He and Kaskey left Jonsy to his misery, he had nothing else to say.
“Let me buy you a drink,” Grant offered at the door back into the club.
“You don’t want to drink in a place like this.”
“No, you’re right.”
“There’s a bar next door. Come on.”
They left the club and found a nice and quiet bar next door. Seemed it catered to those that wanted to get away from the noise as there were a lot of young couples snuggling up to each other at the tables.
“Why’d you help me?” Grant asked him.
“Jonsy was right, you look like police. A little bit. But you ain’t are you?”
“I find things, but yes, ex-InterG.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“I don’t like the way they do things.”
Kaskey smiled and nodded.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Grant pushed.
“How’d you think you’d get answers in a place like that?”
“I can tell you I’ve never had an issue.”
“That right?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think you play nice,” Kaskey grinned.
“Not always.”
Grant’s mobile computer was on the table and it vibrated. He’d put all of Jonsy’s details into it and it had gone straight to Gulch who had reworked the pictures.
“What’s that?”
“My partner sending in the updated sketches,” Grant showed him.
“Nifty kit,” Kaskey appreciated.
“Listen to me, Kaskey, you know the area. Seems these men came in for two days. Two days, two grabs. That means they spent a day here. You can help me get that info.”
Kaskey thought about it.
“Yeah, alright. If you paying for my time.”
Grant smiled.
“Of course.”
“Ha. Not like I got anything better to do anyways.”
***
“So we’re getting somewhere,” Gulch said in the lobby bar of their hotel.
“Yes.”
“This Kaskey fellow seems like a jolly lucky find.”
“Yes. Local knowledge…”
“Is good knowledge,” Gulch smiled.
“We can’t keep being lucky,” Grant said and took a sip of his drink.
“We’re off to a good start, what is your reading?”
“What’s yours?” Grant batted back.
Gulch took a draught of his own drink, a pint of Samuel Smith’s Bitter. A beer so good it had been brought into space with the first Humans.
“Professional, but opportunist, though I’m surprised they stayed for the extra day.”
“Yeah,” Grant nodded. “The first grab not up to scratch or they’ve got a quota.”
“So they’re working for someone else. Durdens?”
“No. Durdens work for themselves and they’re not so subtle.”
“Agreed. The other thing that bothers me?”
“How’d they get to PeePardeu?”
“Exactly.”
“The hand over vehicle,” Grant said.
“Another obvious lead.”
“They’re banking on being far away by the time anyone looks,” Grant said. “I’d think the vehicle is stolen from another world.”
“Yes,” Gulch agreed. “Do you think they stop off on a world just to steal a van or do you think they grab one before they leave?”
“Good point. Let’s look into that. What about that tattoo?”
“I got a couple of possibilities, I’m running them through the InterG database, could take some time.”
“Alright. Probably not so important, just let me know.”
Gulch finished his drink and slithered off of his seat.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Ben. Rest up.”
“Yeah, sleep well.”
After Gulch had gone, Grant finished his drink and ordered another. He didn’t like this job, it already felt like it was straying into territory he didn’t want to get into. In fact, he’d started this business to get away from such things. All he wanted to do was help people recover things they had lost or had stolen. Yes he located missing people, but they were generally missing on purpose. Kidnapping was InterG business and he tried to avoid InterG business.
And this was kidnapping, not for ransom and that made matters worse. There were all sorts of reasons why people kidnapped other people and none of them were nice. Mostly it was slavery, sometimes worse. So normally Grant would hand all his information over to the local police who would in turn get in touch with the Intergalactic Police. And he would do that, but this time he wouldn’t drop it. The police were next to useless with something like this. The rich relied on the security teams to stop anything happening and seemed to accept that once in a while someone paid the price for it. He’d get bogged down with them and when they finally sent it up to the InterG there would be the normal paperwork and bureaucracy to get through before anyone began investigating. When they did, they’d come back and cover the same ground as he already had. By the time they got off-world the girls would be untraceable.
It was one of the reasons he’d left the InterG, too much bureaucracy got in the way of them actually solving cases. There were very odd lines at which cases passed between the local police, the InterG and the UTN Navy, with everyone trying to palm difficult cases off to the others.
So he would give the information to the local police and leave them to do with it what they liked, but he would continue on with the search. He finished his drink and went to bed.
***
That night he dreamt that he was walking through a dark and narrow street; on both sides there were windows and in each stood a female. Different race in each window, none of them dressed in much at all. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t here for that; he was searching for an armed robber who was staying ahead of the police by jumping from one galaxy to another. There was rumour that the robber would target the city of Zantei and he had been sent there to work with the local police. Now it seemed the rumours were true and he was desperately tracking the robber before he (or she) could escape. But all that disappeared as he walked past a window halfway down the street and saw a haggard looking Human woman. She was a woman then, but she hadn’t been when he had been assigned to find her.
