Blaze Tuesday and the Case of the Knight Surgeon (Standard Edition), Page 2

  It had been a long day already, between my moping and the incessant calls from the Seventeenth trying to get me to talk to someone, whether that someone was Chief Fredricks or one of the PR people, it didn’t matter. I’d told them that their apologies were accepted but they didn’t do squat to make me feel better and I’d appreciate it if they’d all stop calling. I was reclining, feet up on my desk, debating on if the vintage, blue paisley wallpaper in the building was actually worth keeping, or if it was contributing to the pounding migraine that was settling into the back of my skull, when my secretary knocked on the door.

  I run a pretty lax ship when it comes to the firm. I own the whole building and my secretary and I live in the apartments upstairs. The building is okay; it's an ancient thing left over from the early 1900's back when New York was a major city. I guess New York is still a major city, but the cost of living sure dropped off after the oil crisis of the mid-2000's. Everything inside the building has been updated, though, and it's pretty nice, even if I am a terrible housekeeper.

  I'm not stingy with office furniture, neither. I've spent a good chunk of money furnishing the place. Nice desks, decent couches in the waiting room. Killer office chairs. There's honestly nothin' worse than sitting in a chair for eight hours and havin' your ass fall asleep. By the time you stand up to work some feelin' back into your posterior, it's guaranteed that the hottest broad you'll ever see will walk into your office. Trust me; I've been there.

  I groaned under my breath, but didn't move from my spot. I was comfy and to hell with what anyone else thought.

  “Yeah? Come in.” I said.

  Trixie pushed open the thick wooden door and stared at me with a look of familiar contempt. She'd seen me do this a thousand times before. I flashed her my winning smile and she folded her arms over her chest in response.

  Trixie Luna was pretty cute. She was in her mid-twenties, bookish, with long red hair done up in a bun and the most intense green eyes ever. I kid you not, she could stare right into your soul with those peepers. Add the cat's eye glasses she always wore and you had a hot secretary fantasy waiting to happen. Or something. I dunno, she wasn't as buxom as I liked, but she was a good kid, smart and she made the best cup of joe this side of Manhattan.

  We stared at each other for a long moment before a smile slowly crept across her face, and we both started to laugh. We couldn't take this job too seriously sometimes; it wasn't worth the trouble.

  “You're gonna fall over one day, sittin' like that,” Trixie informed me matter-of-factly. “You're gonna hit your head on the floor, crack your skull open and I ain't callin' you an ambulance. That's out of my pay scale.”

  She had a point. I really didn't pay her enough to deal with avoidable accidents.

  Slowly, I took my feet off my desk and sat up straight. Trixie relaxed and stepped a little further into my office so that we could talk.

  “So what do you need?” I asked.

  “You've got a client waiting for you in the lobby,” Trixie explained.

  “Did you get any details about what they want?” I asked, bored already. “You know that I'm pretty busy these days.”

  Trixie rolled her eyes at me, clearly not buying my excuses.

  “So I'll take that as a 'no' then?” I teased, grinning cheekily at her.

  “It's not in my job description to ask,” Trixie shot back.

  “Well, maybe it's time for me to change your job description?” I considered, still grinning. I sighed and waved my hand. “Let Jackson deal with it?”

  Trixie's mouth formed a thin line on her face. I knew that look all too well; I'd seen it more times than I cared to admit. She closed the almost soundproof door and wheeled on me.

  “Jackson is currently working three cases, Blaze,” Trixie said, her voice low and angry. “Good cases, too. Cases that you declined for whatever arrogant reason you came up with at the time. There's been steady work rollin' in for the past month and you've turned down almost all of it!”

  “I took the case with the kid who was randomly whacking mobsters!” I shrugged. “The rest were boring, unimportant things.”

  “They were important to the people trying to hire you.”

  “Irrelevant,” I yawned. “Besides, Jackson closed all of them anyway.”

