make it a threesome." Franklin squirmed uncomfortably. A bit hypocritical of him, if you ask me, considering his own sexual preferences.
Franklin wasn't into Spuds. But he did like things a bit kinky and he liked his girls young. I'd retrieved a damning video from a pimp last year as a favor to him, which was why he was going to pay me a bonus now. The girl in the video had said she was eighteen. She looked twenty-one. But a judge wouldn't care that she was a well-paid, willing participant. He'd only see that she was barely sixteen and Franklin would be looking at five to seven in Joliet.
"What do you want." He lowered his voice and bent closer to me. At almost two meters tall and only sixty five kilos, he might have been a stork stooping to speak to a toad. I wasn't pretty enough to be a frog.
"Two chips."
He looked around for the C.O.P. units, but they had all filed out with the social workers. "That's illegal, Tito."
"So is sex with teenage girls." 'Tis one thing to be tempted, another to fall, I though, hearing Charlie's voice in my head.
He alternately paled and flushed with anger. "Where am I supposed to get biochips?'
"You work for DPS. Be creative. Two chips by noon tomorrow. On top of the credits I earned for this job." I smiled. "And now I think I'll let you buy me lunch. Otherwise I might have a serious lapse in memory after such a trying ordeal."
Lunch was at an out of the way diner. Not the Taproom at the Drake, but I didn't care. The burger was good and they used real grease for the fries, not that canola crap mandated by the Health Department. I made a note of the place for attention later. Halfway through lunch, Franklin took a call. He excused himself for two minutes, then returned with an envelope.
He slid it to me under the table. A bit melodramatic, but I let him have his moment of drama. The envelope contained two brand new untrained biochips. Franklin had more resources than I gave him credit for.
"Thanks. You're a true friend, Jack." I used his first name to make sure he knew I meant it. If you'd cultivate a man's loyalty, flatter his vanity, as Charlie always said. In Franklin's case it wasn't just flattery. He went out on a limb with the DPS every time he hired me. Between the two of us, we'd busted ten C.C. homes and put some truly nasty people out of business. I needed the money he threw my way. And the busts hadn't hurt his career.
"Just be careful with those things. I can't help you if they catch you with them."
"No worries, Jack. My problem. Thanks for the lunch."
I stood up to leave as he slid his Universal Debit Card into the reader to pay the check. He stopped me with a touch on my shoulder. "You did a good thing today. Tito. I'm sorry if Clancy hurt you."
"'It's not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after'," I said, borrowing Charlie's quotation voice. Franklin looked puzzled. "Shakespeare. If you want to do a good deed, help Cassie find a decent home. I owe her."
I left the diner, my thoughts running down the road with Charlie as they often did after a job. God, but I missed that old man and his quotations from the Bard. I'd been a smart-ass bum when he'd found me on the streets two years ago. He'd taught me the value of family and honor. He was on the run from the DPS himself these days, a blank with no records or identity. And I was now the Fixer in his stead.
It had been rough those first few months. I didn't have Charlie's flair for drama or his ability to intimidate. But I'd found my own way to do business. I'd learned to use my 'disability' as an advantage. Like these jobs for Franklin. I could infiltrate a custodial home without raising suspicion. I had practiced my Dumb-Dwarf act until it was second nature. Once I had enough evidence, I'd whistle for Franklin and another abusive home would bite the dust. Franklin paid in much needed credits.
More often, pay was in favors, courtesies as Charlie used to call them. That's the way the business worked--a favor for a favor. Value for value. I did a favor for a client and they would owe me one as well. Some were big, most were small, but always there was an exchange of value. That's something else I learned from Charlie. No such thing as a free lunch.
I took a cross-town bus to Harlem Avenue, then headed south. I got off at Ashland and walked the last few blocks to Rosie's place. The building had started life as a gas station and repair shop. It had gone belly up when the government had mandated all-electric cars. Now it housed Rosie's warehouse and small fleet of delivery trucks, a legitimate business. And a front for his real business.
I banged on the door and a skinny guy with long blond hair answered it. He held a baseball bat, even though the Cubs hadn't started spring training yet.
"Hey Clarence, whattaya know?" I said.
"Hi, Tito. You looking for Rosie?"
I nodded and he opened the door wider and waved me in. "He's in the office." He pointed toward the back of the garage. I said thanks and headed that way.
Ambrose Olongopo was the biggest human being I'd ever seen. He and I shared a common heritage from the Pacific islands. But where he had inherited the massive size of his Tonganese ancestors, my family on Guam had mingled with the Spanish generations ago. We tended to be smaller and fine boned.
"Hafa adai, Rosie," I called as I entered.
"Hafa' Tito, you little tau-tau."
"Who you calling little?"
He laughed. "You still got da tau-tau, da devil, in you guts. What you want?"
"Trade. The usual."
"I dunno, Tito. Times gettin tough. Maybe da price go up, yah?"
"Maybe not. It's for Sarafina. You wouldn't want to cheat an old lady would you?"
"Now dat's not fair. I wanna talk-talk an' haggle a bit, an' you gotta hit below da belt."
I laughed at that. Rosie was a smuggler and dealer in contraband. He'd buy and sell anything. But he had a soft spot in his pirate's heart for Sarafina. He'd never been serious about haggling with me anyway. It was just a way to save face. I passed him the two chips He reached into a big box behind his chair and pulled out two cartons of Italian cigarettes.
