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“Then ask for some, man. Y’know I’m a good cop. Good to the law and to my friends.” Sinclair pulled a sealed plastic bag from the inside of his jacket and threw it into the pot. The tiny white beads and thick, viscous fluid inside the bag sloshed as it knocked over several piles of chips. “If you can win it, that is.”

  “Anytime, copper.” Toby lifted its eyebrows in a sort of smirk, as its mouth wasn’t capable of that expression — though it was quite adept at swallowing shot after shot.

  Reynolds spoke up. “You up to anything, Roche?” He was a bigger guy — not unfit, but he definitely enjoyed his chair at work. No receding hairline, though — not yet, anyway. “Any crazy stories from your Night Calls? You look a smidge worse for wear tonight.”

  I did my best to keep the feeling of dizziness at bay as I tried to think of something. Night Calls had been sparse recently, but they were always interesting.

  “Things are slow in my line of work … mostly. A couple weeks ago I was hunting down a guy who’d been running an Automatic prostitution ring for some hard cash. Hell, his excuse was ‘It’s the Depression; I’ll get my money however I want.’”

  “And how’s that special in any way? Come on, when we were partners in ’23, we busted at least a dozen a month,” Sinclair piped up. He always loved hearing about the shit that the bigwigs from the 5th put me through. “The call girls were more human than Automatic, though, back in those days …”

  “While I was running this op, I realized I had to get close to this guy without him noticing me in any way. I spent weeks tailing all his escorts and call girls, mapping out their positions, until I found out which ones worked right out of his hideout. A few days later I went in, looking as legit as I could.”

  “What do you mean by legit?” Toby asked.

  “Legit as in looking as inconspicuous as I can in a whorehouse.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  I rolled my eyes. You had to spoon-feed information to these things. I wondered how they ever got work done without someone holding their hands.

  Sinclair began to laugh. “You telling us you pitched a robot?”

  I couldn’t keep from grinning at that point. “Yeah, I pitched a robot. Then afterward, while the metal bird was counting the change I gave it, I busted the guy in his office, with my pants still around my ankles. You should’ve seen his face.”

  The table erupted in laughter. Sinclair put his face in his hands, trying to catch his breath. I had to laugh at that, too. My face hurt from smiling. We had to take whatever joy we could get these days. Even Toby laughed — after having the joke spoon-fed to it, that is.

  After a while, we all died down, and the game was still standing motionless where we’d left it. Looking at the clock, I saw that it was tomorrow already; Sunday had turned to Monday, and my body was informing me that it was ready to go limp for a while after my little adventure.

  “Shit, guys, I gotta roll. I got things to catch up on.” I lifted myself from the chair as everyone shot out a sound of disappointment.

  “C’mon, Roche, another hand?” Sinclair complained. “Or another smut story?”

  “Can’t. You know how it goes.”

  “If only I did. I’d rather be doin’ what you do instead of pushin’ paperwork for scraps.” He chuckled glumly.

  I nodded. He’d kill me if he knew how much I made these days, in this economy.

  I bid them goodbye as I left the kitchen and passed through the front door, which led to a yard covered in dying grass. The blades crunched and crackled under my shoes as I strolled past the open gate and over to my car. I started the engine, listening to it hiccup and sputter for a few moments before quieting itself.

  I stared out the window at the sleepless city as I began to drive. Jersey. Of all fucking places, Sinclair had to live in Jersey. Still, Union was a nice little town, and thankfully it was far enough away from the recent bloodbath.

  I drove eastward, heading toward the Lower City and home. During the drive I had another distant glimpse of the Plate. I lost sight of the towering monstrosity for some time while passing through the Lincoln Tunnel, but it was much closer once I reached the other end.

  I had to admit that the Plate was looking lovely this morning — a floating steel slab that held an entire city above our heads, mocking us silently, though the red and blue flickering lights along its support catwalks did look like stars twinkling in the darkness. Everything in the Lower City revolved around that damn piece of metal: billboards, skyscrapers, jobs, everything. But at least the Plate relied on us for support; the entire slab rested on several Control Points built out of taller buildings, including GE, the Empire, and even my own apartment building.

