Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus) Read online

  Evelyn checked her watch. "You can have a few minutes." She walked off without telling me to follow. I followed anyway. Her office was tucked in behind a utility room stacked with capacitors and heavy-duty electrical transformers. It was austere. A sheet metal desk with a particle board deck sat at the center of a room that felt like it should have more furniture. A computer monitor sat atop a massive drop safe to the side of the desk. I didn't doubt that there were only a handful of people who knew the combination to that safe. Evelyn sat down behind the desk. I closed the door and explained about Salvador.

  "Your shooter sounds like the Turk," Evelyn said, not batting an eye.

  "Why's he called that?"

  "Probably because he's Turkish. Don't know his real name. He's a hired killer. He won't work for Russians, but anyone else is fair game."

  "Even Ukrainians?" I asked, trying to cover my anxiety with levity.

  "I don't think he can tell the difference."

  "Look, I don't know who might be gunning for me, or even if I was the target," I said. "I could use a side job if you've got a line on one."

  Evelyn looked at me and frowned. "I wish I could help."

  "You have nothing?" I asked.

  "Your talents are not what I need at the moment," Evelyn said. "I need an accountant to figure out what's up with my taxes."

  "If something comes up, will you think of me?" I asked.

  "Sure," she said. It's not as if she hadn't sent me unsolicited jobs before, so I wasn't asking for anything new. "But why did you come here? We might have left the doors locked."

  "I wasn't doing too much thinking at the time," I said.

  "Anything else?" Evelyn asked.

  "Is Becky new?"

  "Relatively."

  "What's her story?"

  "She tends bar," Evelyn said. "And she has standards, so you shouldn't get your hopes up." At the time it stung, but it was fair enough. I was living below Mrs. Cortez in a tiny flat with a sump pump for a roommate. Stack on my character flaws, and it wasn't hard to see why I was still single.

  "I'm headed back to Bilgewater to get my phone. You have my number, right?" I asked. At Evelyn's nod, I left Tesla Too and headed towards the bus station. Bilgewater and Sandy Shore were in adjacent counties. The two shared a bus system because none of the service workers could afford to live in Sandy Shore. The empty space between was not that big, just big enough for Lighthouse Spit. You can probably guess why it was called that.

  During the ride, my mind was stuck on the same questions that had been running through it since the shooting. No new revelations were forthcoming, however. The next sign that my day was not improving was the solemn look Mrs. Cortez got when she spotted me. While our relationship could be described as antagonistic, there was a limit to the misfortune we'd wish upon the other. She leaned against the railing, snipping the filters off her cigarettes with a pair of kitchen shears. She didn't say anything, but I knew the hag well enough to tell something was wrong. Someone had opened my front door with a crowbar, snapping the door frame around the locks and warping the hinges.

  "Are they gone?" I asked. Mrs. Cortez nodded. I had little doubt she'd heard the whole thing. The intruder had not been subtle, and would have made quite a racket. There were three rooms in my apartment, the bathroom, the bedroom, and the combination kitchen, dining, and living room. The floors were concrete or tile, over which I'd thrown rugs. My freezer stood open, the food packages ripped open in case I'd stashed cash inside them. My six-year-old laptop and modest DVD collection was gone. I nudged the freezer closed and looked to see what else had been hit.

  The drainage grate over the sump was undisturbed. The bolts were only finger-tight, and after loosening them, I shifted the grate. The sealed plastic baggies of cash were undisturbed. It was only a few hundred in small bills. I'd stashed them there as a decoy for burglars. Something for them to find to think they'd outsmarted me. This clumsy sod hadn't even found it. I returned the drainage grate to its proper position. The bedroom was a wreck. My drawers and my closet had been emptied onto the floor. Worse, they'd taken the crowbar to the drywall in the closet. There had been a panel of drywall there that was held in by four screws. It had not been taped. It covered my actual stash. The lockbox was gone, along with the few thousand in emergency funds I'd put in it.

  Hanging from a peg in the wall cavity were four black-and-red outfits that resembled wetsuits for children. The masks clipped to their hangers told the truth. I don't know why I'd dragged my hero suits out to Bilgewater, since I never wore them. The underwear that kept them from being too revealing was my 'in case of emergency' set and had been tossed on the floor with the rest of my undergarments. I sighed. Before I could do anything else, my phone rang. The sound was muffled, and after a bit of searching, I found it hiding under my bed. The burglar had apparently missed it.

  It was Charles, my hat supplier.

  "Afternoon," I said, answering the call.

  "So you're not dead," Charles said.

  "I was late getting to Sandy Shore, so Salvador took my spot."

  Charles swore. "Salvador sold more hats than you."

  "I'm touched at your concern."

  "Screw you, white boy. I'm in business to make money. Losing my best salesman hurts the bottom line."

  "You don't even keep a ledger, you don't have a 'bottom line'," I said. Charles hung up, but not before uttering another profanity. "You too," I muttered as I put the phone away. I never said I liked Charles, we just did business together. I spent most of that afternoon fixing up the damage to my apartment and putting my stuff back in order. I threw most of the damaged freezer goods into a crock pot to turn it into a vegetable stew. I'd have cubed the steak into it if Mrs. Cortez hadn't pilfered it. I'd just finished nailing up a piece of cast-off plywood to hold the door jamb in place when my phone rang again. This time it was Evelyn.

