A Hard Rain Part 9

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Dix said.

"I won't," she said.

He let his feet drop to the ground and his chair scoot back, but he didn't stand. "I'm always rude to anyone who thinks they can come into my office and control me. Just a small pet peeve I have."

"What makes you think I wanted to try to control you?" she asked. "I came to hire you."

"I don't think so," Dix said. "I know you want something from me, but I doubt it was to hire me. Otherwise why bathe in too much perfume, wear undergarments meant for ladies of the night, and a dress so tight it leaves nothing to the imagination?"

She opened her mouth and then closed it, like a fish out of water gasping for life. So Dix went on.

"You are a woman who is used to having men fall at your feet and do your bidding. You expected me to do the same."

He looked her up and down, making his motions large and exaggerated, like a house painter checking to see if he missed anything on a wall.

Then Dix smiled. "And at another time, I might have enjoyed the game and a few dances around the hardwood. But at the moment, as I said, I'm busy. So please take your perfume and your purse and hit the stairs, if you can get down them in those heels."

She blinked twice, and as she did the I'maseductress act dropped off like a coat on a hot day. Her brown eyes turned cold, her face aged right under the makeup, and her posture shifted to one of pity-me defense from complete control.

Dix saw it all, noted it all, but didn't move. He knew any action he could make would be too late.

The small gun appeared from somewhere on her body and she held it pointed at his head as if she knew what she was doing and how to use it. He had no doubt from her posture now that she did.

"Well, Mr. Hill," she said, her voice lower than a moment before and much rougher, as if she had smoked three packs a day for years. "I see that my act was convincing, just not effective."

"The stairs are still behind you, through the two doors," Dix said. He put his feet back up on his desk, his hands behind his head, as if beautiful women pointed small-but-deadly guns at him in his office every day. "But I really would take the shoes off before attempting them."

She laughed, cold and low and rough. "Why are you so anxious to get me out of here?"

"As I said, I have another appointment coming in a few minutes." He looked at her cold eyes and steady hand on the gun. "Besides, your perfume is making me sick to my stomach."

"I could make you a lot sicker," she said, waving the gun sideways to make her point.

"I doubt you're going to do that," he said.

"And why not?"

"You wouldn't get what you came here for."

She studied him for a moment, then laughed again. The gun vanished as quickly as it had appeared, to a location Dix couldn't quite see. Clearly this woman was a pro. She knew her tricks.

"So let's just talk until your appointment arrives," she said. "Would that fit in your schedule?"

"It would seem I have little choice, so go ahead. What would you like me to do for you?"

She moved around the end of the desk and sat on the corner, exposing her smooth legs and giving him an interesting angle looking up at her. He figured she had made the move to make him uncomfortable, so he didn't change position. Behind him, outside the window, the rain had returned, pounding the street below like a drum. It filled the room with a constant background noise.

"I have heard," she said, "that you are looking for Cyrus Redblock. Is that correct?"

"Actually," Dix said, trying not to show his surprise at her question, "I'm looking for a small, gold-colored ball. I just thought Cyrus Redblock, or whoever took him, might be able to help me find it."

She nodded. "What I want you to do is help me find Cyrus."

Now Dix was really surprised.

He lowered himself back to a sitting position, which brought him closer to her legs and her perfume. So he stood and moved away, hands behind his back, as if thinking.

Then he turned back to face her. "Why?"

"I could tell you the reason I had invented for the woman you saw when you came in," she said, smiling at him, her eyes still cold, her expression hard, even as she batted her eyes.

"No, please," Dix said. "Truth."

"I want to kill him," she said.

The harshness and coldness in her words seemed to suck the heat from the room and push back the sounds of the rain like someone had dropped a blanket over everything. Dix was amazed frost didn't form on the inside of the window.

"And then," she said, going on slowly, her voice low and raspy, cutting through the tension in the room like a knife, "I want to make sure he stays dead, even if I have to keep killing him every few hours myself."

