Under a Killing Moon

UAKM — CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was 9:30-in the morning-and I’d already showered and shaved. My teeth were polished, and my fingernails were trimmed. My cuticles were impeccable. I was wearing a clean, cream-coloured long-sleeved shirt, my good olive trousers with the perma-crease and pleats, and an understated burgundy tie with a chess-piece motif. I was lean, neat and smelled spicy. My wallet contained all of twenty-two dollars, and I wasn’t on anyone’s payroll, but I was fresh from a 19 hour coma, and it was a good day.

I collected my tan trench from the coatrack and slipped it on. I then picked up my cocoa-brown fedora, removed a mysterious twig from the brim, and set it on my head at a sassy angle. I checked for wallet, keys, smokes, and lighter, and then set out with intentions of breaking my fast.

As I locked the office door behind me and stepped out onto the fire escape landing, I tried to put my finger on what had changed my outlook. It had to have been breaking the code from the Colonel’s notebook. Maybe I’d been afraid my lost month had turned my brain into pickle juice, and actually figuring something out was proof that it hadn’t. And, even though I wasn’t getting paid for tracking down the Colonel’s killer, at least it was more exciting than my last project before I started drinking: constructing the world’s largest ball of cigarette foil.

For the first time in weeks, the sun was out. It was still a few degrees below comfortable, but it felt pretty good after the clouds and rain of the past several days. As I trotted down the fire escape, I noticed Chelsee at the newsstand. She was wearing a bright red sweater and a bag-like, though attractive, hat with a flower in it. With any luck, my businesslike attitude of the morning before would have her intrigued and eager to talk to me. Immediately, my fancy turned to thoughts of amore. The old Murphy charm seethed and boiled inside me. I could feel it coiled like a cobra, ready to hypnotize his victim, then strike.

I strode jauntily across the street. Ever since I’d met Chelsee, right after moving into the Ritz, we’d always gone through the same little ritual every time I’d visit the newsstand.

I’d strike up a conversation, we’d flirt a little bit, and then I’d ask her out and she’d turn me down. She always claimed it was irritating; I preferred to think of it as foreplay. This morning, however, the ice would break. Chelsee smiled and waved, completely unaware of her impending doom.

“Hello, stranger.”

“You know, Chelsee, I can’t keep it inside any longer. Every time I see you, you break my heart.”

A malicious glint flashed in Chelsee’s eyes. “Why? Because I’ve got a steady job?”

Oof.

“No. You’re just so beautiful it makes me ache.”

Chelsee pouted most attractively. “Poor baby.”

I leaned onto the counter. “Let me buy you a drink, and I’ll tell you where it hurts.”

Chelsee raised an elegant eyebrow. “Gee, Tex, that kind of talk could get you into trouble.”

Her come-hither tone had me up on my hind legs like a Wiener dog begging for a piece of jerky. I clasped my hands. “That’s all I’m asking for. Just a little bit of trouble.”

My dream girl wagged a finger at me. “You know I don’t drink with customers.”

“Don’t toy with me, Chelsee. I’ve seen you and Louie shooting tequila at the Brew and Stew.”

“Oh, Louie doesn’t count, and you know it.”

I could sense she was about to change the subject on me, but I wasn’t about to break off my pursuit. Maybe if I sweetened the deal… “C’mon. Let me buy you a drink. I’d be happy to throw in a chilly dog-“

“Well, an offer like that is hard to refuse… but no, thanks.”

Her tone implied firmly that, once again, her snowshoe-hare love had eluded my panting-wolf yearning. I’d also wasted my chili-dog gambit, which I had used previously with great success. She was truly a strong-willed woman.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your work. Doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?”

Chelsee flashed her perfect smile.

The Brew & Stew was always more peaceful in the mornings. The nighttime sounds of inebriated laughter and clinking glasses were replaced with a rustle of newspapers, yawning, and loud stretching. A majority of the folks in the surrounding neighbourhood relied exclusively on Louie’s Armageddon to stimulate their synaptic functions and get their heart rates out of the single digits. On most mornings (or, more often, early afternoons) I, too, was a card-carrying member of the Coffee Generation. Today, though, felt different. Not that I would dream of skipping the Armageddon-it was just that I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t woken up bleary-eyed and lethargic.

I sat down at the counter as Louie burst out of the kitchen through the swinging doors, his stubby arms balancing half-a-dozen plates piled high with breakfast fare. He gave me a wink and steered his girth around the end of the bar. A newspaper was sitting unused on the counter. I dragged it over and started to scan the front page as I lit up an appetizer. The lead story was about the Capricorn bombing. I read the article and was interested to see that Interpol had taken over the investigation, though it didn’t appear that they were close to making any arrests.