  "Evening."

  "Turns out I do have a job for you," she said.

  "What type?" I asked.

  "One that requires a face-shifter."

  "Oh?" I could charge more for impersonations because I had a special knack for it. The same knack that had gotten the attention of the BHA. That, and my talent for clinging to vertical or inverted surfaces were what set me apart from most of the population.

  "Get on over to Tesla Too. Meet me by the side door. I'll have the details when you arrive." Evelyn hung up. I smiled, mistakenly thinking my day was getting better. I turned down the crock pot and set about getting ready. Being far too sweat-drenched to mingle in polite society, I dipped into the shower long enough to rinse off. I grabbed a pair of underwear at random from the mess on the floor. It was a pair of modesty protectors from my sidekick days. Glancing at the suits in the wall alcove, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. I could put it on under my street clothes, no one would really notice.

  It had been years since I'd pulled myself into a hero suit, but the technique came back to me in an instant. My pattern was mostly black. There were some red bars around the chest that didn't quite meet in the middle. The belly and lower back were red, and there was a broad red stripe down the outside of the legs. The moment of latent pride crashed headlong into a feeling of hypocrisy, and I donned a more sensible outfit over the suit. I didn't put on a jacket, despite the fact that the sun had gone down and the temperature was dropping. I donned the red hat I'd had on earlier and headed out. Despite the obvious damage to the door, I locked up. I didn't want anyone to steal my crock pot too.

  During tourist season, buses ran between Bilgewater and Sandy Shore until all hours of the morning. They weren't city buses, but independent operators who had seen a chance to make a few bucks. I rode one of these back to the other side of Lighthouse Spit and got off as close to Tesla Too as the bus would go. I still had to hike several blocks. There was quite a line waiting to get in th
e front door, and the pulsating sounds of a club mix reminded me of a heartbeat. As I started down the side alley, one of the bouncers moved to intercept me. Like many of their breed, he was a steroidal mass of muscle in an undersized shirt. I guess it intimidated some people.

  "Step aside," I said.

  "Get in line," he said.

  I pulled out my phone and called the number Evelyn had called me from. "Ms. Wyse, one of your bouncers is keeping me from the side door." A moment later, Evelyn appeared. Her glare sent the bouncer scurrying back to guarding the line. I followed her through the backstage to a service stair. It led to the upper floor behind the VIP lounge. The VIP Lounge at Tesla Too was not the kind of place I normally got invited to. Today was no different. We turned aside and stepped into the upstairs unisex bathroom.

  Nishihara Katai was laying stone dead on the floor. I didn't know his name at the time, but I'd learn it soon enough. The young Japanese man was the second dead guy I'd seen that day. The surprised expression on his face burned into my memory, and somewhat reminded me of Salvador, though he was more confused than surprised. My judgment at the time was that this guy died from a massive overdose of amphetamines. His heart had probably exploded inside his chest.

  "So, you see the problem?" The woman who'd spoken was very Caucasian, with sharp cheekbones and hair that was dyed black. She had an anorexic build stuffed into a tight, electric blue qipao whose skirt was split almost to the hip. She also looked older than dirt. She was standing behind Evelyn, fanning herself with a spread of hundred dollar bills. As she was the one holding the money, I kept these impressions to myself.

  "Dead bodies are bad for business," I said.

  "His death was accidental," Evelyn said. "So we could use your help."

  "You want him to be not-dead for a little while longer," I said.

  "Long enough to appear to return to his hotel and not have died here," the old woman said. She emphasized the stack of hundreds she was using as a fan. It looked like six month's rent to me. "Stash his stuff in his room and vanish."

  I was a bit squeamish about touching the corpse, but needed to properly copy Katai to do the job. A few minutes of touching the back of a dead man's hand wasn't as bad as trying to find a safe spot to sleep on the street, especially with my cash reserves depleted. When I stood again, I was the spitting image of Katai. My face was now pale and boyish, with features that could easily be mistaken for those of an adolescent. My hair was now long and black, and combed over the left side of that face. The hair from the eye-level on down to where it stopped at the jawline was dyed a dark purple. I was also three inches shorter than I had been walking in.

  "I almost didn't believe you," the old woman said. "He has a key card from the Bacchus Rest Resort. One of their top-tier suites. Mister Nishihara was a bit of a high roller, even if his music career was as dead as he is."

  "What kind of music?" I asked, pushing the long hair out from in front of my left eye.

  "He did J-Pop under a stage name until one of his band-mates got offed by some Russians. Anyway, don't push your hair aside. He always used an obnoxious flick of the head. And your English is too good."

  "I only got his vocal chords, not his idiosyncrasies," I said. "I'll avoid conversation."

