Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase (Anthology)

The Troubleshooter: What the Wise Man Says

The Troubleshooter:
What the Wise Man Says

Bard Constantine

INTRODUCTION

After the Cataclysm nearly wiped out humanity, the remnants of mankind survived in Havens: city-sized constructs built to reboot society and usher in a new age of mankind.

However the new age was not the type that the architects had envisioned. The same greed and lust for power that existed before the Cataclysm had resurfaced, and the Havens quickly became quagmires of political and economic conflict that threatened to destroy the future envisioned by the Haven’s founders.

This is the world of Mick Trubble, a man without a past. A man with nothing to lose. But when your luck is down and no one else can help you, he can. He takes the cases that no one else will touch. The type of trouble that no one else can handle.
Mick Trubble is…

The Troubleshooter.


THE WISE MAN SAYS

It’s not the way you start that counts -its how you finish, so the wise man says. Perfect advice if you were a man without a past, like me.

It only made sense to take note of the counsel of mugs that have seen and done things. You know, been around the block long enough to know a thing or two. So I listened to what the wise man said.

Theodore Wiseman, that is.

Ol’ Wiseman was in the crowd that had gathered around when I was fished outta the river the night I lost most of my memory. He let me crash in his basement while I ‘got myself together,’ as he put it. Wiseman was a pretty decent mug. He knew that I wouldn’t have lasted long on the streets of New Haven without a helping hand. And in turn I was more than happy to lend him a hand with whatever it was he needed.

Turned out he needed a partner.

Although he didn’t want to admit it, Wiseman was an old codger who had lost the spring in his step. He was a tough old fossil, though. Most mugs would’ve sat back and retired, but Wiseman scoffed at that.

“Listen, Mick. A man retires when he’s ready to die. I may have lost a step or two, but what I lost I gained back in wit and cunning. Figure it evens out. I’d like to take you on the beat. It’s been real dead lately, but we’re about to change that. If you wanna wake something dead, then you gotta make a lot of noise. So we’re gonna pound the streets and scare up some work. See if you can get a handle on my kind of gig.”

We played poker like we did most nights when the rain poured down and still didn’t cool anything off. We didn’t sleep much. I had trouble with nightmares, and Wiseman just didn’t seem to need it. Said that he’d sleep when he died.

I laid my cards down. Pair of aces. “Sure thing, Mr. Wiseman. What is it that you do?”

“I’m a Troubleshooter.” He slapped a full house on the table.

I looked at him and shrugged. “What does that mean?”

He tapped the cards with a pleased grin. “Means that I win again.”

“No, I mean what does a Troubleshooter do?”

His yellowed teeth flashed in a lopsided smile. “Means that I shoot trouble, son. It’s an occupation that never goes out of style in a town like this. When business is trouble, then business is good. You’ll see. Might be right up your alley. You get some sleep. We’ll pull stakes in the morning and beat the streets.”

I poured a shot of Jack. “You go ahead, Wiseman. I don’t much feel like sleeping.”

He eyed the bottle and frowned. “Lean on something too long and it becomes a crutch, my boy. Better ease off the hard juice a bit.”

I knocked the shot back and enjoyed the burn. “Only way I can snooze.”

He nodded. “Nightmares still got you?”

“Yeah. Every time I fall asleep, I dream of drowning.”

He patted my shoulder. “It’ll pass, Mick.”

I stared into the contents of the bottle. “What if it doesn’t? What if I never get my memory back?”

Wiseman flipped a playing card in the air and caught it. “It’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts. You got a new beginning the moment you washed up outta that river. A lot of folk would kill for a chance to hit the reset button. So the question is: are you gonna fret about what you don’t know, or get to doing what you do know?”

I sighed. “Yeah, but what do I know, Wiseman?”

He chuckled. “Keep an eye on me and you’ll know a lot, son. I’ll see you in the morning.”

***

It turned out that I took to troubleshooting like a dog to chasing cats. I may have had holes in my memory, but I knew a lot about guns and self-defense. Just the set of skills that kept a Troubleshooter in business.

I learned a lot about Wiseman in the next couple of weeks. It turned out that being a Troubleshooter meant spending a lot of time hiking cabs from one part of town to the next, and visiting nightclubs and bars. Just the kind of gig for a mug like me.

At the same time, Wiseman tipped his mitts on the business of troubleshooting. How to check the zones before you waltzed in and out of a building. What to look for when a mug tried to grift you. Twelve different ways to clock a mug with one punch. How favors were more valuable than cabbage a lot of times. And above all, when to pull your iron out.

