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The Streets of CircumFrisco

Robert E. Hampson


The shopping districts were crowded with holiday shoppers and robo-shippers. Given the nature of the season, I tried to stay away as much as possible. The office part of the central business district doesn’t do “festive,” and I’d lived and worked here most of my life. Frisco Station doesn’t do seasons anyway, it’s always 22 degrees, the psun is always in the same position, and Downunder is always dim, damp, and rank.

You could see Downunder from the office, but you could also see a glimpse of psun beyond the overhead transport tracks. Previous tenant was a real Sam Spade type—fedora, nic sticks, antique wheel gun, and a curvy redhead for a secretary. It had busted him, so here I was instead.

There was a shadow moving past the door. It looked like a dame, but was hard to tell through the frosted glass. I’d have to wait to see if she—or he—entered, or simply moved on.

A knock. I grunted. The door opened.

In the tri-dee, it’s always a stacked blonde in a red dress and large hat. This dame was curvy, dark-haired, and in a business suit. I looked her up and down, then grunted again. Most clients want “gumshoe,” so I give them gumshoe.

“Yeah. I can help you.”

“Mizz Weathers? I need your h—what?” She was flustered. Usually happens when I do The Thing.

“I said yeah, I can help you.” I motioned to the chair in front of the desk.

“B-but, how did you know?” She sat, clutching her purse on her lap. She knew the damsel-in-distress drill.

“I’m a detective, right? You come to my office, you need help. I don’t know if I’ll solve anything, but I can help.” It was the sort of explanation she would want to hear. No need to bother her with the Other Thing.

“Oh. Okay, I guess.” Her voice went kind of squeaky there at the end. She looked around, a quizzical look on her face. When she first spoke, it had been some kind of Old Europe accent. The noir field kicking in, I guess. One of these days I’d have to get a Shaman to exorcise the office. Damn noir field might help get the clients in the door, but it was hard on repeat business.

“So, tell me, doll, what, or who, is bugging you?” I felt a powerful urge for a nic stick, but I didn’t own a fedora or a trench coat, so I wasn’t about to give in to it. Besides, to some folks, I was the dame; so much for that stereotype.

“I got this in the morning Post, but it’s addressed to you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a brown box that should not have been able to fit through the purse’s opening. One of those. Yeah, this could get “interesting.”

I don’t actually like “interesting.”

There was a note taped to the outside, marked “For Stormy, from Your True Love.” I looked in the box. A tiny alarm clock, some sort of mousetrap mechanism, a trigger—but where the explosive would be was just a tiny food pouch marked “whey protein, 100 g.” It was a cartoon bomb, but I’d have to treat it with care; the powder could be anything from actual protein powder to a psychedelic, or even an honest-to-Khod explosive. Frisco Station tended to frown on materials that blew holes in things—or altered a citizen to the point that they might want to blow holes in things.

Still, a bomb made of whey delivered by a broad . . . 

Oh.

Oh, no. This was bad. This perpetrator needed to be hunted down and . . . punished. No, he needed to be spaced. Fortunately, there’s private airlocks in the Heights that don’t register in Central when you open them, and one of them was, in fact, right off of Broadway.

I asked the dame some hard questions; she gave me hard answers.

I told her to go home and leave the package with me. I needed more information, and knew just the place to start.

✧ ✧ ✧

The joint was called Ellie’s Diner. One could call it a wretched hive of scum and villainy . . . but that was being generous. On the other hand, the proprietress was easy on the eyes.

Hey, I may be a dame, but I’m not blind.

She had a new face, but old eyes. I knew her from way back, and she’d used almost as many names as I had.

“Ma’am.” I nodded as she came over to my table.

She slid into the booth. “Chauncine Sturmvetter. You look like something my cats dragged in.”

“Sorry Ally—er, Ellie, but you know I don’t use that name anymore. Besides, you’re pronouncing it wrong.” I sipped some coffee. The new kid behind the counter must have been briefed, since there was a hint of Irish in the hot bitter brew.

“You’d rather I called you ‘Chance’?” Her own mug steamed . . . and her tea was hot, too.

“Closer, but she’s gone, too. I’d rather you call me ‘Stormy,’ and I’ll try to remember not to call you ‘Princess.’”

She smiled. It was a deadly, yet seductive smile. Rumor had it she’d caught herself an angel with that smile. Of course, I’d known her husband almost as long as I’d known her, and if he was an angel, he’d . . . reformed. “What can we do for a gumshoe today Mizz Weathers?”

Oh, I was in for it now. I suppose I’d better be straight with her. Fortunately, the noir field seemed to have weakened, so I could do it with a minimum of “colorful” dialogue. “New client today. She handed me a package she’d received—a toy bomb with a pouch of whey in it.”

“Fake bomb. Whey. Delivered by a broad. It’s a pun worthy of Teddy, but he’s supposed to be locked up. If it’s him or a copycat and we don’t stop ’em soon, it could be a disaster. Or we can evacuate the station; I’d rather not be here if one of Teddy’s real toys goes off.”

“It might clean up Downunder,” she said with a tight smile.

“You’re supposed to be new here; you shouldn’t know that, yet,” I reminded her as I stared at her new-old face. “Although true. Still, the damage to the rest of Frisco Station would be . . . uncomfortable at best.”

We were interrupted by a kid in a delivery uniform coming through the front door. “Delivereee for Mizzz Stormeee Weatherrrs,” he sang. I felt the noir field tightening down.

Ellie glared at me. The dame had a look that could stun.

“Yo.” I waved to the kid. He handed me a box, I handed him a tip, then he made himself scarce in a hurry.

I pulled out a knife; that was Rule #9.

I opened it, and the box as well. Inside was a plastic box with a note and a foto taped to the top. The image showed three athletes standing on a stepped platform, each wearing a large medallion. I recognized them from the news. Olympians. They were the champions of the recent system-wide Olympic games.

The note said: “Show it to Ellie.”

“Champs?” she asked me.

“Yeah, and I’m to make sure Ellie sees.”

