Artemis (16 page)

Then off to a hair salon for a quick updo and voilà! I was now a floozy. The girls at the salon rolled their eyes at me as I checked myself out in the mirror.

The transformation was disturbingly easy. Sure, I have a nice body, but I wish it had been a
little
more effort to become so trashy.

Travel's a bitch. Even when it's a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

You leak money like a sieve. You're jet-lagged. You're exhausted all the time. You're homesick even though you're on vacation. But all of those hassles pale in comparison to the food.

I see it all the time here. Tourists love to sample our local cuisine. Problem is: Our cuisine sucks. It's made of algae and artificial flavors. Within a few days the Americans want pizza, the French want wine, and the Japanese want rice. Food makes you comfortable. It's how you recenter.

Jin Chu was from Hong Kong. He'd eventually want proper Cantonese food.

The types of people who have one-on-one meetings with Trond are business magnates or, at the very least, highly important people. Those people travel a lot. They learn to stay where the food's good.

So we had an important, travel-savvy guy from Hong Kong who'd want home cooking. One establishment fit the bill perfectly: the Canton Artemis.

The Canton, a five-star hotel in Aldrin bubble, catered to the Chinese elite. Owned and operated by Hong Kong business interests, they provided a homelike experience to high-end travelers. And most important, they had a proper Cantonese breakfast buffet. If you're from Hong Kong and you have unlimited money, the Canton is where you stay.

I walked into the plush, well-adorned lobby. It was one of the few hotels in town that had an honest-to-God lobby. I guess when you charge 50,000
ğ
a night for a room, you can waste a little space on presentation.

I stood out like a sore thumb in my prostitute regalia. A few heads turned in my direction then turned away in disdain (though the male heads took a little longer). An old Asian lady manned the concierge desk. I walked straight up without a hint of shame. Internally, I was embarrassed as all hell—I did my best to hide it.

The concierge gave me a look that told me I'd offended her and her great ancestors. “Can I help you?” she asked with a slight Chinese accent.

“Yeah,” I said. “I've got a meeting here. With a client.”

“I see. And do you have this client's room number?”

“Nah.”

“Do you have his Gizmo ID?”

“Nah.” I pulled a compact out of my handbag and checked my ruby-red lipstick.

“I'm sorry, madam”—she looked me up and down—“I'm unable to help you if you don't have his room number or some other proof that you've been invited.”

I shot her a bitchy glare (I'm good at that). “Oh, he wants me here all right. For an hour.” I set the compact on her desk and fished around in my handbag. She leaned away from the compact like she might catch a disease from it.

I pulled out a piece of paper and read: “Jin Chu. Canton Artemis. Arcade District. Aldrin Bubble.” I put the paper away. “Just call the fuckin' guy, okay? I got other customers after this.”

She pursed her lips. Hotels like the Canton wouldn't contact a guest just because someone claimed to be meeting them. But rules get bent where sex is involved. She typed a few keystrokes on her computer, then picked up the phone.

She listened for a while, then hung up. “I'm sorry, but there's no answer.”

I rolled my eyes. “You tell him he still has to pay!”

“I'll do no such thing.”

“Whatever!” I snatched up the compact and tossed it back in my purse. “If he shows up, tell him I'm in the bar.”

I stomped off.

So he wasn't in. I could stake out the lobby—the bar had a great view of the entrance—but that could take all day. I had a different plan.

That lipstick adjustment earlier hadn't just been for show. I'd placed the compact so I could see the concierge's computer screen in the mirror. When she looked up Jin Chu, it popped up his room number: 124.

I reached the bar and hopped up on the stool second from the corner. Habit, I guess. I glanced through the lobby to the elevators. A beefy security guard stood nearby. He wore a suit and nice shoes, but I know muscle when I see it.

A guest walked up, waved his Gizmo, and the elevator opened. The guard watched but didn't seem too interested.

A few seconds later, a couple approached. The woman waved her Gizmo and the doors opened. The guard stepped forward and spoke to them briefly. She said something and he returned to his post.