“You gotta know when to throw lead and when to keep cool. Gunplay is like playing cards. You gotta know when to hold and when to fold. A lot of mugs are fertilizing New Haven right now because they thought a piece of iron made them invincible. Lemme get that straight right off the back –a heater is no substitute for quick thinking. You get into a jam with your lead. You get out of it with your mind.” He tapped his temple.

Wiseman knew a lot of folks, and ended up chinning it up about old times when he was really supposed to be spotting up for a case. While we beat the streets, Wiseman gabbed nonstop to me as well.
He waxed on about his past, how he was born and raised in New Haven. He’d seen its glory days, and its downfall once the mob syndicates muscled in and infected the city with corruption.

“It was only a matter of time. Mankind ain’t got it in ourselves to do much else except cut each other’s backs out. That’s what got us all caged up in these Havens. We survived the Cataclysm but we still haven’t learned a thing. Look at this city. It breeds strangers like the night sky breeds stars. Everyone isolated and on edge. Makes you wonder how we managed to last this long.”

We were in a dive called Moontide in the Flats. Not as bad a neighborhood as the West Docks, but worn and battered just the same. I didn’t mind. I felt comfortable with the folks there. Rough around the edges, but they were some pretty decent chums to burn time with on a hazy night. Always a game of eight ball to be played if you wanted to lose a few dibs.

There were some decent lookers that hung out at Moontide, too. Tough dames, but you could always find one that didn’t mind a little company, especially if a mug covered her tab. Good thing the booze was cheap. I had a sweet dish named Sal on my arm that night. Blond hair, blue eyes, and just the right sway in her hips to cloud a man’s mind like moonshine. I was just about to let her sweet talk me to her pad when Wiseman interrupted.

“Heads up, here comes pay dirt.” He walked past and sat at the bar. I sighed and excused myself from Sal. She didn’t take that too well, and huffed off to carouse with a big mug on the other side of the joint.

I shrugged. Like they say: easy come, easy go.

As I worked my way to the bar, a rotund dame in a sequined dress sidled over and sat beside Wiseman.

“Buy a girl a drink?”

Her voice was a thing to hear. Every honey-dipped word exhaled like opium, the perfect blend of whispery shivers down your spine. She was a big girl: big brown eyes, and big everywhere else. But she stepped with the dancing grace of a dame half her size, and her voice belonged on a siren out at sea. Many a mug would jump into the fathomless depths at the sound of her tone, and I was no exception.

Wiseman just gave an easy smile. I knew right then that they were sweet on each other, despite him being old enough to be her father. I was almost jealous.

“It’d be my pleasure, darling. The usual?”

“As always.”

He motioned to the barkeep before introducing us. “Elvira, this is Mick Trubble. Mick, you’re in the presence of Elvira Stole. Sweetest dame in New Haven, and the best handler a Troubleshooter can ask for.”

The barkeep set a Cuba Libre up for Elvira and another Rusty Nail for Wiseman. I tapped the counter.

“Gimme a Bulleit Neat.”

Then I turned and tipped my Bogart to the lady. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. Stole.”

She waggled her fingers. “Just call me Elvira, sugar. Ms. Stole makes me sound sophisticated. Theo’s told me about you. You two partnering up now?”

I shook my head. “I’m more like a stray mutt he took in.”

Wiseman chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse Mick’s rather morose view of himself. I need the backup, and he has that handy look about himself. I’m pretty sure he’ll take to troubleshooting like a fish to water.”

I winced as flashbacks of the river flickered through my mind. “Don’t mention water.”

Elvira smiled. “Well, I’m glad that Theo has someone watching out for him. He needs it. Still thinks he’s young and full of grits.”

Wiseman gave her a wry look. “Elvira here has contacts with a lotta high hats around town. They give her the wire on situations that require a less… judicious touch.”

Elvira nodded. “Like the transport problem that one of my clients has right now. Seems that their goods have been nabbed on the regular, and the thieves have proved pretty elusive. Making fools out of the rent-a-cops.”

The barkeep set a loaded glass in front of me with a nod. I tipped back the bourbon. “Why’s that?”

“Because the theft takes place in midair. The transport is a zeppelin.”

Wiseman lit a smoke. “What’s being transported?”

“Sensitive goods.”

“How sensitive?”

She sipped her drink. “No human trafficking or narcotics. Nothing that you’ll lose sleep over, Theo.”