“So, Champs-Elysées.” She sighed. “I miss France.”

I glared right back at her. “It’s crap. Street puns. He’s picked a target and wants us to figure it out.”

“ . . . And that bothers you?”

“No, it’s not the challenge, it’s the fact that he’s targeting me. The last one was from my ‘true love.’ He’s obsessed . . . again. That makes it personal.” I picked up the package and turned it over. The return address read “T.K.” but was otherwise incomplete.

Ellie reached out and tapped the address with a manicured fingernail.

“That could be Teddy Kay, but not for certain.”

Her fingernails clacked on the ceramiplas as she reached for her mug, lifted her tea, and stared at me over the cup. “You want backup? I can call in some muscle.”

I shuddered and thought, No, I’d rather avoid them if I could.

“No, I’d rather avoid them if I can.”

I stopped and clamped my jaw shut. It was the noir field. If I wasn’t careful, next thing I knew I’d be narrating. “I have a few contacts without resorting to the RatPack. Right now, I have some questions to ask—and some people to ask them.” I paused. “Of . . . ask them of.” I stood up to leave, turned and tossed a token on the counter as a tip for the kid working the tables.

“Careful, sweetie, your participles are in danger of dangling. You’d best keep them safe.” She said it with so much saccharine and grace I knew there was a point hidden in there somewhere. That was Ally, er. Ellie. You could trust her with everything but your peace of mind.

“Time to talk to someone at the Post,” I narrated. I followed it up with a grimace, but once the noir field took hold, I was stuck with it. “I need to know where the packages came from, dangling participles or not.” The main post office was in Industry Park, about a quarter of the way around Frisco. That meant riding the rails and that would take time.

Tomorrow, then.

I stepped out into the afternoon gloom. Ellie’s Diner wasn’t as far into Downunder as my office, but she was right on the edge of the business district. The tall buildings still blocked enough psun to make it about half as dark as under the tracks. They had streetlights here, though. It wouldn’t do for the bankers and trading-house execs to be mugged on a dim street.

✧ ✧ ✧

The next morning, I headed to the local Upover transit station. Central Business extends twenty blocks on either side of the Circumference, so everything was within walking distance of the Circum–Frisco line.

Look, Frisco’s inside a hollowed-out asteroid. As long as I wasn’t headed up to the Heights or the poles, I could be anywhere in thirty minutes walking and forty minutes of rail. I needed the time to think, and walking was always good for a gumshoe.

I only had to brush off three panhandlers and two pickpockets on the way to the station. Space is not kind to the indigent, and habitats like Frisco attracted their fair share of failed adventurers with knee injuries, disabled miners, and broke tourists. That didn’t even touch the assortment of dealers, bookies, fences, and “service” personnel who lived off of the residents and transients. Fortunately, Rule #9 applied to more than just boxcutters, and the lowlifes tended to run off when I showed them my toad sticker . . . no, not that one; the one I’d used to stick ubertoads on Bufonidis.

“Quarter trip, C-class,” I told the ticket machine.

The screen lit up with the Circum logo, and an avatar piped up, “Upgrade now! For just fifty credits more, you can enjoy the Zero-Gee Express in your own padded compartment!” The avatar was dressed as a happy clown—currently in red and green for the holiday, and it started doing flips and acrobatics on the screen.

“No. Quarter trip, C-class,” I repeated.

“Why stand when you can sit in our patented B-class comfort seats? Only ten credits more!” Now it showed the clown fumbling with belts and restraints as parts of its costume tried to float away.

There was something disturbing about a clown-faced avatar trying to sell upgraded transit fares. I hated clowns, but I resisted hitting the machine and just answered, “No.”

The screen now showed a monochrome, sad-faced clown, and flashed the price, one-quarter credit. I put in a single coin. The screen now changed back to a happy clown. “Ooh, big spender. Would you like your change in transit tickets or Air Tokens?” I chose the tokens; they were useful when dealing with informants in Downunder.

It was a ten-minute wait until the next train, so I stood and watched the other travelers. It was too early for the rush hour, and there were just a few early holiday shoppers on the tracks. An express train pulled in, disgorged two families with children bawling about the ride. A young couple with eager faces got into the A coach, probably their first weightless experience. Two older businessmen entered the B coach. Through the window I could see them getting out reading material—probably taking the long way around, since the Express only ran counter to Frisco’s spin.

Interdistrict trains ran in both directions, and I watched one come in from the direction of Industry Park. The passengers appeared to be relieved to get away from the additional weight they’d experienced during the trip. A young man in a Post uniform shouldered a heavy bag as he stepped out of the coach.

I shook my head. My train had arrived, and I had to hurry. I found a spot just inside the door, slipped my feet under the floor straps and took hold of the overhead grip with one hand. The trip was fifteen minutes, and we’d only experience half-gee. I wouldn’t need to sit or lean on the padded bench for this.

Travel never bothered me—whether short or long, inside or out. It was one of the reasons I had done so many . . . other . . . things before I’d hung up my shingle in Frisco. Twenty minutes later, I was standing at the front desk of the main Post. There was a young girl behind the counter, popping gum, listening to her own music, so obviously an avatar, that it probably meant she was real. Unlike Earth, Frisco Post worked and made money, too.

She finally acknowledged me. “How-can-I-help-yew?” She ran it together and smiled sweetly. Too bad her distracted expression didn’t match her voice.

“Tracing a package,” I said. “Need to check the sender.”

She stopped snapping the gum and bopping to the music. “You a cop?”

“Do I look like a cop?”

“Well, it’s an equal opportunity universe, innit? There’s dames in the Fuzz, now.”

Damn it, the noir field was kicking in again. “Hell no, I’m not the Fuzz, and I’m not a dame. I’m the recipient.” I showed her my PI license and the scrap of label from the package at Ellie’s.

“Oh!” She snickered. “A private dick. Very private, I’m sure.”

Giggling at her own quip, she took the scrap and looked for the origin codes. Before she could ask me if I knew the tracking number, I rattled off the thirty-two-digit tracking without looking at the scrap in her hand. She paused and stared blankly at me for about ten seconds. Then, without consulting her computer, answered, “Post Box 1066, Seebeedee Station 12.”

