Noir Tales...From The Future! (Part II)

She was standing there on her legs, and then she saw the body. She screamed, while dropping the mini-Schnauzer and her Gucci clutch to the floor, and ran as fast as she could in those Steve Maddens towards the body. They made little clip, clip, clip sounds across the tile that I thought sounded funny. I might have actually laughed while it happened, it just reeked of production.

She wrapped her arms around the corpse...yaknow, the one with the one-inch laser hole through his head...and proceeded to wail,

"No. NO! NO!! This can't be happening! Bruce come back! Bruce! Come Back! No! Bruce!"

She was dragged away by some bull-dyke in a uniform that had the same look in her eyes as every other guy in the room, only she acted on it first. The C.S.I. guys would have a hell of a time explaining the contamination of the crime scene to their boss - but hell, that wasn't my business. The Dame with the legs was my business.

So, like a dink, I followed the dyke cop that had my client in a headlock. I picked up her clutch as I walked past it, thinking she might want it later. I wasn't the kind of guy that would pick up a mini-schnauzer, besides, it was already sniffing at the shoes of the dead guy. Hell, the little rat would probably gnaw on the corpse if it had half a chance.

Anyways, I ended up in some parlor-side room, where the waterworks were already making a mess of her mascara. The dyke cop was making with the consoling, and I stood there for a bit, fiddling with her bag. Eventually, as I figured, she recovered a bit, and realized someone else was there. Vicki Valise looked up at me, and a look of realization hit her face. Between sniffles she practically yelled,

"See! You See! I hired you to protect him! Now look..." She let out a fairly convincing sob, "He's dead! A hell of a lot of good you did!"

I stood there and took it. What else could I do?

Then right out of the playbook, she sprung up, grabbed the flower vase on the side table, and threw it at me. I had good enough reflexes to dodge it, and it shattered against the wall. Flowers and water oozed down the wall behind me. She swayed there seething, and whispered,

"You killed him. You bastard."

I didn't really need this. I had a retainer that would cover my expenses for a while, and though I didn't like to leave a case like this, I wasn't helping matters any by being there. The dyke cop was a bit more shocked at what was happening than I was, so I said to her,

"Here's her bag."

I set Vicki's clutch on a chair next to me. "She's probably going to want it later. If you think there's anything to what she's just said," I made a gesture with my thumb over my shoulder at where I thought the kitchen would be, "Six guys in the other room have my information. I'm also in the internet."

I walked out of the room, not noticing anything else. I made my way through the mansion in a manly fashion, only getting turned around once, and ended up at the hoverpad. It was well past dark, and from where I was, the city was lit up to the horizon in awe inspiring grandeur and beauty. At that moment, however, I didn't give a rats ass about the city or anyone in it. Humanity could go fuck itself for all I cared.

I got around the four shiny black police cruisers that were parked around my rust-bucket, and got in. I fired it up, and the cockpit displays gave my eyes their information in blue LED light. The exterior beacons ran a red cone around the hover-pad, and the white strobe kicked in at two-second intervals making mirrors of the cop-cars around me. I jammed on the lifters to get the hell out of there.

I was up about five feet when the whole thing lost power, everything went back to night-black, and my hover-car dropped back to the pad. There was one thought in my brain. It was, "Damn."

I popped the hatch over the electrical systems, grabbed a flashlight, and got out of the darkened cockpit to have a look. In hindsight, I should have just walked as fast as I could away from that house, Vicki Valise, the whole scene, and called the impound lot two weeks later. A DMV hassle, towing fee, and impound fine would have been a gift compared to what happened next.