I tapped the counter and nodded at the barkeep for another reload. “Airbus robbery. Takes a mean set of stones to pull something like that off.”

Wiseman shrugged. “Nothing we can’t handle. You give me the time and place of the next shipment, Elvira. We’ll be on board and see if we can’t sort this little theft situation out.”

***

Zeppelins claimed the highest airlanes in the city, so the view was pretty spectacular. Air traffic whipped by beneath us as the floaters whizzed to their destinations, and beneath that was the city itself: towering monoliths so massive that the entire upper section of the city hung in the air, interconnected islands of commerce that grew like barnacles from their colossal host buildings. It was night, and the city lights winked and glittered from Downtown to Bayside, counterfeit stars that pumped adrenaline into a city that never relaxed, much less slept.

“Nice view.” I leaned against the outside railing, puffing smoke into the breeze. The airship was a ghost that floated along its computer-navigated course by way of its massive helium cells. Passengers relaxed inside the cabin at the cocktail lounge or in their suites, but only a few braved the thin air and cold drizzle outside. I pulled my collar tighter and ignored the light rain.

Wiseman nodded as he gazed over the railing. “Nice to take it in from a bird’s eye view. Makes you remember this city can be a thing of beauty.”

I flicked my gasper butt into the open air. “You gonna tell me what the plan is, or kill me with the suspense?”

He grinned. “Maybe I’m testing out your investigative skills.”

“I thought you said your occupation was shooting trouble. So far there really hasn’t been any.”

“Don’t take everything I say so literally. And as for shooting…” he pulled his flogger back so that I could clap eyes on the heat he packed in a holster under his arm. “Let’s just say that I’m always prepared.”

“Well that makes one of us.”

“Yeah, that reminds me.” Wiseman reached into his flogger pocket and pulled out a mean snub-nosed revolver. It was an older model, but looked well cared for. Mech enhanced only to preserve the shot quality and ammo load.

He handed it to me. “That’s a mean ol’ broad, but she’ll do the trick. I’ve carried her for as long as I’ve been troubleshooting. So do me a favor and don’t lose her, pipe that?”

I hefted the heater and smiled. The weight was balanced, and the grip was sure. She felt as though she’d been modeled for my hand.

“A Mean Ol’ Broad, is she? I’ll do my best, Wiseman.” I slipped her in my flogger pocket and nodded to the lounge inside. “Now from what I can tell, this isn’t a freight airship. It’s a luxury cruiser. The folks inside are high pillow types in glad rags, overpaying for romantic views of the city and the chance to soar above it all. So the robbery can’t be for anything large. I figure someone on board has to be transporting something extra valuable, something restricted that our thieves are trying to get their mitts on.”

Wiseman gave me an appraising look. “Not bad. Now, what could the payload possibly be?”

I frowned in thought. “Dibs are out –holoband hacks are too easy to trace. Energy cells are too common. Wouldn’t need to move ‘em like this when there’s hardheads on the streets that do it every day on the cheap.”

I shrugged. “Maybe my mind isn’t that inventive, Wiseman. Robbery of moveable goods isn’t exactly a common crime in New Haven. Too easy to get nabbed by the button boys to bother with it.”

“For moveable goods, you got a point. Most robbery done nowadays is by folks sitting in their boxers eating yesterday’s pizza while nabbing identities and personal info. But there’s something that you might not be taking into consideration,” Wiseman said.

“What’s that?”

“Access.”

I frowned. “Access? To what?”

Wiseman scanned the sky. “There’s so much more that a mug can access when he has the funds to make things happen. A lotta high hats on this cruiser have just those types of funds. They can open doors that normal mugs like us can’t even get a peek at. Doors that lead to places.”

I shook my head. “Why don’t you try to be more vague, Wiseman? I almost understand what you’re gabbing about.”

He nodded upward. “We’ve got company.”

The shadow fell over us as he spoke. It was a manta, gliding just above the airship. The thin craft was aerodynamically designed to evade radar detection and could carry two or three passengers. A pair of masked mugs rappelled down zip lines at that moment, aimed right for the deck of the gondola. I did the obvious and went for my heater, but Wiseman placed a hand on my arm.

“Not just yet.”

I stared at him. “Are you gonzo? What do you wanna do, wait until they got the drop on us?”

“Just relax and let me handle this.”

The goons made it to the deck and detached the lines from their heavy flight suits. Both of them were heeled with odd-looking guns. The gas masks that covered their entire faces made them look downright sinister as they stared at us.