  But the Plate wasn’t enough to distract me from the filth of the Lower City. People there were robbed of hope, robbed of sunlight, living in eternal darkness. The prostitutes didn’t work specific hours, and Mob killings weren’t saved for the dead of night. Hell, even when the city lights went on at six in the morning, it still seemed damn dark. Nothing was as it should be down here. And because the sun was blocked from us twenty-two hours of the day — we got sunrise and sunset — we never really woke up from this enduring nightmare. We hadn’t woken up since the Plate had been built.

  The alcohol made me feel as if I were floating, and everything that had happened last night was coming through in flashes of lucidity. The only reason I didn’t crash my car into a building was because my muscle memory helped me hit the brakes just in time.

  My legs somehow pulled the rest of me out onto the sidewalk, and I stumbled past an empty street meat cart toward my building. I rode the elevator up to my floor and arrived in my apartment shortly afterward; I didn’t remember opening my door or locking it, for that matter.

  Hot flashes — my mind was starting to go. I hadn’t had that much to drink, had I? Last time I’d counted, I’d had a couple glasses of Scotch. Or were they bottles?

  In my stupor and exhaustion, my body seemed to think the floor would be more comfortable than the couch, and I didn’t have much power to protest as I collapsed. Not even the ringing phone stopped me.

  The ringing in my head was overwhelmed by the ringing of my rotary phone. It shook with aggression on the glass and oak table in the centre of the room, claiming my attention before my own pain did. Had it been ringing all morning?

  I felt drool running from my cheek and onto the floor. I dragged myself to my feet, stumbling slightly, and grabbed at the table to steady myself. I lifted the receiver off the base of the phone. There was some static as the switchboard operator plugged in a jack on the control board. A distorted voice finally came through.

  “I’d like to make a Night Call.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “I SAID I’D LIKE TO MAKE A NIGHT CALL.”

  The voice sounded professional and hard, even through the rusty technology. Familiar, too — probably Robins or Sinclair. And impatient. I must have blanked for a moment. My brain finally comprehended the words that had come through the speaker as I responded with a cough.

  I looked at the calendar to see what day it was. I’d been losing sleep lately. Late nights pounding back bottles had distracted my eyes from the calendar long enough for confusion to set in. From the rough black streaks on the wall calendar, I gathered that it was Monday. The clock beside it said seven o’clock. Seven at night.

  “Where?”

  “Prince and Greene.”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  It was a short drive away, but I needed that time to sober up, or perhaps bleed the hangover out of my body. I threw on my holster and straightened my outfit, trying to make myself somewhat professional. My holster was pretty light, and I realized I had left my weapon somewhere — again. Hopefully I hadn’t put it in the pot last night. It was probably in my trunk. I’d get it later, when I needed it. If I needed it.

  I stepped out into the hallway. Its condition seemed to grow worse by the day. My own apartment could use some cleaning, too, but it was nowhere near as
bad as the neglected halls of this building.

  As with all the other buildings that were Control Points for the Plate, everyone took great care to make the office space inside look respectable, as if it belonged in the Upper City. The residential area, however, was another story.

  I walked down the hall and waited a few moments for an elevator. When the doors parted, the carriage was already occupied: a Green-eye was standing inside, eyeing me and speaking in its whirrs and buzzes. My hangover distorted every word. Hell, it barely had a brain. It was probably talking about the weather — not that the weather ever changed in the Lower City. A few minutes later, the rusted doors peeled back and we walked out.

  The machine left through the revolving doors and joined the swarming sea of humans and Automatics running from or to their jobs.