Okay, Avatar, not real.

But then she added: “Registered to a Mr. Vera Amore.” She pronounced it “ay-mohr.” “Odd name for a guy, Vera, innit?” She giggled.

Oh, Khod. I wish she hadn’t giggled. Yes, she was the real thing, and the only way she could have been a worse stereotype was if she were blonde—and I hated it. I was blonde, but I couldn’t be that ditzy if I tried—it must be the noir field again. “Check your spelling, kid,” I grumped. “I’m sure it’s that’s an o, not an a. And it’s pronounced Ah-mor-ay. Vero Amoré is ‘true love’ in Italian.”

She looked confused for a moment, then brightened again. “Your name is Weathers, right? I think there’s a ‘will-call’ package waiting for you.” She snapped her gum and turned to a conveyor leading from the murky depths of the office just as a large package covered in frost emerged. “Stormy Weathers, Will Call, Frisco Central Post,” she recited—again without looking at the package or a computer screen. Com implants were rare and expensive, but this was the Post.

I lifted the package. Cold—icy in spots—medium weight. Resorting once again to Rule 9, I opened the package and looked inside. Huh.

She looked too. “Ewww.” She turned up that cute, button, ought-to-be-blonde nose and went back to paperwork I knew she didn’t actually have to do. Without looking at me she recited “Post regulation Zero-Niner-Fife-Dot-Four-Slash-Two, Section One. You open it, you keep it. Please remove that . . . protein from my office, thenk kew!”

I looked again, three, maybe four pieces of meat. Beef, and from the looks of it, the Real Deal. So . . . steaks. They were about eight centimeters wide, twenty long, two thick, lightly marbled. It was a style the Carnists called “New York Strip.” Each was wrapped entirely in clear plaswrap, except for a two cee-em sticker which read: “Calivada Steak House, Las Vegas.”

Ah, Las Vegas Strips. “The Las Vegas Boulevard, aka the ‘Vegas Strip,’” I said aloud. Narrating again; damned noir field.

She ignored me, so I tipped her an Air Token and left, taking the package with me. If my suspicions were correct, I couldn’t just leave them sitting around. I shouldn’t carry them in public transit either, so I had to take an E-train—a slow freight-hauler—and all afternoon to get back to Central.

This was turning into a mess, and that didn’t even count the thawing, dripping meat in my hands. There was still something wrong, but it hadn’t yet hit my conscious thoughts yet. Maybe if I slept on it . . . 

✧ ✧ ✧

No, that didn’t work.

For one, I didn’t sleep. Look, I live alone. Not that I don’t mind company, I welcome it, particularly in my bed, but I live alone on purpose. I don’t sleep well with someone present; I sleep much better alone, but not this time. There was something about this case . . . if you could call it a case; the broad who’d brought me the whey bomb didn’t exactly hire me. Ellie could have done so, Teddy’s a mutual . . . embarrassment (more hers than mine, despite his romantic obsession), but she didn’t. No, I had to solve this one on my own, and for myself.

That’s what kept me awake.

Today, I needed to see Clancy and check out a Seebeedee Post box.

That should have been another clue that my life was being influenced by the noir field—the head Shield for the district was named Shamus Clancy, and you couldn’t find a more Irish-looking, and sounding, flatfoot. I needed to see him because I knew from long acquaintance that C.B.D. Post 12 referred to the actual building “Station Twelve,” which housed both the local Post and Clancy’s law enforcement branch. To top it off, Clancy owned box number 1067.

I usually tried to stay away from Station 12. I don’t have anything against cops; Clancy and I had a special—if occasional—arrangement. Yeah. I like a copper . . . at least this copper. The rest of the Buttons usually ignored me, and I ignored them.

It’s just that I was allergic to donuts. So, I took an antihistamine and trudged up the steps to the Patrol office on the second floor, with my now sweaty box of cold steaks under my arm. The smell of yeast dough and powdered sugar assaulted me as soon as I opened the door.

There was an old broad in a police auxiliary uniform at the front desk. She looked up at my sneeze, then turned to look back over her shoulder and shouted in a gravelly voice, “Clancy! It’s the gumshoe!” She went back to reading her reports and munching on a donut, but I swear she deliberately exhaled a cloud of sugar residue in my direction.

Blanche really was a broad—nearly as wide as she was tall. She’d been mining asteroids before I was born and retired to Frisco when she’d tried to breathe vacuum one too many times. I could tell she really liked me; she didn’t offer me a donut. I set my box on her counter and ignored the puddle of condensate that formed.

Clancy came out of a door to the side, wiping a spot of jelly from the corner of his mouth. I did a double-take when I saw the shiny new bars on his uniform. “Captain. Congratulations, Clancy!” Clancy grimaced, it was his version of a smile of thanks.

“Whaddaya want, Weathers?” Oh yeah, all professional, that Clance. He was earning a little extra punishment . . . later.

“I’m hurt, Shamus, absolutely hurt. It’s been a week. You don’t call, you don’t write, and now I learn that you got a promotion without telling me.” I tried to put on a mock pout, but it didn’t feel right. Damn, I was going to have to go buy a fedora.

“Yeah, yeah. The Commissioner liked that work on the Three Kings case last week. It was on the table because of the Twelve Days case last year, so he pushed it through. You made me look good, so maybe I owe you. A little. What brings you here?” He reached out to grab a fresh donut from the stack beside Blanche. Without even looking up, she slapped his hand, and he withdrew it and put it in his pocket.

“This.” I motioned to the box.

He lifted the cardboard flap and looked in. He whistled, then coughed as the strong odor hit. “How long have you had that out of the fridge? I hope you didn’t plan on inviting me over.”

“No, look closer, at the sticker.” I was in no mood for jokes.

Clancy didn’t even look, instead he stared straight at me. “Strip steaks; I saw. So?”

“It’s him.”

“Him?”

“HIM.”

