Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen (12 page)

In many ways, myself and the three other guards were like wallpaper or store window mannequins: unless our presence was called for, and it was seldom called for in any case, we kept our distance, and the Specials did the same, and the clients ghosted to and fro with as little noise as possible.

I examined the names I’d gotten from Josefina. I didn’t know any of them, though I couldn’t be sure any of them were actual names either. Fake names were as likely as anything, which was probably why the cops hadn’t wanted the list in the first place. What good was a list of bogus identities?

Josefina came back to work. We never acknowledged that I’d been to her home.

I kept looking at the list of names throughout the next week, until I noticed one name that was down for numerous appointments in predictable succession, then abruptly stopped showing up.

I texted Josefina about this, and asked her if she knew the name. Or if Elvira had ever talked about this particular person. I got a text re-inviting me to Josefina’s apartment, this time in the dinner hour.

• • •

“What her real name is, I am not sure,” Josefina said. She’d offered me a plate of grilled beef with peppers and onions, which I ate thankfully, not having had food since sipping a cup of bitter coffee at midmorning.

“
Her?
” I said, somewhat surprised.

“She was an anglo Normal, mid-forties.”

“Did Elvira ever talk about this person?”

“Yes, because this woman never actually wanted sex.”

“Is that unusual?”

“It happens. Some clients come in simply for the vicarious thrill of being around a Special. We’re fascinating for them.”

“This anglo Normal, she was one of these?”

“Yes. She would request Elvira in two-hour blocks. She adored real flamingos, apparently. She and Elvira would sit together on the bed of the suite, and the anglo … she would stroke Elvira’s body and wings affectionately, and just talk about her life. Her hectic middle management work. Her grown sons. Her ex-husband, who apparently divorced her in disgust when he discovered she had a thing for Specials, and had been surreptitiously using family funds to begin exploring the Special world on-line. That’s how she found out about the Aerie, apparently, and when Madam Arquette put up the listing for The Flamingo Suite, this woman was an instant customer.”

“So why’d she stop coming all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know,” Josefina said, nibbling uninterested at her own food.

“If this woman spent so much time talking to Elvira, did your sister ever talk back? I mean, about her own life?”

“I don’t know, but I wonder. Elvira was only twenty. About the same age as this woman’s own children. Elvira always needed to trust people.”

“Is it possible Elvira told this woman things she wouldn’t tell you?”

“What do you mean?” Josefina’s fork suddenly stopped moving.

“Not to question your relationship with your sister, it’s just been my experience that siblings, even close siblings, don’t always share everything with each other, whether they realize it or not. And as the saying goes, a man will tell things to a bartender he’d never tell his wife. This anglo Normal, she is a question mark for me. She might know something which could tell us more about why Elvira died.

“Speaking of which,” Josefina said, “the police tell me that an examination to determine exactly what killed Elvira, is still pending. Does it normally take this long?”

“When there are no obvious wounds,” I said, “things can get complicated. I called the coroner and made some polite inquiries. Elvira was a healthy young Special. Something was done to her, that much we can be certain of. What that something was, is another matter entirely. Try to be patient. Meanwhile, is there any way possible for you to find out who this anglo customer was? Does she come back to visit any of the other Specials, male or female? Or both?”

“I can try to find out tonight, when I am working.”

We chewed in mutual silence for several minutes.

“If your daughter told you she wanted to go Special,” Josefina said, “what would your reaction be?”

Now it was my fork which had suddenly stopped moving. My Angela was fifteen, and headstrong like Carlita. Last summer, Carlita had let Angela spend the summer with me, when it was my younger son Adam I’d wanted to have. I’d learned quickly it was because Angela was officially hell on wheels, and we’d scrapped it out for three months, before she’d finally gone home to Carlita in disgust—and with my blessing. I tried to imagine Angela showing up at my door in two more years, transformed into God knew what.
Hi Papa! It’s me, your little girl!

I must have visibly shuddered, because Josefina put her fork down and wiped her mouth, then stood up quickly.

