The Militiaman, page 7
part #1 of Totality Series
“I’ll be fine, Linda,” he said, knowing it was an empty promise. “It’s a new colony. There are going to be some problems, but probably nothing worse than I deal with here in Erzan all the time.”
“I’m just wondering why they picked you.”
“Schultz had to pick somebody and he didn’t want to send someone he actually liked.”
She frowned. “You always make it sound like he hates you.”
“He does hate me. He’s had a problem with me ever since I came to the investigative division. He doesn’t like my style. I do good work and that pisses him off because it means he can’t shove me off to one of the dead-end departments. Sending me to Trepsis is the next best thing, and on the surface, it looks like a promotion. It’s just his way of getting rid of me.”
Linda straightened her back. “Well, fuck him, then. You’re a great militiaman. I see how much you care about your job, and doing the right thing, even when others don’t. You’ll go to Trepsis and you’ll clean that place up. Whatever problems they have, you’ll fix.”
William nodded. “That’s the plan. Actually doing it will be the hard part.”
“I’m sure you’ll do great. I’m just going to miss having you around here.”
“Like I told you the other day, we can send letters and they do video mail, so you can even see my ugly face from time to time.”
“Mining for compliments?” she teased. “You know I like looking at your face.”
“Maybe I’ll have a bust made so you can look at it any time you want.”
“Would you? That’d be great,” she laughed.
They talked late into the night, and it reminded William of those days past when he was happier. They shared old memories, mostly from their early relationship when William was awkwardly trying to figure out what Linda was interested in, and then making bumbling attempts to endear himself to her. Lucky for him, she had found it all irresistibly amusing. They carefully avoided talking about the darker parts: the last couple of years of their marriage, the divorce, the ensuing weirdness that had only begun to fade away in the last year or so.
At some point, they were both yawning more than talking so they went to bed, and this time when Linda curled up behind him and slipped an arm around his waist, William was too tired to bother shrugging her off. He drifted off without complaint, and awakened in the morning beside her for what he expected to be the last time. She waved at him groggily, and he went out the door to face another day of pushing paper and making calls.
While on the phone with the mother of an adolescent boy who’d disappeared two years previously, William’s pen ran out of ink in mid-sentence so he pulled open one of his desk drawers looking for a replacement. In the drawer sat a case file he’d nearly forgotten about, with a picture of a dead woman’s face clipped to the outside. Her skin was a sickly gray, eyes closed, the only real color in the photo belonging to her hair, which had streaks of varying colors: red, green, blue, orange, yellow, violet. That made her easy to identify; anyone who’d ever been to the Goldhand knew her as “Rainbow,” but her real name was Abigail Ross, 15, with no criminal history beyond some petty theft and vandalism she’d done while running with Granite Street, and that stopped once she started working at the Goldhand.
“Hello? Are you still there?” a voice crackled over the phone.
William realized a bit sheepishly that he had no idea what the woman had been saying to him. “Sorry about that, ma’am, I was just taking notes,” he lied, still fumbling around in the drawer for a pen, which he didn’t find until he opened the next drawer down.
Quickly finishing up the conversation, he took down the names of some of her son’s friends even though she assured him, “You people already talked to all of them, they’re not going to tell you anything new.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her that no one had kept the names in her son’s file; instead, he thanked her for her time and hung up.
Immediately, he withdrew Rainbow’s file from the top drawer and opened it, finding his surveillance notes on Nesto Marks right on top. Most of the notes consisted of the man’s comings and goings between work and home, which William and Steve had meticulously monitored for weeks. The anger that had bubbled up when Schultz dressed him down over it returned in force, and William nearly ripped the folder’s edge he was clutching.
Maybe I won’t solve any of the others, but I’ll get this one. I have to. He wasn’t sure how, but he still had a few weeks.
Over those weeks, his apartment filled up with boxes and bags, then gradually emptied. He was allotted some cargo weight for his journey to Trepsis, though he could hardly take anything. Interstellar freight was by no means cheap, and the Militiamen Provincial Authority was always on a tight budget. In the end, he settled on three boxes to take with him: one with clothes, one full of books, and one with the computer equipment required to operate and maintain Brenda. Trepsis’ communications infrastructure wasn’t well-developed according to the information packet, but he figured Brenda would be able to function at some minimal level for his needs and he had to admit, he wanted the familiar intonation of her voice to be waiting for him when he returned home at the end of an unfamiliar day. Brenda’s box sat empty, waiting for William to fill it on moving day, or at least the night before.
Likewise, he kept enough clothes out to get through each week, planning to stuff them into the cargo box at the last moment, and everything else he designated for garbage or charity. His apartment on Trepsis was supposedly fully furnished, a perk provided by the generosity of Nytrolus. What he wasn’t taking with him or giving away he bagged up and hauled down to the building’s chute, which connected to the complex’s incinerator, imagining the plume of smoke billowing from its stacks as his old possessions burned into ashes, erasing parts of his former life. Too bad I can’t erase all the parts I’d like to.