"It would get old and tiring, I'm sure," Dix said.

"No, it wouldn't," she said. "I would actually enjoy it, to be honest with you."

He could tell from her eyes that she meant what she said. And that made Dix shiver. This woman was colder and meaner and angrier than he had thought.

They stared at each other for a moment, letting the cold build. Finally Dix asked. "What did he do to you?"

She smiled, but the smile did nothing to warm the room. "As you said to me, that's a question I don't think you want or need to know."

Dix stared at her for a moment, then decided she was right on that. He didn't need to know. It was clear she hated Cyrus Redblock and wanted him dead. That was more than enough.

"You're right," he said.

"So, can I trust you to tell me when you find him?"

"No," Dix said. "I have no reason to."

Again the gun appeared in her hand like she was a magician pulling cards out of the air. "Is your life, and the lives of your friends, reason enough?"

Dix shrugged. He didn't dare let this woman see a touch of weakness. "It might be, I suppose, if you told me who you were working for."

The gun actually dropped a fraction of an inch, but her expression stayed frozen, as if her makeup had hardened into a false sh.e.l.l. Her working for someone had been an educated guess on his part, but her reaction told him he was right.

"I told you, I want him dead," she said.

"I'm sure you do," Dix said. "I wasn't questioning that. I was asking who you were working for. You be honest with me and I might be tempted to tell you if I find Redblock."

She lowered her arm, but didn't put the gun away this time. Her smile didn't reach her eyes, any more than her phony act when he came in had reached convincing. "I understand, from word on the street, that you were just looking for him."

"Slippery Stan Hand?" Dix said, actually surprised, and not caring if it showed in his voice.

"My boyfriend," she said, her voice soft again. "Stan Hand, the smoothest touch on the west coast."

"So Stan doesn't have Cyrus Redblock, I gather."

She looked at him, her eyes cold, her anger making her almost shake. "No, Redblock had Stan. Took him and killed most of Stan's men yesterday, in a shootout."

"Yesterday, before someone took Redblock?" Dix asked, doing his best to make sense of all this new information. Or even believe it.

"Yeah," she said. "And Stan's men ain't doing the walking dead routine. They're starting to smell."

Dix wanted to ask how she could smell anything through her own perfume, but kept his mouth shut.

"So will you help me find Redblock?"

Dix turned and moved away, then stopped and put the information she had given him together. If what she was saying was the truth, then Slippery Stan Hand was eliminated as a possible suspect in the taking of both Redblock and the Heart of the Adjuster. That information would save him some time.

And it wouldn't hurt, if he did find Redblock and got what he needed, to promise to tell this woman Redblock's location. It was a fair trade for the information he had just gotten.

"I'm looking for Redblock, as well as a gizmo he might help me find," Dix said, staring into her cold eyes. "I will tell you when I find him, if you stay out of my way in the process. And if the information you have given me just now is on the level."

"Understood," she said.

The gun in her hand vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she stepped toward him, smothering him in her honey and flower and wet-dog smell. He couldn't move out of her thankful hug, but there was no doubt he was going to have to change suits after she left. It was going to be questionable if that smell would ever come out.

At that moment, over her shoulder, he saw the door open.

The look on the Luscious Bev's face was not pleasant. Or happy to see him in the embrace of another woman.

Six hours before the Heart of the Adjuster is commandeered Captain's Log.

Thirty hours remain until we enter the edge of the Blackness and the subs.p.a.ce forces tear the ship apart. Even at this distance from the phenomenon, we are having troubles with many ship's systems. Chief Engineer La Forge has managed to protect environmental controls, but in the last hour, every door to almost every room on the ship opened and stayed frozen open. Except for the operation of the lifts, we have ignored the problem. Privacy is not an issue at the moment. Survival is.

