Haldeman, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 1
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
BLOOD SISTERSSo I used to carry two different business cards: J. Michael Loomis, Data Concentration, and Jack Loomis, Private Investigator. They mean the same thing, nine cases out of ten. You have to size up a potential customer, decide whether he'd feel better hiring a shamus or a clerk.Some people still have these romantic notions about private detectives and get into a happy sweat at the thought of using one. But it is the twenty-first century and, endless Bogart reruns notwithstanding, most of my work consisted in sitting at my office console and using it to subvert the privacy laws of various states and countries?finding out embarrassing things about people, so other people can divorce them or fire them or get a piece of the slickery.Not to say I didn't go out on the street sometimes; not to say I didn't have a gun and a ticket for it. There are Forces of Evil out there, friends, although most of them would probably rather be thought of as businessmen who use the law rather than fear it. Same as me. I was always happy, though, to stay on this side of murder, treason, kidnapping?any lobo offense. This brain may not be much, but it's all I have.I should have used it when the woman walked into my office. She had a funny way of saying hello:"Are you licensed to carry a gun?"Various retorts came to mind, most of them having to do with her expulsion, but after a period of silence I said yes and asked who had referred her to me. Asked politely, too, to make up for staring. She was a little more beautiful than anyone I'd ever seen before."My lawyer," she said. "Don't ask who he is."With that, I was pretty sure that this was some sort of elaborate joke. Story detectives always have beautiful mysterious customers. My female customers tend to be dowdy and too talkative, and much more interested in alimony than romance."What's your name, then? Or am I not supposed to ask that either?"She hesitated. "Ghentlee Arden."I turned the console on and typed in her name, then a seven-digit code. "Your legal firm is Lee, Chu, and Rosenstein. And your real name is Maribelle Four Ghentlee: fourth clone of Maribelle Ghentlee.""Arden is my professional name. I dance." She had a nice blush.I typed in another string of digits. Sometimes this sort of thing would lose a customer. "Says here you're a registered hooker.""Call girl," she said frostily. "Class One courtesan. I was getting to that."I'm a liberal-minded man; I don't have anything against hookers or clones. But I like my customers to be frank with me. Again, I should have shown her the door?then followed her through it.Instead: "So. You have a problem?""Some men are bothering me, one man in particular. I need some protection."That gave me pause. "Your union has a Pinkerton contract for that sort of thing.""My union." Her face trembled a little. "They don't let clones in the union. I'm an associate, for classification. No protection, no medical, no anything.""Sorry, I didn't know that. Pretty old-fashioned." I could see the reasoning, though. Dump a thousand Maribelle Ghentlees on the market, and a merely ravishing girl wouldn't have a chance."Sit down." She was on the verge of tears. "Let me explain to you what I can't do."I can't hurt anyone physically. I can't trace this cod down and wave a gun in his face, tell him to back off.""I know," she sobbed. I took a box of Kleenex out of my drawer, passed it over."Listen, there are laws about harassment. If he's really bothering you, the cops'll be glad to freeze him.""I can't go to the police." She blew her nose. "I'm not a citizen." I turned off the console. "Let me see if I can fill in some blanks without using the machine. You're an unauthorized clone." She nodded."With bought papers.""Of course I have papers. I wouldn't be in your machine if I didn't."Well, she wasn't dumb, either. "This cod. He isn't just a disgruntled customer.""No." She didn't elaborate."One more guess," I said, "and then you do the talking for a while. He knows you're not legal.""He should. He's the one who pulled me.""Your own daddy. Any other surprises?"She looked at the floor. "Mafia.""Not the legal one, I assume.""Both."The desk drawer was still open; the sight of my own gun gave me a bad chill. "There are two reasonable courses open to me. I could handcuff you to the doorknob and call the police. Or I could knock you over the head and call the Mafia. That would probably be safer."She reached into her purse; my hand was halfway to the gun when she took out a credit flash, thumbed it, and passed it over the desk. She easily had five times as much money as I make in a good year, and I'm in a comfortable seventy percent bracket."You must have one hell of a case of bedsores.""Don't be stupid," she said, suddenly hard. "You