Wiseman waved them over. “Looks like you boys are here to lift something.”

They looked at Wiseman, then at me. “You didn’t say nothing about anyone else,” one of the goons said.

I stared at Wiseman. “Wait… what the hell is going on, Wiseman? You working with these mugs?”

Wiseman had accepted a mask from the goon and slipped it over his head. “Well, you can’t say that working with me isn’t full of surprises.”

“So… you’re the one behind the robberies?”

His laugh was muffled from behind the mask. “See. I knew that your deduction skills were top rate.”

I figured out what the odd-looking guns were for. It became pretty obvious when I choked on the thick gas fumes that billowed out and sent me straight to dreamland.

***

I woke up from nightmares of drowning. Light flooded my vision, blinding me for a minute. My head pounded with that severe hangover type of throb, and I generally felt like I’d been run over by a dump truck. I sat up with a groan. Something yanked on my wrist, preventing me from sitting up straight.

I was shackled to a bed. The room was gloomy, lit up only by the consoles hooked to the bed, and some flickering overhead light that was probably faulty on purpose. I knew exactly where I was.

The slammer.

The door slid open, admitting a doctor and a sour-looking mug in a rumpled flogger who could only have been a dick. He flashed his brass in case I needed help figuring that out.

“Ah, our guest finally has awakened,” the quack said. The light reflected off his round spectacles as he examined the monitors. “And none too worse for the wear, it seems.”

“So he can answer questions?” The dick had strode over and hovered by my head in a very irritating manner.

“He’s all yours, detective.”

The dick frowned down at me. “Where are the rest of your partners?”

I rubbed my head groggily. “You gonna offer me a gasper or something? A drink, maybe?”

The dick nodded to the quack. “Get the man a drink, willya?”

The dick pulled a gasper pack from his pocket and took his time extracting a smoke and lighting it in front of me. “My name is Detective Flask. You might wanna consider cutting to the chase and dropping dimes real quick like. Save yourself the trouble of harder time later.”

The quack returned with a plastic cup that I gratefully accepted. I downed the contents and immediately choked.

“What… what the hell is this stuff?”

The doc’s eyebrows lifted. “It’s… water.”

I set the cup down and looked at Flask. “Isn’t this kind of torture illegal?”

Flask didn’t exactly get all teary-eyed. “Just start ‘fessing up and it’ll go better for you.”

“You gonna uncuff me so that I can stretch out a bit?”

“Nope.”

I sighed. “Didn’t think so.”

Flask opened his holoband screen and scanned some crime reports. “Let’s talk about the robbery. Your crew put a lot of important people to sleep and made off with some valuable commodities. You might start by telling me where we can find your partners and what they’re planning to do with what they stole.”

“And what exactly did they steal?”

Flask glared at me. “I’ll ask the questions. Like who the hell are you? ‘Mick Trubble’ sounds like an alias to me. Your holoband only has a name –no address, no files, no nothing. Nothing on you in the databanks at the precinct either.”

He shut the screens off. “I figure your holoband was flashed by some underground streetcoats. Not too hard to do these days. Bad thing is that a flash job is a federal offense. So is carrying an unlicensed firearm, even one as old as that relic we found on you.”

He gave me one of those grins that aren’t worth much of anything except for giving a mug the creeps. “Know what, though? An older firearm like yours makes for easy tracing. Seems it fits the bill for a number of unsolved murders around town. Put that with being caught red-handed on a robbery and you’re looking at being locked away for good. Unless you get real good at singing, that is.”

I rubbed my head. “Thing is, I was real good at sleeping, from what I can tell. Breathed in a chest full of foul air, courtesy of the gang that did the actual robbing. I’m a Troubleshooter. I was there to stop the damn thing from happening in the first place.”

Flask snorted. “Right. A Troubleshooter. One that no one’s heard of, who just so happened to be the only stiff on the cruiser that wasn’t logged on the ship’s records. On a ship, by the way, that was robbed at that exact time. A lot of coincidences, and I don’t believe in coincidence. Maybe you want to try again.”

I gave him a bleary-eyed stare. “Nothing else to say. I was double-crossed. My partner flimflammed me into getting on board, then set me up as the patsy to take the fall. You think that one guy just so happened to be knocked out cold by accident while the others got away? If so then maybe you might wanna sharpen your skills a bit, shamus.”

Flask frowned and exhaled a cloud of gasper smoke in my face. “Know what I think? I think that you got set up, all right. But that doesn’t mean you weren’t in on the job.”

