city blues 01 - dome city blues (34 page)

“Whatever,” I said.  “Just hurry.  I’ve got to get moving before the cops do.”

Sonja looked up.  “Lisa, have you got any scissors?  I’m going to need a razor too.”

“Scissors are somewhere in one of the kitchen drawers.  You go after them; I’ll get the razor.”

Sonja lifted my right hand to the back of my head.  “Here.  Hold this towel there until I get back.  You’re scalp isn’t bleeding much, but I don’t want to have to clean it up again.”

She and Lisa disappeared on their respective errands.

Lisa returned first.  She handed me a pink plastic disposable razor and leaned close to my ear.  “I thought you said you two weren’t sleeping together.”

“Oh.  In the restaurant, when we had lunch?  We weren’t.  Not then.”

Lisa snapped her fingers.  “Damn!  I knew I should have raped you when I had the chance.”

CHAPTER 22

I called House from a pay phone at the 52nd Street Lev Depot because it was closest to the barricade.

He answered with his
David can’t come to the phone
routine.

“House, this is David.”

“Good evening, David.”

“Evening, House.  Listen, I just ran into my friend Roger.  Everything is fine, but I won’t be coming home any time soon.  I just wanted to let you know not to look for me.  I’m not expecting any visitors, so don’t leave the light on, okay?”

“Of course, David.  Will there be anything else?”

“No.  Goodnight, House.”

I hung up.

The entire conversation, following the words ‘
my friend Roger
’ was a dodge that Maggie and I had worked out years before.  When one of us thought the phone might be bugged, we used the ‘Roger’ code.

The meaning of everything after that phrase was inverted.  We had included House in our little conspiracy, and it had paid off more than once.

I had just told House that:

A — Something was wrong.

B — I would be home soon.

C — I was expecting unwanted visitors.

D — If anyone showed up, leave a light on to warn me.

The police might not know about Rieger yet, but it wasn’t too early to start watching my back.

I crossed through the barricade and circled two blocks out of my way to approach the house from the rear.  The light in the loft was off, so my house was safe, for now at least.

I headed straight for my bedroom.  A shower sounded fantastic, but I decided to settle for clean clothes.  I didn’t know how much time I had, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to get Sonja’s bandage wet anyway.

I emptied the contents of my pockets on the bed, and dropped my dirty pants on the floor.  I usually clean up after myself, but I was in a hurry.  One of House’s remotes would have to take care of it.

I was looking through my closet for clean clothes when it struck me that Lisa’s data chip hadn’t been in the little pile of articles I’d dropped on the bed.

I turned back to the bed and poked through the junk from my pocket.  The chip was definitely gone.  It had either fallen out of my pocket, or the killer had searched me while I’d been unconscious.  Either way, I’d lost Kurt Rieger’s itinerary and immigration records, and the news stories on the Osiris murders.

With Lisa’s copy of the chip lost to Rieger’s goons, the data was completely gone.  After what had happened to Lisa the first time, I couldn’t ask her to risk running another search.  I would try to get by without the chip, and hope that it wasn’t costing me some crucial shred of information.  I could always hire a jacker later, if I needed to.

I pulled on a pair of dark blue pants and zipped them up.  “House, how much cash do we have on hand?”

“Eighteen hundred sixty-three Euro-marks.  Will that be sufficient, or shall I arrange to withdraw more?”

I tossed a purple nylon travel bag on the bed and started stuffing it with a couple of changes of clothes.  “That should be plenty,” I said.  “My accounts may be locked out by now anyway.  Go ahead and bring me the money; I may have to leave in a hurry.”

“Of course, David.”

“While you’re at it, bring my night goggles.”

“Of course,” House said.

I drew the Blackhart and ejected the magazine.  I hadn’t chambered a round, but I cycled the slide and checked anyway.  The chamber was empty.

The pistol and magazine went into the travel bag, between two layers of clothing.

In the top of the closet was a black Kevlar box.  I pulled it off the shelf, and pressed the ball of my right thumb to the lock sensor.  The sensor strobed a red bar of light across my thumbprint and unlatched the lid of the box.

I flipped it open and pulled out Maggie’s Blackhart.  Funny, after four years, I still thought of it as Maggie’s.