  "Fine, let's get you into his motorcycle leathers, and you can be on your way. If anyone asks you about tonight, you've screwed up royally, and we will be most unhappy." The tone of the woman in the blue dress made the innocuous words into a not-so-veiled threat. When we pulled his leather pants off, I was quietly thankful that Katai turned out to be wearing a pair of absurdly skinny jeans under them. I donned the black leather pants with a diagonal purple stripe over my own jeans. The jacket came off the end of the VIP bar. It was black with large purple panels. They handed over the contents of Katai's pockets: wallet, keys, empty cellophane wrapper, a rubber band, cell phone, and a comb.

  I picked up Katai's helmet and walked out the front door, strolling past the waiting line and the bouncers. Katai's bike was easy to spot, it was a dark purple Japanese racing bike. I made sure the obnoxiously long hair was out of the way before I pulled on the helmet. There was no point in getting distracted and wiping out on a job this simple. Hopping on the bike, I started it and pulled out onto the street. A cop trolling for drunks glanced my way. Seeing I was too sober to bother with, he just watched me drive off.

  The Bacchus Rest Resort was an overly tall, neoclassical tower built by the beach directly atop the sea wall. Superfluous columns ran all the way up the twenty-five story front of the building. It was made of concrete artfully disguised as marble. Pulling the bike into the parking lot, I found a clear space. Doffing the helmet, I tossed my hair to the side with a flick of the head, trying to imitate a mannerism I'd never witnessed. Walking in the front door, I veered straight for the elevators. The tacky murals and statuary decorating the lobby were meant to be suggestive of the Bacchanalia without being lurid or explicit. The gilded elevator doors were embossed in the manner of a Roman frieze. They opened on an elevator painted in a panorama of a vineyard.

  My hand hovered by the buttons as it dawned on me that I had no idea what floor I was headed to. Stepping out of the elevator, I headed to the front desk. "I forgot what my room number was. Can you tell me what it was?"

  "Identification?"

  I pulled Katai's wallet out and held it open. The desk clerk entered something into the computer.

  "Twenty-five-oh-three, southeast penthouse."

  "Thanks," I said, wandering back to the elevator banks. There was a private set for the penthouses. These were no less tacky than those for the lower floors. There were only a few buttons, and I was soon on my way to the top of the building. The penthouses were built like a villa, with a fountain and garden in the courtyard. I found the appropriate door along the peristyle and swiped in with Katai's keycard. The lights inside were already on.

  Lacking a better option, I put the motorcycle helmet on a cupid statue perched on the umbrella stand. The suite was a thoroughly modern space with cheesy allusions to classical antiquity thrown around. A dead man as rich as Katai was bound to have a few things worth pocketing in his hotel suite. Best of all, he wasn't going to miss it. I poked around. The penthouse suite was massively larger and better-appointed than my flat. A twinge of envy struck me, but I reminded myself that Katai couldn't enjoy it anymore. At some point, I unzipped the front of Katai's jacket.

  Most of the stuff scattered around looked to be hotel property. I wandered into the bedroom and stumbled to a stop. Sprawled out, face down on the bed was a girl. She was dressed in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. From the ligature mark around her neck and the lack of a pulse, I realized she was dead. Three corpses in one day was not a good record. While I was making up my mind about what to do, I was hauled upright by a cord wrapped around my neck. Instead of futilely clawing at the loop of the garrotte, I delivered a sharp elbow to the midsection of my attacker. Rushing backwards, I slammed him against the wall. Ramming the back of my head into my attacker's nose, I finally got his grip to slacken.

  Ripping the garrotte away, I scurried away. I got a kick from an Italian loafer in my midsection for my trouble. I exchanged a series of punches, knees, and gouges with the man in the brown suit. We spilled into the next room and crashed through an inlaid wooden table worth more than all the furniture I owned. The tumble separated us enough for me to finally bolt for the door. The man in the brown suit snagged my ankle, sending me crashing into the umbrella stand. As he moved in, I struck him across the face with Katai's motorcycle helmet. The man in brown sprawled on the floor of the suite, unconscious.

  I tied the man's hands with his own strangling cord. The man in brown was the same man who'd shot Salvador earlier. I rooted through the hitman's pockets. I turned up two phones, one wallet, a pen, a small notebook, a money clip and a keyring. The wallet had a driver's license for Vo
lkan Aksoy, and a keycard for Bacchus Rest maintenance workers. Somehow, I doubted Volkan worked for the hotel. I quickly pocketed the items and scurried out of the room. The elevator I'd taken up hadn't left the floor, and I was soon on my way back to the lobby.

  In the parking lot, I took out Volkan's key chain and walked around, pressing the unlock button. Eventually one of the sedans lit up. It was a nondescript blue model. It didn't take long for me to decide between a seventy thousand dollar motorcycle with no cargo space and a twenty thousand dollar sedan with no GPS. The sedan started up readily, and I drove out of the parking lot as calmly as I could manage. Taking out one of the four phones I was now carrying, I called emergency services and told them about the body in room 2503. I was as brief and anonymous as I could, then turned off the phone.

  While it had been some time since I'd driven, I hadn't forgotten how. I didn't have a license, but Katai did, and I was wearing his face at the moment. Instinctively, I headed for Bilgewater.