“You can see yourself to the door.”

“Wait, I’m sorry, I—”

“I’ll see what I can find out for you about the anglo. Goodnight, Señor.”

My plate unfinished, I clumsily stood up and made my way out.

• • •

I was making the mistake of giving a damn, that much was certain. A smarter man probably would have quit the Aerie and gone to find a different job. But Josefina had shamed me, and now I felt like I owed her … something. Not sure what? Some kind of resolution, perhaps. I couldn’t just walk away. That would have felt unmanly, and while I’d long ago given up certain pretensions to
machismo,
I was damned if I was going to let a woman almost half my age do what Josefina had done, whether she’d realized it when she asked the question or not. So I stewed my way through three days of shifts, until I thought my off hours might coincide with Josefina’s—and once again went to her apartment block in West Hollywood.

There was no answer at first. I almost turned and went home.

But the door popped, and Josefina opened it hesitantly.

“Yes?”

“The coroner sent me a report about Elvira,” I said.

“And?”

“And I really think it would be best if I came in and we sat down.”

Josefina eyed me closely, measuring my intent, then opened the door the rest of the way, allowing me into her single-room domain. Things weren’t as clean as they’d been before. I wagered she’d not done any upkeep since the last time I’d visited. The same plate I’d eaten off of, still sat half-submerged in cold soapy water in the kitchen sink.

“Tell me,” Josefina said. It was practically a command.

“Near-instant anaphylactic shock,” I said. “As a result of being exposed to concentrated bee venom.”

“She was stung by a
bee?”

“No. They found a small puncture wound on her neck, like what might be made by a microtubule. The plastic tip had broken off beneath the skin. Did you know she was allergic?”

“Yes, the whole family did. She was stung when we were kids, and had to be rushed to the emergency room. It almost killed her.”

“Who else besides the two of you might have known?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a few family friends from East L.A?”

I scratched my head, thinking.

“So now the police will investigate it as murder,” Josefina said.

“The file will be dropped down to homicide, homicide will see that it was a Special working the Boulevard, and the file will be quietly forgotten about.”

“How can they do this?” Josefina said, balling her fists, her wings spasming. “She was a human being for God’s sake!”

“Supermetro jurisdictions track hundreds of potential homicides every day,” I said. “More people die every year in the Greater Los Angeles area than died in the Army’s entire invasion of Pakistan. The police prioritize, based on how easily a case might be solved, and how high-profile the victim happens to be. I hate to say it, but Specials barely register. Many cops don’t even think of you as human anymore.”

“You would know,” Josefina snarled, her vehemence plain.

I felt my face flush. “Goddammit, I’m sorry I was such a
pendejo
when I was here the other night. Okay, alright, would I be thrilled if my daughter came home having gone Special? No. Frankly, it would kind of freak me out.”

Josefina turned away from me, but I grabbed her elbows with both arms and forced her to look at me—no small feat, given she had me by twelve inches and twenty-plus years.

“But she’d still be my daughter,” I said, looking up into Josefina’s enraged eyes with all of the sincerity I could muster, “and regardless of who or what she’d become, I’d never stop loving Angela with all my heart and soul. She’s … she’s one of the only decent things I have left to show for myself! Her and Adam, my son.”

Josefina’s lips quivered, and tears openly flooded out into the feathers on her face, dropping across them to land on the lapels of my jacket.

She sank down to her knees, fists balled on my stomach, and began to sob into my chest. Almost reflexively I wrapped my arms around her head, again marveling at the incredible softness of the inhuman plumage that had replaced her hair. I found myself quietly whispering in Spanish, the same reassurances I had often given to Angela and Adam when they’d woken screaming from a nightmare. Josefina’s long arms circled the small of my back and almost crushed me as I held her, her wings gently and reflexively quivering along her back.

“We’ll find who did this to Elvira,” I said. “I promise you.”