  “And you're running him ragged!”

  “He doesn't have to accept every case that walks through our front door. There are plenty of other private eyes in our fair city.”

  Trixie strode across the small space between the door and my desk. She pressed her palms flat against the smooth, dark wood and leaned forward. I hadn't noticed how low cut her blouse was until she leaned forward, and I found my eyes wandering for a moment.

  “So you want me to just take this case, don't you?”

  “That would be a nice start,” Trixie agreed.

  I stared up at her for a long moment. She stared back, entirely unamused and I had a sinking feeling that I wasn't going to win this argument.

  “Are you sure that Jackson can't take this one?”

  The blush crawling up Trixie's neck and onto her cheeks told me exactly how pissed off she was. I braced myself for the verbal bitch slap I was about to get.

  “Obviously I was wrong about you, Mister Tuesday. And here I thought that I was working for the most accomplished private eye in all of New York.” Trixie drawled. “What a shame it is to find out that I'm really just working for a lazy, arrogant, self-entitled dickwad who can't be bothered to move his ass to take a job to pay his bills and, oh, I dunno, maintain his outstanding reputation.”

  “Are you done slandering me?” I asked. “I might start to get offended.”

  “Are you done with this false macho bravado that you seem intent on putting on to alienate your entire clientele?”

  “Who said it was a false bravado?”

  Trixie gave me a look that would curdle milk. Any of those hot secretary fantasies I mentioned? Instantly gone.

  “Fine,” I grumbled flatly, standing up. I walked around my desk, brushed past Trixie, opened the door and walked out into the waiting room.

  The offices were on the main floor of my building, easy access at street level. I saw no point in making it inconvenient for potential clients to get to me. It's probably part of why I'd gotten as popular as I had; high visibility, easy access and one hundred percent results.

  The waiting room was triple the size of my office. The same godawful blue paisley wallpaper covered the walls and natural light spilled into the room from the big, plate glass windows. Industrial but not hospital-grade fluorescents hung from the ceiling and buzzed dully in the background of the sounds of life passing my my office outside. I didn't spend a lot of time in the waiting room and I took a moment to admire how clean and nicely decorated it was. I nodded in satisfaction, secure in the fact that, yes, I was the first choice in private investigators. My self-satisfied introspection was interrupted by a polite cough that came from the direction of the plush couch in the corner by the window.

  Oh right. Apparently, I had a job to do.

  I looked at the coughing figure sitting on my couch, He was a scrawny, rat-like man wearing a plain brown suit and a bowler hat. His hands were hidden beneath brown leather gloves and I noticed that his wing tipped shoes were kind of dirty. His face was narrow and pointed and his dark, beady eyes darted around the room nervously.

  Great. I thought. A bureaucrat.

  I stood up a little straighter and tugged on my untucked shirt, attempting to half-assedly make myself a bit more presentable. At least, I reflected, I was wearing clean clothes today.

  I stepped forward towards my visitor.

  “Blaze Tuesday at your service,” I said by way of introduction. I extended my hand politely.

  The rat guy stared blankly at my hand and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. I cocked my eyebrow and shot a glance at my hand, wondering if it had been dirty or something, as I withdrew it.

  I cleared my throat and tried again.

>   “Hi,” I tried. “Welcome to my office. Sorry to have kept you waiting. My secretary says that you want to hire me to do something?”

  The ratty guy on my couch stared at me critically, like he wasn't quite sure what he was looking at. I didn't like it, but I'd be damned if I was gonna let him know it.

  Finally, Rat Guy spoke.

  “Detective Tuesday, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you.”

  “Most of it is lies,” I replied casually. “Unless it's about my successes or my love life. Then it's only a lie when it's negative.”

  The scrawny man smiled politely but didn't move from his spot. I didn't like the guy on principle and I found myself wishing that Jackson was around to deal with this guy. I wasn't very diplomatic when it came to pencil pushing peons. I tried very hard not to show my disappointment in his less than warm reception of me.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I'm here on behalf of my employer,” Ratty said.

