THE AIRCIRC SYSTEM DOWN in Metro Estates was on the fritz and there was a foul, rancid odor thick in the underground streets. Some of the hologram projectors weren’t functioning properly either. The wooded park on Gomez’s left as he walked toward Limehouse’s cottage on Downlevel 3 clicked off at irregular intervals. The stately trees, pines, and some other kind that Gomez couldn’t identify, would abruptly cease to be. Instead the stark metal walls, smeared with fiery rust and pocked with blistered paint, would appear, along with puddles of scum-topped water.
When the grass snapped away in the simulated park, the body of a dead dog that had been lying next to a plashing fountain remained, sprawled stiffly on the ribbed metal flooring.
“Dog must be real,” concluded Gomez. “Stands to reason. Nobody’d consider a canine corpse decorative, not even down here.”
A handsome Gothic church on his right began to quiver as he was strolling by. Instead of vanishing in an instant, as the grass and trees had, the narrow gray church seemed slowly, gradually, to melt. When it was nearly gone, and the spattered walls behind it were showing distinctly, the cathedral all at once reappeared and was whole again.
“Hallelujah,” commented Gomez.
“You can help me, monsieur.” A one-legged man came shuffling toward him, supported by a rough-hewn wooden crutch. He staggered, walking right through the wall of the newly returned cathedral.
Warily, Gomez slowed. “How?”
“All I need is skyliner fare to Australia. I got a job waiting there for me, but I’m a little short on my ticket money.”
“How short?”
“Only $700, monsieur.”
Gomez, smiling briefly, handed him a $10 Banx note. “Well, here’s my contribution.”
“Ten bucks? I sure as hell can’t get to Australia on ten lousy bucks.”
“It’s a start though.” Shrugging sympathetically, Gomez continued on his way.
“Jesus, I’m a vet, you know,” called the beggar. “I lost my goddamn leg in Brazil.”
Gomez kept moving.
“Looking for fun, curly?”
Sitting, legs crossed, on the porch of a two-story apartment building was a thin girl of about fourteen.
Gomez stopped. “Whatever you do, don’t tell me a sad story.”
“Who mentioned sad? Three hundred dollars.” She smiled at him. She had almost all her teeth.
“For what, chiquita?”
“A night of fun. With me.”
“How old are you?”
“How old do you like ’em?”
He gazed up at the black, shadowy metal ceiling of the tunnel for about ten seconds. “Waifs and strays,” he muttered. “Especially at Xmas I seem to bump into them.”
“If you act fast, curly, I’ll drop the price to $200. And that includes a continental breakfast comes the dawn.”
“Here.” He leaned closer to the girl. “Here’s $50. Now take it, go home, quit hustling for tonight.”
“You trying to reform me?”
“A lost cause, huh?” He put the $50 Banx note in her thin, knobby hand. “Well, adiós.”
Shoulders hunched, he walked on.
“Too bad, curly,” said the girl to his back. “You’re sort of cute.”
“She’s right about that,” he said to himself, kicking up his pace.
Limehouse was out in the small garden in front of his cottage, on hands and knees among the tulip beds. He was a long, thin man, somewhere between thirty and fifty. A cyborg with a right arm of tarnished silver. “Just the ruddy bloke I’m after wantin’,” he said, noticing Gomez stepping over his low white picket fence.
“Como está?”
“Can’t complain, m’lad. Now tyke a bloomin’ gander art these ’ere tulips, will yer?”
“Momentito,” cut in Gomez. “I know full well that you’re a one-time Londoner, Limehouse, and that you’re loyal to the Merrie Old England of bygone days, but, por favor, spare me that godawful stage Brit accent.”
“Bit much, wouldcher say, gov?”
“A bit, sí.”
“It seems to please the tourists, you understand? Especially the ones who drop down here from Great Britain. You really, you know, can’t spread it on too thick for them.”
“You had a query?”
Creaking some, Limehouse got up out of the tulip beds. “Take a long appraising look at these tulips if you will. Then tell me if you can tell which ones are the real article and which are simply projections.”
Gomez scanned the rows of bright flowers. “Red ones are phony.”
Limehouse sagged. “How’d you bloody tumble to that?”
“Your projector’s on the blink. The flowers on the end keep fading away until you can see through them.”
Crouching, he scowled at the red tulips. “Ar, blimey, you’re absolutely right. My eyes aren’t as sharp as they ought to be, and that’s for certain.”
“Might we step into your parlor for a chat?”
“Sure thing.” The cyborg led him into a cozy parlor, where a small cheery fire seemed to be blazing in a rustic stone fireplace. “Sit yourself down. Tea?”
“Not at the moment.”
Settling into an armchair, Limehouse rubbed at his metal arm with the fingers of his flesh hand. “I’ve been making discreet inquiries since you called me this afternoon.”
“With what result?”
Poking his fingers into a pocket of his checkered vest, the cyborg extracted a small vidcaz. “I was able to acquire a copy of this,” he said as he inserted it into a slot in his arm. “It’s not complete, mind you, only about two minutes long. The interesting thing, though, is that this particular bit of footage isn’t in the official autopsy video on your late friend, Joe Bouchon.”
“Roll it.” Gomez dragged his chair closer to that of his host.
Limehouse opened his metal hand to reveal a small vidscreen built into the palm. When he twisted his metal thumb, a picture appeared on the screen.
“Oy,” remarked Gomez, grimacing.
Lying on the white medtable were the four portions of Bouchon’s body. An android medic in a bloodstained smock was standing beside the table talking to a white-enameled robot who was holding a tray of liquid-filled vials.
