Eveth had taken the time to change before they set out. She was back in the blue-gray bodysuit, covered over with armored scales and sporting a holster for her pistol on her left thigh. The blue ring over her heart seemed to be filling her with white-hot plasma from the surface of a star. Grodray had changed too, but he had gone the full route, including the white, dress beret and tunic over the top of his armor, so that made him look like the good cop.
That was okay. Eveth was angry enough already. And Grodray had said they were acting as Prime Inspectors on this case. That meant she had a great deal more leeway on rules and regulations than a mere Constable.
Time to put that to the test.
The auto-taxi had dropped them on a side street not far from the main tourist area, down by the river. They had eaten lunch not a mile from here, but by night it was an entirely different world.
Neon signs competed for attention Music pulsed a low, rumbling bass she could feel in her sternum, even from here. There was a line of people at the door, waiting for one of the bouncers protecting the joint to let them in, assuming they passed the requisite coolness test inherent in clubs like this.
“That’s it?” she asked, nodding the direction of the target as they came around the corner. The music hit her like a wet towel.
Grodray just nodded.
“What exactly are you planning to do, Eve?” he asked in a simple voice, falling into stride with her as she moved.
“Kick over an anthill, Jack,” she smiled back, almost biting her lip with anticipation.
No more deduction. No more intuitive leaps into the darkness. Just heads that needed cracking together.
She approached the line and went around the rope holding the unwelcome at bay.
Two of the bouncers in black shirts at the front door were Nari. Big specimens of determination that probably intimidated the hell out of tourists and artists. The one in the middle was a Vanir. He was maybe Grodray’s height, and had lots of mass, but much of it was turning into a pot belly around the middle.
Eveth flashed her badge as she got close and slipped it into her thigh holder so it was out of the way and her hands were clear.
“You can’t go in there,” the fat guy said. “It’s a private party.”
“Stop me then,” Eveth said.
Apparently, they bred them dumb on Hurquar, or wherever this guy was from. He actually reached out and tried to grab Eveth’s shoulder as she walked by him.
It had been a day. A whole week of days like this.
Eveth grabbed the hand on her right shoulder with her own right hand. She twisted it forward hard as she kept walking, forcing him sideways and down if he didn’t want his arm broken.
One of the two Nari looked like he might want to cause trouble, until a stun pistol appeared in his face, at the other end of a long, Vanir arm belonging to her angry partner.
“Official business,” he said, invoking the kinds of dread-bringing words that would get the other two thrown in jail for weeks until Grodray or Eveth decided they had suffered enough embarrassment.
Interfering with a Constabulary investigation was a felony everywhere, just for situations like this.
Both Nari turned white around the eyes. Ears went flat against skulls and the two men backed away.
Eveth would have expected to see tails tucked under, if they weren’t wearing baggy pants.
She turned her attention to the big guy, still trying not to have a broken arm. He had a look about him of a bully boy. Just the kind of guy you wanted at the front door of a club like this. She twisted a little more, and he was on his knees.
Eveth pulled her spare handcuffs from a belt pouch and hooked this bastard to the door handle. The only way he was going anywhere without her now involved a cutting laser, patience, and a high pain threshold.
Grodray nodded his approval.
Inside, the wall of sound was almost a painful experience. Eveth wondered what subsonics might be bathing the crowd in emotional manipulation, but it wasn’t her problem.
She looked to the right, and saw a crowd pressed up against a long bar like a rising tide. On the left, tables filled with sweaty patrons. In the middle, a dance floor and a light show so bright it might constitute an optical assault.
The door she wanted was on the far side, back on the left, near where risers went up to tables in the back with a good view.
Two more goons protected it as she wended her way through the mob, not exactly elbowing folks out of her way, but taking full advantage of the smaller species around her, who couldn’t resist her angry mass.
Another Nari guarded this door, with a Grace on the other side. Both wore the same black shirt of security employees, and had noted her approach with concern bordering on hostility.
Eveth smiled as she got close enough for the men to move to block the door. With one hand, she flipped open the wallet with the badge. With the other, she drew her pistol and pointed it at the one on the left. Grodray’s pistol was there a split-second later, like he had known how this was going down.
Maybe he secretly was a Prime Investigator, hiding out with the little people?
“Your choice,” Eveth yelled over the music.
The Grace nodded and backed down first, sliding across from the doorway and more or less pushing the Nari against the wall and whispering something in his ear as he did.
Like what a really bad idea it might be to resist the angry, giant woman with a badge and a gun.
Through the door the sound fell to a dull echo in the middle distance. The walls were rough wood covered over with old concert playbills, and the floor badly scuffed tile. Eveth passed a kitchen that extended behind the wall on the bar side, and then a blank space that was probably the back of the restrooms.
The hallway ended in a wooden door, older than the hills, and with a name on it in gold letters. The name Grodray had gotten for her earlier.
She had always wanted to do this, but it had never been an option, even in this line of work.
Without breaking stride, she stepped up and kicked the handle with all the anger she had accumulated since she came to this planet, shattering the strike panel out of the frame and a good chunk of wood from the door.
Inside, a fat Grace was talking on the telephone and looked up with a surprise that turned his tentacles nearly white.
“I’ll call you back,” he said. “Something just came up.”
The rest of the office was empty. Just the short, fat man behind a battered desk, two chairs, and wall-to-wall pictures of famous people who had been here or played the club at some point in their careers.
Eveth still had the gun in her hand, so she sat in the nearer chair and smiled at him.
“I want information,” she said primly. “You have three options. One: you can just tell me what I need. Two: you end up spending the rest of the night and maybe a week or two in jail while badly-misfiled paperwork gets untangled.”
Pause.
“What’s option number three,” he asked, falling for it like any good straight man.
“You have to stop at the hospital first,” she smiled.