I inhaled the sweet tobacco taste and wondered if there was a connection between the Colonel’s death and the Capricorn bombing. In my mind, they were obviously linked in some way. I thought about the rendezvous the Colonel had planned for that evening. Did it have anything to do with Capricorn? I went over the things I’d seen on the Colonel’s videodisc. The killer seemed to think that the Colonel was in cahoots with Capricorn, and that he had this thing they referred to as the Winter Chip. Maybe the Colonel’s contact at The Land Mine was someone from Capricorn. It seemed as likely as anything else, but why would they have to be so clandestine about it?

An oversized mug of coffee being slid in front of me interrupted my musings. I picked it up and glanced at Louie as I blew steam away and took a sip. He smiled widely and nodded his head. “You look good, Murph.”

I took another drink and felt even more rejuvenated. “I feel good.”

Louie reached for a menu and dropped it in front of me. “Order somethin’.”

I took a drag and smiled at Louie. “What do I want?”

Louie raised his eyebrows and went back into the kitchen without saying a word. I had some more of the Armageddon and turned my attention back to the newspaper. I perused the front section of the newspaper and ran across quite a few articles related to the bombing, as well as the growing unrest between Mutants and Norms. One of the articles even compared it to the events leading up to the American Civil War. That seemed a little much to me, but it made good for copy.

By the time I finished the initial section of the paper, I decided I’d had enough of political rhetoric and turned to the sports section. I’d just completed my analysis of the box scores when Louie reemerged from the kitchen and laid a large, heaping platter and a set of silverware in front of me.

The platter was just big enough to hold a massive omelette, a pile of fried potatoes, and three slices of wheat toast. Louie ducked back into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a large glass of orange juice.

“You gotta drink this juice, Murph. You know, you’ve really got to keep up on yer vitamin C on account of all the smokin’ you do.”

I raised the glass and took a sip. Mmm. Fresh-squeezed and icy cold. “Pretty good-tasting medicine, Louie.”

I grabbed the fork and cut out a big slice of the omelette. Anywhere but the Brew & Stew, I’d do an autopsy on a mystery omelette before diving into it, but if I couldn’t trust Louie, who could I trust?

My trust was well-placed. It was a chili verde filling, with large chunks of chicken.

There was just enough bite from the chilies, but not so much that it obscured the sweeter tastes of onion and tomato. As I chewed leisurely, savouring the flavours, I reached for a thick slice of wheat toast and spread a generous layer of strawberry jam over the top of it. When I finished, I dug my fork into the fried potatoes. As I took a bite, I detected a hint of garlic. The potatoes were unbelievably good, sauteed in butter with chunks of onion and, if I wasn’t mistaken, tiny bits of real crumbled bacon.

As usual, Louie stuck around to watch me eat. Cooking was his calling in life, and seeing people enjoy his work was his greatest reward. He sipped his coffee expectantly.

“Good?”

My mouth was full. I nod vigorously, then washed it down with a long sip of

Armageddon.

“You are a true artist. The Picasso of potatoes. The O’Keeffe of omelettes.”

I took a hearty bite of toast as Louie refilled my mug and topped off his own. He set the pot down and then had another sip.

“Ya look like a new man. What’s the story? You in love or somethin’?”

I shook my head. “God, no.” I took another drink of orange juice. “I’m working on a case, and it’s starting to get interesting.”

I filled Louie in on most of what happened up to that point. Louie had been disgusted when I told him about the dog and the finger, and appropriately saddened at the likelihood of the Colonel’s death, but then he’d never met the Colonel. The big mutant had enjoyed my description of Melahn and had perked right up when I’d illustrated how I’d broken the Colonel’s code.

“So, you got some kinda secret meeting tonight. Now I see what’s got ya pepped up.”

I nodded, my mouth full of chili verde and spicy potatoes. Louie leaned onto the counter. “You still got that blue card with the numbers on it?”

I wiped my hands on a napkin and pulled the card out of my overcoat pocket. Louie took it from me and examined it closely as he drank his coffee. He stared at the code for a good five minutes as I finished most of of the omelette and all of the potatoes. When I’d pushed the plate away, he handed the card back to me. “You’d think we could figure that thing out.”

Louie sounded a little frustrated. It was bothering me too, since I’d begun to feel strongly that it had something to do with the case. I looked at the card again, thinking it might be easier to figure out now. It wasn’t. There was nothing resembling a date, and BXK didn’t seem to be the initials of a publication, though the A2 could refer to a newspaper section.

