Night Call Read online

  “That doesn’t matter, tin top. This thing has saved my ass more times than any partner has. And it’s a .38 calibre, same as standard-issue police pistols.”

  “Sir, I will have to confiscate the weapon if you plan on carrying it.”

  I closed the breech with a loud click, fitting it into the holster under my left arm as I turned. “Take it from me, then.”

  The machine was smarter than most. It dropped the subject. We stepped up to look through the murky window of the store. Most of it was falling apart, but the shelving units were new and lined with shiny chrome parts and electronics. From the looks of things, whoever ran this joint was used to staying open through the night. I turned to the tin man again.

  “Just follow suit, and don’t mention any of this being off the record. And for Christ’s sake, try to look convincing.”

  I wondered if it had picked up on the irony of my last statement. I turned the handle and entered the small shop. The machine followed me in, approached the counter, and waited. I scanned the room and found one security camera in the upper corner, some locks and bars on the windows, and a few folding chairs under the shelves. Judging by the size of the place, the owner might live above or behind the shop. The countertop was vinyl, a rare sight in the older part of town. It smelled like mint in here.

  The door behind the counter creaked open, and a casually dressed man walked through, surprised to see people in his shop at this hour. He must have seen us on the camera. His beard was thick, with grey streaks. Most of the hair on his head was grey and thin enough to see his scalp. His face, though, looked no older than forty.

  “Gentlemen, how may I be of service at this hour?” Weird German accent. His voice sounded posh, yet unrefined, a bit gravelly.

  “Detective Roche of the NYPD, 5th Precinct. This is my partner …” Shit, I hadn’t given the damn thing a name. Luckily, it heard me trailing off and spoke up.

  “Designation Forty-One-Echo-November.”

  Thanks, tin man.

  “Would I be right in assuming you are the Jaeger of Jaeger Electrics?”

  “Ja, Johann Jaeger.” Funny name, funny man. He forced an uncomfortable smile, probably nervous about having coppers in his establishment. The last Jaeger to be thrown in the slammer had been taken down by the 5th.

  “Last night at around twenty-three hundred hours, two Red-eyes tore up the speakeasy at Prince and Greene. One of them was destroyed by the police. We looked up its serial number and found it to be registered to here. Do you have any idea why that would be?”

  I passed Jaeger the strip with the serial number. He paused before what I was saying seemed to click in his head.

  “My Automatic was destroyed? No, not Rudi.” He sat down in a chair behind the counter, stunned. “He went to see a supplier, to pick up a shipment for the shop. I thought he was just running late … Gott im Himmel.”

  “Do you have any idea why your Automatic would have been Red-eyed? ”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know what makes the machines run, and I don’t understand why they might have taken my Automatic.”

  “You have any experience programming Automatics? Police Green-eyes, even any who come in for maintenance?”

  “No, no, I’m just the proprietor. I’ve never programmed in my life.”

  “No ties to the police?”

  “No. Would you please excuse me? I must go to the back.”

  “I’m not done asking questions, sir.”

  “I’m an old man, and my only companion has been destroyed. I need a moment alone.”

  He wasn’t that old. I guessed there was something other than sadness and shock motivating him right now. He tried to get up, but I approached and forced him back in his seat. “Let’s start over, and this time —”

  “Excuse me, sir, may I ask you something?” the tin man piped up. Jaeger turned his head to meet the robot’s gaze. “What kind of electronics do you sell?”

  “This ain’t the time for that, robot, we need —”

  “I know what I’m doing, Detective Roche. Please allow me to do my job,” the Automatic said. It had interrupted me. This was new. This I had to see play out. I stood back and let it continue, but I put my hand on the handle of my Diamondback in its holster.

  “I do not understand what you’re asking,” Jaeger said, looking confused. No, concerned.

  No, terrified.

  “I’m inquiring what electronics you sell in this shop. The prices of various items, such as this feedback terminator and even this cord splitter, are substantially lower than identical items in other shops in the city.”