The box went back on the closet shelf.

On the way to the kitchen, I stopped by the hall closet and grabbed the cleaning kit.  Maggie’s Blackhart hadn’t been cleaned or fired in years.  I field stripped it and oiled it over the kitchen table.  If the police came before I was finished, I could abandon Maggie’s gun and slip out the side door with my travel bag.  That way, I’d still have my own Blackhart.

If it hadn’t begun already, sooner or later there was going to be an investigation into the death of Kurt Rieger.  My Blackhart was a vital piece of evidence.  I wanted to hand it over to the police in the same condition I’d found it in.  If I fired it again, or even cleaned it, I’d be destroying evidence.  I could still use it if I had to, but I wanted to avoid that if possible.

Maggie’s pistol went back together without interruption.  I loaded it with a fresh magazine and slid it into my shoulder holster.  A spare magazine went in the pocket of my windbreaker, and another in my pants pocket.

A drone rolled into the kitchen on yellow neoprene wheels.  Its vid camera eyes locked on my position at the table.  It glided silently to a spot a half-meter or so from my chair, clutching a fat envelope in one of its three-fingered manipulators and the gray molded-plastic case for my night goggles in another.

I took the envelope, putting half of the cash in my pocket and the rest in the bag.

I popped open the gray plastic case and checked the power cell for the night goggles.  The readout was well into the green: plenty of power.  They were good goggles, Weaver Night-Stalkers that had somehow followed me home when I’d left the Army.

I nodded at the drone to dismiss it.  “Thanks, House.”

“My pleasure, David.”

House’s drone turned and rolled out of the kitchen.

If there was anything else I needed, I couldn’t think of it.

I walked to the door.  “House, the police are probably going to come looking for me pretty soon.  If they have a warrant, go ahead and let them in, okay?”

“Very well, David.”

“Record everything they do, but don’t interfere with them.”

“Of course.”

“If they try to access your maintenance board, or tamper with your software in any way, I want you to copy your program and data files to your protected memory cores.  Then erase yourself from the mainframe.  Don’t leave anything behind, not even maintenance files.  I’ll come back and reload you as soon as this blows over, okay?”

“Yes, David.”

I stepped through the door and into the darkened street.  “Good-bye, House.”

“Good-bye, David.”

The door clanging shut behind me sounded like the slamming of a prison door.  And suddenly, I was alone.

CHAPTER 23

The cops might not be on the lookout for me yet, but I decided not to risk the barricade.  I left the Zone through North Lock with the intent of skirting no-man’s land all the way around to the 7th Street Lock at Dome 11.

I wore my nose filters, and dosed myself with ear and eye drops.  I decided to skip the solar block; I would be back under the domes long before the sun came up.

Outside the lock, I turned left.  The curved concrete skirt of the dome’s foundation stood like the wall of a fortress at my left shoulder.  To my right, on the other side of the bulldozed margin of earth that separated the new Los Angeles from the old, lay the darkened bones of the abandoned city.  Under the dome’s halogen-arc perimeter lights, the pulverized earth took on an unnatural blue-gray hue, like the soil of some alien planet.

It took me a couple of hours to walk to the 7th Street Lock.  By the time I got there, it was pushing midnight, and I was too tired to do much of anything.

I needed a place to spend the night.  There was always Lisa’s apartment, but I didn’t want to take the chance of leading someone to her and Sonja.  A hotel then, preferably a seedy one that wouldn’t be too nosy about people who checked in after midnight.

I smiled when it came to me: the Velvet Clam.  They didn’t ask for ID and, with Holtzclaw dead, no one there knew me.

I caught a taxi to Dome 14.

The new night manager kept his black hair combed over the top of his head to disguise the onset of baldness.  He was a big man, ruggedly built, but his waistline and neck were starting to show the symptoms of middle age spread.

He slid a ledger across the oval acryliflex counter for my signature.  “You need a woman?”

I signed in as George T. Carson.  “I’m meeting someone.”

“You get more than three occupants in your room, you have to pay another ten marks.”

I dropped the
€
m
50 room rent on the counter top.  “No problem.  There’ll just be the two of us.”

He closed the ledger and slid a key chip across the counter.  “Room 312.  Third floor.  Check out time is eleven.”