Dames for Hire Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s overly active imagination, and you can’t prove otherwise. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Pinky swear.

  Copyright © 2021 by S.C. Jensen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, email: [email protected].

  First e-book edition March 2021

  Cover design by Martin ׀ Cover Art Studio

  www.coverartstudio.com

  www.scjensen.com

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Glossary

  Author’s Note

  Sneak Peek: Tropical Punch

  Introduction

  Thank you for picking up a copy of HoloCity Case Files #1: Dames for Hire!

  This novella is my personal homage to the great noir pulp writer, Raymond Chandler. Here I’ve reimagined one of my favourites of his short stories, “Trouble is My Business” (1939), through the lens of my own hard-boiled detective, Bubbles Marlowe, in the cyberpunk setting of HoloCity.

  In this story, I’ve repurposed some of the slang popular in American pulp novels from the 1920s – 1940s. I have tried to make meanings clear with context; however, if you need clarification on any unfamiliar words, I have provided a glossary in the back with the original meanings and how they are used in HoloCity.

  If you’d like to read more about Bubbles’ adventures, please check out Tropical Punch, Book 1 in the new cyber noir detective series, Bubbles in Space.

  Enjoy!

  Chapter One

  I hid in the narrow gutter between two skyscrapers of mirrored black glass, crouched behind a dumpster that had more security features than my apartment. The tops of the towers disappeared into the yellow-grey mist of early morning smog, and the sky pissed down on me. The thin light hadn’t reached the alley yet—maybe it never did. Not even the rats moved in the oppressive stillness. I held my breath and wished I hadn’t come.

  A door cracked open and a dark hand reached out into the rain, beckoning me inside. When I didn’t move, Rae Adesina poked her blue-haired head out into the alley and blinked at me through thick, black-framed glasses. Rain dripped onto her oblong afro, and she pulled her lab coat up over her head and scowled at me.

  “What’s the smoke, Bubbles?” She gestured furiously, her wide, painted lips pressed into a thin line, but I shook my head.

  “I can’t do it.” The metal fist of my left arm clenched as I pulled myself out from behind the dumpster.

  Rae made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “You came all the way here to stand in the rain and tell me that?”

  Strands of wet, pink hair fell into my eyes. I wiped them away with my flesh hand. “You didn’t tell me it was an inside job.”

  “Come on, Bubbles.” She kicked the door open all the way and stood there with her hands on her hips. “It’s me.”

  “You saved my life, Rae. I owe you one, but—”

  “You owe me more than one, girl,” she said. “I put my job on the line to save your candy pink ass, and I’m calling it in now.”

  “This is Libra, Rae. I am not poking this bear with a ten-foot pole.”

  “You don’t even know what I need you to do yet.”

  “I don’t need to know. I could walk into that building, see the wrong thing, and be dead before tomorrow morning. I know you work for them—and frankly, that makes you a little scary too—but no one in their right mind ... Look. I barely survived the last time I got involved with something like this.”

  “You did survive. Because I saved you.”

  “Please don’t ask me to do this.”

  “Fine. Give it to me.”

  “What?”

  “Come on. Give it. You don’t want to hold up your end, you can give it back.”

  “You want my arm?”

  “Well, I can’t take back your life, can I?” She snapped her fingers. “Besides, it’s my arm. I made it. Give it back.”

  The buildings shielded me from the worst of the downpour, but the spatter built up and streamed into my eyes and down my back. My pink faux-fur jacket looked like the discarded corpse of some poor lab animal. The dumpster next to me probably had a few just like it. “Rae. You’re killing me.”

  Rae’s big dark eyes softened a little. “When’s the last time you had a drink, Bubbles?”

  “Before,” I said. I dry-swallowed against the thirst that thickened my throat. Even her asking made my heart beat faster. “Before the accident.”

  “Don’t call it that,” Rae said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “You know it wasn’t an accident.”

  The upgrade clenched and unclenched against my thigh. It didn’t always do what I wanted it to. The amputation was fresh. The nerves hadn’t healed all the way. Rae had taught me how to use it, but I still wasn’t used to it.

  “I’m sorry, Rae.” Hot tears stung my eyes and I was grateful for the rain and the dark. I didn’t want her to see me like this. Weak and scared and dying for a drink. The cold and the wet caught up to me suddenly. I wrapped my arms around my body to stop the shaking. It didn’t help. “I just ... I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “I get it. You’re terrified. You should be,” Rae said. “But not of me. This. I’m trying to help you.”

  “I’m retired.” I laughed bitterly and stared into the depths of an oily black puddle. “Chief Swain didn’t kill me, but he ended me just the same. I can’t get involved with the HCPD. I promised.”

  “That’s exactly why Flint wants to see you.”

  My gaze snapped back to Rae’s face. “Flint? As in Wallace Flint, your boss?”

  “That’s the one.” Behind the black-rimmed glasses, her dark eyes watched me carefully.

  “You hate that guy.”

  “How I feel about him has nothing to do with it.” Rae sighed impatiently. “The fact is, he has a personal problem, and I suggested he talk to you about it. You can help him. He can help you. You helping him, helps me. Get it?”

