I was back in my office, staring out my window at NewerYork. The face reflected in the glass stared back at me with a tired and worn look. I tried not to wear open regret, putting on my best GISI good cop face. I took a drink from my glass of Tennessee whiskey over ice. The front door buzzed and I heard Kinky come. On the monitor, I saw her set down her bags by her desk and walk to my door. Kinky came in, looking like all she had done was go shopping and have lunch.
“Hey, thanks for having my back, Doll. I owe you,” I said, lifting my glass to her. “Were you following me?”
“Nah. A little full of ya’self, are ya?” Kinky asked. “I was down at Le Strange in the duty free zone picking up some perfume when I saw ya leaving that diner. I was gonna catch up when my E-ram tweaked to the guys following you. I’m gonna have to write a nice letter to the wetware programming guy. Maybe throw in a couple of “thank you” pictures. That wetware spotted those two tailing you and I only had it set to watch for people eyeing me. A girl can’t be too safe.”
“Well, send him much love from me as well. As a bonus, how about I cover a little trip?”
“What trip?” Kinky gave me a suspicious eye, but I had her attention.
“We ought to make some serious scratch from this case, once I wrap it up. With the extra creds, I was thinking we take a tram out to casino road and stay at a nice hotel. Food, drinks and room on me. You stake your own bets. Deal?”
“Redge, when ya look like me, ya don’t have to stake anything,” Kinky said and winked at me. “Sure. Sounds like fun. Oh, by the way, I picked this off of Little Boy Blue when he was staring at my crotch. Might have something interestin’ on it.” Kinky held an M-card between her nicely manicured, but deadly, fingernails. She flicked it like a playing card and it embedded itself in the stalk of my fake palm tree. Hot and a badass.
* * * * * * *
My comm buzzed.
“Redge, it’s your 17:30. Want I should send her in?” Kinky asked. On the monitor I saw my client. Tall, sophisticated and well dressed. Not human. I also took the opportunity to look down Kinky’s blouse again. Exquisite.
“Yeah, Doll, send her in.” I gave one last glance at Kink’s magnificent lady orbs and checked my face in the mirrored window of my office. Yep, still ugly.
Madam Prrtur Lefsst, glided in. A Denubian, she’d married into serious creds. My background on her showed she’d come from money, her family leading the chocolate cabal before the collapse. It was a long way for the entire clan to fall and she had fallen the hardest. When she met Mr. Lefsst, she was nude dancing a pole out in the Antarin Nebula on a mining station. His company was there selling new fold space drives to the consortium and she landed him.
She looked the part, what nature hadn’t given her, surgery had provided. She may not be dancing now, but she wasn’t that far removed from the pole. Madam Lefsst was attractive, but I didn’t “do” aliens or clients. Okay, I didn’t do “alien clients”. Well, not as often as I could have.
“Detective, success?” she asked, her kewpie doll mouth barely moving as she squeaked out her question in Near English.
“Yes and no, Madam,” I replied. I was going to make a little extra scratch. The M-card Kinky had nipped was loaded with information about Mr. Lefsst and the mistress’ liaisons. Times, dates, places. All the stuff I needed to close out this case.
“Your husband is cheating on you, has a mistress, but not the one you thought. I spent a lot of time following the wrong Slub.” That’s not slang. I meant Slub. Disgusting creatures that resembled humans, but weigh 200 kilos and smell like rotten meat. Denubes couldn’t resist them, mostly because Slubs emit a hypnotic hormone and their saliva is addictive like Opiumeth.
“And cost to share…?”
“Well, I did have some additional expenses. I had to call in some favors. You gave me bad intel, lady,” I said, as I sat down and put my feet up on the desk. “I’ll spill for another two-thousand creds.”
“Fine,” she squeaked and pulled her gold plated B-card, punching in the transfer and thumbing it. I had to keep from smiling. It only cost me the two-hundred creds to the Mick and the threat of an ass beating in an alleyway, but I was going to get back ten times my investment in bonus alone. The standard fee and expenses I’d already collected meant we were well in the black this month. Kinky and I were going to have a good time at the casinos.
“Done. Now, who he with?”
“Slub named Delmon Fudge. They’re meeting tonight at the Copa 21 club for dinner, then off to a room your husband reserved at the Madison. All the info you might have discovered on your own is on this.” I slid the ruby-red metallic M-card with the doctored case file on it, across the desk. The files on it were set up to look like amateur sleuthing. All of it legal to submit in court. Something she could give a lawyer.
Madam Lefsst sat quietly for a moment. “Thank you, Detective. Mr. Lefsst and I have contract. I forgive some pinky-toy play whores,” she cocked an eye toward the outer office where Kinky sat in all of her “pinky-toy” glory, “but to take another? Use regular? Share me time? That shame me. No man shame me no more.”
“I understand, Madam, I’m sorry things turned out like this,” I said. “Please be aware that I cannot be called as a witness, since some things came into my possession through…other channels. You’ll need to proceed forward and make any additional discoveries on your own.”
“Yes. M’be I go visit him and Slub with M’lawyer,” she said, her eyes staring at me emotionless. “Now, detective, we shall not see each no more. I count on our confident agreement, correct? Leak could be explosive.”
“Of course, that’s how this works,” I replied. “I have the only physical copies on M-cards in my safe. They go nowhere and can’t be subpoenaed under Galactic Accords. You and I have legal client privilege.” She nodded and looked at the safe.
She stood and left. She hadn’t flinched when she got the news. Cold. Any seeming discomfort had a manufactured tone to it. My old GISI instincts were tingling, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was missing something.
I turned to the office monitor to see her go and in time to catch Kinky shaking her protein drink. It was turning into a nice evening, money and a show. When Kinky started to pour her drink, I went to my safe and put away the rest of the M-Cards, closing the case of the cheating Denubian. My comm buzzed.
“Hey, Redge. I got the reservations desk on the phone. They need your thumb on the B-card to reserve the rooms.” Ah, Kinky, what a trooper. I pulled out my wallet and my B-card. It wasn’t gold plated. I kissed it, thinking about how the tiny flat card was now thick with an extra two-thousand creds of Madam Lefsst’s money.
I also wondered how many of those creds would be spent on tequila shots for Kinky before her defenses came down and her miniskirt came up. A man had to dream a little.