The Langley Case: A Nathan Roeder Mystery

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Someone was trying to kill me

It took me a few minutes to get off the floor. To be honest, the only thing that really got me up at all was remembering the way the floor looked, and wondering how long it would take whatever was living there to eat my body if I stayed down too long.

Once I was on my feet, I took a good, solid look at Brett. The shotgun butt to the head had at least broken his jaw, probably cracked his skull too. He’d never be as pretty as he used to be. If he survived at all.

The Bicycle man would probably blame me for it, either way. That’s the way things work in the Sprawl.

When I finally got up, the cook looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “You’re not bad, fag,” he said. “You fight like a—” he paused, then shrugged. “Who am I kidding? You fight like a girl.” He turned and went back behind his counter.

“Thanks,” I said. I turned to Felicia and Max. “What were we talking about? You know, before the interruption?”

“I don’t know,” Max said. “But we shouldn’t try to remember here. You wanna maybe go somewhere else?”

“I’d love to go somewhere I could get a hot shower,” I said. “And a bed.”

“I know a great place,” Max said.

“No hookers.”

He looked mortified, then smiled. “Okay, then. I know another place.”

When I turned on the shower, I heard Max and Felicia arguing through the wall. I couldn’t make out all the words, but I got the gist of it. Max was offering to help Felicia with her little problem, gentleman that he was. She was refusing to fuck him, even if he was willing to pay. Which, of course, he was.

I shook my head and stepped into the spray of water. As the warmth flowed down me, sliding over the new bruises that were already forming, I tried to shut out the rest of the world and focus on myself.

That was one of the things they tried to teach me. Focusing on myself. You can’t read others if you can’t read yourself, they’d say. It was all a bunch of bunk. At least, it was to me. I could never do what they wanted.

It was unrealistic. You can’t expect a person to get to know the individual muscles in his hand, or to focus on the blood that flows through his veins. You can’t expect him to clear his mind and only pay attention to the barest of bodily functions. And what does that have to do with being a Reader, anyway?

I turned the water up hotter and let the heat wash away that thread of thinking. I had more important things to work out.

Felicia wasn’t an idiot. I didn’t have to be a genius to figure that out. She was too smart for the life I was sending her back to. I wished I’d thought of that sooner.

She’d escaped. She didn’t just leave. A hooker doesn’t just leave. There’s no retirement plan, no moving on to bigger and better things. It isn’t the kind of life you can just get out of. Especially not if she was working for The Albino. She was bred to be a hooker, and that was all she was supposed to be.

There are natborn whores. They’re generally cheaper, and they do have the option of quitting, provided they’re capable of other work. But Felicia was anything but natural. She was a prime genetic candidate. She should have had all the opportunities in the world. But she didn’t. She was stuck as a hooker.

Yet she escaped. I kept coming back to that, again and again. She got out of the club, away from The Albino, and had been keeping one step ahead of him and his entire organization for—how long? Did he say? No, he didn’t. Didn’t matter. She had been gone for a while at least. That place we picked her up at was lived in. Seriously lived in.

She was trying to improve herself, trying to get to Town. She had a plan. She’d escaped, she’d almost crawled her way out, and what was I going to do? Toss her right back where she started.

And once she was back, would it be just as easy for her to get out a second time? If I believed that for even a second, I’d have to start investing in bridges with those guys on the street. The Albino would probably keep her locked up for a while, until he thought of an appropriate punishment. Then he’d do it to her, and find some way to break her down until she never even thought of improving herself again.

An image flashed into my mind. All those people waiting outside the club. The ones that couldn’t get in. The legions of horny, angry men who would pay anything, and do anything, just to get inside. The punishments The Albino could inflict on Felicia were not pretty. And who would stop him? He was the law that side of the river. The Bicycle Man wouldn’t come riding to her rescue. Raymond wouldn’t do shit for her.

So what was I doing?

What kind of asshole does it make me to leave her there like that? What kind of monster would I be if I’d brought her back and dumped her on The Albino’s door, without so much as a word? How could I live with myself? How could I look myself in the mirror?

I wished there was some way to smoke in the shower. Waterproof cigarettes. Why the hell hasn’t anyone ever invented those?

I knew that I couldn’t just dump her and go. But what choice did I have? The Albino had the diary. I didn’t know where it was, and I didn’t know how to get it. All I knew was that he wouldn’t give it back to me until he had Felicia. And once he had her, and he gave me the diary, he’d also give me whatever information he had on those murders. That would get me at least a little bit further on my original case.

But it was all so much bigger than it used to be.

Someone was trying to kill me. Not just the friendly trying to kill me that I was used to from Raymond and The Bicycle Man, either. Serious trying to kill me, the kind that’ll end a marriage. The kind that isn’t polite. The kind that’ll get someone taken off the Christmas card list.