For now, it didn’t matter. I was full of good food, enjoying in after-meal smoke, and all was right with the world. I pocketed the index card and had another hit off the Armageddon. Louie topped off my mug. “Anything else I can get ya, Murph?”

I shook my head. “You’ve made me very happy, Louie. The only thing I’d want right now is enough money to pay off my tab.”

Louie waved a hand at me and walked off, coffee pot in hand, to check the well-being of the other customers. I switched my half-burned cigarette to the other hand and went back to the newspaper. I read through the comics, then started where I’d left off on the front end of the paper.

I skipped most of the articles until I found one about the Moon Child. I remembered the name from watching television in the hospital in Brownsville. Apparently, the Moon Child was more like a satellite station than a spacecraft. The author of the article said that details were kept secret, but estimated that it would have cost hundreds of millions, maybe billions to construct. The author speculated on where that kind of money came from. The official statement from the Crusade for Genetic Purity said that the Moon Child had been funded by private contributions. Maybe I was in the wrong line of work.

Organised religion had always been where the real money was.

I flipped through pages until I caught sight of a familiar face in a wire photograph. It was Lowell Percival, President of Lowell Percival Enterprises. With all the excitement, I’d forgotten about wanting to see him. Alaynah had said that Percival would be out of the office for a few days and hadn’t made an appointment for me. I’d have to call her later. I had hoped that he could shed a little light on things. At the very least, he might know what all the fuss was regarding the statuette.

Before I did anything, though, I still had one mug of Armageddon to go before reaching full-throttle. On cue, Louie swung by and refilled me. I read the article that featured a photo of Percival. It mentioned that he was now the richest man in the world, overtaking the Sultan of Brunei through shrewd business dealings and creating a monopoly in off-planet mining operations. The article mentioned his various philanthropic gestures and detailed his unrivalled collection of art, first-edition literature, and historical documents.

When I finished the Percival story, I went through the remainder of the newspaper, finding nothing particularly worth reading. I reached the back end and the personal ads.

Maybe there was another message to find. I glanced around and turn to see the Men Seeking Men section. Scanning quickly, I ran my finger down the columns of anonymous messages. There didn’t seem to be any entries like the one I’d found yesterday.

“Oh, my God.”

My head snapped up, and I whipped my head round to see Rook leaning over my shoulder. He walked off and sat down, two bar stools to my right, shaking his head. I closed the newspaper. “It’s not what you think.”

Rook gave me the eye. “Really?”

“Yeah. And even if it were, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

Rook leaned forward and peered at me over his glasses. “Murphy, I couldn’t care less about whatever lifestyle you choose to practice. But stooping to the use of personal advertising, why it’s despicable.”

If I’d really cared what Rook thought, maybe I would’ve taken the time to explain the situation, but I didn’t feel like letting the dried-up little bastard ruin my sunny mood. I folded the newspaper under my arm and stood up. Rook looked up at me. “Found a hot one, did we? Better run back to the office and make a call. True love is so hard to find these days.”

Louie stepped back behind the bar. “You hassling Murph again, Rook?”

Rook gestured toward me. “Lord, No. I’m sharing in his good fortune. It seems he’s just a phone call away from meeting Mr Right.”

Louie gave me a confused look. I just shook my head. “It’s a long story, Louie. I’ll tell you about it later. Thanks for breakfast.”

I walked to the door and stepped outside. With the nicer weather, the neighbourhood was busier than it had been for days. I walked back to my office, waved to Chelsee, and climbed the fire escape. At the top, I sat down and unfolded the newspaper, then turned to the personals and went through them.

There were a number of hideously intriguing entries, but none related to the matter at hand. I turned to the entertainment section and lit a cigarette. It was nice to be outside in the warm weather. I read several articles then came across the movie listing. The Bijou was showing a double feature of The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. It didn’t get any better than that, and I had most of a day to kill before my appointment at the Land Mine.

I checked my watch; I could see the twin bill and still have time to swing by LPE before five. If Percival wasn’t there, I’d make an appointment with Alaynah. I walked to my speeder and waved at Chelsee as I climbed inside. Then I lifted off and headed downtown.

There weren’t many theatres still in business, and most of them were porno dives. The decline in popularity was due to a lot of factors. Going out at night had gotten to be a dangerous proposition, and pay-per-view allowed people to order new releases and watch them without having to leave the safety of their homes. Interactive movies were more popular with younger viewers than plain old motion pictures. And Hollywood had been taken over by businessmen who wouldn’t know a good script from a takeout menu. Theatres had been forced to raise their ticket prices to compensate for smaller audiences, and that just worsened the situation.