  “Well, I’m a purveyor of cheap wares —”

  “Any wares which have oil in them?”

  “Excuse me?” Jaeger’s face broke. I tightened my grip on the revolver, but kept it in its leather cradle.

  “There’s oil underneath your fingernails. You’ve wiped them carefully, but not thoroughly enough. Your jeans are torn at the knees and ankles, and your wrists and temples bear the marks of worn leather goods. Your demeanor and dress suggest a modest lifestyle. As well, from outside, the upstairs window reveals a lamp, a bedpost, and the edge of a small kitchen. I have also noticed several Automatic-specific items hidden behind some of the larger objects in this store. I do not, therefore, believe that there is more living space behind that door. In fact, based on the red chain mark on your left wrist, the burn marks on your shirt, the spark burns on your jeans, and the oil on your hands — the mint air freshener masked the smell of it well, but not entirely — it is my belief that the space in the back holds hoisting chains, welders, rewiring kits, and pneumatic pumps.”

  Jaeger froze, wide-eyed, as did I. An Automatic that could think — that was not something I’d been prepared for. The old man hesitated for a few seconds before slamming his hands into the rear door, jumping out of his chair, kicking it toward me, barrelling through the rear door, and breaking into a sprint. I broke from my own stupor, pulled out my revolver, and hopped over the thrown chair after him.

  “We don’t have a warrant, Detective!” the metal man yelled after me.

  Most of the room was in darkness, but faint light revealed the back door standing ajar — obviously Jaeger’s objective. Next to said door was a small red cylinder: a fire extinguisher. As I ran, I levelled my gun, aimed at the extinguisher, and popped off a shot. The heated round instead slammed into the concrete wall, boring a hole the size of a dinner plate. The gunshot caused Jaeger to freeze, giving me plenty of time to catch up to him. The metal man sprinted past me to bind Jaeger’s hands in a pair of cuffs. I grabbed Jaeger by the neck and pointed the barrel of my revolver at his stomach, then nodded to the machine. It released our captive and went off to switch on the lights.

  Needless to say, the machine’s hunch was right. The space looked like an old car garage. The car jacks in the floor had been mangled and converted into workbenches for Automatics. Several dozen scrap parts lay on the floor and on shelves, with even more loose bits and bolts dotting the floor around the workspaces. In the corner next to the door was a terminal with a rewiring kit next to it, and near the back door there was a chain and sling for Automatic torso removal, as well as various other machines I’d only ever seen in the bowels of the GE building.

  “What made you start to suspect?” I asked the tin man as it returned to where I was standing with my new prisoner.

  “The retail prices in the store were half of the market price for those items. His business would have been unsustainable … unless he had a more profitable operation as well. My other observations filled in the blanks.”

  I was impressed, to say the least. Most Automatics just looked at things and said what they saw. Blue-eyes didn’t think too hard. And Green-eyes thought even less.

  “Check if there are any Neural-Interfaces here. Be thorough,” I added. The machine nodded and walked away, and I turned to the German. “Now, Jaeger, would you like to explain yourself?”

  “Please, you must understa
nd, I have nothing else but this.”

  “You won’t even have this pretty soon, Karl.” Both he and my temporary partner — God, was I actually going along with this? — shot a glance at me. “Robot, this is Karl Jaeger. He worked for the Mafia for years, bootlegging parts for the Red-eyes that they used for contract killings, smuggling, and everything in between.”

  “That was over a decade ago!” Jaeger protested. “I did my time, Detective. I’m trying to run an honest business.”

  “Honest? Only half of it is legit, and it’s not even the half I’m standing in. So, let’s cut to the chase: Why was your robot at the site of a murder?”

  “I don’t know! I sent him to get supplies for us but he never returned. I’ve done work on hundreds of Automatics, but I never tampered with Rudi. I never could, for this exact reason. If he was ever found, they’d track it back to me, and I’d be locked away again.”

  The metal man started turning its head to sweep the place for any sign of a Neural-Interface. I had a gut feeling it wouldn’t find anything.