  “It’s not Swain’s turf?”

  “No. And Flint wants to keep it that way. He’s being headhunted by one of the Trade Zone’s private R&D teams, and he can’t afford any blemishes on his record. He only talked to me because—”

  “Because you get his job when he leaves,” I said. “You’ll protect him.”

  Rae tossed her hands into the air and tipped her head to the thick stew of smog above us. “She sees the light!”

  I kicked the surface of the puddle and watch the iridescent ripples settle. I still didn’t want to do it. I’d only been retired from the HCPD for a couple weeks. The fear and the pain were still fresh, carved into bas relief by the hard edge of sobriety. Swain had already taken my arm and my job. He’d tried to take my life. I wasn’t a red smear on the pavement like he’d intended, but I might as well have been. Without the job, I was nothing. Just a Grit District skid with an upgrade I couldn’t afford and a habit that might kill me to break.

  So what did I have to lose?

  I groaned and heaved myself reluctantly up the steps toward the yawning black hole into the glittering obsidian tower. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “No it isn’t.” Rae grinned at me with huge white teeth. “Not even
close. Remember that time you drank thirteen ruby gimlets, tried to make out with a HoloPop ad for Big Al’s Waste Disposal, and then puked in my best Cosmo Régale handbag?”

  “No.”

  She turned and walked into the dark corridor beyond the door. “You still owe a new bag.”

  “Don’t remind me.” The door slammed shut behind me. The sound of grinding electronic mechanisms echoed in the darkness as the door ensured I would never be able to leave of my own volition. “What exactly is this job?”

  “Put these on.” Rae shoved a pair of glasses on my face and checked the fitting. They sat snug over my cheeks and forehead, like a diving mask. Once they were in place, she pushed a button on the side and bright green lines lit up along the floor. “You’ll be able to see enough to walk with these, but not enough to get into trouble with security.”

  “When do I get to take them off?”

  “When we’re in Flint’s office.”

  Through the blackened lenses, Rae appeared to have a bright green beacon on her back, which I followed, dutifully staying between the green lines. I floated in a bubble of silence manufactured by the blinders so that I didn’t accidentally overhear anything Libra wanted kept quiet. Which was everything.

  After some twisting and turning, Rae closed a door behind me, clicked off the blinders and pulled them from my face. I blinked against the glaring whiteness of the room and squinted at the shadow of a man in front of me.

  Wallace Flint perched on the edge of a huge silver desk with his bony shoulders hunched beneath a crisp white lab coat. He glared at me with beady black eyes over his hooked nose and bobbed his bald head like a raven sidling up to a torn trash bag to see what kind of goodies he might find inside. He said, “This is the best you can do?”

  “Bubbles Marlowe used to be a detective with the HoloCity Police Department.” Rae’s voice had an edge when she spoke to him. He wouldn’t want to shave with it.

  “I hear you’ve got a problem you want to keep hushed up,” I said.

  Flint sneered. “These skids have no tact. Are you sure she’s up to it? I require the utmost discretion.”

  Something hardened in the pit of my stomach. To a man like Flint, I wasn’t even the trash bag. I was the trash.

  “She’s good, Flint.” Rae picked up a file from Flint’s desk and flipped through a sheaf of transparencies inside. “I wouldn’t have brought her here if she wasn’t.”

  The glossy white walls seemed to emit an eye-burning light of their own. Transparent charts and holo projections danced behind Flint’s head, data he either didn’t care if I saw or didn’t think I could decipher. Without context it was a meaningless visual babble of numbers and letters and colours. Maybe he turned it on just make himself look clever.

  “If you want something from me,” I said through gritted teeth, “you talk to me.”

  His thin lips stiffened as the sneer became a grimace. His beady eyes jumped to Rae. “You’re sure about this?”

  She nodded and set the file down with one of the transparencies sitting on top. Flint glanced at it. He bobbed his head and licked his lips with a tongue like sandpaper. He picked up the transparency and lifted it up to the white background of the wall to see it more clearly. He raised an eyebrow and put the transparency back in the file. Then he folded his hands before him and cleared his throat.

  He said, “I need you to kill a girl.”

  Chapter Two

  I blinked at him. Then I turned to Rae and I blinked at her. Neither of them said anything. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “This isn’t what we talked about, Wally.” Rae moved herself slightly between me and the bird man, as if worried one of us might fly at the other.

  “It’s the only way,” Flint said. “I’ve been thinking about it. It’s the only way to be sure she doesn’t get it.”

  “Get what?” I ran a hand through my wet hair and pushed my bangs out of my face so I could glare at him properly. “What is this about?”

  “My daughter,” Flint said.

  “You want me to kill your daughter?”

  “Well, my adopted daughter,” Flint said. “But no, not her. Her girlfriend.”

  I laughed but there was no joy in it. “What did the twist do to you?”

  “Nothing yet.” Flint curled his lip. “That’s how I want to keep it.”