No sneaking aboard the elevator. You had to be a guest or with a guest.

“What can I get for ya?” said a voice from behind.

I turned to face the bartender. “Have you got Bowmore fifteen-year single-malt?”

“Indeed we do, ma'am. But I should warn you it's seven hundred fifty slugs for a two-ounce pour.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “Round it up to a thousand and keep the change. Charge it to my date: Jin Chu, Room 124.”

He typed on his register, confirmed the name matched the room number, and smiled. “Right away, ma'am. Thank you.”

I stared at the elevators and waited for the guard to take a break or something. The bartender returned with my drink. I took a sip. Oh, man…good stuff.

I poured a little out on the floor for Trond. He was a sneaky moneygrubber who would break any laws that got in his way. But he was good to the people in his life and he didn't deserve to die.

All right. How would I get past the goon at the elevator? Distract him? Probably wouldn't work. He was a trained security guard and his whole job was controlling access. He wasn't likely to fall for bullshit. Maybe I could find someone tall or fat and literally hide behind them? Hmm, that seemed a little too “Buster Keaton” to actually work.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. An Asian man in his mid-fifties sat next to me. He wore a three-piece suit and an ugly comb-over.

“
Purai?
” he asked.

“Huh?” I said.

“Eh…” He pulled out his Gizmo and gestured to it. “
Purai?
”

“English?” I asked.

He typed on his Gizmo then turned it to face me. The text read:
Price?

“Oh,” I said. Well, that's what I got for dressing like a prostitute and hanging out in a bar. It was nice to know I had an alternate career path if smuggling didn't work out. I glanced at the elevators and their guardian, then back to my john.

“Two thousand slugs,” I said. Seemed reasonable. I was rocking that miniskirt.

He nodded and typed up the transaction on his Gizmo. I put my hand over his to stop him.

“After,” I said. “Pay after.”

He seemed puzzled but agreed.

I stood from the bar and downed my Bowmore. I assume everyone in Scotland gasped in psychic pain.

My little friend took my arm like a gentleman and we walked through the lobby. We got to the elevators, he waved his Gizmo, and we stepped aboard arm in arm. The guard glanced but said nothing. He saw this sort of thing a hundred times a day.

You're probably imagining a high-rise hotel with twenty-five floors or something, but remember this is Aldrin Bubble. The Canton only had three floors. My customer pressed
1
. Excellent, that was the floor I needed.

The elevator took us to the first floor and we stepped into the plush hallway. Shit, everything was decorated here. Soft carpet, crown molding, paintings on the walls, the works. Each door boasted its room number in gold relief digits.

My date took me down the hall past Room 124. We stopped at 141. He waved his Gizmo by the lock and the door clicked open.

I made a show of pulling out my Gizmo and looking at it. I frowned at the blank screen as if it had an important message. He watched with interest.

“Sorry, I have to make a call,” I said. I pointed to the Gizmo for emphasis. Then gestured for him to go into the room. He nodded and walked in.

I held the Gizmo up to my ear. “Rocko? Yeah, it's Candy. I'm with a customer. What? Oh no she didn't!” I closed Grandpa's room door so I could talk to my pimp in private. He'd probably wait a good fifteen minutes before he figured out I left.

Sure, I was ditching a horny businessman, but I hadn't taken his money. I was ethically in the clear.

I slinked down to Room 124. I looked left and right. No one else in the hall. I pulled a screwdriver from my gaudy purse and jimmied the lock. All right, Jin Chu. Let's see what you're up to.

I pushed open the door. A grizzled Latino man sat on the bed, his right arm in a sling. He gripped a Bowie knife in his left hand.

He shot to his feet. “
Tu!
” he yelled.

“Uh—” I began.

He lunged.

Dear Jazz,

Glad to hear about the sales of the foam insulant. We're making a killing! I'll send another two cases in the next probe.

