’t purposely seal us inside a lift?”

  “Didn’t happen to us,” slurred Nick, the mutant with the deflated-looking head.

  “Well, you took a risk I don’t wanna repeat. Come on.”

  Javier led them instead toward the stairwell and hoisted the metal door open. They began to descend, the metal steps clanging under their feet. Struggling with them, Mira said, “I just hope we can get the basement door open. We haven’t been able to before.”

  “I’ll try my skeleton card,” said Nhu, referring to the blank data card she had loaded with countless randomly generated key codes, using her home computer system.

  Javier glanced at Mira as they tramped down the steps side by side. In a low voice, he asked her, “You okay?”

  “Okay? In what way?”

  “I don’t know. You know. Just...okay?”

  She smiled. “I guess.”

  “Sorry about the stairs. I’d carry you, but...”