I didn’t know why they were trying to kill me. Not exactly. All I knew about it was that it meant I was close to something, something they didn’t want me to find. I was nearby to some secret that had been kept, probably for a really long time. Maybe as much as several hundred years. Maybe it was a conspiracy of some kind. I didn’t know at the time, and I had no idea how to find out. All I knew was that there was something there. Something that someone wanted to keep hidden desperately enough to try to kill me at least three times so far.

I don’t like it when people point guns at me. It makes me nervous. More importantly, it’s rude. And when someone points a gun from up on high, not even willing to show themselves, that just pisses me off. It’s one thing to try to kill me; I can forgive that. Hell, some days I can even understand it. But if you’re going to do it, you could at least have the common decency to do it yourself, face to face.

At that point, I had only one real play. I had to keep playing it straight, looking at the world around me, and hoping that things would fall into place. I couldn’t play my cards yet. I didn’t know what they were or who I was playing with. Until I knew at least one of those things, my options were limited.

Which brought me back to Felicia. She was important, somehow. The Bicycle Man wanted her. Hell, I wanted her. If I’d trusted the locks on the bathroom door, or the thickness of the walls, a bit more, I would have cleared my own mind thinking about her. I couldn’t get her out of my head. But it was more than just sex appeal.

I’m not much of a conscience kind of guy. It gets in the way. If I worried about everyone I’d ever hurt, I wouldn’t have been able to handle myself in the noodle restaurant the way I did. I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things my job requires me to do from time to time.

Still, something about the whole situation didn’t seem right. I couldn’t just leave her. I couldn’t let her walk out of my life that fast, that easily. And I sure as hell couldn’t put her through the kind of shit The Albino was going to pile on her.

So what? Take on The Albino? By myself?

There was no good option, and the shower was making me prune.

I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. Felicia and Max were sitting on opposite ends of the room. Max was ogling; Felicia was glaring. Both perked up when they saw me.

“So what’s the plan?” Max asked.

“What do you mean?” I decided to play dumb. “I was just taking a shower.”

Max rolled his eyes. Felicia stood up and put her hands on her tiny little hips. “Are you going to give me back to that bastard or not?”

“Which bastard?” I asked, sneaking a wink at Max.

“The Albino,” she said. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“I don’t have a choice,” I scratched my chin. “If I don’t bring you back, someone’s going to have me killed.”

She laughed. “Like that hasn’t happened twice since I met you! Nathan, people try to kill you all the time.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m wondering if I should change my cologne.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Maybe that’s why people keep trying to kill you, Nathan.” We both looked at Max with a glare. He held up his hands defensively. “What?” He said. “I hadn’t said anything for a while.”

I walked over to the bed. My clothes weren’t there. I remembered I’d sent them to have them cleaned. Leaving me with nothing to wear but the towel. How Douglas Adams of me. “Felicia, I’m not talking about people trying to kill me because of something I did a few years ago. I’m talking about someone having me killed. Succeeding.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because that diary your old boss has is worth a lot of money. A lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

“Enough that people wonder why the guy didn’t use it to just download.”

Max let out a whistle, like he knows how much that is. I don’t even know how much it is. I just know it involves enough zeroes to keep anyone warm on a cold night. “The point is, she’ll have me killed in a heartbeat if I don’t get that thing back to her.”

“Her?” Felicia seemed almost insulted.

I shook my head. “Client,” I said.

“I won’t let you bring me back there,” she said. She moved towards the door.

“Don’t try it, princess,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”

She looked back, her eyes full of hurt. “Nathan. How could you?”

“Like you know a damned thing about me,” I said. “Sit down on the bed.”

She sashayed over to the bed and plopped down without any pomp or circumstance. “I should make you kill me,” she said.

“That won’t get anyone’s rocks off,” I said. “At least, not anyone here.” I felt the spirit of Bogart flowing through me. I was on a roll. I should try being tough without clothes on more often. “Here’s the skinny, sister. I can’t just let you walk out of here. I need to give you to The Albino so that he’ll give me what I need and what I came out here for. But I can’t leave you there. Maybe I’m going soft, but it just doesn’t sit right with me. And I’m not willing to have any moral indigestion when the cards lay down on the table. Suede?”

Max put his head in his hands.

“So what do we do?”

“First, you put your teeth together and keep them that way. Then we figure out how I’m going to find you when I come back to Enticement in the morning.”

“Why in the morning?” Max asked.

“Less of a crowd. Club’s closed. More time to get done what needs getting done.”

“What needs getting done?”

“It’s a terrible world we live in, Max. A dangerous world. People getting shot at all the time, mischief and mayhem abounding. I don’t know if it’s safe to walk down the street, not even in broad daylight.”

“Nathan, I don’t think I want any part of this.”

“Biggest damned shame about all of it, Max, is the side panel of looting. How no matter what happens, no matter how lofty a goal is, things of monetary value always manage to wind up missing.”

“Still not interested.”

“The only thing I take solace in, to be perfectly honest with you, is that when all is said and done, and The Albino is blaming me –and only me—for the whole thing, I’ll be able to go back to Town, where I don’t have to worry about him.”

“I’m in.”