I have a candidate picked out for our “employee.” His name is Jata Masai. He's a recently hired assistant loader. He's a friendly man but private. Reclusive. He mentioned he has a wife and two daughters, but that's about all I know. He never eats lunch with the other loaders in the cafeteria—he brings a lunchbox instead. To me this means he's short on money.

Wife. Two kids. Needs money. Assistant loader. I like that combo. I haven't approached him about it yet, obviously. I hired a private investigator to learn everything about him. I'll send you her report as soon as she delivers it. If you like what you see, I'll recruit him.

How are things with Tyler?

Dear Kelvin,

Make it two cases of foam insulant. Yes, please send the report on Jata when it's available.

Tyler and I are done. I don't want to talk about it.

My mind went into overdrive.

Okay, so a guy was coming at me with a knife. He had a wounded arm, probably from Irina while she was being murdered. That meant he wanted to kill me too.

Irina was strong, trained, and armed, but she still lost a knife fight to this guy. What chance did I have? I can't fight for shit. And running wasn't an option either. I was in heels and a tight skirt.

I had one chance, and it relied on me guessing where he was going to stab. I was a helpless, exposed girl with no weapon. Why waste time? Just slit my throat.

I jerked my purse to my neck just in time to block his attack. His lightning-fast strike slashed the purse open and the contents spilled out. That would have been my throat. He assumed I'd be halfway through dying after that assault, so he left himself a little open.

I grabbed his bad arm with one hand and punched it with the other. He cried out in pain. He lashed at me with the knife, but I twisted out of the way. I hung on and kicked off the doorframe to torque his injured arm as much as I could. Maybe if his pain was bad enough, he'd be distracted and I could run away.

He screamed in rage and used the arm to hoist me into the air. Okay, that wasn't part of my plan. He lifted me bodily over his head and swung me down toward the hotel room's floor. This was my chance. It would hurt, but it was a chance.

I let go of his arm right before hitting the floor. It didn't lessen the blow. I smashed into the ground on my side. My ribs exploded with pain. I wanted to curl up and moan but I didn't have the time. I was free—if only for a second.

He stumbled. He'd just had 55 kilograms of Jazz on his arm and it suddenly fell off. I pushed through the pain in my side and got to my knees. With every ounce of strength I had, I slammed my shoulder into his back. “Lefty” was off balance and wasn't expecting an attack. He tumbled into the hallway.

I fell backward into the hotel room and kicked the door shut. It locked automatically. Less than a second later, I heard the first resounding
thump
as Lefty tried to force his way back in.

I scrambled to the nightstand next to the bed and dialed the phone.

“Front Desk,” came the immediate reply.

I tried to sound panicked. It wasn't hard. “Hey! I'm in Room 124 and there's some guy pounding on the door! I think he's drunk or something. I'm scared!”

“We'll send security right up.”

“Thanks.”

Lefty flung himself against the door a second time.

I hung up and limped to the door. I peeked through the peephole. Lefty reared back and took another running leap at the door. Another rattling thump, but the door was unaffected.

“Metal door, metal deadbolt!” I yelled. “Fuck you!”

He'd backed up to take another run when the elevator doors at the end of the hall opened. The beefy security guy stepped forward. “Something I can help you with, sir?”

A few other room doors opened up. Confused guests peeked at the action. Lefty hadn't exactly been quiet. He took stock of the situation and of the very large security guard. This wasn't something he could stab his way out of. He looked at the door longingly, then scampered off.

The guard straightened his tie, walked up, and knocked on my door.

I opened it a crack. “Uh, hi?”

“Are you all right, ma'am?” he asked.

“Yeah. It was just weird is all. Aren't you going after him?”

“He had a knife. Best to let him go.”

“I see.”

“I'll stick around in the hall for a while to make sure he doesn't come back. Rest easy.”

“Okay, thank you.” I closed the door.

I took a moment to recenter.

Lefty was in Jin Chu's room because…why? He had no way of knowing I'd come. He wasn't there for me. He must have been there for Jin Chu.

