Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series (5 page)

Phishy always wore a dark colored vest and pants, but underneath was always some off-white colored, long-sleeve shirt extravaganza with colored fishes all over it. He had a street name to maintain. He strutted down the street, side-stepping the sidewalk johnnies and sallies, saying hello to friends, slapping a high or low five as he went along.

"Yo, Phishy," the food truck guy called to him.

It was Dog Man. Only hover-garbage trucks were more ubiquitous than hover-food trucks. In Metropolis, you didn't have to go out in the rain on a food-run if you didn't want to, the food would come to you. But most hover-food trucks staked out their turf either in the air or on the ground.

Dog Man had the perfect corner, with six lanes of pedestrian traffic on the ground, and the same above him in the air. His hover-truck never flew anywhere anymore; it was a permanent fixture on the corner, open twenty-fours a day. Man! He could make a damn good hot dog. His food truck "owned" this street. In other words, he paid a wad of cash to the city to get exclusivity for his main truck here and two more at the other end of two more streets.

"What's up Dog?" Phishy asked as he neared the truck. The aroma was like a drug itself.

"Do you know where Cruz is, Phishy?"

"What? Why you askin' me?"

"It's not me," Dog said. "Run-Time has the all points out for him."

"I haven't seen him since Wednesday."

"Well, if you see him, call Run-Time. Maybe you can get some cash out of it."

"Hardly." Phishy frowned. "You have to be a customer to get anything from Run-Time. Otherwise, he's as
cheap as the Scrooge on Christmas Eve."

"Meaning you tried to scam him and it didn't go well."

"I try to scam everybody, even my friends. If I didn't, that would be like discriminating."

"If you say so, Phishy. How about a dog?"

"Oh man, Dog Man. You're worse than the dope daddies. You're selling the wiener version of hard narcotics out of this food truck. I get fat, I can't fit into my clothes and I don't earn enough to get an all new wardrobe."

"Half a dog won't put any fat on them bones. You can skip the sauces."

"You can't have a dog without the sauces. And a beverage to wash it down. That would be just plain wrong." Phishy pointed at him. "Half a dog with my favorite sauce, spicy hot, beverage and that's it. Put it on my tab."

Dog Man started to get his hot dog. "Phishy, I don't know why you keep using that line. You have no tab with me or anyone else. Pull that cash out that I know you have, and I don't want any wet or dirty bills."

"I told you I try to scam even my friends." Phishy reached into his vest pocket for his cash.

He could feel his mobile phone vibrate on his belt. He grabbed it.

"Phishy, phishy, phishy," he answered.

"Why do you do that?" the voice said. "Are you like two years old?"

"Yo, China Doll."

"Don't 'yo' me. Where's Cruz?"

"Why is everyone asking me about Cruz? I haven't seen him since last Wednesday. Do you have everybody looking for him?"

"Yeah."

"What'd he do?"

"No one can find him."

"Men need their alone time too. Leave him alone. He'll show up when he shows up."

"I know you know where he is."

"I haven't seen him since last Wednesday. But if I do, I'll tell him that he found a great hiding place and keep hiding there."

"Don't make me come down there, Phishy. Tell him he better not even think of not making dinner today. He knows how important it is."

"Dinner?"

"Yeah."

"Can I come in his place? I'll be hungry again."

"Uh...no."

"Why you got to be like that, China Doll? Phishies need food too."

"I'll save some goldfish food for you then. You know what you have to do. Use those street skills of yours and find him."

"You got Run-Time looking for him. Now me. Did you call the police and national guard?"

"I don't need them. That's what I got people for."

"Do I get a few bills if I find him?"

"No, but you can have the goldfish food. Bye, Phishy."

"Bye, China Doll."

Phishy returned the mobile to his belt. "See how I'm treated, Dog Man."

His mouth began to water at the sight of the hot dog on a petite plate in Dog Man's hand.

"You got something for me, Phishy."

"Oh yeah. I was distracted."

Phishy reached back into his vest pocket for his cash. He revealed a bill. "Here doggy-doggy." He slapped the bill down on the food truck service counter.

"I'll assume you're talking about the half hot dog." Dog Man buttered on Phishy's spicy sauce and then handed him the plate. He made change quickly and before Phishy could speak, said, "Beverage coming up." He grabbed a cup, hit the dispenser for ice, then another for beer. "Know what I'm going to say now?"

Phishy had the entire half dog already stuffed into his mouth. "You're going to give me the other half for free."

"Don't forget about Cruz," Dog Man said. "You get distracted easy. So where is he? If everybody is calling you, then you know where he is."

Phishy kept chewing. "I'm still thinking about it. I'm a man who reacts to incentives."

"Phishy, don't make that girlfriend of his come down here and stomp you into the pavement."

Chapter 5: Punch Judy

Punch Judy.

She sat on the mega-steps of the housing complex with a cloud of pink smoke flowing from her mouth and a long-stem cigarette dangling from her fingers. Her short hair was the darkest of crimson, she wore mirrored glasses on her face, and had a simulated mole, a dot, above her pinkish lipstick-covered lips. Black
leather jacket with a plastic hood, pants, and heeled boots was what she often wore. The jacket hung open to show her holographic, colored top with the initials "PJ".