"Dese tings gonna kill dat ol' lady one day."
"She's all alone except for me, Rosie. Smoking's about the only pleasure she has left."
"You tell her Rosie say 'Hafa' an' she still owe me a lasagna, yah?"
"Sure thing." I paused. "Any word from Raratonga?" I asked carefully.
He shook his head. "You family safe, Tito. No news is good news, yah?"
I nodded but wasn't happy. Dad and Javier had made it to Tonga, but I'd heard nothing for months. I didn't know how long Consolidated Genetics' reach was, but they had worldwide operations. I just had to trust Dad to know when it was safe to come out of hiding.
I waved good-bye to Rosie and made my way home. It wasn't a long walk and the crisp air cleared my head. I hoped Cassie would be all right.
I climbed the stoop to the three flat where Sarafina and I lived. She owned the building and I rented the first floor apartment. The middle floor was vacant. All of its utilities were rerouted to my flat giving me beefed up electrical and netlink access.
I was winded by the time I'd climbed the three flights to her door. She must have heard me coming. She opened it before I could knock. Sarafina Nostopolito was a small birdlike woman, painfully thin but quick of movement with sparkling eyes and surprisingly strong voice. In her youth she'd been famous as Sara Nestor, primary female lead for the Folger Shakespeare Troup. But VR netlinks had killed live theater, and the Plague had killed her family. She was alone now except for me and her photographs.
"Tito! How wonderful. What did you bring me?"
I held out the cigarettes and she clapped her hands like a child on Christmas morning. "Oh, thank you, dear. I was running low again." She was almost never without a cigarette in her hand, a hard habit to maintain. Tobacco had been illegal since I was eight years old.
"Won't you come in?" she asked. "I'm making grain pie."
I was sorely tempted. I loved the rich custard pie stuffed with sweetened wheat berries and chunks of dark chocolate. But lunch was still heavy in my stomach and I
was tired and dirty. I wanted a shower and a nap.
"Some other time, Sarafina," I said. "I've been working and I need a nap. Rosie says 'Hafa'"
She laughed. "And he still wants his lasagna, that old pirate."
"Yes, ma'am. Can I come for pie and coffee tomorrow?"
"Of course, dear. Oh, I almost forgot. You had a visitor. She said she'd gotten your name from Rosie and wanted to talk to you about some work. Very pretty little thing she was, too."
I wondered why Rosie hadn't said anything about a job. Sarafina had only a vague idea of what I did. Just that I performed services for people. I didn't want her knowing the seamier side of the job. She handed me a glossy card. Titania's Purse it read. Objects of Wonder, Secrets of Beauty from the Faerie World. I flipped it over. There was a net locus and a vidphone number on the back.
I looked at the front of the card again. As I watched it changed, morphing into images of elves and faeries holding colored jars of ointments and crèmes with prices scrolling under them. Each flip of the card brought up a new image until it cycled through all the files and returned to the original printing. It was a nice effect, probably expensive. Whoever ran this net store was doing pretty well. Good news for me.
I returned to my own apartment. The front room looked out on the street through big bay windows. I'd salvaged much of Charlie's furniture after the C.O.P.S. had smashed it. I'd reframed the Seamus Murphy painting as well. The oversized seascape and spare furnishing gave the room a nautical appearance that I liked. I went to the netlink in the corner and checked my account. Franklin had deposited the credits already. I was flush for a little while. Even after I paid the utility bill.
I walked down the long hallway to my room, stripped off my clothes and turned on the shower. Soap and hot water stripped away the grime of Clancy's hell hole. But a deep sadness and feeling of futility remained. What did it matter if I closed her down or a dozen like her? I was still a Spud to most of the world. At best an object of pity. At worst a reminder of a loss so terrible that most Normies chose to forget it and bury themselves in mindless pleasures. No room there for unpleasant truths like me.
I dried off and put on fresh jeans and a sweatshirt. I picked up the card. Titania's Purse. Interesting name; showed more than the average level of literacy. I went back to the netlink and activated the avatar program before entering the vidphone number. I don't use an avatar to talk to people I know, but for new customers it helps reduce some of the shock at my true appearance. Until we had an agreement, all they'd see was a handsome cartoon of a dark haired man with vaguely Latino features.
She answered on the second ring. Sarafina hadn't lied. She had white-blond hair cut in a short bob that framed her heart-shaped face. Her deep blue eyes were set above high cheekbones and a thin delicate nose. She peered into the link.
"Horacio Guzman?" she asked. Her mouth was a little wide, thin lipped with perfect white teeth.
"That's me. Forgive the avatar. Until we have an agreement, I prefer to keep my face hidden. It may save some embarrassment for both of us if I don't agree to help you."
"Why do you think I need help?" Her words were subtly accented. European, maybe Slavic or Russian. I'd spent enough time in Blanktown to tell. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.
"You wouldn't look for me if you didn't. I understand Ambrose Olongopo referred you. What's your connection to him?"
She looked around her as if someone were watching, then lowered her voice. "I make various beauty aids. They are sold in some of the finest VR malls. But many ingredients are difficult to get at reasonable cost. Mr. Olongopo helps supply them. He said you were a man to be trusted." Again her words and speech pattern suggested she wasn't a native Chicagoan.
"Your name?" I asked.
"Titania Pedenko. It's why the shop is