  “Flint’s daughter, Angelica Bell, has gotten herself into trouble with a gambling man.” Rae passed me a sheet from the file with some outrageous numbers on it. “Owes a fat stack of holocred and won’t pay up.”

  “Can’t pay up,” Flint snapped. “She doesn’t have any money until she turns twenty-one, and I’m not shelling out.”

  “Now there’s a father figure,” I said. “What’s it got to do with the twist?”

  Rae looked sideways at me. “Angelica’s girlfriend is a shill for Mick Vector.”

  I turned around and put my hand on the door. Vector was the kind of trouble I didn’t need. Dodging cops was bad enough without also having to dodge gambling king pins and their ladies of easy virtue. Then I remembered that if I went out there without the blinders, I’d probably be shot dead where I stood. Besides that, I needed the money, and Rae promised Flint was good for a 5K spot. I crossed my arms and faced Flint.

  “I’m not killing anyone.”

  “Angelica turns twenty-one in three weeks,” Flint said. “At which point the inheritance from her mother will be hers, and if that red-headed vetch still has her hooks in my daughter—”

  “Adopted daughter,” I reminded him.

  “What difference does it make?” He slammed the palm of his hand on the smooth, shiny surface of the desk.

  “You tell me,” I said. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Angelica wants to marry this girl. I won’t have it.”

  “And you think this twist of Angelica’s is only interested in settling this debt?”

  “She’s a shill,” Flint said. “Running cons for Vector is her job.”

  “Mick Vector is a pretty big wig in underground gambling circuits.” I tossed the paper with Angelica’s numbers back on Flint’s desk. It fluttered over the surface and landed on the floor. Flint glowered at me. I said, “He’s not the kind of man you skimp on if you like to keep your fingers. But I don’t know him for a con man.”

  A fat vein throbbed over Flint’s eyebrow. His lips moved and I had to strain to hear the words. He said, “Are you suggesting this is a coincidence?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’ll play along. So Vector’s placed his shill in Angelica’s sights, Angelica falls in love, and when she marries this girl, Vector is going to get what he’s owed and then some. Wouldn’t it be easier just to pay him off?”

  “It’s a hundred thousand creds!”

  I cracked my knuckles against the metal palm of my upgrade. Flint’s black-pebble eyes jumped to the prosthetic, and he stiffened. I took a step forward. “It’s a girl’s life.”

  He flinched but held his ground. “I want her out of Angelica’s life for good.”

  “How much is she set to inherit?”

  The bird man hunched a little deeper and swallowed. He looked from Rae to me and back to Rae again, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny neck. He narrowed his eyes at her. She nodded. He said, “Eight million.”

  I tried not to faint. “Okay. So peanuts.”

  “Angelica thinks she’s in love.” Flint pushed himself off the desk and lurched his way around the other side with the grace of a lame pigeon. “She won’t listen to reason.”

  “This is what you call reason?”

  He snapped his eyes to Rae and shouted, “You told me she would help.”

  “She’s a detective.” Rae clenched her jaw. “Not a murderer.”

  “A retired detective,” I reminded them both, waving with the prosthetic arm that disqualified me from service with the HCPD. “And I can help you. But I’m not killing anyone.”

 
; “I need assurances.”

  “You need discretion,” I said. “You’re up for a big promotion, right? The last thing you want is a pretty young thing turning up dead with a finger pointed at you. If anything happens to this girl, you’ll be the first one the news feeders jump on. The Trade Zone babies hate that kind of attention. I’ll take care of it my own way or not at all.”

  Flint scowled and threw himself into a high-backed, imitation-leather chair that probably cost more than the real thing. “What’s it going to cost me?”

  “Five thousand cred,” I said. “Plus expenses.”

  His throat worked over his Adam’s apple again, and he drummed his fingers on the desk like he might want to take a hit out on me too. “Fine.”

  “Tell me about the girl.”

  Flint spun his chair around and stared at the filing cabinet behind the desk.

  Rae rolled her eyes. She said, “Scarlett Martinez. She’s a real class piece. One of Vector’s best. Beautiful and as far as I can tell, unbesmirchable. Sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Parents are dead, but she has a little brother in a private trade school in the Biz District. A real cush placement.”

  “Could be an angle,” I said. “How’d you dig that up?”

  “We got a tip.” Rae reached into the pocket of her lab coat and passed me a card with a name and address on it.

  “Bobby Mook,” I said. “I know him. One of Vector’s bookies.”

  “Nervous little guy,” Rae said. “But he’ll talk on Flint’s say so. Thinks he’s got a line on Vector we can use to toss the girl.”

  “If I smear her with the boss, Vector needs a new plan,” I said. “It might buy us some time, but Vector’s not going to forget a debt that easy. You sure you don’t just want to pay him off?”

  Flint’s chair spun around so fast I was afraid he’d give himself whiplash. “I don’t have a hundred thousand cred.”

  “Angelica has eight million coming her way in three weeks,” I said. “And you’re a pauper? Doesn’t rate with me. If I liked to bet, I’d say it won’t rate with Vector either.”

  “My wife, Angelica’s mother, died last year. She made sure Angelica would have everything she needed.”