As far as I was concerned, technology couldn’t touch the old-fashioned movie-going experience. I spent most of the afternoon sprawled in a rickety theatre seat, wondering why no one made great movies any more. True film noir had disappeared about the same time as the American Dream, and the world was an emptier place without it. Oh sure, film-makers had tried to recapture the look, but there was always something missing.

Bogart, maybe. He was the man.

As I sat in the dark, nearly empty movie house, watching the two best detective flicks ever made, I felt a sense of destiny that had been missing from my life for a long time. I remembered why I’d gone into the PI business. Most everyone I’d grown up and gone to school with had gone into some computer-related field. I’d heard somewhere that 70 per cent of the US workforce was now in the PC or online business. What had started out as an intriguing convenience had become Big Brother. Now everyone’s existence was reduced to zeros and ones, documented and stored on the internet. I watched Bogart light a cigarette and longed for simpler times.

Like movie theatres, old-fashioned gumshoes were a vanishing breed. The computer boom had created a new type of P I: the Web detective. They did a lot of the same things I did, only they did it from a comfortable chair in front of a monitor. But they couldn’t do everything. Knowing how to operate a PC didn’t help when it came to squeezing information out of a reluctant witness. And sometimes the only way to track down a lead was by pounding the pavement or doing an all-night stakeout. It made me happy to think that not everything had changed from 100 years ago.

It was 25 minutes to five when I stepped out of the theatre and waited for my eyes to adjust. I was feeling mentally and spiritually fortified. Louie’s hearty breakfast was still tiding me over nicely, so I’d been able to skip the popcorn. Of course, I was now down to a single $10 bill in my wallet, so I couldn’t have bought popcorn anyway.

I made the quick flight to the Lowell Perceval Enterprises building and managed to catch Alaynah just to she was about to clock out. Our conversation was pleasant, but the lusty magic, at least on my part, had vanished. Alaynah asked if I wanted to get a drink, but I refused stating, honesty that I had a previous engagement. She attempted to play a one-sided game of coquette, but gave up after seeing that I wasn’t interested. With a hint of regret, she said that Percival would be in the office the next day and penciled me in for a 3 o’clock appointment.

As I stepped into my office, the vid-phone beeped. I walked to the desk and answered the call. Mac Malden’s sleepy bulldog face materialized on-screen. He was sipping from a coffee cup, a clear violation of vid-phone courtesy.

“What’s going on, Mac? Got some news?”

He fixed his lethargic gaze on me. “Why else would I call you?”

“So, what did your boys find?”

The cop shook his head. “Nothing. No prints, not one identifiable item. Whoever was there was good at covering their tracks.”

Even with Malden’s gang of monkeys, I hadn’t expected them to find nothing. “Doesn’t that seem a little strange? I mean, not a single fingerprint?”

Mac took a drag of a Merit and shrugged. “Yeah. It’s a little unusual. But there it is.”

Mac set his smoke down and started working his temple with both hands. He looked as though he could use a pick-me-up.

“Looks like you could use a Diet Donut.”

Mac looked up wearily. “That’s not gonna help. Interpol’s sniffing around, and they’re coming in to talk to me in a few minutes. Bunch of bastards.”

Wow. Interpol. This was big news.

“So, Interpol’s looking into the Colonel’s murder?”

Mac gave me a look that was as nervous as it was exhausted. “A couple of their agents have been asking questions, go through the police report. They have been raking us over the coals.” Mac picked up his cigarette and took a drag. “Let me know if you find out anything about that duchess. I’ve got to get ready for this meeting.”

The screen went blank.

So, Interpol was getting involved. That was big news. I’d never had anything to do with the International Criminal Police Organization. Interpol had come into existence more than 100 years before, in the 1920s, and had steadily grown in power. In the beginning, it was a records clearing house, so that the police of one country could communicate information with another. Then, in the nineties, it rode the wave of the World Wide Web and became the international enforcer of Internet law. Now that almost everything was run through online networks, Interpol statutes were considered the final word in almost every modernized country. Interpol also had priority in dealing with old-fashioned criminals who crossed borders. Occasionally, they’d allow local authorities to handle matters, but only if it suited them. Interpol had gotten so powerful, all we could do at this point was hope they were capable of policing themselves.

The fact that they were looking into the Colonel’s murder was more disturbing than reassuring. It meant that the case was even bigger than I thought. If I felt under-informed. Hopefully, I’d be able to get some details in a few hours.

I put on a pot of coffee. Getting up at the break of day-8:30-had thrown off my internal clock, and I didn’t want to show up at The Land Mine yawning. I stood by the window and watched the sun go down, wondering what I was about to get myself into.