“Nope. Can’t be. We put him away.” He turned and beckoned for me to follow him over to his office just past Blanche’s desk. Instead of the bullpen, he now had an office with a real door and frosted window. An elderly mook with a paintbrush was just standing up in front of the door and stepped aside to let us in.

I looked at his handiwork:


C-A-P-T C-A-L-N-C-Y


Clancy grimaced.

“You going to tell him?”

“Naw, he’s Blanche’s uncle. I’ll scrape it off and redo it myself tonight.” Shamus motioned me to one of the aged pleather chairs and took his own seat behind the desk. The professional facade dropped and he looked at me with fondness. “Really, Storms, this is as much your doing as mine. Just like with Teddy Kay. That was good work, and we put him in a deep dark Hole for good.”

The Hole in question was the Penitentiary in Under Nirvana. Nirvana was an oversized asteroid in Earth’s Trailing Trojan, tidally stabilized to keep one face toward the Sun. Sunside Dome was a luxury hotel and resort; the dark side wasn’t fit for habitation. Naturally, InterSol decided to put a pen there. The Hole was literally The Place Where the Sun Don’t Shine.

“He’s out. Here, look at this.” I showed him a picture of the whey and champ bombs. “Broadway, Champs-Elysées, Las Vegas Strip. All street puns. It’s the pun-a-bomber’s style.” I then showed him the initials on the back of the picture of the Olympians. “T.K. That’s gotta be Teddy Kay.”

“Not necessarily. It could be Teddy Kennedy.”

“Unlikely. Frisco ain’t Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Ah, but we do have one of those.”

“Wait, we do? I’ve lived on Frisco for ten years and thought I knew all of it?”

“About a quarter anti-spinward, up in the Heights above Upover. Grape squasher had a street named for his wife Martha last year.”

“Aha. That’s why I didn’t hear of it. Whatever the butter-and-egg crowd wants, they get, and the maps be damned.”

“As opposed to the shylock and shyster crowd in Seebeedee?”

He had a point—the bankers and lawyers here on the edge of the central business district were their own class of elites. It was what made Frisco all the worse, fighting between those who had wealth, those who took (or at least managed) wealth, and the poor patsies with nothing except the dregs which trickled Downunder.

“Yeah, well, Teddy or not, let’s see what you can do with the return address. We need to track down a mug, name of Amoré, Vero Amoré.” I could feel the noir field tightening down again; it affected my speech, and even my thinking. Right now, that was a good thing. It was all too easy to fall into the role of Clancy’s moll, and I needed to keep a clear head.

Blanche spoke from her desk, without even looking up, or even putting down her third donut since I’d arrived. “Vero Amoré, aka Vince Amor arrived on-station five days ago. He rented a Post box downstairs, number 1066, right above Clancy’s, and a flat at 415 Peachtree. He has no priors and no known acquaintances.” She went back to ignoring us and chewing on her donut.

Clancy and I looked at each other. Clancy shrugged. I asked, “Checked your box, lately, copper?”

✧ ✧ ✧

I had to wait until either he got off-shift or had a break. The problem with his promotion was that the Commish expected him to actually work. It was okay; I was used to meeting him at the end of night shift for a drink at the Cop Bar on the corner, or for coffee at the Diner. Both places brought in fresh servers and kitchen staff at midnight. As I said, Frisco can’t turn down the psun, so day or night doesn’t make a lot of difference in the food and beverage trade.

I had my phone and a book, so I figured I’d stay a while, while keeping an eye out for Clancy to get free. I noticed the Commish showing around some stiff in a suit. Looked official; he had a tablet and kept taking notes. Every once in a while he’d point to something in the office, and then on his screen, eliciting a frown. Ah. An auditor. That meant it would be a long wait.

I amused myself counting Blanche’s donuts. I don’t know how she did it; she never left the counter, but the box was always full. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a singularity there. Hey, maybe I didn’t know better.

✧ ✧ ✧

Midnight came and went, as did my third dose of antihistamine. I’d been tracing “Vince” Amor using a backdoor into the Station databases. Not much there; Blanche had already given us the highlights. There was a Peachtree Street in Central, about two klicks away. The address Blanche had found didn’t specify whether Amor’s address was Peachtree Street, Road, Avenue, or Lane. That didn’t take into account North, South, East, or West; and yes, Frisco had all of the above. Apparently it was “traditional.”

On the other hand, the nearest Peachtree—Peachtree Circle—was just on the other side of the Circum, and 400 block was just inside the five-blocks-either-side span of Downunder. Of course, Peachtree was a “surface” street, meaning just under the tracks—the real armpit of Downunder was the sub-levels. A “surface” flat was still lipstick on a pig—Downunder was Downunder, and you don’t live there if you can afford anything else.

Clancy came back and grabbed me by the arm. “Quick, while the Auditor is distracted with the pastry accounts . . . I’m going to have to work over, but I’ve got fifteen minutes for a tofu break.”

“Tofu break?” I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “I thought you were trying to quit soy?”

Clancy looked ashamed. “Yeah, it’s a nasty habit, but there’s a stand downstairs that does a nice curry.” He moved out quickly. Far be it for me to stand between a man and his addiction.

The Post was closed, but the private boxes were in a lobby accessible to the box-holders. I could see that Clancy was looking a bit jittery, so we made it quick. We went inside, and Clancy checked his box. He put his hand in all the way up to his elbow, and I thought he’d gotten his mitt stuck, when he contorted a bit, and it was obvious he was reaching up to the open backside of the box above.

“Tampering with Post is illegal, Clancy,” I told him.

“So, call a cop!” he said. “Oops, almost, almost . . . ” He pulled his hand back holding a small paper-wrapped box. He looked at the label. “Aha! Not illegal; it’s addressed to you!” he finished with a grin.

Stormy Weathers, Box 1066, C.B.D. Station 12.

I had a bad feeling about this.

Clancy had the shakes now, so we went out to the curry stand on the street corner. Once he’d tucked into a couple mouthfuls of pungent stew, he visibly calmed down. We sat on the steps to Station 12, and Clancy gulped down the rest of his meal. It was enough to give me second thoughts about making dinner plans.

