Finn's Golem (6 page)

“That’
s the smart play?”

“It is.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I thought about this for a moment
.
“Something stupid
,
” I replied
.

It wasn’t really all that bad an idea. I was almost sure of this.

Bountiful was a hard place but it needed tourists, just like anywhere else. So the hotels were prowled with the kind of security designed to keep guests from becoming easy prey for everything from the grifter right on up the food chain. Claire Marsland would be as safe here as she would be anywhere, at least for tonight. And there were questions I needed answered.

If I was right about how this had gone down, I
hadn’t
known that my client from New Coast was anything other than what she pretended to be until Felco contacted me. That seemed pretty certain. And if she was lying to me, it didn’t surprise me that I’d let the little weasel lead me down the garden path a little. Why not get as much information as possible? I told myself all of this in the elevator back down to the lobby. It gave me some consolation that I might not be as big a creep as I seemed to be. It was just possible that I was talking myself into the notion that my hands might not be too dirty to lay on Claire Marsland after all, should the opportunity present itself again.

I stepped out of the elevator, through the lobby and out the front doors into the rain. It was no longer pelting down, but it was still steady. Between the rain and the hour and the general quality of the neighborhood, there wasn’t much in the way of traffic on the streets. This suited my purpose well enough. It would make it easier to spot a tail before it was too late, but also might make them feel secure enough to try something.

The chief problem at this stage is that I’d done too well so far. They’d come for me in my office and I’d put a hole in one of them. I hadn’t come out of that exchange smelling like a rose, but I was still alive and still a free agent. They’d been waiting for us at the terminal and I’d lost them. If it was the Locust that sent Black Windbreaker and Brown Sweater, he wouldn’t have been happy at the development, and I found it hard to believe that he’d be much mollified by the fact that Claire’s location wouldn’t be hard to deduce.

I stood still and scanned the street
and
the doorways across the street. Nothing. I heard a Hov start up and my hands left my coat pockets as if by reflex, to make for a quicker reach for the GAT, but I could see the ride lift slowly a moment later and turn away along the empty avenue. It was black and sleek and too expensive, but it was also leaving.

I turned to the left and started walking. The right would have been more deserted at this hour, which was probably better for my purposes, but I could see a few brightly lit shop signs to the left and that gave me a simple cover story if stopped by a cop. And a cop is like any other working guy, if there’s a reasonable explanation for a suspicious looking man to be walking down the street in the driving rain, he’ll fill in the gaps and save himself the trouble.

If I was any kind of detective at all, I must have contacts in this city. Someone I could ask about Cyrus the Locust that might have an answer. Did he have operators here? Who were they? Or what about this Felco? Could he be looking to pull a double cross? It wouldn’t have taken him much to guess at the Shuttle’s arrival time in spite of my earlier lies. And if it wasn’t the weasel or the big bad wolf, was it
’
Frame Internal that was after us? In which case I did... what exactly?

S
ince my marbles showed no sign of returning in the immediate future, and even if you assumed that I had an impressive army of underworld contacts, I couldn’t set them into motion
–
it was just me. And if it was just me, I was going to have to stop playing so hard to get. I was going to have to troll for another tail, spot them
,
and this time grab one of them and beat something out of them. The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like an excellent plan. Sure, the odds were probably terrible, but it almost certainly involved me hitting somebody, and I realized that I was itching to do just that. Maybe that’s the kind of detective I was. No scientific method, no brilliant deductions, just bloody knuckles and a smoking gun. I liked the sound of that. I was mildly disappointed a moment later when I remembered that I’d read that same phrase in
Murder, Sweet Murder
a few hours ago.

I walked straight for half an hour without incident. Two Hovs flew past but without slowing down or displaying the slightest inclination to do me harm. I was solicited by a deeply disinterested prostitute
,
and a man in a green coat who looked even wetter than I was walked past me in the other direction without so much as a glance.

There was an off-chance that I was being tailed at a distance, just to see where I was going. Since I wasn’t going anywhere, it would make for kind of a long night. I reached the Royce Aquaduct and decided
to turn off into the less well-
lit street that ran beneath it. The overhanging concrete would mean that a high-flying tail would need to get to ground in a hurry, and the dim lights would mean they’d have to get in close if they didn’t want to lose me in the rabbit’s warren that ran back through the slums.

It was a curious sensation, strolling along the streets waiting for someone to jump me, made all the more curious by my increasing irritation when it didn’t happen.

I walked another ten blocks without incident. I started to wonder if I should head back to my office or the Golden Spider or another starting point where the comedy team of Windbreaker and Sweater could pick me up. That was going to be a long walk, and another one back in the morning since I was still broke.

I heard a sound off to the left, like something being dragged over concrete.
The
startled cry of a man’s voice
was
quickly muffled. There were more sounds that followed, and I didn’t have to stop and wonder what they were. I knew a beating when I heard one.

I stepped closer to the great iron and concrete supports.
They seemed to be right beside me, but it was an illusion of scale. I had to walk almost half a block before I could see the source of the sound. The man who must have made the cry was on the ground in a ball, shielding his head as best he could against the kicks and blows raining down on him. His attackers were two men, maybe in their twenties, but not by much. They looked like typical Bountif
ul boys
–
poor, stupid and violent. I walked closer. I could feel an adrenaline buzz coming on, and it made my head throb.