Section Two: He Dances Like He's Named Fred Dixon Hill pushed the perfume-rich Jessica Daniels to arm's length and then released her like he was dropping a hot potato. He resisted the impulse to try to brush the smell off his jacket and nodded to Bev and Mr. Data. Then he did the two-step side-shuffle to move farther away from her as he did introductions. "This is Ms. Jessica Daniels, girlfriend of Slippery Stan Hand."

Bev gave her a very cold look and said nothing.

Mr. Data went into his mobster stance. "Glad to meet you, toots. What's shakin'?"

"Oh," Jessica said, dropping back into her seductress role like b.u.t.ter melting in a dish, "you're a cute one." She turned away from Dix and moved to Mr. Data.

He stood there, frozen like a white statue as she ran a fingernail along his cheek and along the top of his collar.

"Nice skin," Jessica said, her voice as sickly-sweet as her perfume. "Firm and hard, just the way I like it. But you could use a little sun, doll."

Dix rolled his eyes at Bev, which broke through her sh.e.l.l and made her smile. Then when Jessica wasn't looking, he waved his hand in front of his face, as if trying to fan away the bad smell.

Bev snorted and had to turn her back. She moved to the window. "Warm in here, isn't it?" she said as she slid the old wooden window upward, letting in the sounds of the rain, the cars on the street, and the city beyond.

The fresh air felt wonderful. Dix took a deep breath. He desperately wanted to go to the window beside Bev and stick his head out, just to try to clear his nose of the cloying smell. But instead he stepped toward Jessica.

"Thanks for stopping by," Dix said, taking Jessica's elbow and trying to move her away from Mr. Data. "I will be in touch the moment I find anything. And I hope you will share information you discover as well."

"Glad to," she said, her voice soft and in the falses.e.xy mode. She touched Mr. Data's nose with the tip of one finger. "See ya, you big white stud-m.u.f.fin."

With that she swished out the door, her purse swinging, leaving behind a trail of too many dead flowers.

The three of them stood, saying nothing, until the outer office door closed, then Bev turned to open a second window. "She must bathe in the stuff."

"I might have to have the entire office fumigated," Dix said.

Mr. Data touched his nose where she had tapped him. Clearly he had never had a woman do that before. "Stud-m.u.f.fin?" he asked.

Dix decided there would be time to explain later. Right now they needed to get on with the task at hand. And that was finding the Heart of the Adjuster.

He was about to ask what Bev and Mr. Data had discovered when a scream echoed through the building.

Then one shot.

It rattled the gla.s.s in the door and the concussion seemed to bounce around the room.

Dix knew that shot had been close. Very close. Maybe just outside in the hallway.

Dix was right behind Mr. Data, gun in hand, as they headed through the outer office. When Mr. Data threw open the outer door, the smell of Ms. Daniels' perfume greeted them, along with two other smells.

Gunpowder and blood.

Jessica Daniels lay sprawled on the floor in a very uns.e.xy position, her head tilted against the baseboard, her purse over her head. Blood was smeared down the wall and was flowing from under her body.

She was clearly dead. A simple bullet hole between her eyes made sure of that.

There was no one else to be seen. Even the stray cat that had been haunting the hallway earlier had vanished.

"Check downstairs," Dix ordered. "Whoever did this has to be close."

Mr. Data nodded and dashed down the stairs.

Bev stepped up beside Dix and stood looking at the late Jessica Daniels. "Someone didn't like her talking to you."

Dix nodded. He was thinking the same thing. But there just hadn't been anything she had said to him that had been worth dying for. She had told him her boyfriend, Slippery Stan Hand, had been taken. But nothing beyond that.

The key fact was that someone thought she knew something, and had to be stopped.

He glanced at Bev. "Better call Detective Bell. He's going to want to see this before she comes back to life."

"If she comes back to life," Bev said.

Dix only nodded. The way the reality of this city by the bay had been changing, nothing was certain. And that uncertainty was the only sure thing.