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“You can still leave here alive. Just walk away, and I won’t tell them you were here,” Sergei said over his shoulder as he stood motionless before the security door to the club’s server room.
I jabbed the barrel of the handgun into the small of his back. “Open it.”
His fingers danced over controls on the wall and a small panel slid aside. He pressed his hand on a scanner and leaned forward. As the system scanned his handprint, another sensor analyzed his retinal pattern. There was a soft, pleasant chime, followed by a series of metallic clicks as the locks on the door released. He turned as if to invite me to go first, but I waved him forward with the pistol.
The Russian opened the door and stepped inside. Cool air rushed out as I followed him, and the hum of air rushing through a series of climate control vents filled my ears. Banks of computer equipment and a forest of monitors lined the room, and in the center was a massive virtual reality mainframe flanked by two reclining seats. Each held a shapely young woman.
“Which one do you want?” Sergei asked as he walked up to a terminal between the chairs.
I recognized the woman on the left from the other night when Frank and I paid Sergei our first visit. She had been working the same shift Evie had missed after her murder. I gestured towards her. “That one.”
“I don’t know what you hope to get from her,” Sergei muttered as his fingers flew across the terminal’s keyboard.
“Answers.”
“Hmph.” Keys clicked and a series of indicators on the terminal’s monitor changed from green to red. Cries of outrage and groans of frustration flowed into the small space from the hallway behind us as the shutdown sequence ejected patrons from whatever high-cost sexual fantasies they had been engaged in. The woman twitched with each flash of red, her mind also being jerked from the simulations. From the screens above her station, I could tell she was servicing about a dozen clients at once through the virtual network. Each simulation was independent of the others, mostly run by the computer itself, but using the human brain connected to it to lend a genuine personality to each.
Sergei typed in a final set of commands and lights around the woman’s head flashed yellow. She gasped as her mind was disconnected from the machine. Her eyes fluttered open, weakly at first. She blinked against the real-world light that she had probably not seen in hours. “What the hell, Sergei,” she muttered, her voice slurring slightly as she struggled with the VR hangover. There was a whir of servos and a short, slender rod retracted from the back of her head. Cables connecting it to the mainframe wobbled as the mechanism pulled back and parked in a standby position. She sat up and rubbed the back of her skull as the cyberjack there, just like the one Evie had, closed a protective iris of shiny aluminum. She pulled her hair back and tied it into a low ponytail with an elastic which had been around her wrist, covering the cybernetic implant with practiced ease.
“Boss,” a gruff voice called from the hallway. “There’s a bunch of pissed off people out here.”
Sergei waved him off. “Give them refunds, or free sims and drinks. Just shut them up or get rid of them.”
“What’s going on?” the woman asked.
“Magdela,” Sergei said, “this man insists on talking to you.” He punctuated the statement with a gesture towards the gun in my hand.
“Oh.” Suddenly, her eyes grew large as she realized this was no regular interruption. “Oh, fuck.” Fear filled them as she glanced back and forth from me to her boss.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” I said. It sounded like a line from some cheesy old action flick from the twenty-first century, the kind that only dreamed of the sort of intrigues I was now living.
“What now?” Sergei asked.
“Let’s go back to your office so we can have a polite little chat,” I said.
“Hmph.”
“Come on,” I said as I grabbed this Magdela by the arm and helped her up from the VR chair. Her skin was soft, softer than I remembered human flesh could be. She flinched at my touch, but I was firm in directing her towards the door. As Sergei led the way back to his office, I watched her follow. She wore a skin-tight black dress that came down to the knees. It was modest compared to a lot of what you saw these days—especially in her line of work—but still hugged all the right spots. She had the curves of somebody who ate well enough, but the tone of somebody who took care to stay in shape. Her dark hair hung half-way down her back despite being tied up, and it shone in the hall’s lights with a healthy glimmer.
After we entered the office, I pulled the doors shut and slid a poker from a nearby fireplace through the handles to keep them closed.
Sergei went right to a sideboard bar and poured himself a glass of straight vodka, drained it, then refilled the glass. “Okay, you’ve got the girl. Now ask your questions and get the fuck out of my club.”
I walked over to the bar. “I’d think you would want to treat a guest better than that.” Finding a dusty bottle of bourbon nestled behind the vodkas, I grabbed it by the neck and brought it with me to an overstuffed armchair that sat in a circle around a small table with three mates. I plopped onto the soft chair and sighed as the aches and strains of the last two days sunk into the cushions with me.
“Unwelcome guest,” Sergei pointed out.
“Touché.”
“What is this all about?” Magdela asked as she took a seat across from me. “What questions?”
Well, down to brass tacks, then. No point trying to make small talk with a gun in my hand, anyway. I unscrewed the cap of the bourbon and took a deep swig before starting. “You know Evie Simms?”
“Of course, we work the same shift.”
“You know she’s dead?”
Magdela’s eyes narrowed as she took a closer look at me. “Oh my God, you’re Harold Jacobson! You’ve been all over the holovids since this morning.”
I nodded. A glance at Sergei showed he was either feigning disinterest in the conversation or genuinely was more interested in whatever was underneath his fingernails than what we were saying.
“You killed Kristoff?” she asked.
Sergei’s head popped up. Yep, definitely faking it. He’s probably making mental notes to pass along to his mob contacts the minute I walk out the door.
“No,” I said. Her eyes kept dancing from mine to the gun in my hand, so I clicked on the safety and laid it on my lap. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it up before continuing. “A Russian mobster named Boris killed Kristoff, and my partner. They’re framing me for it.”
Magdela’s eyes shot over to Sergei before turning back to me. “Why would they kill Kristoff? He was working for them.”