He gestured with his gasper, tormenting my nicotine addiction with the vapor trails. “You see, every crew has a screw-up. One of those guys who aren’t so quick on the draw, catch my drift? Always mucking up the job and making it harder for the rest of the crew. Know what happens to that particular brand of screw-up?”

He looked around at the dim cell. “This happens. So now that you’ve been sold out, you really don’t owe any loyalty to those lugs, do you? Time to start thinking about your future. You drop names and locations, and I’ll drop some of the charges. Make it so you’ll be able to see daylight again –after a bid or two, of course. Still, it’s better than what you’re facing right now. A lot better.”

He put his hands behind his head and leaned back with an expectant look on his mug.

I shrugged. “Love to help you out, Flask. I really would. But it just so happens that I don’t know nothing. I was just a mug in the wrong place at the wrong time. Happens to the best sometimes.”

Flask narrowed his eyes and gave me his best intimidating stare. I guess it worked pretty well on the lowlife skels that he was used to dealing with.

Not so much on me.

Finally he angrily straightened up. “Looks like Mr. Trubble is choosing to be uncooperative. Maybe he needs a little time alone.”

He unlocked the handcuff and shoved me to the wall as the quack wheeled my bed out of the cell. Flask kept his hand on his iron as he joined the doc at the door. “Or maybe a lot of time.”

The door closed behind them. The lights cut off soon after.

I was alone in the dark.

***

It’s real hard to judge the time when you’re marinating in the meat locker. Especially when they got you in the bing ward, segregated from the rest of the population. But judging by the meals served, I couldn’t have been there for more than two days before a pair of bulky, uniformed androids lumbered in.

“Come with us.”

I made a big show of yawning and stretching until my joints crackled. Didn’t want the lugs to think that they’d gotten to me. The androids didn’t care too much for my show of nonchalance. They grabbed me by my arms and hustled me out of the cell, ignoring my protests.

“Hey –you lugs wanna go easy? What’s the rush? I get a lawyer or something? What the hell gives?”

“You act like you like it here,” Flask said. He glowered a few steps away with his arms crossed. “We can always set up more permanent accommodations if you can’t find it in your heart to leave.”
I blinked stupidly as the comprehension slowly dawned. “You’re letting me skip out?”

He shrugged. “The manacle on the bed was more than a restraint. It was a lie detector. While attached to your wrist it took data on your responses. Turns out you were telling the truth, so you’re free to go.”

“You had those results two days ago. Why let me cool my heels in the meat locker?”

“That was in case you were holding back on us. And for wasting my time.”

I stared. “Your time? You were the one who dragged me in here, remember?”

“You were the one knocked cold on the floor while thieves stole some pretty important data. Next time watch the company you keep.” Flask nodded to the guards. “Get this carcass out of my face.”

They didn’t bother to respond. They just dragged me down several scuffed-up hallways before pushing into a brightly lit office and depositing me in front of a glass-plated booth. A fat mug in uniform looked up from his girly magazine and grunted.

“Checking out? Don’t get many of those. What name?”

I straightened my rags and glared at the impassive guards. They didn’t appear impressed.

“Mick Trubble.”

The portly clerk chuckled. “With a name like that, I’m sure you’ll be back. Here you go. One dusty trench coat.” He passed it through the slit in the window.

“Flogger, you mean,” I said as I put it on. It was rumpled and a bit worse for the wear. Just the way I left it.

The clerk gave me an irritated glance as he pushed the next item through. “One beat up fedora.”

“Bogart, Mack. Get it right. It’s called a Bogart.” I placed it on my head and tilted it just the way I liked it.

He glared. “You trying to leave or stay, wise guy?”

“Sorry. That all?”

He grunted. “One last thing. Your antique revolver. Minus the rounds, of course. You got a name for that, too?”

I grinned. “You bet your third or fourth helping of pork pie I do, Mack.” I accepted the Broad and span the cylinder. “The Mean Ol’ Broad is what I call her.”

“Yeah, well keep her away from other mugs and we’ll all be happy. See you again soon, kid.”

“Not in this lifetime, Ace.” I turned and walked out into the thick foggy air of New Haven freedom, hoping that Flask wasn’t yanking my chain just for the fun of it. Since I didn’t get pummeled by android thugs or yanked back inside the slammer, I guessed that somehow I was let off the hook.

Only I knew I wasn’t.