  The metalheads were everywhere; nearly half the foot traffic in this damn city was now machines. The metal men’s rusted parts and peeling paint made for a terrible image. The Blue-eyes weren’t bad — most of them, anyway — but the damn Green-eyes gave me the willies. Maybe the Blue-eyes were a bit more tolerable because they could think for themselves. But, like Toby had said, there weren’t many left after Second Prohibition, when the law had required all Blue-eyes not employed by General Electrics to be made Green, for safety. It was more a sea of green than a sea of chrome.

  I stepped out into Chinatown — at least, that was what they’d used to call the area. Nowadays it was called Manhattan’s Anchor, because people didn’t want to be referring to our main rival in the Automatics industry. Nor did the higher-ups want common folk complaining that the Chinese had once had a firm foothold on American soil.

  I bought a newspaper and a hot dog just in front of the building. Yuri still made the best dogs in the city, and always gave me a discount on my nightly refuels at his stand. He was a shortish man, a bit chubby in the cheeks, his weight having suffered from eating his own merchandise. No doubt it was all he could afford. A privyet and a paka later, I was walking along the crowded street once more.

  The newspaper was far less comforting than the street meat and full of the same shit: politics, Plate expansion, threats from China, robotic advancements, crashing stocks. Today there was also a short piece about a Mafia gunfight in the Heights the previous night, with five dead gunmen and no suspects. Nothing unusual in the news — and hopefully there wouldn’t be for some time.

  I finished the dog and gave the newspaper to the old man who lived on the sixtieth floor as we passed each other. Couldn’t remember his name, but he always took a stroll at that hour. Said it cleared his head. Was it Charles? Probably.

  The one thing that had improved after they’d forced out the old residents of this neighbourhood was the parking situation. I would be able to move my car to the front of the building, or at least damn close. It beat parking in some skyscraper-like garage.

  I reached my Talbot 140 and slipped inside. The leather felt a bit less comfortable than it had the previous night. My car was unique for this side of the city — for this side of the world, for that matter — as most people scraped by with Packards and Fords. I made enough to pay this one off, though it had cost me a small fortune to get it shipped in from France, since it was a concept car.

  I’d just had to have it.

  I still had sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes to sober up in the seat’s leather embrace. I closed my eyes for a moment, and it was the most heavenly feeling I had experienced in months. I would have nodded off if not for the Green-eye with the buzzer who saw me sleeping in my car.

  “Identification, sir?”

  It was too formal. It creeped me out. The precincts employed Green-eyes for labour they couldn’t be bothered to do themselves, like writing parking and jaywalking tickets — or to be bullet fodder. This one kept staring into me with its green bulbs until I flipped open my coat and reached for my own badge. Not the most convincing fake, but I wasn’t trying to convince a human.

  After one look, it stiffened up and retracted. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Any time.” My throat was parched. I needed a drink — non-alcoholic. Looking at my watch, I saw I was late. Time flies when you’re nursing a hangover.

  I started the car. The modified straight-10 engine croaked as exhaust funnelled out. The force of gravity hit me as I pressed my foot on the gas pedal, swerving into traffic to merge with the innumerable black boxes populating the American automobile market.

  I knew the Prince well — far too well. After all, I’d often come here back in my heyday. It was half speakeasy, half red-light stop and drop, well known to criminals and cops alike. No one wanted to ruin it, since it was the best place to get liquored up or get laid in Lower Manhattan — the district, not the city. There were far better places in the East Village.

  The building itself was taped off by yellow and black. Most of the people on site were either paramedics or recovering victims. The presence of body bags wasn’t comforting.

  The Night Call had come from the senior officer on scene, Sinclair. He looked a lot more professional in his uniform than he had last night. Or was it this morning? I moved to approach him when one of the lesser cops from the 5th decided to get in my way. I couldn’t get mad at the greenhorn, though. Proper procedure, was all. He didn’t shove me, didn’t yell, but definitely put himself directly in my path. “Sorry, sir, we have a situation. Afraid you won’t be able to come near for some time, as —”

  “Hoyte! Civilians over there. Keep ’em busy until the ambulances show up,” Sinclair snapped at the officer.

  The young constable flushed red before running off toward the crowd of people who had previously been enjoying their night, and I resumed my path.