  “What time was Rudi taken?” I asked Jaeger.

  “Rudi left for the pickup at ten forty-five. One half hour to requisition, pay, and return. He should have been back by quarter past eleven at the latest. When did the shooting happen?”

  “Around eleven. So it had fifteen minutes to turn Red-eye … doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.”

  “It takes an average of one hour and twenty minutes to assess an Automatic and rewire it to take hostile action,” the robot butted in, silencing me and Jaeger. In truth, this was a subject I knew very little about. “The crime was committed at approximately seven minutes after eleven. There wasn’t enough time for a rewire to have been performed. I believe the precincts would allow this substantial evidence to be used in Jaeger’s defence.”

  “That remains to be seen, metal man. Jaeger here was the most talented bootlegger and Tinkerman in New York back in the early ’20s. He was put away eleven years ago, and yet here he is, out and about with a new shop to tinker in. I’d put money on him being a whiz at rewiring an Auto.”

  “His skill has no bearing on what is mechanically and physically possible, Detective. The time frame does not support his machine being one of the Red-eye perpetrators.”

  I had to let on what I knew, or we’d just keep spinning our wheels. “Capek, listen to me! There was no Neural-Interface! It didn’t get Red-eyed — it simply was!”

  Both the German and the machine were silent for a moment. Jaeger spoke first. “You must be mistaken, Detective. No Neural-Interface? A machine cannot operate without one. Perhaps someone allocated it to somewhere else in the machine.”

  “I ain’t stupid, Karl. Automatics are too crammed full of wiring to fit a Neural-Interface anywhere but inside their noggin. There’s barely enough room in the new models for the Tesla Battery. I assure you, this thing was as empty as a poor man’s pocket.”

  “No, I do not believe it. Impossible …” Jaeger seemed shaken. I gestured for the machine to bring him a chair.

  “Let’s move on to an easier question: Any reason you know of that your Automatic was used in a shooting?”

  “I am lost on all fronts, Detective. I work for myself repairing Automatics for people who cannot afford the legitimate mechanics. I will never work for the Mob again. Back when I was captured, Murder, Inc. found out, but because the police couldn’t track them through me, I was left alone. No one came after me in prison or after I got out. I was a tied-up end, an issue fixed before it even began. Even if I had told anyone that I’d worked for the Mafia, they never would have believed me. My identity was erased, most of my money liquidated — I had nothing left. Why would I risk a cop killing when I could get thrown back inside for jaywalking?”

  Jaeger had a decent alibi and enough fear for me to believe him. The Automatic had brought over a small chair and placed it behind him, so I forced the old German to take a seat.

  “Metal man, you bring anything from the office?”

  “I have the relevant information and pictures of the victims.”

  I snapped my fingers, and it pulled out the light-brown folder from the confines of its suit and handed it to me. Inside were the crude photographs Sinclair had taken at the scene. I tore them from the folder, crouched down in front of Jaeger, and showed him the faces of the dead cops. “Do you at least recognize any of them? Maybe you know why someone would gun them down and supposedly frame you?”

  “Mein Gott … I know them.” He grabbed the pictures from me and stared at them. “These two put me away eleven years ago, in ’22,” he said, indicating the cops from the 5th. “And three others, they were at my hearing. They arrested me and seized my assets. When I got out in ’26, it took forever to get this shop up and running.”

  I ran my hands through my hair. Fuck, too perfect a crime to be a revenge killing. There ain’t no freebies in this business. The situation lined up so perfectly that it was right out of a movie plot. I’d dealt with enough crimes to know that if the facts fit too well, you were missing something. Jaeger’s Automatic being on the scene would be enough to make him a prime suspect, and I knew for a fact that the FBI agents wouldn’t give two shits about what was or was not inside the Automatic’s head.

  I stood up and backed away, looking at the robot and jerking my head toward Jaeger. Seconds later, the old man was standing next to me, uncuffed and far less likely to run. I slid my gun back into its holster to make him more comfortable.