Linda left him a message one afternoon, which he listened to when he got home. “Hey, Will. I entered the lottery for the next ship to Trepsis. I know that’s silly. It’s not like they’ll pick me, right? But I thought it could be fun, just to have the possibility. I had a good time the other night. I’m still sorry about that last song, but I hope you aren’t too mad about it. You didn’t say much when you left the next morning and I was too sleepy. Just let me know how you’re doing, okay? My boss is throwing all these extra shifts at me and I could use the money after those slow spots, so I might not get to come see you again before you go, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you. I know for a fact you can send letters to and from Trepsis, so I don’t want any excuses.” She laughed at that part, which got a hint of a smile from William. “Okay, so I’ll talk to you later.”
Zotz tried to reach him, too. “Have you given much thought to what we discussed, what I showed you? You are a unique man, not many are suited for this task. Earth is calling for you, William; it reaches out to you from across space and time and demands that you answer it. Will you?”
William rolled his eyes. Crazy old man. He didn’t think much further about it, nor did he return Zotz’s call, hoping that the Sage wouldn’t just show up at his place of employment again.
One evening after work, a week before his departure, William decided to make a detour over to the Goldhand. Stopping at a public restroom along the way, he changed out of his usual gray outfit, putting on dark slacks and a button-down shirt and slicking back his hair, trying to fit in with the club’s more upscale clientele; drab militiaman gray simply wouldn’t do for the Goldhand. He hopped a tram to the club, paid his fifty credits for the cover at the door, and allowed the bouncer to frisk him before admitting him inside. Luckily, the man didn’t recognize him as a militiaman.
He took a seat at the end of the one of the runways, where the chairs surrounded a circular platform with a metal pole sprouting out of the center, reaching for the ceiling. William had seen some of the girls here climb it all the way to the top before, but that was years ago. A few lawsuits over broken legs and the management didn’t let them go more than a couple meters up anymore. He leaned back in his chair with his hands on the outsides of his thighs, trying to look as though he did this every night.
A dark-haired woman weaved her way down the runway toward him, her eyes boring into him as if to hypnotize him into throwing money at her. She wrapped herself around the pole with a flexibility William would not have thought humanly possible, rotating her body so skillfully she almost became a blur, then suddenly slowing to a stop, with one leg extended far into the air. Her eyes fixed on him again, her lips parting just enough for him to see her sparkling, straight teeth. He didn’t have to pretend to look intrigued. She dropped down to her belly in one fluid movement and slid toward him, arching her back and coming so close William was about to push the chair backwards.
“What are you into, Mister?” she breathed.
“Whatever you’ve got,” he said coyly, turning his face slightly away from her but not breaking eye contact.
“What I’ve got depends on what you’ve got,” she replied seductively, her gaze sliding meaningfully down to his lap, though he knew she meant something farther to the right.
“Don’t you worry about that,” he said.
In fact, he’d pulled out a sizable chunk of his retirement savings for this bit of unofficial business; he had a few thousand credits to spread around to anyone necessary to get the information he was after.
She slid off the platform, landed on her feet, and led him by the collar to one of the back rooms. That was easy, William thought. Her moves made it safe to assume she wasn’t new, so he didn’t think she was desperate to make an impression; something else about him must have caught her attention. Maybe the bouncer scanned my wallet when he frisked me, then he’d know exactly how much I’m carrying. Probably told the girls and they fought over which one got to take me for a ride. It wouldn’t surprise me.
She led him into a small room occupied by a wooden chair with a flowery cushion upon it. Big, spherical lights dotted the top of the walls right below ceiling level, giving the room plenty of light, though he noted a dimmer control next the door. Barely big enough to move around in, the most notable feature of the small space was a mirror that extended from floor to ceiling. As she pushed him down into the chair and climbed onto his lap, he pointed at the mirror. “Can anyone see us through that?”
“Would you like it if they could?” she teased, gripping his shoulders. “You’re tense, honey. How about I take this off?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m actually here for another girl. Rainbow. You know her?”
Whatever simulated joy she’d put on for him vanished. “She’s dead.”
He nodded and spoke softly in her ear. “I know. I’m trying to get the guy who did it.”
She slapped him across the face and jumped off his lap, heading for the door. “Fuck you. I don’t deal with cops.”
He reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. “Wait! Look, I’m not here as a militiaman, I’m here as a person who gives a shit. I’m leaving Erzan soon, probably for good, and all I want is to take care of this.” He looked her in the eyes. “You get my meaning?”
She bit her lip, giving a very slow nod. William wished he knew for sure whether anyone was on the other side of that mirror.
“Is this room private?” he asked.
The answer came in the form of a very large man suddenly opening the door and reaching for him with hands that seemed strong enough to enclose and crush his skull without much effort. The woman stepped in his way. “Hold on!” she ordered.
The bouncer took a step back. “This guy giving you any trouble, Bella?”
“No, he just wants an upgrade,” she replied. “Is the Ruby Room open?”
“I’ll have to check. Wait here.” He left the room, and Bella closed the door behind him, turning to face William.
“If you tell anyone what I tell you, I’ll deny it. It never happened,” she swore, her face within an inch of his. “Good girls don’t talk, and definitely not to Mil-types.”
“You’ve got it,” he promised.