He jabbed at the box with his spork. “You going to open that?” The way he was waving the utensil around, I figured I’d best get on with this before he poked out an eye.

“Yeah, just a minute. You want I should slice it open with that deadly weapon?”

He laughed and put the spork back in his belt holster. “Naw, I know you. Rule 9: Always carry a knife.”

“Uh. Right.” I grunted. But as he said it, I whipped out Rule 9 and sliced open the box, holding the opening away from both of us, in case anything popped out.

Nothing did, so I tilted the box back and looked inside. I saw springs, clockwork, a windup key and two glass tubes at the heart of the mechanism. I looked closely at the tubes, expecting a brightly colored facsimile of volatile liquids—but one tube contained a small insect, and the other had a bunch of small spheres which seemed to be suspended in jelly.

I poked at the mechanism. It didn’t move, in fact, the clockwork couldn’t move. This bomb was as fake as the others, so I picked up the first tube and looked at it more closely.

Clancy peered over my shoulder. “A bee.” When I looked at him curiously, he explained, “My grandfather had a fruit tree farm in Floribama. He had honeybees to fertilize the trees. That’s a honeybee.”

“Okay, a bee bomb? What’s this, then?”

“No idea. Looks like some form of grease with bubbles in it. A mystery, Rainy, you like those.”

“Not when they’re from Teddy.”

“If, Stormy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. He’s in the Hole.” I paused. “And if he’s not? If he got out, somehow?”

“Then we’ll find him, Storms. You put him away once before, you can do it again. Don’t worry, I’ll help you, since you don’t have a tin star this time. He’s no match for the two of us.”

“Sure, Clancy. Way to boost a girl’s confidence: ‘Since you don’t have a buzzer, I’ll swoop in and save the day!’”

He patted me on the shoulder. “It’s not like that. You lead, I’ll follow. I’ve got to put in a few more hours to make it look good for the Chief and the Bruno from First District. You need to rest, and I’m picking up a double tomorrow. See you tomorrow night at Ellie’s.”

✧ ✧ ✧

When we got back up to the squad room, Blanche was gone. My box of defrosting beef was now in a heavy black plastic garbage bag. Good thing, since it had started to reek. The Commish gave me a sour look, but considering the fact that the Auditor was looking a distinct shade of green, it couldn’t be all bad.

I grabbed the box and bag and headed back to my flat. It would have been so much more convenient to ditch the cow in the nearest dumpster, but I went straight home. Missile Toe Lane was a good three blocks from the edge of Downunder, so we only needed triple redundancy locks on the doors. I had my palm on the scanner for the final lock when the nurse who lived the next landing up leaned out and yelled at me, “Get inside, ye drunken bim! Yer supper’s stinking up t’e whole place!” Ah, her grating voice was like a soothing balm to cure the sick. The lame had been known to immediately rise and run off—mostly to get the hell away from her.

I gave her a friendly hand gesture and tugged the bag of fuming gristle into the flat and stumbled to the bathroom for pain reliever and more antihistamines. I threw the bag in the ice box and stumbled to bed. Alone.

It was dark when I woke up. The psun never changed; I had heavy drapes, a convenience born of an unpredictable schedule. The clock said 1300, so I’d been asleep for way too long. Time to get back to work.

✧ ✧ ✧

I drank a mug of yesterday’s coffee and spent a few hours on my info terminal. Several more hours sleeping off the return of my killer headache, and a few more hours running down leads. Now I was headed back to Ellie’s for good coffee and to meet Clancy. There were no new packages so far, and the day was wearing on. I was definitely missing something, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

On the way, I decided to stop and get a hat. All day yesterday, I was expecting a cosh to the noggin, so I probably needed more protection up there. Not just any haberdasher would do for this chapeau, so I went to see the Frenchman. Once I explained the situation to him, he showed me some of his more . . . protective varieties: steel-rimmed bowler, foil-lined cap, lead-lined skimmer. They seemed a bit excessive; all I wanted was a little protection, and I told him so. That’s when he trotted out the top of the line in concussion protection, carbon-fiber reinforced, reactive padding, thermal regulating and self-adjusting.

It was a fedora.

Of course, it was.

I’d gotten used to the fact that not having been back to my office for three days had weakened the noir field’s effect. Now it all came crashing down again. Is it me? Am I the common factor?

I bought it anyway. Noir field be damned, I looked damned good in a fedora.

I stopped in the doorway, unsure whether I wanted anyone to notice or even comment. Part of me was a bit disappointed when no comments were forthcoming. Probably just as well; I didn’t need to start a fight in Ellie’s.

Someone had doubled the Irish today, so I was enjoying my java when Ellie came out to sit with me.

“What have you learned?” she asked as the server brought the pot of hot water over to the table.

“So far what I’ve learned is that Vero Amoré, or Vince Amor, or Teddy, or whatever he’s calling himself these days, is one sick puppy.” I sipped coffee with a loud slurp.

Ellie looked at me like a scolding grandmother; nice trick since she was my age. She waved her tea infuser in my direction like a priest with incense. “That’s uncharacteristically polite of you, Chance.”

“Shhh, Ellie, please. The local mugs don’t know that name.” I thought for a moment. “Well, no one except Clancy.”

“Well, then . . . Stormy . . . have you at least figured out if this is Teddy or one of his copycats?” She dipped the ball into the porcelain teapot and covered it with a quilted cover.

“Not a peep. I’ve checked all of his usual aliases: P. Unster, Richard Joak, Streeter Chase. After another, quieter sip, I continued, “I even checked for ‘Theodore Kaczynski’ but came up blank.”

Ellie looked at me sharply as she prepared her cup—two sugars, a lemon wedge and a drop of peppermint oil. “That’s risky, Stormy. You do not want to cross him if he’s using . . . that name.”