  “So, if you didn’t cook your Auto’s NI and send it out to shoot up a speakeasy, who did?”

  He shook his head. “Rudi went to meet one of my suppliers to retrieve cheap parts. Perhaps it was them. He was an easy target to kidnap and plant as evidence. Arschgeige.”

  “What they did to your machine was more than just plant evidence. Who is this supplier?”

  “I have never dealt with them directly. I would send Rudi to a specific address in the city for the pickups and exchanges.”

  “Poor business practice on your part, huh, Karl?”

  “When you’re avoiding the Iron Hands, you’ll do anything to get cheap parts,” he said, looking at me like I knew what he meant. I did, of course, but wouldn’t admit it in front of the robot. “Rudi learned of them through some other Automatics he was close with. He only ever went to one meeting place, but there was a list of several backup locations, in case they were compromised. I’ll show it to you.”

  Most of the places on the list were high-traffic parts of the Lower City. Perfect for an exchange. It would be impossible to identify any specific suspicious person, seeing as everyone in the Lower City was suspicious. One noteworthy fact was that three of the locations were a stone’s throw from one another in Times Square. Those involved in smuggling and Mob activity loved Times Square — human cover was the best cover — so this wasn’t a substantial lead. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check the area out.

  I put the list in my pocket. “Can you give me the names of the other three cops who put you away? We need to start somewhere.”

  “Cory Belik, Davin Morris, and Andrew Stern.” He recited the names as if he had been waiting all these years to tell someone. “I wish for this to be cleared up as fast as possible, Detective. And so, I offer you whatever services I can provide, on the condition I remain anonymous to anyone else you may encounter.”

  “Can do. Robot, go spin up the car. I’ll be there in a minute.” I threw the machine my keys and watched it walk out of the room before turning to Jaeger. “Got some questions I can’t have the new partner hearing. In the past few months, have you done any work on Swinger models?”

  “Swingers?” Jaeger rubbed the back of his head, thinking. “That’s an old model. There aren’t many left in the city … But I have done work on a few.”

  “Any with the designation J4-35?”

  “I’ll have to consult my logs. I’ll let you know.”

  “Excellent. One last question: I know this is new for you, but can an Auto
matic run without an NI installed? Like how a chicken with its head cut off can run around for quite some time before it dies?”

  “Machines are not comparable to chickens, Detective. By all accounts, it is quite impossible. But I’ll try to formulate some idea as to how it might happen. Removing a Neural-Interface is a challenging task. It can be done in about a week with finesse and patience, but it’s traumatic.”

  I popped an eyebrow up. “For you?”

  “For the machine. Imagine having your brain ripped out while you’re awake for the entire procedure. They might be metal, but they have personalities, too. I hope, wherever Rudi is — if his Neural-Interface was indeed removed — that he is all right.”

  “I’ll be seeing you. Have a good night, Karl.”

  With that, I left the establishment and returned to the car. The machine was sitting in the passenger seat. Any other cop who’d come to investigate would’ve booked Jaeger, case closed. If I’d come alone, there would’ve been a corpse.

  But the robot had been able to look past the facade. It seemed that Jaeger was being set up as the perfect patsy to mislead us from the truth. That made things easy and hard at the same time: longer case, but one less major suspect on the watch list. The tin man seemed as exasperated as I was, which was off-putting. Was it seriously feeling drained, or was it mocking me?

  “You did good there. You have one hell of an eye,” I said, breaking the tension and grinning.

  “I go out of my way to notice things others would miss. The smallest things are often the most telling in an investigation.”

  I smiled again, amused. “Before we go anywhere, we’ve got to settle something. I’m not calling you Forty-One-Echo-bullshit. You need a name.”

  “Will that make our investigation easier?”

  “Yes. A lot of Automatics have human names. It helps in the public eye.”

  “Well, what should it be? I’m not sure what kind of name would fit me.”

  I mulled over it for a while. Hmm … Forty-One-Echo-November, or 41-EN. The numeral 4 looked like an A, and 1 looked like an L.