A Latino assassin. And wouldn't you know it, Sanchez Aluminum was owned by Brazilians. Shit, I know companies get pissed when you trash their stuff, but murder?
Murder?!

I looked through the peephole again. The guard stood nearby. I was safer than I'd been all day. All right. Time to search the room.

Man. Must be nice to be rich. The room had a king-size bed, a tidy workstation in one corner, and a bathroom with a graywater reuse shower. I heaved a sigh. My dreams of a nice place had died with Trond.

I tossed the room. No point in subtlety. I found the usual stuff you'd expect for a business traveler: clothes, toiletries, et cetera. What I
didn't
find was a Gizmo. And judging by the condition of the room (at least the condition it was in before I trashed it), there hadn't been a struggle. That was all good news for Jin Chu. It meant he probably wasn't dead. Most likely scenario: Lefty came to kill him but he wasn't home. So Lefty waited. Then I showed up and ruined everything.

You're welcome, Jin Chu.

I was about to leave when I noticed the safe in the closet. It's one of those things you don't even pay attention to. The wall-mounted safe had an electronic lock with instructions on how to set it. Pretty simple, really. It starts disarmed. You put your shit in it, then set the code. It'll keep that code until you check out.

I tried the handle and it didn't open. Interesting. When one of those wall safes isn't in use it's ajar.

Time to become a safecracker. Those things aren't exactly made to protect the crown jewels.

The contents of my now-destroyed purse lay strewn across the floor. I found the makeup compact and slapped it against my palm several times. I opened it to a mess of crumbled powder. I held it up to the safe and blew across the surface.

Brown, dusty makeup clouded the air around the safe. I stepped back and waited for it to clear up. Dust takes a long time to settle in Artemis. Atmosphere plus low gravity equals particles taking forever to fall.

Eventually the area cleared up. I took a good look at the keypad. A layer of makeup covered everything, but three of the buttons had more dust on them than the others. The
0
, the
1
, and the
7
. Those were the ones with finger grease on them. With a hotel like the Canton, you could bet they cleaned everything in the room between guests. So those numbers had to be the digits Jin Chu chose for his combination.

According to the instructions on the safe, you set a four-digit code.

Hmm. A four-digit code with three unique numbers. I closed my eyes and did some math. There'd be…fifty-four possible combinations. According to the instructions, the safe would lock down if it got three incorrect combinations in a row. Then the hotel staff would have to open it with their master code.

I replayed my brief interaction with him in my head. He was on Trond's couch…he drank Turkish coffee while I had black tea. We talked about—

Aha! He was a
Star Trek
fan.

I typed 1-7-0-1 and the safe clicked open. NCC-1701 was the registration number of the starship
Enterprise
. How did I know that? I must have heard it somewhere. I don't forget stuff.

I opened the safe door and found the mysterious white case—the one Jin Chu had tried to hide from me. The outside still read
ZAFO SAMPLE—AUTHORIZED USE ONLY.
All right, now we were getting somewhere!

I popped open the case to discover…a cable?

It was just a coiled cable, maybe two meters long. Had someone taken the secret device and left the power cable behind? Why do that? Why not take the whole case?

I looked at the cable more closely. Actually, it wasn't a power cord. It was a fiber-optic cable. Okay, so it was for data. But what data?

“Okay. Now what?” I asked myself.

The door beeped and slid open. Svoboda stepped into his studio apartment and dropped his Gizmo on the shelf near the door.

“Hi, Svobo,” I said.

“
Svyate der
´
mo!
” He put his hand on his chest and panted.

I'd smuggled in so many illegal chemicals for him over the years he'd given me the keypad-code for his apartment. It was just easier for me to deliver that way.

I leaned back in his desk chair. “I need some work from you.”

“Jesus Christ, Jazz!” he said, still breathing heavily. “Why are you in my apartment?”

“I'm in hiding.”

“What's with your hair?”

I'd changed back into normal clothes, but I still had my whore-do. “Long story.”