can't make that kind of money on your back. If you take me on as a client, I'll explain."I erased the flash and gave it back to her. "Miz Ghentlee. You've already told me a great deal more than I want to know. I don't want the police to put me in jail, I don't want the courts to scramble my brains with a spoon. I don't want the Mafia to take bolt cutters to my appendages.""I could make it worth your while.""I've got all the money I can use. I'm only in this profession because I'm a snoopy bastard." It suddenly occurred to me that that was more or less true."That wasn't completely what I meant.""I assumed that. And you tempt me, as much as any woman's beauty has ever tempted me."She turned on the waterworks again."Christ. Go ahead and tell your story. But I don't think you can convince me to do anything for you.""My real clone-mother wasn't named Maribelle Ghentlee.""I could have guessed that.""She was Maxine Kraus." She paused. "Maxine . . . Kraus." "Is that supposed to mean something to me?""Maybe not. What about Werner Kraus?""Yeah." Swiss industrialist, probably the richest man in Europe. "Some relation?""She's his daughter and only heir."I whistled. "Why would she want to be cloned, then?""She didn't know she was being cloned. She thought she was having a Pap test." She smiled a little. "Ironic posture.""And they pulled you from the scraping."She nodded. "The Mafia bought her physician. Then killed him.""You mean the real Mafia?" I said."That depends on what you call real. Mafia Incorporated comes into it too, in a more or less legitimate way. I was supposedly one of six Maribelle Ghentlee clones that they had purchased to set up as courtesans in New Orleans, to provoke a test case. They claimed that the Sisterhood's prohibition against clone prostitutes constituted unfair restraint of trade.""Never heard of the case. I guess they lost.""Of course. They wouldn't have done it in the South if they'd wanted to win.""Wait a minute. Jumping ahead. Obviously, they plan ultimately to use you as a substitute for the real Maxine Kraus.""When the old man dies, which will be soon.""Then why would they parade you around in public?""Just to give me an interim identity. They chose Ghentlee as a clone-mother because she was the closest one available to Maxine Kraus's physical appearance. I had good makeup; none of the real Ghentlee clones suspected I wasn't one of them.""Still . . . what happens if you run into someone who knows what the real Kraus looks like? With your face and figure, she must be all over the gossip sheets in Europe:""You're sweet." Her smile could make me do almost anything. Short of taking on the Mafia. "She's a total recluse, though, for fear of kidnappers. She probably hasn't seen twenty people in her entire life."And she isn't beautiful, though she has the raw materials for it. Her mother died when she was still a baby?killed by kidnappers.""I remember that.""So she's never had a woman around to model herself after. No one ever taught her how to do her hair properly, or use makeup. A man buys all her clothes. She doesn't have anyone to be beautiful for.""You feel sorry for her.""More than that." She looked at me with an expression that somehow held both defiance and hopelessness. "Can you understand? She's my mother. I was force-grown so we're the same apparent age, but she's still my only parent. I love her. I won't be part of a plan to kill her.""You'd rather die?" I said softly. She was going to."Yes. But that wouldn't accomplish anything, not if the Mafia does it. They'd take a few cells and make another clone. Or a dozen, or a hundred, until one came along with a personality to go along with matricide.""Once they know you feel this way?""They do know. I'm running."That galvanized me. "They know who your lawyer is?""My lawyer?" She gasped when I took the gun out of the drawer. People who only see guns on the cube are usually surprised at how solid and heavy they actually look."Could they trace you here, is what I mean." I crossed the room and slid open the door. No one in the corrider. I twisted a knob and twelve heavy magnetic bolts slammed home."I don't think so. The lawyers gave me a list of names, and I just picked one I liked."I wondered whether it was Jack or J. Michael. I pushed a button on the wall and steel shutters rolled down over the view of Central Park. "Did you take a cab here?""No, subway. And I went up to One hundred and twenty-fifth and back.""Smart." She was staring at the gun. "It's a .48 Magnum Recoilless. Biggest handgun a civilian can buy.""You need one so big?""Yes." I used to carry a .25 Beretta, small enough to conceal in a bathing suit. I used to have a partner, too. It was a long story, and I didn't like to tell it. "Look," I said. "I have a deal with the Mafia. They don't do divorce w...
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]