One thing about justice in New Haven is that one mug was as good as the next when it came to pinning the blame. The brass had me nailed to the wall, then let me outta the cage with no further questions. And even let me keep my heater. Sure, packing heat was legal in New Haven, but supposedly they suspected this particular bean shooter had been used in multiple crime scenes.

The whole thing stank to high heaven. As I rode in the cabbie toward the city, I knew that somehow they were tailing me. Hoping that I’d lead them to bigger fish they wanted to fry.

I started with the obvious first, and hit pay dirt right away. A homing tag was attached to the butt of the Mean Ol’ Broad. Metallic-colored and thin as skin, it was pretty hard to spot at a casual glance. I made sure to leave it in the cab when I got out. After that I flagged down another cabbie to get to my destination.

It took a few hours of beating the streets to get the info that I needed. After that it was a quick stop at an older complex in the Flats. When I crept down the hall, I noticed that the door I was headed for was ajar. I stepped close and listened.

“It was one helluva job, Wiseman.”

I recognized the voice. The masked goon that gassed me. His voice was clearer since he wasn’t wearing the mask. It didn’t improve much, though. Sounded like he ate barbwire for breakfast and washed it down with a tall glass of crushed gravel.

“One for which you were handsomely paid, Turk.” Wiseman said. His voice was tense. “As agreed, you keep the dib transfers. They’ve been cleared and made untraceable thanks to my connection with the labcoat at Commerce.”

“So you say, Wiseman. But you’re skipping town. So if we happen to get nabbed then you’re untouchable. You might short change us the way that you did your boy on the cruiser.”

I grinned. Karma was a helluva thing, and there was no honor –or trust- among thieves, it appeared.

“What are you gaming at, Turk? A deal is a deal. You knew what was gonna happen before it all went down. Why try to pull a grift on me now?”

“Because I got to thinking, Wiseman.”

“Really? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

Turk chuckled. “Wise guy. I figured that me and Bert here did most of the work on this gig. Seems to stand that we should get in on those Transit passes. They’re way more valuable than the berries.”

I moved in closer and peeked in at the scene. Turk and Bert had their backs to me, blocking my view of Wiseman. It was Elvira’s pad, so either she was out somewhere, or I just couldn’t see her either. Turk and Bert were pretty big lugs. Good thing I had an equalizer with me.

I pulled out the Mean Ol’ Broad and checked her rounds. Good thing slugs were cheap, and readily available. I’d bought a box just around the corner at the liquor mart.

Wiseman’s voice sounded confident. Too confident. “No can do, gentlemen. The deal stands. Now rotate your heels before things get ugly.”

“It’s already ugly, Wiseman.” Turk gave a slight nod to Bert, who pulled a sawed-off scattergun out of his flogger and pointed it at someone just beyond my range of vision. Had to be Elvira.

Turk confirmed it with his next words. “You seem pretty stuck on this fat dame of yours, Wiseman. I figure you either hand over the Transit codes or she’s gonna lose weight real fast.”

I pushed the door inward and stepped inside. “You forgot about the third option.”

Bert span around a lot faster than his bulk suggested he could, but the Broad already had him lined in her sights. One shot put him down before he could fire a round. Turk cursed as he reached for his iron. Another shot rang out, dropping him cold.

Elvira had a smoking gun in her hand, and a hardened glare on her pretty round face.

“Call me fat, will you?” She ran her free hand across her rounded parts. “Anyone will tell you that this is all the more to love, sugar.”

I tipped my Bogart. “I’m sure it is, Elvira. What I’m not sure of is why I don’t just finish the job they started. You set me up, and I wanna know why.”

“I knew you’d get over that little road bump, kid.” Wiseman had his fingers on his wrist like he was checking his pulse or something. “You hung around me for a whole month. Figured you’d pick up on how to get outta a jam or three.”

He eyed the Broad in my hand. “You gonna put her away, or you gonna plug me? Make it quick either way. I got a train to catch.”

I sighed and holstered the Broad. “You serious about skipping town, Wiseman? That’s what this whole gig was about?”

“Serious as a sin sandwich, my boy. Comes a time when a man sees where he’s been and thinks about where he’s going. I can’t do this anymore. This town… it’s gone to the dogs. I won’t spend what’s left of my life watching the rain wash grime down the gutters. I’m pulling stakes and moving on. There are better Havens out there. Couldn’t afford to leave on my tiny nest egg, so I had to set up this gig to get a couple of seats on the next tram out of here.”
He checked his holoband. “And we’re almost late.”