The bouncer returned a few minutes later and indicated with one hand that they were good to go. Bella took William by the hand and led him around a couple of corners to the Ruby Room, so named for the red sequins lining much of the room: the door frame, and the intersections of wall, ceiling, and floor. The room itself was round, with a circular bed in the center, and spherical pillows. Everything was some shade of red, pink, or crimson. A raised stage ran around the perimeter of the room, with a couple of vertical bars for the sorts of performances Bella apparently excelled at. She locked the door behind them, and William sat down on the edge of the bed expectantly. Pushing him onto his back, she straddled him.
“I thought we were going to talk,” he objected.
She swirled her hips around and let out a moan, then whispered: “The door’s not that thick. If we don’t sound like we’re having a good time, anyone outside might get suspicious.”
Of course. I should have thought of that, he realized. “So, what can you tell me?”
She emitted a vocal gasp as if he’d done something unexpectedly arousing, though he hadn’t put a hand on her. “This well-dressed guy liked to see Rainbow a lot. Told her he was some big shot working for a mining company. Said he would get her all the gold and silver and platinum jewelry she could want. Promised to shower her with it and get her away from here.”
William reached for his pocket. She looked at him quizzically. “Just trying to get to my wallet.”
“Oh.” She lifted her leg but kept herself balanced on his lap, somehow. He retrieved his wallet, opened it up, and pulled out a photo of Nesto Marks.
“Is it this guy?” he asked, turning it around and raising it up toward her face.
She nodded. “That’s him.”
“What else did he do here? You ever see him get violent with Rainbow or anyone else?”
A long moan before she gave up the next piece of information. “He liked grabbing girls around the throat. It really got him off. He’s some kind of weirdo. He liked Rainbow. He was really into her hair, I think, you don’t see too many girls with hair like that. If anyone else tried it, they’d look silly, but she made it work.”
William didn’t want her little side dishes, he wanted the main course. “Right. So, he liked choking her?”
“Yeah,” she nodded slowly. “I think he got carried away sometimes.”
“What about the night she died? Did he get carried away then?”
She put on a breathy gasp between each sentence, doing her best to sell it. “I wasn’t here that time, but the other girls said he was there. He asked her to do something. Something gross, but she said no and he didn’t like that. Apparently he hit her. Scott told them all to get back to work, so they did and no one thought much about it, they just thought he finished and left. They found her later.”
“Sounds pretty open-and-shut to me. Why didn’t any of you report this to us before?”
“Scott would kill us if he found out. ‘Never talk to Militiamen,’ he says.” She leaned down and brushed her lips across his, keeping eye contact as she drew herself back again. “That’s why you’re going to pay me.”
“I’ll tell you what,” William said in a low voice, “I’ll pay you for what you told me, and you can even make some more money if you help me take care of him for good.”
Her eyes widened, and she forgot to keep up her performance for a moment. “I’m not killing anyone,” she stated, much louder than William thought wise.
“Shh!” he hissed. “Of course you aren’t killing anyone. You just need to get him here. Does he still come around?”
“Yeah. Once a week or so. He’s been seeing Michelle a lot lately. She’s got a chubby little face like Rainbow had. I think that’s his thing.”
“One of his things, anyway. Here’s what I want you to do...” William explained his plan to her.
The next time Marks came to the Goldhand, he would end up in one of the private VIP rooms with Bella. No matter what girl he requested, Bella would be the one who’d come to him. Given that Bella wasn’t his type, he was likely to get upset. Maybe physical. At that point, she would cry for help. William would rush in and attempt to arrest the man. If necessary, he would shoot Marks in her defense—and William intended for it to be very necessary. Some embarrassment might be brought down upon Minco, if only because such a thing saw the light of day instead of remaining in the shadows, and perhaps Marks would lose his job outright for tarnishing the company’s image. It would make the news whether Marks survived or not. His mug shot would be on every vid in Erzan. The man’s career would be over, or so William expected. He couldn’t be sure—Minco could always find a way to cover it up. But he had to try.
If it turned out that Marks was shot and killed for resisting arrest, some paperwork would follow and Schultz would be pissed, but Minco would be hard-pressed to defend Marks in public. William figured they’d not want their image tainted by word getting around that one of their VPs was killed for roughing up a working girl. Out of respect, Marks’ death would be reported as accidental or medical in nature, and the whole issue would go away. William considered it a plan with potential to succeed, but only if Marks showed up before he departed for Trepsis—something he couldn’t guarantee.
Here’s hoping Marks doesn’t make this any harder than it has to be. I’m not too keen on shooting an unarmed man, but I’ll do what I have to if Marks makes himself a threat, he vowed.
For a tidy sum—a sizable share of William’s savings, given he wouldn’t have much use for them on Trepsis—Bella agreed to his plan, considering that it could easily cost her job, if not her life. She didn’t have to come right out and say she was angry and upset about Rainbow, and William wasn’t sure how close the two had been—reasonably good friends, at a minimum, he figured. He got the impression that Scott’s Goldhand girls kept their thoughts and feelings to themselves, especially where customers were concerned, and even though William was just playing the role of a customer instead of actually being one, Bella wasn’t about to let her guard down any further.
