A blue cloud of smoke floating behind me, I headed out. All about me the hustle and bustle of HQ continued on. People heading toward a destination, people coming from a destination, people busy, as busy as could be.
"Hey, AJ, great job on the Howwel murder!" called out a peon. I nodded back to him cordially. Smith? Swinsky? Samith, yeah, Samith was his name.
"Thanks Sam," I drawled back. "He never had a chance."
The man grinned, and went back to work. I took a drag on my cigarette, and blew the smoke into the air in a thick stream. It certainly did feel good to get the Howwel purp down. Never did like a woman-killer, myself. Only weak men did that.
The clack-ity clack of secretaries busily working on their workstations was beginning to get to me, as it always did, so I stepped to it and hoofed my way out. Directly outside HQ I almost ran over the prettiest girl in the station, Emma Dickerson.
"Hey, baby, you - me, dinner tonight?"
"When the stars turn green, buddy, when the stars turn green."
"Aw, snap. By then you'll be so old I won't want that date!"
She winked again, flashed a grin, and left. I admired the scenery for a moment, before remembering that she was a married woman, and her husband was a jealous man.
Perhaps I should introduce myself. I'm A.J. Michalson, House Detective for The Department, an investigation agency. Occasionally The Department works with the coppers, but for the most time we're competitors. Rumor has it that Fitch and Farley, Fitch is the Deputy Director for the Department, have a private meeting once a week, and there the looser buys the winner a drink. Rumor also has it that Fitch has been getting free drinks for the last two months. I certainly believe it, those coppers couldn't find a dead star destroyer.
Looser of what, you say? Why, of conviction quota's, obviously. It's a real live game of Detectives VS Coppers, without the blood and gore that the holo version contained.
"Hey, AJ! I've been looking for you man."
I turned, and blew out a stream of blue smoke. "Yeah?" The poor sucker blinked, and coughed in the cloud of smoke. "Yeah, yeah, man, I've been robbed."
Shavit, who was this guy? I couldn't for the life of me remember. That was the problem with being the most visible detective in the joint, everyone thought I was their personal fetch boy.
"What'd ya loose, son?" The guy looked awful. Tousled hair, twenty-four hours of beard on his face, clothing a mess. He looked like he had spent the night sleeping on the crapper.
"My wallet man, my wallet. I had several grand in there, man, I can't afford to loose that!"
I looked him over. The chances of him having several grand was pretty low, but what did I have to loose? I reached over, and grabbed him by the shirt collar. He tried to back off, but I tightened my grip.
"What the hell man! I ain't done nutthen!"
"Sure, sure kid. Sure you haven't." I dug my hand into the front of his pants, that really got a reaction.
"What the fuck, get your fa-- --"
He stuttered, and came to a stop when his little eyes spotted what I had retrieved from his pants. A wallet.
"Wha.. .. aa?" he stammered. I let him go, and he staggered back.
"Look kid, let me let you in on a little secret." I opened the wallet, and let him see its gloriously empty insides. "Whenever you get your paws on a few grand, don't carry it in your wallet, see? Espescially if you head to the lower levels, alright? You're lucky, you know."
"L...luc.." He reached a pare of shaky hands out toward the cheap faux leather billfold.
"Yeah, lucky." I grabbed his belt buckle, and lifted a bit. He let out a squeal.
"Did she buy you a drink?"
He stared blankly, then as realization dawned, muttered a "Yeah."
"Thought so. See, she buys you a drink, you fall asleep, and you either wake up dead, or you wake up with your wallet down the front of your pants."
He jumped. Poor fella, he was new here. He had probably been shuttled in with his rich grandy, and somehow he had found his way out of the plush up up rooms, and into the seedier underbelly of the station. Many a fatty had met an untimely death down here, his throat cut, or a small hole in his neck from an injection. There were so many places to hide a body; oftentimes no one even knew a murder had been committed until a resident complained of the stink.
"Look kid, here, let's take a walk." I grabbed his arm, and pulled him along. I almost had to carry him, but the threat of carrying him by his willy put some life into his pencil legs.
"See, just keep yourself to the upper levels, ok? I would hate to have to wake up tomorrow, and find your name in the recently dead list."
He nodded, and gulped.
"Here, get in here," I shoved him into an shifter. "Now push the largest number on the door. When you get there move over to the next shifter, and push the next number."
As the doors closed I was about to yell out, "Keep going up!", but a call on my comlink interrupted me.
"Yeah, this is AJ."
"AJ, get on up to the blue room on the seventy-second floor. Section J. We've got one hell of a mess up here."
"I'm on my way. Gimme the details."
"Man.. you just get up here, you're going to have to see this yourself.
"I'm on my way."
As I put my com back, I noticed that I had lost my cigarette. Grumbing about the cost of keeping this vice going I dug out another little brown tube, and lit it. Snap, missed the trash again.
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