Chapter 14

When my eyes popped open it was with a great effort. My skull was cussing me out and my nose was assailed by a sterile chemical aroma. I sat up and almost vomited but I kept my last meal where it belonged then took stock of my environment.

I was in a small room that looked like it belonged in a low budget horror movie, the kind that would become buried on streaming services when those still existed. It looked like a laboratory or the autopsy room of a morgue. In the corner was a bed and that's the one I was in. A pale blue illuminated the room giving a strange ambiance.

I thoroughly remembered the last thing that happened to me and wondered if I was to be butchered here. Oh crap! My coat was gone. Well looks I'd go down bare knuckle boxing my foe.

A black man walked in. He wore slacks, a lab coat, and a red and gray striped polo shirt. He looked like Steffan Urkle. I was going to take him down in a flying tackle but my body had other ideas as I lost balance and ended up on my butt.

“Easy there, Pal. You're safe here.” He assured me.

“Where is here exactly?”

“Hypocratic Hands walk-in clinic,” he answered proudly, “and to answer your next question I'm Dr. Gerald Magnus.”

“Ok, Doctor answer once more: How in the blazes did I get here?”

“A working girl found you out cold in some alley and brought you here.”

“One of Nellie's girls?”

“I wouldn't know. Now tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?”

Unless I was mistaken he held up one and that was my answer.”

“Okay, good.”

He finished his examination and concluded that I had a mild concussion and that no permanent damage had been done.

“So, Doctor, what's your story?

“I was a street doc.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Now at least I can do something besides patch up gang bangers.”

He left a moment and returned with my coat draped over an arm. “Don't worry I won't ask about that toy you've got stashed away. Not my business.”

“Thanks!” I replied as he handed me my coat.

As I was leaving an inspiration struck me. “Dr. Magnus, have you had any dealings or experiences with the Abe Lincoln cult?”

“The Friends of the Emancipator of Souls? Yeah. Some of them came by about 3 years ago asking if I could give them some medical equipment on the sly. I told them to get wrecked.”

I departed the clinic and through the throbbing in my bludgeoned skull I tried to memorize the route as I made my way to an ice pack at my home.

So now I had a new friend and more evidence that the Lincoln cult was up to no good. Was it one of them that cracked me over the head? If they had needed med supplies why did they attempt to keep such a tight lid on it? Something was missing and that something was the key to unlock all the doors on this mystery, the crucial piece of the puzzle that would make the picture complete.

On Earth solving this mystery would have been much easier. Unfortunately I was not on Earth. I was on a prison planet with few resources and a communication gap with my colleagues that extended over light-years. It was only now that I appreciated why this case had lingered unsolved for the past two years.

My skull throbbed in defiance of the Ice pack I placed on my noggin. I wet a rag and went to bed early. Sometime in the night the dance party in my skull ceased though I feared the alarm would kick it off again. There's no need to go over the work day; it was the same as always. After it was over I went to Nellie's.

When I entered through the side door which had been hastily repaired I found her in a sundress pouring water over a vibrant burgundy colored plant the likes of which I'd never seen and it's difficult for me to describe. It looked like a daisy of sorts but the petals could have been from a poinsettia. “It's magnificent!”

Nellie looked up at me and replied, “It's also the last of its kind. There used to be legions of them outside the city.

“The atmosphere here was just right for sustaining them until we modified it to our personal needs. Then they went extinct except for this one. I'm taking care of it until it's time comes around.”

I leaned against the wall observing how the woman had done her best to salvage the wreckage of her living room.

“We move in and a beautiful otherworldly flower gets the shaft. Yet you think I'm too cynical about humans.” I said.

“You are. Anyway, what brings you here, Tom?”

“I was walking to a bar I frequent yesterday and someone cracked me with a metal pipe!”

A prostitute found me and dragged me to Dr. Magnus. I was just wondering if she was one of yours because I wanted to thank her.”

She left the room with the alien flower for a few seconds then returned saying, “Nope. There's other working girls in this colony besides mine. If one of my ladies had aided you she'd have told me so.”

“Ok.”

“I suppose you are leaving now?”

“We can sit and talk for a while if you want.”

“There is other business going on but it's nothing my girls can't handle.”

So we talked for many hours about this and that & the other. I learned about her life on Earth and it was a sordid tale involving predatory fathers and crappy foster homes and other factors that led her to Grifter's End. I gave the parts of my story that I could without blowing my cover. Perhaps I was becoming too good at playing the role of a confidence man.

Eventually I asked the question that had been foremost on my mind. “So why androids?”

She leaned back in the chair. “Years ago I had a client who was becoming more than a client. He'd had very bad upbringing and he'd come here of his own accord. His abusive childhood had affected him in ways that Sigmund Freud would have done back flips over.

“Whenever he came to me I catered to that fetish and it seemed in a weird way to calm him. Eventually we started to have genuine feelings for each other until one night when he snapped. For some reason my services that used to calm him set off something long repressed and he called me things even the dirtiest of my clients never did except it wasn't meant to be arousing.

“He pulled a knife and charged me. From that day forward none of my clients have met with me face to face and I charge enough to ensure they never do.”

“TMI in some spots but now it makes sense.”

I'd kept an eye on the clock and stood up to leave. She stood up too. We brought our faces together and time froze while we kissed–The madam of an interstellar brothel who'd picked herself up by the boot straps & me, the world weary investigator undercover as a reforming crook.

That kiss was intoxicating and made my head spin. I stumbled home as a man drunk on the sweet wine of love. I have some vague memory of flopping with great force onto my bed and then nothing whatsoever until the hellish cry of the alarm clock.

While I was passed out from an overcharge of sexual energy stores were closing and workers were coming off their night shifts and scurrying back to their homes. The guards kept up their vigil trying to catch curfew violators while the hookers hurried indoors with their latest clients. And somewhere a scream pierced the night as the Shadow Killer did their unholy work yet again.

How did I know this was what had unfolded beneath the black velvet curtain of night? Because once I realized it was the weekend I went for a stroll. I tried to concentrate on my investigation but Nellie kept intruding into my thoughts until I saw a crowd milling around a side street between two stores.

The area was corded off by police tape and a small group of soldiers were keeping the crowd at bay. I quietly joined them and studied what I could of the scene. I saw enough. This latest victim, a store owner by the looks of him, hadn't been turned into as much of a pretzel as some of the other victims but his neck was broken. Near his outstretched hand lay a box cutter surrounded by some sort of green liquid staining the concrete! Something clicked in my head. It was time to meet with Delaney again