He went in and pushed past the woman in the foyer. Security was called and they found themselves unconscious in a heap behind him as he wrenched doors open until he found her. She had no idea who he was, where she had come from nor the names of her parents. She struggled as he pulled her outside and his partner berated him. This wasn’t the case, what the hell was he doing?
He would have gotten in a lot more trouble, especially for knocking out his partner, if he hadn’t gone and caught the robber that night. He was in a rage and no partner, no Captain, no bureaucracy and no stupid robber was going to stop him finishing a case that he’d never gotten a chance to start so many years before.
They thought she was doing well back at home, recuperating, remembering, but she was gone within the year. It killed the parents, their hearts just couldn’t handle the sorrow and loss a second time around and it would be another two years before he found her again.
CHAPTER 6
Kaskey got into the van.
“How’re ya doing?”
“Good,” Grant shook his hand. “This is my partner, Gulch.”
Kaskey turned around in the seat to find Gulch in a swivel seat in front of a computer.
“Good morning.”
“How’re ya doing? Kaskey,” he held out his hand and Gulch just looked at it. “What?”
“Sorry,” Gulch stretched out a tentacle and shook his hand. “Most people don’t want to shake with a tentacle.”
“Pssh. Gotta be polite, right?”
“I agree,” Gulch smiled.
“So you do the computers while he does the leg work.”
“I’m not much of a runner,” Gulch agr
eed.
“I’m with you, man, I only run if something’s chasing me.”
“Happen a lot in your profession?” Grant asked.
“Not if I’m doing it right,” Kaskey replied.
“Hustler, right?
“That obvious?” he asked turning back around.
“Only to the trained eye. Where’re we going?”
“What’re you thinking on these guys?”
“They wouldn’t want to hang around, but they’d need to be here long enough to scope out the places to go,” Grant said.
“You can find out plenty on the Universal Trading Web,” Kaskey said.
“Not enough to start kidnapping people,” Grant replied.
“I wouldn’t know,” Kaskey grinned.
“We’ve got a comedian on our hands, Gulch.”
“So I hear.”
“So you thinking they got here earlier in the day?”
“Early enough to be able to work out a route, choose the best nightclub to work. Book into a hotel.”
“Hotels it is then. Let’s start at the Porthouse.”
“Lead the way,” Grant said as he started the engine and pulled away.
The Porthouse was a no-go, the clerk didn’t recognise the pictures and had been working during the time the men would have been there. They moved on to Gert’s Motel. It was small and cheap, like The Porthouse, both catering to people visiting or working in the poorer area of the city. None of them thought the men would have booked into one of the expensive hotels. Too much security.
“Yup, I reckon so,” the woman said behind the reception.
She was a Reutorgian; her body was long and thin like a pencil (even ending at a pointy tail) with spindly arms and legs and a head shaped like a soda can.
“You rented their rooms since?” Grant asked as he took back the sketches.
“Let me see,” she tapped on her computer. They shared two rooms, one of them’s been rented since, but both have been cleaned.”
“We’d still like to see it,” Grant said.
“It doesn’t do me good to ask questions, you know?”
“It’s cool, ma’am, we ain’t suggesting anything about you nor this establishment of yours. I’ve stayed here myself,” Kaskey said with a smile.
“I thought I recognised you,” she said as she came around the reception desk.
“Good memory for faces,” Kaskey commented.
“I see a lot of them,” she replied as she opened a door and led them into a door lined corridor.
“How about accents?” Grant asked. “Anything to say where they might be from?”
“No,” she shook her head. “Bland. Like people who travel too much get. Like you two.”
Grant nodded, he knew what she meant. With so many accents, variations and languages your own took them all on until it became none of them.
“They go out much?” Kaskey asked.
“As much as anyone else. Went out to eat.”
“They ever say where?”
“I didn’t ask. Here,” she unlocked a door. “Don’t mess it up or I’ll bill you for a night’s stay.”
“We won’t,” Grant assured her.
They stood and looked at each other until she took the hint and left.
“What’re we looking for?” Kaskey asked from the centre of the room.
“Anything that might have DNA in it; anything that might give us a clue as to where they came from or went to.”
“Looks pretty clean.”
“Yeah. Looks. This isn’t the Intergalactical, I doubt they deep clean the place.”
“Look in the corners,” Kaskey grinned.
“Yup. Use this,” he threw him a small vacuum box. “Stick it where you might get a hit and press the button, we’ll sort it later.”
Grant left him in there with the two beds, chest of drawers and wardrobe while he went into the bathroom. He took out another vacuum box and looked around. The bathroom seemed cleaner, but it was easier to see dirt on tile and so more likely to garner complaints. Though Grant didn’t think it was the type of establishment that garnered complaints, nor worried about the state of the rooms.
With so much security this city wouldn’t be a target for crime, which would make it a good place for criminals to meet. No one would be expecting criminals to bother with the place, so no one would look. The Ovian Galaxy was a well-known example of this.
Surrounded by the ‘Eye-Net’, a system that detected weapons as you passed through it, and with a crack police force, it was too much bother to try and commit crimes there. But it did mean that criminals could meet there knowing that no one could be armed.