“Are those sparkles? You have sparkles in your hair?”

“
Long story!
” I pulled a square of wrapped chocolate from my pocket and tossed it to him. “Here. I read somewhere you should always bring a gift when visiting a Ukrainian.”

“Ooh! Chocolate!” He caught the morsel and unwrapped it. “Rudy came by the lab today asking about you. He didn't say why, but scuttlebutt is you're involved in those murders?”

“The guy who killed them wants to kill me.”

“Wow,” he said. “This is serious. You should go to Rudy.”

I shook my head. “And get deported? No thanks. I can't trust him. I can't trust anyone right now.”

“But you're here.” He smiled. “So you trust me?”

Huh. It never occurred to me
not
to trust Svoboda. He was way too “Svoboda” to be sinister. “I guess so.”

“Awesome!” He snapped the chocolate in two and handed me half. He popped the other half in his mouth and savored it.

“Oh, hey,” he said with his mouth full. “Did you get a chance to test the condom?”

“No, I haven't had sex in the
two days
since you gave me the condom.”

“Okay, okay,” he said.

I picked up the ZAFO box and tossed it to him. “I need you to tell me what this is.”

He plucked it out of the air and read the label. “Huh. ZAFO. You asked me about that earlier.”

“Yeah. Now I have a sample. What can you tell me about it?”

He opened the box and pulled the cable out. “It's a fiber-optic data cable.”

“What's it for?”

He peered at one end. “Nothing.”

“What?”

He held both ends of the cable up. “These aren't connectors. They're caps. This cable can't be used for anything. Not without connectors, anyway.”

“So what's the point? It's just a useless cable?”

“No idea,” he said. He coiled it up and put it back in the box. “Is it related to the murders?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I don't know.”

“Okay, I'll take it to the lab right now. I'll get you some answers tonight.”

I pulled out my Harpreet Gizmo. “Two thousand slugs?”

“What?” He gave me a look like I'd pissed on his mother's grave. “No. Nothing. The price is nothing. Jesus.”

“What's wrong?” I said.

“You're in trouble. I'm helping you because you're my friend.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't think of what to say.

He whipped his Gizmo from the shelf. “I assume you're using an alias. Give me its ID.”

I shared my new contact info with him. He nodded curtly when his Gizmo received it. “Okay, ‘Harpreet,' I'll call you when I have something.”

I'd never seen him so annoyed. “Svoboda, I—”

“Forget it. It's cool.” He forced a smile. “I just thought that would be assumed, is all. You need somewhere to stay?”

“Uh, no. I've got a hideout set up.”

“Of course you do. Lock up when you leave.” He left a little faster than necessary.

Well, shit. I didn't have time for male ego or whatever the hell that was about. I had to hurry off to my next scheme.

“All right, Lefty,” I mumbled to myself. “Let's see how well connected you are….”

Evening is the Arcade District's busiest time of day. It's when the richfucks come out to play. Freshly fed and liquored up, they hit the shops, casinos, brothels, and theaters. (If you haven't seen lunar acrobats in action, you don't know what you're missing. Hell of a show.)

It was perfect. People
everywhere
. Just what I needed.

Arcade Square (which is a circle) sat in the center of Aldrin Ground, right in the middle of everything. It was only a collection of benches and a few potted trees—the sort of thing you see in every town square on Earth, but an incredible luxury here.

I glanced around and didn't see Lefty anywhere. Very helpful of him to have a sling on. It made him easy to spot. Someday when I died and went to hell I'd thank Irina for slashing him.

Drunks and revelers crisscrossed the square. Tourists packed the benches and chatted or took pictures of one another. I pulled out my Gizmo and turned it on.

And when I say “my Gizmo” I mean my
real
Gizmo. It powered up and showed the familiar wallpaper—a picture of a Cavalier King Charles spaniel puppy. What? I like puppies.

I discreetly placed the Gizmo on the ground and kicked it under a nearby bench.