Chapter Two

Chapter Two

 

            Lynn and I shared another drink and I told her what I was going to do, then went and did the exact opposite. I drove her to a hotel I had a friend in, told him to make sure no one came or went from her room, and explained to Lynn that, for a time, it was the safest place for her in the city. I hoped I was right.

            After giving her an encrypted number to reach me on, I left to find an old friend. The night was blacker than the unluckiest cat in the world and the stars just icicles reflecting that blackness. The buildings all around me looked the same in the dark and I kept an eye open for anyone who might be interested in Lynn, but the street was empty. I pulled up the collar of my coat and followed my breath to where I’d parked my car.

I dialled a number into my phone and drove through the streets around Lynn’s hotel a few times before pressing the call button. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

            On the third tone a familiar metallic voice answered. ‘Who is it?’

            ‘Zarrath,’ I said. ‘I’ve found a job and I need a little help identifying a thug, mind if I come round?’

            ‘Edgar?’

            ‘Sure, baby, who else?’

            The voice on the other line went silent. Then said, ‘Come on over. I’ll put on some coffee.’

            Zarrath-Zenobion �" what a name, I know �" lived uptown of my office on a stretch of oak lined streets in a suburb called New Yarmouth. I never understood that name, given Great Yarmouth �"  the one back on earth �" was on the coast, and in Britain. But anyway.

            It took me half an hour to reach Zarrath’s place, a two room flat in a twelve story concrete square of a building. He buzzed me in and I juddered up to the fifth floor in the lift.

            Zarrath-Zenobion, an insectoid from Gliese 581 b, poured me a cup of coffee and stared at me from across the table with his multi-faceted eyes. I think if I hadn’t grown up with his kind in Slim-Nacre, I would have been terrified of him. Still, the guy had as much in common with a cockroach as I do with a chimpanzee, so I was always aware of his anatomy.

            I took a sip of the coffee. Zarrath had made it to his own tastes, dark as midnight and sweet as a stolen kiss.

            The old cop rested put two of his elbows on the table and rested his head in his feelers. ‘Who’s the guy?’

            ‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve just taken the case, and it has something to do with Paul Caribez. The girl I’m taking the case for, her beau has had a hole put in his chest �" likely from one of Caribez’s goons.’

            Zarrath extruded one of two long antenna-like feelers from the back of his skull and used it to brush a speck of dust from his eye. ‘Caribez,’ he said slowly. ‘You two have had a run in before, if I remember right.’

            I nodded and took a sip of coffee. ‘But not for a few years.’ From a pocket in my coat I drew out my flask, warmed my drink a little. ‘So far I’m trying to find a guy who works for Caribez with some gold in his mouth and a prosthetic arm, sound familiar?’

            ‘Caribez is building a little empire, it seems as of late,’ Zarrath said. ‘I haven’t heard much of him walking the streets anymore. He bought a building, not under his name of course, up on the hill. If you want to find him that’s where to go. But to find a man with gold teeth and a prosthesis shouldn’t be hard. His first name is Max, or Maxwell, or something like that. He’s a dogsbody who hangs around the docks in his spare time. I have a contact I can phone, if you want.’

            ‘Please do,’ I said. Zarrath stood up and went into the other room. I went and stared out the window, rolled myself a cigarette and smoked it in four drags. My lungs were hot when Zarrath came back in. He’d pulled on a tan leather coat with his top pair of arms through the sleeves and the other two pair concealed underneath. ‘Got an address,’ he said. ‘I’ll come along for the ride.’