Back in the day, Judy was a soldier in the punk-posh gang, Les Enfantes Terribles in Neo-Paris, France. Haute-couture designer clothes--the most expensive right off the ranks of Goodwill--with fashion-matched combat boots, knuckle-studded, leather, half-gloves, and Devo-style half-helmets on their rainbow colored, punk hair. They were
"royalty."

But then the gang got greedy and it all went wrong. They started to believe their own hype and tried to extend their territory way beyond the French quarters. Posh gangs never do well in direct confrontation with feral gangs of chaos or long-game, Moriarty-planning, brainiac gangs. It was like the Fall of Old Paris all over again. Les Enfantes Terribles, The Terrible Children gang, was decimated in mere days by rival (real) gangs in one show of unity. The gang war left many parts of Neo-Paris burning and most of the Les Enfantes Terribles dead.

Punch Judy was crazy even then when it came to loyalty. She could not let it go and went to war with all of them by herself, tracking key leaders outside of the country. A murderous chase through the streets of Metropolis in her self-made death-mobile led to a horrific accident, pinning her body in a burning wreck as enemy gang members stood and laughed nearby. Then Cruz happened.

Even if she wasn't an ex-felon, there would be very few jobs available to an ex-gang member like her with psych problems. Her days were spent mostly like today--smoking on the stoop, wasting her life away, while watching people walk by, the hover-cars fly above, the rain fall from the sky, and counting the raindrops.

"Punch!" She heard the man's voice but didn't see him.

She lethargically looked up with her mirrored, wet shades to the first apartment window above her. A pudgy man looked down at her from a large open window. She stared back without a word; she liked to sit in the rain. The feel of the drops made her feel content.

"Are you not going to answer me?" he shouted.

She took a draw from her cigarette.

"No wonder you have no friends."

"I have no friends," she answered in a contemptuous French accent, "because they were all killed."

"How long ago was that? Why do you sit under my window? I'd pay good to switch with my neighbors not to see you under my window."

"You say the same things every time I see you, you stupid man. What do you want?"

"Don't you carry a mobile?"

"Stop asking me stupid questions you know the answer to, you stupid man."

"Turn it on! People are calling me like I'm your personal secretary."

"Who is it?"

"I'm not your personal secretary! Turn on your mobile and find out for yourself!"

The man disappeared back into his apartment home and slammed the window shut.

She placed her cigarette in the corner of her mouth as she reached into her jacket pocket. As soon as she flipped it on, it began to ring. She looked at the outside display screen, but didn't recognize the number.

She answered it and saw the tiny face of China Doll on the display.

"How did you get my number?"

"Where's Cruz?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Maybe because you're the sidewalk sally who sits in front of his building all day long."

"I am not a sidewalk sally!"

"Where's Cruz?"

"I don't know and I don't care and I wouldn't tell you if I did know and care."

"Tell him I'm looking for him."

"No, I won't."

"And call me immediately."

"No."

"As soon as you see him."

"No."

"Now you can go back to doing whatever nothing you were doing, you sidewalk sally."

"I am not a sidewalk sally! I live in this building!"

"Whatever."

"I am--"

It clicked before she could finish. She cursed in French and crushed the mobile phone to pieces with her bionic hand. "Chinese donkey, I hate you!" She threw the pieces of the mobile into the air, showering the steps with fragments everywhere.

"Hey!"

Four of the local sidewalk johnnies watched her.

"I'm sorry," she said to them.

"I thought you were one of us, Punch," one of them said.

One could see that the men were dressed decently under their gray slicker coats. It must have been a multi-buy sale because the slickers were identical and all of them had their hoods covering their heads. Their faces were another matter. Weathered faces with scraggly mustaches, beards, and heads of hair. This particular crew of sidewalk johnnies wore subtle yellow shades.

"I am one of you," she answered, standing to her feet.

"That's not how it sounded when you were talking on the mobile, Punch. It's like you're ashamed of us," another man said.

"No, that's not true. She was disrespecting you, not me. I'm an adopted sidewalk sally. You know that. I have problems. You know that."

"We all got problems, Punch. Every last person in this city has problems, even the ones who pretend they don't."

"Absolutely true." She started to walk down the steps towards them and could see in their expressions that they were not happy with her. "No hard feelings. I'm always here with you. We look out for each other. Isn't that true?"

"Yeah, but if you don't want to associate with us anymore--"

"No! I won't hear any more about it. We are the guardians
of the streets.
We know better than anybody what the street is capable of. We must stay united because the street can get angry. We're the line of defense against that. Besides, you know I say all kinds of things. That's why I try to keep from talking. When I talk, fifty percent of what comes out of mouth will be stupid. Isn't that true?"

The men smiled.

"Okay, Punch. Everyone deserves another chance," one them answered.

"Exactly. Now help me do something. I need the eyes and ears of the street. Do you know where Cruz is now?"

"I thought you told the person on the mobile you weren't going to look for him."

"I'm not. I'm using my connections to do it, but not for her. It's for me."

The men looked at each other. "We haven't seen Cruz."

"Me, neither."

The other two men shook their heads too.

"I saw him pull out the place early this morning in his ride, headed East, but that's it," one of them added.

"He goes out. He has to come back," Punch Judy said. "We'll just wait for him."

"Do you think we can get some money out that person on the mobile?" one of the men asked.

She gave him an askance look. "Doubtful. His girl wants to know where he is."

"Oh, China Doll."

"We like her," said another man.

"I hate her. I hate him."