They were both kicking the man now, and doing it faster, as if it were a contest. They were drunk, that much was sure, but not staggering. What I couldn’t figure is what the hell they thought they were doing. If they’d been mugging the poor bastard, they could have left long ago, but it didn’t look like they meant to stop.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Strictly speaking this was none of my business. I was employed by neither the city nor the state to keep the peace, but rather by one Miss Claire Marsland, whose interests would not be best served if I went and got myself dead. I stepped closer anyway, and kicked a can by way of announcing my presence.

The two yobbos stopped what they were doing for a moment and considered me.

“Shog off
,
”
one
of them said.

This was a problem for me. I had no particular reason to care about the man on the ground one way or another. But that was just bad manners.

“No
,
” I said
,
“I don’t think that I will.”

The one who had spoken was tall and pale, in what looked to be a football jersey that was clearly meant for someone built more like a man. His companion was in a plain black t-shirt that was, for contrast, several sizes too small, in this case probably intended to show off his bodybuilder’s arms, which could also have been the reason that he wasn’t wearing a coat. They grinned at each other and walked towards me, brimming with confidence. Football Jersey spoke first.

“Man, why you coming round here-
,
” he began. I smashed his nose flat with the heel of my hand and he sat down for a little while to think about what he wanted to say next.

T-Shirt didn’t think too much of this witty rejoinder and ran towards me bellowing like a Viking. A drunk, stupid Viking who didn’t expect me to fade outside his rush, grab his outstretched right arm, twist it behind him with his own momentum and shatter it at the elbow with a quick, well-placed pop. He shrieked like a woman as I dropped him,
and started
vomiting as he fell. That was very satisfying. I could feel the adrenaline settle in. I was past the initial rush now, but it wasn’t going anywhere, it was pumping in a steady stream. My heart controlled the raging current without effort. It struck me that this was clearly not my first rodeo.

Football Jersey was on his feet again, his mouth awash in the flow of blood from his broken nose, his face twisted with rage. I was unimpressed. The knife he waved, on the other hand, was much more impressive. It was a good looking blade, even
though
he
was waving
it like a pansy. I elected to up the ante and pulled the GAT from its holster with a smooth motion.

He froze. It was nice to know that I had his attention. I pointed the hand-cannon at the ground, with both hands settled in for a nice, active grip.

“You son of a bitch
,
” Football Jersey swore, the blood flying in a most gratifying manner on the hard B in
bitch
.

“Yes
,
” I agreed. “Now you boys are both fine dancers, and I’m flattered by the attention. But I am spoken for, so you’ll have to move along now.”

T-Shirt was having none of it. He must have been high as a kite, and the pain of what I’d done to his arm had turned into pure rage. Either that or he had a pretty good idea that I’d crippled him. In any case,
he was back on his feet and
let another of his mighty war cries loose and ran towards me, a knife of his own in his left hand.

Flashing a gun is a posture, just like flashing a knife. Especially with a big, nasty looking one like the GAT. You show it in the hopes that you won’t have to bother using it. But if someone calls your bluff, you can’t hesitate or you’re done. If I elected not to use the thing in my hand as a gun, then all it was doing was leaving me hamstrung and vulnerable. These were not terms that I thought it valuable to self-apply at that moment.

I pumped a plasma charge into T-Shirt’s chest that put the lie to all those hours he’d put in at the gym. Muscles are very nice, but they melt just like everything else. This time he was dead before he’d hit the ground.

Football Jersey screamed, and I could tell that it was fear, not rage, but he pulled his knife arm back as if to throw it. In retrospect, I’d have been astonished if he knew how to throw a knife. He certainly couldn’t hold one convincingly. But there was no time for that kind of analysis, and I wasn’t here to look out for him anyway. One charge, center mass, no need to get excited about it. He dropped beside his pal in the t-shirt with a sound like a bag of wet cement.

I walked towards the man on the ground. He was no longer in the fetal position, but was watching me approach, with something akin to wonder on his face. I could see at once why those two morons were beating him to death for fun rather than profit.

He was a Synth.

A slack-jawed menial little Synth with skin the color of goldenrod and the build of an ape. Dammit.

I didn’t want thanks, or a parade, or a hearty handshake from the chief of police, or an award of merit from the Citizen’s Council. I wanted none of those things, but if he’d been a lost tourist, they all could have been mine.

If he’d only been human... a few nice column inches in the dailies:
Drake Finn, local Private Investigator
,
saves innocent man from ruthless thugs.
Maybe a small citation. Not that I’d have had time to hang around for any of those things, but if you’ve just killed two men, even useless organ-banks like those two, it was nice to know you were on a firm foundation.

But I’d killed two humans to save a Synth. This would get me nothing but lynched. Assuming the cops didn’t take care of me themselves.

“Mister
,
”
t
he little bastard said in awe
,
“Mister... you saved me.”

“Yeah
,
” I said, trying hard not to sound disappointed
.
“Yeah. Don’t mention it.”

“Bless you...”

“Yeah, thanks. Look, you’ve got to go.”

“Not sure I can... Maybe just rest here.” He’d taken a bad beating, but this was no good.

“You can’t stay here. Even if nobody heard those shots, the cops’ll be by eventually. And they can’t find you here. With them.” My heart was racing now. This was bad.

“I won’t... I won’t give you up.” He smiled at me though the pain
.

I shook my head
.
“Yes
,
you will. You think you won’t, but you’re a Synth lying by two dead humans. You have no idea what the cops are gonna do to you. You’ll talk.”