“Yeah, I know. Fortunately, there’s been no response. He’s got no convictions, no suspicious activity before this, no acquaintances that we can trace, and I’ve only turned up the two aliases. I did find another variation on the ‘true love’ alias, though. There’s a ‘Trudy Love’ in the directory.” I looked at my now empty cup, signaled for a refill, and held up three fingers to increase the Irish this time.

Ellie sipped her tea. “You can cross her off the list. She’s been around for a few years, and I do mean ‘around.’ She works the entertainment district, if you know what I mean.” She paused and stared at me when I didn’t respond. “Stormy, you do know what I mean?”

I wasn’t listening to her, but staring across the diner at a patron spooning a black pebbly substance onto a cracker. I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out the two glass tubes. I put them on the table and pushed them toward Ellie. “Ever seen these?”

“A honeybee and fish roe,” said a squeaky voice by my ear. Damn it, my situational awareness was all shot to hell.

I knew the voice, and really didn’t want to turn around, but I had to. “Don Luis.”

“Mister Obispo, if you please. ‘Don Luis’ sounds like a gangster.” The speaker was short and dressed as if for the opera: black tuxedo, blindingly white teeth, shirt, and pearl studs in the cuffs. He tried to exude menace, but between his waddle and birdlike features, he just couldn’t make it work. “The little bubbles are fish roe. Sturgeon, from the looks of it.”

“Caviar, dear,” added Ellie. “A bee, and roe.”

“Abbey Road,” I groaned.

✧ ✧ ✧

“What do you know about this, Obispo?”

“Only what you already know, Major Stu—”

He cut off when I shot him one of my looks. What was interesting was that not only did Don Luis shut up, his bodyguards backed up a step as well.

Ellie just smiled sweetly. “Boys? Go get your godmother some pie, dears.”

The bruisers looked at the Don, who nodded. Once they’d left, I starred at Ellie. “‘Godmother’?”

“Well, he asked. How could I refuse?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. She raised one back. I turned back to the hood behind me and gestured. “You might as well sit and tell me what you know, Mister Obispo.”

The gink smiled as he took the seat opposite me. Ellie slid over to let him in. She and I were going to have words about this . . . later. “Mizz Weathers, I know you’ve been receiving—gifts—from Vince Amor, and you think they’re from your old friend Teddy Kay.”

“But Teddy Kay’s in the PUN.”

“So one would be led to believe. However, a little birdy”—Obispo smirked. It was not a good look on him—“brought me news of an interesting oversight in the daily census at Under Nirvana. It seems that the person in Mister Kay’s quarters was not, in fact, Teddy Kay.”

“‘Quarters’? You mean cell.”

“No, my dear, Kay is in the executive wing for special prisoners. He has a three-room apartment.”

“Huh. So, Teddy’s been spending his time in Durance Style.” I paused a moment. “So, how did he get out? Switched with a double?”

“Oh, there doesn’t seem to have been a switch. The situation was only discovered when prisoner 014-077-616 had a toothache. The records show that the Joe they’ve had in the stir this whole time is not Teddy Kay, but Thomas Kzinti, a pipsqueak palooka from Poughkeepsie.”

“Perfect.” I said and rolled my eyes. “So, Teddy’s out, and he’s been out this whole time?”

“Indeed, Mizz.” Obispo grinned. It was a horrible sight. “And he’s gunning for you, doll.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Clancy came in through the front door, and I swear Obispo teleported himself out of the seat and out the back. I barely caught a glimpse of his muscle as they dropped two plates of pie at the table and followed him through the kitchen door.

The big copper fixed on me right away and smiled. It was a smile that could make my knees weak. Fortunately, I was sitting down, because we didn’t have time for that.

“Anything new?” he asked as he got close.

“Ellie’s a godmother to a pair of bulldogs.”

Clancy turned to look at Ellie and raised an eyebrow. “Guido and Nunzio?”

“Billy and Bobby, actually,” she said sweetly. “But yes.”

“You knew?” I asked Clancy.

“I suspected. Ellie’s . . . connections . . . run deep. They’ve been useful from time to time.”

“Huh. I’ve known her for twenty years and didn’t know that.”

“Need to know, Major,” she said, and it made my blood run cold.

Oh. So, it was Internal Affairs stuff. I’d been Investigations Directorate, Clancy had been Intelligence, but it was a lifetime ago. IA didn’t investigate its own, but rather, domestic threats. That peculiar nightmare hadn’t kept me awake in years. Not enough years, it turned out.

“And did you also know about Teddy?”

“No,” said Ellie, simply.

Clancy shrugged. “I just heard it from the Commissioner.”

“I haven’t been investigated!”

“You’re the bait, Rainy.”

I felt a headache coming on. “Jeez, Clancy. Why not give it to a girl easy?”

Ellie snickered, and Clancy turned red. Somewhere in the diner a voice muttered about liking it hard.

I stood up and turned to glare at the room.

After a good few seconds, I sat back down and turned to the other two.

“Okay, let’s start from the top. We’ve got toy bombs arriving by courier, Post, private box, and a dame,” I started.

“All of the clues reference famous streets. Broadway, Champs-Elysées, Las Vegas Boulevard, Peachtree, and Abbey Road . . . ” Ellie continued.

“ . . . similar to street names which can be found on Frisco.”

“Okay, so where? Broadway is in the Heights, I know that one.”

“Yup, up in the high-rent district downslope from the poles. Champs-Elysées is in the tourist and executive residences in an only slightly lower-rent part of Upover. ‘Los’ Vegas is downslope from those two in the Entertainment District.”

“Peachtree’s on the edge of Downunder, but A-B Road is in the Business District. It’s out of order.”

“Not really,” I mused. “Peachtree’s not from a bomb clue; it’s an address we got from the Post box . . . after we got the bee-and-roe bomb.”

“So, we have a progression from outer to inner,” Clancy said.

“High to low. Both rent and society,” Ellie added.

“Hmm. So, it’s leading us to Downunder,” I concluded. “Oh joy.”

✧ ✧ ✧

We talked for another hour, but it became difficult as my headache and the noir field gained strength. When I told Clancy, he insisted I go home and rest. In fact, he also insisted on taking me there. I insisted he stay.