I wasn’t sure if she was unaware this was news or unconcerned about hiding it, but she answered one of my questions without me having to ask it. I had a hunch, but the confirmation I was pulling on the right thread gave me momentum to tug harder.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, and why they killed Evie.”
“Hmph.” Again from Sergei, feigning disinterest despite growing more agitated by the moment. Without saying a word, he was giving me as much information as Magdela. He set down his glass with a shaking hand and leaned against his desk. “You will not find anything but an early grave. Now, can my girl get back to work?”
My eyes met Magdela’s, and I saw something there pleading for me not to leave her here. Her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish spilled from its tank, and I knew there was something more she wanted to say—but couldn’t.
I stood up and walked back over to the bar, put back the bourbon, and turned around. The gun was back in my hand, and I could tell Sergei hadn’t missed the point since his eyes kept drifting to it. “What is it she doesn’t want to tell me in front of you, Sergei?”
“I don’t know what you mean. She knows nothing about Evie or Kristoff.”
I took two slow, calculated steps forward. “I think she knows more than you want me to know, and I think as soon as we’re out of here she’s going to tell me.”
Sweat beaded up on the Russian’s brow and he turned to walk behind the desk. “You’re grasping at phantoms, Mister Jacobson. There’s nothing to connect what happened to either of them to me.”
Another clue laid out without having to ask. “I didn’t say they were connected to you, just that Magdela knew something about them. So, what’s your part in this?” Another two steps forward brought me to the corner of the desk.
Rounding the other side, Sergei laid his hands on the polished redwood and leaned over it. “You’re not going to shoot me, and I’m not going to tell you anything, so why don’t you just get out?”
“Why don’t you tell him about the other girls?” Magdela chimed in, either growing brave enough to speak up or afraid enough to break the tension in the room herself.
“Other girls?” I asked. This was a can of worms I had not smelled coming.
Sergei’s face turned red and sweat dripped from above his ears. “Shut up, you bitch! I’ll have you turning tricks in the alley if you open your whore mouth one more time!”
While his attention was on her, I stepped around the desk and slammed the handle of the pistol into the side of the Russian’s head. He shrieked like a beaten stepchild as he fell to the marble tiles. Wide eyes stared back at me with a mixture of shock and fear as Sergei slithered back until his shoulders were pressed against the wall.
“What other girls?” I asked again.
Sergei pressed a hand against his head and a trickle of blood ran between his fingers. “Are you completely insane? Do you know who I am?”
I slapped him across the face with the gun, sending spit, blood, and a tooth raining down on the pristine white floor next to him. “Tell me what she knows.”
“Wait!” Magdela cried out. I doubted there was any love lost between the two, but she didn’t seem keen on watching me beat the man to death, either. “There were girls, a lot of them, who came to interview for jobs. Some of them left talking about getting hired, but then we never saw them again. One of them was a friend of Evie’s. After she interviewed, she disappeared. Evie said her apartment was abandoned. It was like she just vanished.”
“Wait...” I stepped back and leaned against the desk. “How many?”
Magdela sat back down, twisting her hands together. “I don’t know, maybe two dozen over the last few weeks?”
“I’m warning you,” Sergei slurred from against the wall. “Not another word.”
I was tiring of his interruptions. I raised my arm, took half a second to aim, and squeezed the trigger. The smell of gunpowder and echoes of the gunshot filled the room as the bullet ripped through Sergei’s thigh. I wasn’t sure if it was his screams or the tinnitus from the gunshot, but a loud screeching filled my ears for several moments before fists started pounding on the office door. Voices called out from the other side.
I leveled the gun at Sergei’s head. “Tell them you’re okay, or you won’t be giving them any more orders.”
“I’m fine! Go away!” he cried out.
Magdela was slack-jawed, her eyes affixed on her boss’s bleeding leg. “I can’t believe...”
“He needed to be taught a lesson,” I muttered as I laid the gun on the desk and lit another cigarette. “Let me get this straight. A bunch of girls went missing, and Evie knew one of them. So, she got curious and started digging. That about sum it up?”
Magdela nodded.
“Okay,” I walked over to Sergei and placed a foot on his wounded leg, leaning in as I spoke, raising my voice to be heard over his cries of pain, “What was she digging into? What didn’t you want her to find out?”
“It was just a business deal,” Sergei groaned through gritted teeth.
“A business deal Kristoff brokered?” I asked.
Sergei laughed through tears of pain. “Really? That little shit couldn’t handle his own prick without his daddy’s help. He was a go-between... An errand boy.”
“So why would Boris kill him?” I asked.
“The kid talked too much. Evie did some off-the-books servicing for him—unplugged servicing—and the young pup thought he was in love. He told her what was going on, and they both got silenced for their trouble.”
I leaned in harder. He screamed louder. “What deal? Why has Talbot been paying you?”
Sergei caught his breath and panted out, “The girls. He pays for the girls.”
It was all coming together now. Sergei was recruiting talent, and James Talbot was paying him. But was Talbot running the show, or was he just working for the mob, too? “What’s the big picture?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I find the girls, someone picks them up, then I get paid. That’s all I know.”
“Why is the Bratva involved?”
“What are they not involved in? You can’t do business in this city without them. Come on, Jacobson, you know how this works. Now, will you get the fuck out of my club?”
I looked over at Magdela. The contempt she had for the man on the floor had grown with his admission to being party to her friend’s death. I turned back to be welcomed by a smug sneer. “Yeah, we’ll leave.”
“We?” Magdela asked.
I flicked my cigarette onto the floor, walked back over to the bar, and grabbed the bourbon. As I headed towards the door, I waved her over. “Come on, Magdela. You can’t stay here.”
As I led her out of the office, Sergei called out after me, “You’re a dead man, Jacobson! You’ll be in hell before the sun comes up!”
“Yeah?” I called over my shoulder as I walked out. “I’ll see you there.”