  “Who's your employer?” I pressed, not appreciating the vague way Ratty was talking.

  “Is that really important?”

  “To me it is,” I affirmed. “I like to know whose pocket I'm in for the brief time that I am of service.” I shrugged. “It kind of comes with the territory of being a detective. You'll have to forgive me if I don't trust easily.”

  Ratty smiled again, showing off his tobacco-stained teeth. “Of course, I'm sorry. I'm with Wayside Firms.”

  The mention of Wayside set every nerve in my old cop's body into red alert. Wayside was one of the two major clockwork producers in New York. They specialized in medical uses for the gear, though. They created clockwork limbs to replace ones lost or amputated for various reasons. They held patents on clockwork organs that extended the life expectancy of us pathetic mortals and were the forerunners of technological advancement in the field. If Wayside needed to hire me to do something for them, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be involved.

  “You seem hesitant,” Ratty said, reaching into his jacket.

  “It seems to me that Wayside Firms can hire just about anyone to work for them, legally or not,” I replied, cautiously. You don't stay alive as a private detective for as long as I have by making stupid mistakes. “I'm wondering what service I could possibly provide for Wayside that your bosses can't acquire elsewhere.”

  “You have a certain reputation about you, Mister Tuesday,” Ratty began, producing two thick envelopes from his breast pocket. “Words like 'trustworthy', 'thorough', and 'indestructible' come to mind.”

  “Those are some mighty fine adjectives, I agree.”

  “My employers like those adjectives,” Ratty pressed on.

  “Which of those adjectives apply to you, specifically?”

  Ratty simply shrugged. “You will be well-compensated for your troubles, Detective Tuesday,” He informed me, tactfully changing the subject. “Cash. Up front. It is a generous amount, I daresay.”

  Ratty held out one of the envelopes.

  I didn't take it; that would mean that I'd accepted the job, and I still didn't trust this.

  “What's the job?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest in defiance.

  Ratty withdrew the proffered envelope. “It's a pretty routine delivery,” He told me. “We have some highly sensitive materials that need to be delivered.”

  “I ain't a mailman.”

  “Think of yourself more like an armoured truck, then.” Ratty quipped. “My employers seem to think that you're the best man for this job.”

  I stared Ratty down. I inclined my head towards the second envelope in his hand.

  “See, now, I don't buy that for a second. You're sitting here, holding an envelope carrying this 'sensitive' material around,” I sniffled. “So obviously you're somewhat equal to me and I see no reason why I shouldn't tell you to make the delivery yourself.”

  Ratty shook his head. “Don't be so droll, Detective Tuesday. This is merely a contract, the instructions on where you can find the materials for delivery and the key to the safe deposit box in which they are stored.”

  “A contract?” I asked. “What do I need a contract for?”

  “It's a simple agreement, really,” Ratty explained. “It just says that you will not open, read or sell the materials with which you are being entrusted and that you will complete the delivery in a timely manner. If the delivery cannot be completed, you will return the materials to Wayside without question or hesitation.”

  I rolled my eyes and held out my hand. “Give me the damn contract,” I said.

  Ratty handed the second envelope over and I opened it carefully, still fighting the nagging feeling in my guts. This whole thing stank of betrayal and heartache, but a job was a job, after all. And my ego was being delightfully stroked by the strange amount of faith that the big wigs at Wayside were putting in me.

  I pulled out the carefully folded piece of paper that was the contract and I walked over to Trixie's desk. She was still hiding in my office, probably helping herself to the brandy I kept tucked in the bottom drawer, and I was okay with that. I'd rather not have her hear what was happening with this job. The less people who were involved, the better. I didn't trust Ratty, and I sure as hell didn't trust Wayside. Too much horror had come out of those labs, not to mention the crap that ended up coming out of the Five Points labs. Those facilitates were evil, both of ‘em. There was more than one reason why I kept myself clockwork body modification free.