In the morning, we looked at the evidence again over eggs and toast.

“Famous street names, that we also have on Frisco. A progression from the Heights to Downunder.”

“Sounds easy, Rainy. Just find the most famous-named street in Downunder and look for a real bomb.” He stood up to go to work and leaned over to give me a peck on the cheek. I turned at the right moment, and we ended up snogging.

I know I’m no looker, but I ain’t no frail dish. Clancy’s no face either, but he’s a solid gee. We liked each other, and we had a good history; a skirt could do a whole lot worse. We were in no hurry to homestead, but we weren’t going to waste an opportunity, either. But eventually he needed to go to work, and I needed to go to the office.

✧ ✧ ✧

The psun was hidden behind gray clouds and it was raining, so I grabbed my long coat.

No, it’s just a long coat, not a trench coat . . . 

Okay, so it’s a trench coat, and it felt good, along with the new fedora.

Gray skies, rain, Coriolis winds, and ionization discharges. Stormy weather. My kind of day.

I stepped into my office, hung the coat and hat on a stand next to the door and sat at my desk to think. The noir field settled heavily.

“The problem is that Downunder streets aren’t really named. They’re numbered,” I said to myself.

Damn it, I was narrating again.

It was true, though; Downunder wasn’t intended for habitation. It was supposed to just be maintenance and engineering, so the access ways were numbered by frame and bulkhead.

On top of it all, Downunder might only be five blocks wide, but it was nearly fifty klicks long.

I hated to say it—I hated even more to think it—but we needed another clue.

“I need another clue,” I narrated.

Damn.

I saw a shadow at the door, then the mail slot clacked and a stiff piece of paper dropped through.

Okay, so maybe narration wasn’t so bad.

I walked over to the door and picked up the paper. A Post card. I walked back to the desk, and sat down to read it—for some reason, narration worked better when I was seated.

“A Post card. ‘Through psun and storms, you are the best. The world’s greatest ‘detective.’” Except that “world” was crossed out, and “system” was written in. “‘You don’t need sheer luck, for you are a sure lock to figuring out where I call Home. The game is afoot, my dearest Irene.’”

Oh, joy.

I felt a great weight lift as the noir field weakened. This wasn’t noir, it was Holmes.

✧ ✧ ✧

I was back at the diner with Ellie and Clancy. I was supposed to figure this out on my own, but without the noir field forcing me to narrate, I needed an excuse to talk it out.

“Greatest detective, sheer luck, sure lock—those are references to Sherlock Holmes. He called me Irene, and Sherlock’s one true love was Irene Adler.”

“Does that make me Moriarty?” asked Clancy.

“No, Shamus, I’m afraid he has you pegged as Lestrade. He’s Moriarty,” said Ellie.

“I’d rather be Clouseau, to be honest,” Clancy muttered under his breath. “Better bumbling than venal.”

I just smiled. “So he’s both Sherlock and Moriarty. Fitting. If I remember correctly, Sherlock’s ‘home’ was 221B Baker Street. What do we have like it in Downunder?”

“No street names, for starters,” said Ellie.

“What about bakers?”

“There’s no regular businesses down there. Lots of black-market dealings out of alleys and alcoves, but nothing as established as a bakery,” added Clancy.

“That’s not strictly so. There’s an illegal bakery down there—Suzie’s Sweets.” Ellie looked around furtively. “They’re popular with . . . ah . . . certain clients.”

“What’s illegal about a bakery?” I asked.

“Suzie uses bleached white flour with all the gluten left in. Oh, and real sugar and butter.”

Such a nefarious deed! A rebel. My kind of gal. “So, where is she located?”

“Bulkhead twenty-two, frame 1B,” came a squeaky voice from the kitchen. I looked up in shock that someone was listening in. That just wasn’t done in Ellie’s.

“It’s just Ratso. Second-best pastry chef in Frisco. He absolutely adores Suzie, and his little ears can pick out her name from five klicks away,” Ellie reassured me.

“Twenty-two, 1B. A bakery.”

“Twenty-two, 1B Baker’s street, Rainy. That’s your address. Let me get some of the goons from the station and go bust him up.”

“No, Clancy. I have to do this. I’m his Irene, his true love.” I reached over and patted his face. “I’ll be okay.”

“She’s right, Shamus. You? Me? We’re just bit players. Doesn’t mean we can’t be backup, though,” Ellie said as she pulled out the biggest roscoe I’ve ever seen a dame carry. She dropped the cylinder, clicked it back and spun the wheel. “I’ve got my heat, flatfoot. What about you?”

Clancy turned red, but he patted his belt, then inside his jacket, the small of his back, and nodded toward his ankle. “Ready to burn powder, babe.”

They both looked at me. I felt the heavy weight again; the noir field was back. “I don’t like gats. I’ve got Rule 9.”

Ellie nodded. Clancy grimaced. “Just don’t get shot, doll.”

I paid my bill, and we headed out the door for Downunder.

✧ ✧ ✧

Bulkhead twenty-two ran around the circumference, directly beneath the high-speed line. You couldn’t see it overhead, though, because of all the intervening pipes, conduits, catwalks, shanties, and lean-tos. Frame 1B marked one of the locations where power and waste-heat conduits plunged through the kilometer-thick asteroid wall to connect with one of the radiative fins on the outside. Suzie’s Sweets nestled right up against the junction, and it was clear that she was in a position to tap heat and power for her bakery. The neon sign was the only source of light in the undercity, and the brightly lit interior was a stark contrast to the constant gray of Downunder.

I walked into the shop and heard a faint jingle from the bell positioned above the door frame. A pudgy lady in a flour-dusted apron, with gray hair pulled up in a bun, looked up as I entered. She pushed little wire-framed glasses up her nose with the back or her hand, leaving a smudge of flour on her cheek. While she glanced at me, briefly, her attention was caught by the big lug behind me.

“Clancy? What are you doing here? Blanche’s donuts won’t be ready for another thirty minutes?”

I sneezed. Damn, I should have known.