  Sinclair pulled a long drag off his cigarette. “You look like hell, Roche. You sure you’re good to go?”

  “Just fashionably late,” I said, stumbling a bit as I tried to jump over the yellow tape. A headache pierced my skull like a buzz saw, making everything more intense: the lights, the smells, the sounds. “Not all of us can fly Rotorbirds, you know. It takes time to travel places.” I looked around. “Goddamn, though … we used to love this place, didn’t we? It was only a matter of time, I suppose.”

  “Yeah. Good girls, they had here. Guess they’ll be scroungin’ up residence someplace else.”

  “I just came for the drinks, Paddy. I didn’t know what you got into behind closed doors.”

  Sinclair turned to me, a bit less jovial. “Don’t call me that. Not on the job.”

  “What? I’ve been calling you that since ’16: Ol’ Paddy Sinclair.” I winked, showing him a grin as he turned away and led me toward ground zero. Was he trying to look good for the new kids out front wrangling the passersby and patrons? Well, if he really wanted to impress them, he shouldn’t have called me in. “So, what’s the lowdown?” I asked.

  “Worse than I can put it.” Sinclair led me into the cordoned-off speakeasy — or what was left of it — through the open double doors. It took some time for my vision to adjust to the low light, but soon enough I could make out nooks and tables covered in an assortment of glasses. The smell of alcohol was revolting to me at the moment. But the stench of blood was worse.

  I’ve got to keep it down. Can’t throw up on the job.

  The second-floor balcony that overlooked the main area looked more torn up than the ground floor; the safety bar at the edge of the landing had been torn from its sockets, twisted and bent like plastic. It was obvious that a Red-eye had done that damage, because no human could. Well, no regular human, and I hadn’t seen any Augers outside getting medical treatment.

  My eyes were fixed upward on the second floor as I kept walking, until Sinclair’s hand on my chest stopped me in my tracks. I looked down and saw the reason for the Night Call. I nearly stepped in it, too.

  There were at least half a dozen bodies, all of them dressed well and none of them moving. Blood caked the ground, along with spilled food and drink. Pale skin was visible between folds of black, burgu
ndy, and blue fabric that was stained dark. This wasn’t just some hit — it was a massacre, and a particularly ugly one at that. The perp seemed to have taken their time to wreak enough havoc that stomachs would turn at the mere thought of the scene. Some had been shot in the chest, some in the head; others had had limbs blown off and then probably had bled out.

  Four men, two women. Two of the men in the centre of the room were well-dressed, with burgundy corduroy jackets, grey slacks, and just enough class to pass for the sort of gangsters the dames swooned over. Then again, maybe it was the holes in them that made them look like pretty authentic mobsters.

  “Hit and run?”

  “Ain’t never that simple,” Sinclair said, nudging open one of their jackets with his foot. A buzzer threw its golden gleam at my face. Dead cops. Long case, then. “The patrons started to run outside after the first few shots, and after the gun went automatic, the place was crazy. Supposedly two Red-eyes tore this place a new asshole. One lunatic pulled apart half the joint before it took off. The other stuck around and got canned by the cops that showed up.”

  “Fifth boys, right?”

  He nodded. “No other precinct has the stomach for this sort of crime.”

  “Where’d the carnage start?”

  “Few testimonials said the first Red-eye was up there, shot some poor bastard before throwing him off the landing, fuckin’ up the railing.” Sinclair pointed upward before kneeling on the floor to look the dead cops in their lifeless eyes. “Second one came in through the doors, started spraying Typewriter bullets, and the rest went down. First cops on the scene were Ozzy and Marv. They put down the second Redeye by the door. The first one was able to push past, get out onto the street.”

  “Fuck, that’s just bad shit. These the only notable corpses?” I rummaged through the cops’ jackets while Sinclair stood and walked over to another male corpse. The stiff looked like it had been through a blender, and I guessed that he’d had the fortune of being thrown from the rafters.