In fact many of the bigger criminals were quite welcome as they spent vast amounts of money there and if they needed to stay longer to avoid assassination and the like? Why not? As long as they didn’t try anything funny. This famously included the notorious gangster Scaadies who took up stand-up comedy after he retired there and was arrested for crimes against the Universe.
Grant used his vacuum here and there, but he didn’t hold much hope. Even if they could get a DNA match to one of them, what would it tell them? They might get a name if they’d ever been caught by the InterG, but that rarely led to a capture unless they stayed in one place. He walked back into the room.
“Check under the bed and under the sink in the bathroom. If they had guns they may have taped them there. I’m going to talk to the receptionist again.”
“Wilco,” Kaskey said looking up from the little fridge.
Grant walked down the corridor and through the door. The receptionist looked up at him a little startled.
“Everything alright?” he asked her.
“Why, yes. Of course,” but she was trying to compose herself.
“I just had a few more questions,” he said.
“Listen,” she said hurriedly. “I’ve no beef with you and I don’t think you know your friend in there too well so you should go.”
“I should what?”
“Leave. Now,” she urged.
Grant narrowed his eyes.
“What have you done?”
“What I was asked. I don’t like it, but I don’t have an option. I don’t want to see you caught up in it, but how could I warn you?”
“Of what?”
He heard cars pull up and looked through the glass entrance doors. There were a number of men of different species getting out; the one thing they all had in common was their burliness and their weapons.
Grant didn’t hesitate. He ran back, yanking the door open and flying through.
“Kaskey? Kaskey?” he shouted. “Time to go. Now!”
“What is it?” Kaskey asked popping his head out of the door.
“Run,” Grant shouted.
Kaskey must have seen the men behind Grant because he joined Grant in running towards the back of the building. A laser blast hit the wall just behind and to the right of them. The corridor split into a T at the end and a laser blast hit the wall over Grant’s left shoulder. He could hear the receptionist shrieking at the damage as Kaskey shouted at him.
“Left, left.”
They darted left as more accurate shots hit the wall.
“You know what you said about running?” Grant panted.
“Yeah, yeah. There should be a back door down here.”
As they ran Grant pulled his laser pistol and fired back at the corner, hoping to buy them some time.
“Here, here, here,” Kaskey skidded to a halt.
It was an emergency exit and Kaskey flung it open as Grant laid down more fire. They ran out into a rear parking lot as Gulch skidded in and nearly crashed into the dustbins.
“You drive,” Grant shouted at Kaskey as he shot at the door.
Kaskey pulled the door open as Gulch leapt into the back and opened the side door. Grant quickly backed towards it as an Albertine showed in the doorway. Grant shot at the frame and the Albertine ducked back inside. He wasn’t going to kill someone without goo
d reason, for all he knew, Kaskey was the bad guy here. He leapt in the van and it skidded around as he shut the side door.
Once in, he clambered over into the passenger seat as Kaskey rocketed the van around the motel and through the smaller front parking area. There were two vans there and people shouted and started shooting, but then they were clear around the corner.
“You came back?” Gulch asked incredulously.
“It’s been a long time,” Kaskey shot back as they skidded around another corner.
“How long?” Grant asked.
“Two years.”
“What did you do?” Gulch and Grant asked at the same time.
“I think we have bigger issues,” Kaskey said as a laser bolt flew past.
“They local?” Grant asked.
“These days? Yeah.”
“Gulch check on our friends at the dark zone.”
“Hello, Cheeb?”
“Cheeb here.”
“Any luck?”
“No. We got busted as security pretty quickly,” Cheeb apologised.
“Get a police car or two to meet us there,” Grant said as he clambered into the back. “Coming on…?”
“Salter Intersection,” Kaskey said.
“Salter Intersection. You get that?”
“Got it,” Cheeb said. “What about us?”
“Go home,” Gulch said.
“Head that way,” Grant commanded Kaskey.
“Be better to head spacewards,” Kaskey said.
“Not without all the information we need.”
The van headed out of the city and into a landscape of sandy not much. There were clumps of scrubby bushes and the odd group of trees, but not much else unless you looked to the horizon.
“Pleasant,” Grant commented.
“Stripped for building, but they never did,” Kaskey said.
Grant slid open the side door and leaned out holding a strap. There were two vans and a car behind them, the car coming up fast. Grant shot at its wheels, but missed as it swerved. He saw men leaning out of windows with machineguns and ducked inside as they fired. Kaskey swerved the van as much as he could but they got rocked by laser bolts.
“This thing armoured?” Kaskey shouted back with amazement.
“This happens more than you would think,” Gulch informed him.
“Talking of which,” Grant leant out and fired before ducking back in. “What did you do?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, actually. This is messing up our investigation and for all we know, you’re the bad guy here.”
“I’m not, I swear. For once, I’m not.”
Gulch looked at Grant who looked back.
“He helped us so we help him,” Grant said.