Chapter 5

The macabre eurotrash horror movie that streamed through my brain the previous night caused me to go about my workday in a trance-like state. I was more zombie than man when I entered the bar where I had punched that self-centered schmuck a few days ago. Once again I ordered a cider from the bartender whose name I actually got this time(it was Yancy) and chose my seat. This time I took a booth and hoped I didn't have to fight someone over it again. I just wanted to relax and the thought of throwing hands was utterly unappealing.

I sat nursing the only alcohol I ever allowed myself to consume up until Nellie had given me my first sip of wine. It was cider and would always be cider. As I nursed that cider I was still zombified but my humanity was restored by what happened next.

Another patron entered the bar. He was dressed in the attire of the guardsmen of this world albeit more disheveled. His Jacket was unbuttoned exposing the tee-shirt underneath. He held his beret in his hand and wore no gas mask on his grizzled face. I briefly glimpsed his name patch but need not have bothered. Yancy addressed him immediately & that indicated to me that he was a regular, “Preston how nice to see you.”

“Yeah, Yeah, just give me my usual and keep them comin’ “

So Preston situated his bulky frame on a barstool and began flaunting around a gargantuan stack of musk coins as he tossed his beret onto an empty stool. Yancy’s eyes leaped to the ceiling with an exclamation of: “Holy Hannah! Where'd you get that much scratch?”

“Someone I knew died unexpectedly and left it to me. Tragic really but it's more than the military paid me.”

I didn't believe a single syllable of that– at least not the last part– but I sat quietly and let the man go off on his rant.

“I mean come on I fought in the War of the Northern Border and then I joined the space force just to get my butt stuck babysitting delinquents on Space Australia!”

Many angry stares were tossed in his direction for that last statement but he didn't notice. I could tell already I wasn't going like this fellow. Still I had to know where the money came from and as he was leaving I followed him to the door and in a clandestine voice I spoke to the drunken behemoth. “Say, pal, where'd you really get that stack of mula? If there's some kind of game in town I want in.”

He glowered down at me and replied “Mind your own bee's wax before I smash your face,you presumptuous little frick.”

Cuddly as a cactus and charming as eel this one was. I took the hint but I wasn't going to let things go so easily. Money, like rivers, has a source & I was determined to find it.

The subsequent afternoon found me at Nellie's again except this time I was inside the other half of her business having stormed through the door marked manager only.This was not only her brothel but also her living quarters. I wove my way past rooms filled with android duplicates in various states of dress. Occasionally one would notice me & make some flirtatious gestures.

So this is what was becoming of Artificial Intelligence. I had called it a long time ago but my words fell upon deaf ears. This was Nellie's subscription service at work. I also passed a few of Nellie's girls. I wasn't sure but I think one of them smacked my butt. Soon– past as the fake affection and velvet draped decadence- I found her living room. It was the same sterile white as my own, but she'd taken the time to doll it up with luxurious furniture and swanky decor such as the lamp standing in one corner with its stand designed as two twisted spirals of metal merging together.

She was sitting on a luxurious sofa petting one of the weird, three-eyed, cat-like creatures that were native to Grifter's End. She was not happy to see me judging from the look on her face. “Who let you in here?”

“I let myself in. I asked about you in the restaurant. They said you were busy here.”

She sighed heavily and, dropping her pet alien pointed behind me. I followed her finger with my eyes & lo and behold there was a door to my right. “Next time use that door. It's a side entrance my friends and acquaintances use instead traipsing through my boudoir.”

“I'm impressed Nellie, your androids look just like you.”

“Duh.”

“I'm amazed that you fit all this in one building.”

“It's bigger than it looks.”

“Oh the times you must have said that to someone.” I said wryly.

She was not amused by my innuendo.

“You beauregarded your way through my private business. That is a privilege reserved for my clients and working girls. Please, Tom get to the point.”

“I'm in need of some information. I imagine you've got some connections that could help me out.”

“Hmmm, fine. But you'll owe me something in return. What exactly do you want?”

Now she was all ears. So I laid it out in plain and simple terms, all business.

“When I was in Yancy's bar last night one of the soldier boys came inside and flaunted a huge stack of musk coins around.”

I said all this while pacing. The lady looked at me skeptically while continuing to gently stroke the striped fur ball at her side. “Ok so he was loaded, what of it?”

“He said he had just come into it. That someone died and left it to him.”

“Now that makes more sense. You're suspicious?”

“Exactly. I smell a con.”

“You'd know wouldn't you?”

“So would you, Nellie.” I retorted while jerking my thumb behind me to the black curtains that led into the carnival of sensual delights.

“Tom,” she gasped, “I don't know if I really like you or if I really want to slap the daylights outta you!”

She took a deep breath then gave me the scoop, ”I do know a guy. He was involved with one of my girls once. George Vanderbilt. He was a computer hacker back on Earth. He did his time here but old habits die hard.”

“How hard are we talking, Nellie?”

“Well he couldn't resist a challenge. Obviously we have no internet here and no cell phones. So Vanderbilt spends his time hacking the all seeing eyes of Grifter's End.

“If you want to track that man's movements he can do it.”

She opened a little note pad on her coffee table and scribbled something hastily before ripping out the page and handing it to me.

“That's his address. Once you get there, destroy it. Why do you want to track this so badly anyway?”

“It might give me something juicy to hold over his head.”

Just then a soulless twin of the woman I was speaking to just entered from behind the curtain clad in a sheer frock and addressed her madam in an almost perfect duplication of her voice. “Your subscriber Hank O'Fallon is finished for the night. I told him I was changing.”

“Very good Nel 56.” I'll see him out.”

She rose from the couch. “Goodnight, Tom.”

There was no warmth in that phrase. I took the hint and my leave using the side entrance. This was near the rear end of the restaurant that was more than just a restaurant. There was still a little daylight left so I flagged a taxi and rode to the address Nellie had written down, a small brown building in housing district 2.

I knocked and the door was opened by a skinny twig of a man. He was Caucasian and his ginger hair was trying to resurrect a style that went extinct after the 2000’s. His mannerisms indicated a diet of caffeine and paranoia. “I'm sorry, is there something I can do for you?”

“I don't know, Mister Vanderbilt is there? Nellie says there is.”

He relaxed but not a lot and ushered me in. The air was stale and reeked of perpetual bachelorhood with little or no interference from the opposite sex! The living room was dirty and ill kept. The only light was locally sourced from the fading sun penetrating through the window blinds.

I gave him the low down and, using a device he called Horus which resembled a V.R. headset he filtered through security cam footage while I gave him a description of my target. After an eternity he shouted "Eureka!”

He placed Horus on my own noggin and I retraced the steps of the unruly Space Force veteran. He was in some room in some shipping building, gambling with a bunch of civilian men. I watched the game play out and once he'd won. He drew his submachine gun and proceeded to nonchalantly murder the other players and then took out the security cam.

I ripped off the headset. “Crap.”

“You can say that again, sir. Try watching it live.”

I paid the nerd a little and left. The guards weren't supposed to gamble. He knew this and had eliminated all witnesses or so he thought. There was another witness however who had watched the whole thing unfold from miles away. I had no intention of confronting the perp with intel. That would be foolish. I simply filed this away in my mind for future use.

While watching the crime unfold I carefully observed each location that Preston had walked and reconstructed the route in my mind's eye, not being content to let this matter rest. So starting at Yancy’s I worked my way backwards retracing the killer's steps. Either I'd guess correctly and come upon the crime scene or wander aimlessly through Grifter's End. It was fifty-fifty with a healthy dose of blind luck.