“Waitaminute.” I raised my hands. “You could’ve ran that grift any time after you took me in. Why go through all the trouble of showing me the ropes and all?”

A smile creased his face. “Someone’s got to take care of things when I’m gone. Every town needs a good Troubleshooter, son. A mug that takes out the trash without worrying about getting his hands dirty. You’ve got skills, my boy. Don’t know how you got ‘em, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll do just fine.”

Elvira placed a hand on my shoulder and smiled. “We’re sorry for crossing you over, Mick. We knew they didn’t have anything on you, and would’ve let you out after the minimum bid.”

Wiseman had pulled a couple of suitcases from the closet. “Which should’ve been a couple of months. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for it. Makes me feel a lot less guilty. But how’d you manage to pull that one off?”

“I didn’t. They let me go.”

“That’s good, Mick. That’s…” Wiseman paused. His bushy eyebrows lifted. “You say that they just let you go?”

I lit a gasper. “Yeah. So what?”

“Mick, you dammed fool!” Wiseman ran to the bed and flipped the mattress over. A Thompson was stashed underneath. As he slammed the rounded magazine in place, Elvira ran to the door and peeked around the corner.

I laughed. “If you’re worried about a tracer, I already found it. The brass are tailing an empty cab right now.”

“That was just a decoy, Mick.” Wiseman finished loading the Thompson as he peered out the window. “The real tracker is probably inside of you.”

“Say what?”

Bright light flooded the room, and the thrum of rotor blades announced the arrival of an auto-piloted Hunter/Killer outside. Wiseman cursed and leaped back as a familiar voice blared over a megaphone.

Flask.

“Attention criminals: you’re surrounded with nowhere to run. You have thirty seconds to surrender.” Flask paused. “Better make it twenty.”

“Go!” Wiseman ran past me to the door.

I tried to grab him. “Damn it, Wiseman -you’ll never make it!”

It was too late. He grabbed Elvira by the wrist and they ran down the hallway. I hesitated for a second, then cursed myself for a fool and followed.

Black-suited figures in heavy body armor stormed in from down the hall. Heavy masks covered their faces, and they moved too quickly for armored men. That was because they weren’t men. They were android street sweepers. They did the only thing that they were programmed to do.

They pulled triggers.

Survival instinct is an uncanny thing. I didn’t have time to think. I just moved at the exact second they opened fire. My shoulder hit the nearest door, splintering it off of its hinges as my body weight carried me inside the empty room. Bullets whizzed by.

Someone screamed. It wasn’t Elvira.

The silence that followed was louder than the shriek. The only sound was Flask’s voice, ordering the street sweepers to stand down. I shakily stood and staggered to the door.

Elvira was dead. She didn’t have time to make a sound because she was riddled with bullet holes. Wiseman held her tightly, ignoring the slugs in his leg and shoulder that spread a widening stain of crimson across his rags. He rocked her with his head thrown back, his voice spent but his mouth still trying to find just one more scream. One more shriek to give voice to the anguish that broke his heart.

Literally.

He clutched his chest and collapsed, still holding Elvira with his other arm. I ignored all common sense and ran to them. The street sweepers encircled us, silent inhuman witnesses to the tragedy.

“Mick.” Wiseman’s bloodshot eyes looked up pleadingly.

“Don’t sweat it, Wiseman.” I tried to pull him away from Elvira’s body. “Stay down. Lemme get something to stop the bleeding…”

“Damn… the bleeding!” He pulled away with a wince. “Been… shot before. It’s… my heart. Got a… bum ticker. That’s the reason why I had to… get outta this place.”

His quivery hand found mine and gripped hard. “Too much… stress. This place is hell, Mick. I… had to leave. It’s the only reason why… I’d ever have crossed you over, Mick. Sorry, son.” Tears streamed down his craggy cheeks as he looked at Elvira. “I’m so…” He sagged over Elvira’s body as he exhaled his last.

I offered no resistance when the street sweepers roughly seized me and dragged me away from my friend.

***

Holding cells are like purgatory. An in-between place of waiting. You’re not sure whether you’re gonna be locked away to damnation or be redeemed to freedom, so you wait. You try not to get your hopes up, but at the same time you don’t want to sink into depression. So you wait. You try to nod off, but every little sound wakes you up, thinking that your time of judgment has arrived. It never does. So all you can do is wait…

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

I looked over at Flask, who stood on the other side of the laser bars. He had this fake solemn look on his mug. A real mask of sincerity. He was good, ol’ Flask.

