Noir Tales...From The Future! (part III)

I stuck my head into the black square of the hatch and, followed the flashlight beam along the crappy wires that led to the electrical system's computer. Since I didn't see anything resembling a broken feed, I reached in and tapped the reboot command on the dirty 10-digit console. My ancient hovercar ran on the Windows "Opulent" O.S., and any old car affectionado would call it "buggy" and probably be impressed anyone had kept the factory-issue software.

I wasn't a old car affectionado, I was just too poor to replace it. Tapping the console left black and oily smudges on my fingertips which I knew I shouldn't wipe on my suit, but I did anyways. As the thing ran thru it's startup code, I clicked off the light and stood there like an idiot, waiting to see what happened.

A few seconds later, the red beacon started spinning around, and the white strobe flashed, along with the reassuring hum as the car powered back up. I walked back to the driver's seat, and that's when I heard the stiletto "clip clip clip" of high-heeled footsteps. There was only one woman in that place that could make that sound.

"Wait!" Vicki Valise shouted. I did. As she came up, I looked at her like a stone.
"Why." I said. Not a question, a statement.
Her tears had made black streaks of her mascara, that went pretty far down her cheeks. Her hair was disheveled, and she did have the rich, totally beautiful, damsel in distress act down perfect.
"I didn't mean what I said."
"I figured as much."
"I..." Her voice caught for a second. "I didn't tell you everything."
"Oh." I said. "Hire me three hours before your husband was killed, with no leads, and then tell the cops I was the one that killed him. And now you're saying you didn't tell me everything?"

She grabbed the playbook, flipped to page three, and bit on her lower lip.

Damn.

Sometimes you know what the other team is doing, and are ready to stop it. And yet, sometimes, even when you know, their execution is so perfect...that nothing you can do, is good enough to stop it.

She turned her rich, totally beautiful, damsel in distress act, into a poor, adorable, naive street waif that just needed help.

"I didn't...but I couldn't." Vicki said. "But now...after what happened to Bruce, I can." She pushed back a cute lump in her throat before she revealed, "It was Eddie Valentine."

"Go to hell." I said.

I was so smart for saying that.

What wasn't smart was, I didn't mean it.