  The contract itself was exactly what Ratty had said it was. Just an agreement to follow the rules set down by Wayside. That I wouldn't sell their secrets. That I wouldn't open the package that I was supposed to deliver. Blah blah blah. It was all proprietary secrets oriented. Not like I cared. What the masses wanted to do to their bodies was none of my concern. I'd rather die than fill myself full of gears and mechanical parts.

  I read the contract over three times, making sure that there was nothing that I was missing. No fine print. Nothing that could screw me over in the long run. It was just as straightforward as Ratty promised me.

  “Before I sign this,” I asked slowly, “can I ask what my fee is going to be? I mean, your contract here says that there is an amount set by Wayside for the delivery of this package of yours. And I do have a set rate for corporate contracts.”

  Ratty smiled his tobacco-stained smile again, still unmoving from his spot on the sofa. “Of course, Detective Tuesday,” He crooned.

  I felt my skin break out in gooseflesh at the almost seductive tone Ratty had taken with me. It was off-putting and I didn't like it. Ratty had better say something worthwhile if he expected to use that tone on me much longer.

  “My employers are offering you ten thousand dollars, in cash, up front.”

  I looked up from where I was slouched over the desk, about to sign the contract. “I'm sorry?”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Ratty said. “In exchange for your services, and your agreement to the terms laid out in the contract in your hand.”

  I blinked stupidly. I was being offered ten thousand dollars to deliver a piece of mail. All those red warning lights started flashing in front of my mind's eye even harder. It was too much, there was no way that this was a simple delivery. And yet...

  “All right,” I said with a nod. I reached across Trixie's desk and pulled the first pen I could touch out of the little brass cup she kept on the edge of her desk. I signed my name at the bottom of the piece of paper and walked back over to the couch. I handed the contract back to Ratty and he handed me the envelope with the money in it.

  My gut instincts were screaming at me to stop, to take it back, to run. But I told every single one of my better judgements to shut it before I made them shut it. The skeptical cop in me wouldn't quiet down though, and I wondered if I'd made a mistake.

  Ratty stood slowly as I tucked the envelope with the ten thousand dollars in it into my back pocket. I held out my hand to Ratty, waiting for him to fold the contract neatly and put it in hi
s own pocket. Ratty looked me over and took my hand cautiously, as though he were actually afraid that I might bite or something.

  As we shook hands, I could feel the metal skeleton he kept hidden under the leather gloves. I could feel the gears ticking away beneath the fabric covering it and I wondered if he'd refused the synthetic skin that they used over top of the clockwork appendages on purpose, or if he just couldn't afford it. No, there was no way that it was a money issue. It had to be an intimidation thing. And it was well-known that I wasn't the most fond of clockwork implants and would likely have turned him away immediately if I had seen them right off the bat.

  I suddenly understood why he hadn't taken my hand in the first place. He didn't want to give away his secret.

  I also realized, with shocking clarity, that I wasn't just dealing with a simple bureaucrat at all. Ratty here was an enforcer of some sort. A well-spoken, well-dressed bouncer for Wayside.

  Shit. What had I just gotten myself into?

  Ratty smiled as our handshake lingered a little longer than was absolutely necessary.

  “Ah, you've found out my little secret,” Ratty mumbled. “Terribly sorry about that. I tend to forget about them.” He shrugged, wriggling his fingers against my hand. “I'm just so used to the ticking,” he flashed his yellowed teeth at me. “I will be seeing you soon, I should think. When the job is complete.”

  I nodded mutely. I didn't know what to say; they'd managed to pull a fast one on me. My inner cop was screaming 'told you so' in every corner of my mind. I wanted to slap myself. I'd fallen for the money. Damn.

  “I'll get on it straight away,” I promised, not wanting to be in Wayside's pocket for any longer than I absolutely had to.