“Momma?” Clancy said in surprise, then turned to me. “Not my mother, bless her soul, but Mia Pasticcino ran the division desk before Blanche. We called her Momma Mia because she was always bringing us pastry.”

Ellie came in the door behind Clancy, and the baker turned her attention to the newcomer. “I just sent the pies up, Elise. Ratso ordered extra because of your godsons.”

Ellie nodded and mumbled her thanks. Did everyone know this woman except me?

“Does everyone know this woman except me?” I narrated.

“Oh, I know you, dearie. He won’t stop talking about you. He’s in the transfer station out back. Out the door, turn left, around the corner, then second door to the left. He said to come alone.”

“Not a chance; we’re her backup,” Clancy protested.

Mia reached into the oversized mixing bowl and pulled out a hand cannon. She leveled it at Clancy. “He said alone, copper!”

✧ ✧ ✧

I felt bad leaving Clancy and Ellie under Mia’s gun, but she’d pushed her glasses up with the back of her hand, again, and waved me out the door. I made two lefts, walked down to the second door and tried the handle. It was unlocked.

The interior was dark, and I couldn’t see anything. I’d sworn I wouldn’t use any of my InterSol gear again, but I had to see. I touched my right temple and the room lit up in grays and greens.

That simple act also caused the noir field to lift. Good. It would leave me free to act as I needed and not be subject to arbitrary constraints.

I looked around the room with enhanced vision. Even with the low contrast I could see taps and wires leading from the station infrastructure back into Suzie’s shop. There was a brighter area to the back of the room, so I dodged the pipes and machinery and made my way toward the light.

The light was coming from under a door. He was obviously planning to blind me when I entered from the darkened exterior, so I touched my left temple, and closed my left eye, then reached into my pocket for my stiletto.

Once again, the handle moved easily, and I opened the door into bright light. I closed my right eye and opened my left, which I’d programmed for high-speed luminance correction. I looked around the small room, taking in the large-diameter molten sodium pipe at the back of the closet, the rather large bomb attached to it, and a rail-thin man in a hooded sweatshirt and cheaters.

“Hello, Irene.”

“Hello, Theodore. It’s Stormy, but you already know that.”

“Oh, so formal, Risky; I thought we meant more to each other than that.”

“Only my mother called me that. You don’t get to. That’s how much you mean to me, Teddy.”

“Aww, I thought for certain I’d get you to call me James!”

“I’d rather call you dead, but I’ll settle for imprisoned.”

“Not in your mind, I’ll never be dead there.”

“I want you out of my mind. I’m going to stop you and put an end to this.”

“Oh, but my dear Clarice, all good things to those who wait.”

“Ooh, you’re hitting all the psychopaths, now. Good for you.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Chance. It’s ugly and boring. Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain. You need me; we’re alike, but you chose the side of the angels.” He sighed. “Sooo, boooring!”

“Right, I’m nothing like you, Theodore. The game is over. Disable the bomb. People will die if it goes off.”

“Oh, but that’s the fun of it! People always die. That’s what they do! The beauty of this little bomb is that it’s nestled between the liquid sodium and water pipes. One little hole in each, and they’ll just keep exploding until the water or the sodium run out. Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!”

I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to hope that he was so wrapped up in monologuing that I could take him off guard. Unfortunately, he moved to stop me the moment I moved for the bomb.

“Uh, uh, Stormy. Not so fast.”

He was pointing a gun at me. Left-handed. That was good and bad. I was close enough, and I was a righty, but it also gave him the opportunity to block.

“On the contrary, fast is just what I need.” I lunged for him, toad-sticker in hand. I was going for either his gun hand or his ribs; either would do, since the object was to hurt him enough to get him to drop the gun.

Unfortunately, he raised the gun, which deflected my aim. The weapon went off, and I felt a hot sting across my cheek. I heard a hiss behind me, but I didn’t have time to check. There was a hiss in front of me, too, and I looked closer to see my knife sticking out of Teddy’s chest, just in the right place to have punctured his heart.

Blood dribbled from his mouth. “I wanted to end the world, but I’ll settle for ending yours.” He raised the gun again and fired, then slumped to the floor.

I heard the spang of a ricochet, and the sound of clockwork. Then I felt a searing pain in my scalp, followed by . . . nothing.

✧ ✧ ✧

“His first shot hit the water pipe. If it had hit the heat-exchanger pipe, we wouldn’t be here, Rainy.” Clancy was seated in the chair next to my hospital bed. I could see psun at a low angle out the room’s window, so he’d brought me somewhere up in the Heights.

“And the second?” I growled through a dry throat.

“Hit the bomb and disabled it. How poetic,” Ellie said from the other side.

“Yeah, but it hit me, didn’t it?”

“Actually, that was a bit of the clockwork. You took a sprocket to the sproggin.” Clancy tried and failed to stifle a snicker.

“And what of Mia? Did she back down once Teddy was dead?”

“Actually, that wasn’t Mia at all. More of Teddy’s doing—he found a skirt that looked like her and coached her to recognize us. When we heard the shots, the Jane jumped and Ellie took her down. The real Mia was tied up in the back room, and Suzie’s Sweets is back in business. By the way, she’s got some recipes without allergens. Just for you.”

“Mmm. Maybe you can sneak some to me. Hospital food is horrible no matter where you are.”

“Actually, Stormy, we’re here to take you home right now.” Ellie held out my coat and hat.

I didn’t even stop to take off the hospital gown. The trench coat covered everything, and the fedora covered the bandage on my head. I nodded to Ellie. “Thanks, Pins, let’s get this galoot to take us someplace swanky. Someplace . . . not here.”

“Sure thing, Rainy, I know a diner . . . ”

“Not there!” Ellie and I said simultaneously.

I took Clancy’s arm with one hand and threaded the other arm through Ellie’s. “Let’s go find a gin joint and take a load off.”

“Hmph. Just like Paris,” said Ellie.

Clancy had a smile on his face, the big goof. “Oh, we’ll always have Paris, my lovelies!”


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Framed