• • •

Josefina went to work that night, and I went home to my own apartment in Culver City. After unsuccessfully trying to reach Carlita on her cell phone, and next Angela on her cell phone, I collapsed into bed feeling extraordinarily exhausted. I wondered—until sleep took me—about the anglo woman who liked flamingos.

In the morning I appeared at the Aerie, prepared for another day of quietly subtle poking and prodding, when one of the other security guys not so gently told me I was to report to Madam Arquette’s office immediately. That there was trouble was obvious, so I grimaced and made my way up through the building until I reached the penthouse office suite, unofficially referred to by us guards as The Nest. I rapped on the frosted glass double doors that separated Madam Arquette’s world from the reality outside it.

The doors parted, humming open on motorized hinges.

I saw Josefina, standing near Madam Arquette’s desk, her head down towards the floor. She wouldn’t look at me, though Madam Arquette herself stared across the room with the malice of a diving falcon. The Madam was naked, but for her layer of plumage, her breasts dappled with blues and purples.

“Come in, Mister Soto,” said the Madam in her characteristic French-laced accent.

I entered, realizing that I’d never actually been in the Nest proper before. Three walls were nothing but glass that looked out on the smog and bustle of the city. To our west we could see the heaped metal skyscape of Los Angeles, baking nicely in the advancing morning sun. I had to tear myself away from the unexpectedly impressive view when the Madam cleared her throat and indicated a huge leather chair in front of her desk, a feather-coated hand flourishing artfully.

I slowly but purposefully took a seat.

“Monsieur Soto,” said the Madam, “Josefina here was caught snooping into the master schedule. It is forbidden by contract for any employee to research or view the schedule of any other employee. Our clientele demand the strictest discretion. What do you suggest be done about this matter?”

“Madam,” I said, “Josefina was acting purely under my direction. I take full responsibility for the breach of company directive.”

Madam Arquette simply stared at me, then stood up from her stool—her wings resplendent with emerald and sapphire feathering—and walked around her desk to stand imposingly over me.

“You are privately investigating the death of Elvira,” the Madam said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“You realize that if word were to get out that client information had been leaked to either a security firm or the police, the Aerie would be ruined.”

“Yes.”

“I could even bring civil charges against you and Josefina both for grossly and negligently violating your contracts. What do you have to say about that?”

I raised my hands out to my side, palms up, and said, “you have to do what you feel is the right thing, Madam.”

She stared down at me, her eyes brilliantly lit up with fury, then turned and walked quickly to the wall of windows that looked out over the city, her very-high platform heels making
clock-clock
sounds on the polished simulated wood flooring.

“Elvira was not the first girl to die here,” the Madam said, as if talking to the view outside the Aerie’s top floor. “Before you came to work for me, Monsieur Soto, I always managed to have the matter dispensed with discretely and at great legal difficulty. It was unfortunate what happened in those cases, but I’ve spent twenty years building this business up from nothing, and I was not going to allow a few mishaps to ruin everything.”

“Her sister was murdered,” I said.

“Yes I know that,” said the Madam.

“And that means nothing to you?”

“Do you take me for an animal?” the Madam said, spinning to face me, her wings rustling with tension. I elected not to speak the first answer which came to my mind.

“I take you for a very focused businesswoman who has perhaps allowed the bottom line to get in the way of certain perspectives, about the people who work for you.”

She seemed to evaluate that response, a tongue running along the inside of a cheek.

“And if I have lost these perspectives, as you say, Monsieur, what do you propose be done about it?”

“Give me information on one person, someone who saw Elvira many times, then suddenly stopped.”

“Josefina has told me about her. I know of whom you speak, and she is a client of the highest social caliber. There is no way possible she is involved in this.”

“But she might be someone who can tell us who is involved,” I said.

“And what will this client think, when you show up at her doorstep, playing the investigator? The Aerie has an iron-clad reputation in this city, our clientele expect the utmost privacy. Even one exception could destroy us.”

“And if I went to the Beverly Hills press, starting rumors that the Aerie allows killers to come and go on its premises, without prejudice? What do you think that will do to your excellent reputation?”