Limehouse twisted his forefinger and voices came out of the tiny speaker below the screen.
“... no alcohol?”
“None, sir,” replied the white bot.
“What did you find?”
“He’d been given, orally, a dose of vertillium. Approximately a half hour before he died.”
“Hmrnm,” said the android thoughtfully. “What about—”
The film ended.
“Vertillium,” Limehouse started to explain, “is a fairly powerful—”
“Disorienting drug, sí. I’m familiar with the stuff.” He slid his chair back a few feet. “Do you know who edited this snippet out of the official version of the autopsy?”
Pointing at the ceiling with his silver thumb, the informant replied, “Somebody important. Don’t know who.”
“Find out.”
“Might be expensive.”
“I’ve got a good budget.”
“It could also, Gomez, be dangerous. To the both of us.”
“I’d appreciate it, nonetheless, if you’d try, in your celebrated discreet and polite fashion,” urged the detective. “Do you have anything else for me?”
Limehouse coughed into his real hand. “What I’ve supplied you thus far I’d like to have $1000 for.”
“Fair enough.”
“There is something else.” His voice lowered. “But on this I don’t happen to be the sole proprietor. If you want it, the whole story is going to cost you an extra $1500.”
“Who’s your partner?”
“Don’t explode when I tell you.”
“I’ll make every effort not to.”
“It’s Eddie Anguille.”
“Shit.”
“Eddie came to me when he got wind of what I was scrounging around for.”
“That cabrón. If they gave out trophies for swinishness, Anguille would cinch permanent possession. If they took a poll to determine the ten most unreliable and untrustworthy louts on the face of the earth, he’d fill the spots from one to five. Maybe six, too.”
“I don’t especially favor the bloke myself,” admitted Limehouse. “But he’s got this and if you want it—well, sir, it’s $1500.”
“Do I get a sample of what I’m buying?”
“I have a bit of audiovisual material, yeah. A conversation snippet about a certain artifact as it were,” explained Limehouse. “However, Gomez, to really find out what it all means, you got to go to Eddie.”
“In what pesthole does he hang his hat these days?”
“The Hotel Algiers.”
Nodding, Gomez said, “A first-class dump for sure. Is this sample going to cost me extra?”
Rubbing his metal hand along his leg, Limehouse said apologetically, “If it was up to me, you understand, I’d run this off for you for nothing. But Eddie, he doesn’t believe in free samples.”
“What’s the tab?”
“Two hundred fifty.”
“Plus the $1500 when I go to him?”
“That’s the blooming deal, I’m afraid, Gomez.”
“You don’t usually work cons.”
“This isn’t a scam. Leastwise I don’t think so.”
Gomez left his chair. On one wall of the parlor hung portraits of past and hopefully future kings and queens of England. “Queen Victoria looks a trifle sexier than she did in my history class at high school.”
“The artist, I expect, took a few liberties. What do you think of the latest portrait I’ve added?”
“Which one?”
“On the end of the lower row.”
“King Arthur II? Who the hell is he?”
“He’ll perhaps be the king of England someday.” Limehouse stood up, enthusiasm spreading across his thin face. “By all rights he should be sitting on the throne of England even as we speak.”
“There isn’t any throne of England,” reminded Gomez. “England’s been a democracy since the revolution some sixty years back.”
“That there was the worst bloody thing that ever happened to Great Britain.” Limehouse sat down again. “Ousting the monarchy and putting in a president. I’ll never set foot back home again until—”
“Okay, I’ll take you and Eddie up on this deal,” Gomez told him. “Here’s the $250. What does that buy me?”
Limehouse showed him.
Jake heard the fight before he saw it.
Something was happening up in the narrow alley that ran alongside the Hot Club.
Someone cried out in pain. Then came the sound of a body slamming into the ground. A plazcan hit the pavement, spilled coins clattered.
“Don’t, please.”
Jake went sprinting to the mouth of the alley.
A flung crutch nearly hit him as he reached the opening. Dodging, he entered.
On the rutted pavement a ragged man in an old Brazil Wars jacket and a pair of suit trousers was screaming and thrashing around as two large young men in skin-tight black clothing kicked at his ribs and groin.
“What did we tell you, asshole?”
“Not to ... ow!”
“What? Speak up, cafard. What did we tell you?”
“Not to ... beg around here ... ow ow.”
“That’s right.”
Jake said evenly, “I think he’s got the message, fellas. You can quit.”
The larger of the two large young men stopped kicking the crippled beggar and took a step back. “This is none of your business, asshole.”
“Skarf off,” said the smaller of the two. “Or you’re going to need a cup and a crutch.”
“Quit,” advised Jake quietly.
“Screw you.” The larger one kicked the fallen man again in the ribs.
Jake moved fast. He caught the thug’s left arm, twisted it behind his back. Spinning him half around, he shoved. The force of the push sent the man all the way across the alley to smack into the sooty stone wall opposite.
Jake nodded at the other thug. “Be a good idea to go away.”
“Like hell, cafard.” He came charging at Jake.
Jake sidestepped, kicking out.
The man howled as Jake’s booted foot smashed into his kneecap. Cursing, he stumbled and fell against his rising partner.
Watching them, Jake bent over the beggar. “Can you get up?”
The Brazil vet gave Jake a thin, sly smile. “Sure, Cardigan.” He jumped to his feet.
The two others were already scurrying clear of the alley.
The beggar thrust a note into Jake’s hand, ducked around him, and went running off.
The note said—“The beggar could have been a kamikaze. Go home to GLA.”