I offered my best sneer of contempt. I’m pretty good at sneering. It’s a useless talent for the most part, but sometimes it turns out to be the perfect response, especially to the kind of bunk that Flask spouted.
“I’m serious,” Flask said. “I wanted to take them alive. But once gunshots were reported, I was ordered to send in the sweepers. Command came from the top. Captain Graves was under a lot of pressure to catch that crew. Transit is one of the most secure departments in the city. To have a robbery in that division was unheard of.”

I stared at the ceiling. “Is that right? That explains the tail. Where’d you hide it? Wiseman said something about inside of me.”

“The nanomachines were in the water you drank. Takes a couple of days for the individual parts to come together and form the responder that we traced you with. No need to worry. By now it’s already passed through your digestive system.”

I nodded as I slowly sat up. “Because the machines are protein based. I may not know much, but everyone knows about that, Flask. Still don’t see why you had come in with guns blazing. Wasn’t like the old codger or his moll could do those tin cans any real damage.”

The laser bars threw shadowed lines across Flask’s face. “Captain Grave’s boss came down hard on him, and Graves came down harder on me. It was an embarrassment that needed to be resolved quickly. This probably wouldn’t have ended any other way.”

I folded my arms. “Yeah, I’m sure you had a pretty rough day, Detective. Why confess to me? I’m no priest.”

His face flushed red. “Just want you to know that it’s nothing personal. Your friends knew the risks. They did what they thought they had to, and so did we. The main thing is: don’t do anything stupid, Trubble. I’d hate to find out the next stiff that the sweepers tag is yours.”

“What, you’re letting me go?”

“Yeah. You served your purpose. Most of the stolen property was recovered, and they’re calling it an open and shut case. We could book you for accessory, but we need the cell space. So you walk. Just… stay out of trouble, will you?”

“Hey Flask.”

He paused in mid-turn.

“You said ‘most’ of the stolen property was recovered.”

“That’s right. One of the transit passes is still missing. We figure it’s on the black market. Only a matter of time before we track it down.”

He walked away as a pair of hulking androids appeared right on schedule. I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones from earlier, but I doubted it. They probably all had the same face, modeled after some sour-faced supervisor in an understaffed production factory.

“You’re to come with us,” one of them said.

I held up my hands. “Yeah, yeah. I know the drill.”

***

About an hour later I hopped out of a cabbie. I was in the Flats, my familiar stomping grounds with Wiseman. I’d spent my last few dibs on a full scan by a streetcoat, just to make sure that I wasn’t still tagged. Turned out that Flask was right. All traces of the tracer were out of my system. I was clean.

I was also broke.

I pretty much had only the rags on my back and the Mean Ol’ Broad at my hip. A lot of mugs would have taken the easy route and pointed the heater at someone in order to tip the scales back in their favor. That wasn’t my style. I didn’t know much about myself, but I knew what Wiseman taught me. He’d get the stink face if I turned to crime to solve my problems.

I pulled the transit card out of my pocket.

Ol’ Wiseman had slipped it to me when he gripped my hand right before he croaked. I’d flipped it down into the gutter when the street sweepers loaded me up in the squad car. First stop after getting sprung was down a manhole and a slimy crawl under the street. I was lucky that it hadn’t rained for once. The card was still there.

I could’ve tried to hawk it, but you gotta know the right type of scumbag for that sort of deal. With all the heat on my back, I probably would have ended up getting my elbows checked again. I’d had enough of cooling my heels in the slammer.

So I kept it. I figured it would come in handy one day when I might have to get the hell outta Dodge. One day, when I had the answers that I needed. The memories that had melted away like fog in the morning.

But at that particular time all I had was my wits and my game face. I strode into the nearest apartment complex like I knew where I was going. The name of the joint was The Luzzatti. Wiseman had history with the owner, said he was on the square. I figured if I was gonna start anywhere, might as well start there. Because it’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts.

And eventually every mug catches a lucky break. That’s the thing about life. You weather the rough storms and eventually the seas get calm and the clouds break, if only for a little while.

A Wiseman once told me that.


THE END


***


Bard Constantine decided to write seriously when approaching his 30th birthday, and has been doing so ever since. He often spends his time taking himself too seriously and expounding on frivolous subjects like movies and his favorite novels. When not procrastinating about writing, he’s usually pounding on a keyboard in a dank basement with a single flickering light bulb. Rumors of his sanity have been furiously denied. Troubleshooter Logo design by Stefan Prohaczka featuring Mark Krajnak of JerseyStyle Photography

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