The Most Dangerous Dame

The depot was a bullet-riddled wreck of busted timber and sparking wires, but that didn’t matter. What I wanted was stashed under the floor. I tapped on the sealed recess with the muzzle of the Replacement Killer. “Knock, knock.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lord Troll’s muffled voice spoke up. “Who’s there?”

“Not your buddy Buckshot. He can’t do a thing for you right now, on account of being dead and all. The way I see it is you got two options: open up and make a deal or stay in there and I punch a few air holes with the explosive rounds loaded in this handy pistol I got here. Your choice.”

The door hissed as it slid open. Lord Troll’s face wasn’t nearly as discourteous as it was earlier. In fact, he appeared downright terrified. Seeing as he basically laid in a ready-built coffin, it was easy to understand why. He lifted his blood-slicked hands.

“Look, mate — maybe we got off on the wrong foot here. This can all come good, right?”

“That depends on how fast you and I become friends. I know you have your data backed up, so trashing this dive didn't matter. You’re gonna allow a friend of mine an all-access pass to everything you’ve got. You do what you’re told and you get to walk away. You try some slick hacker tricks and I let Ben the Bear eat you for breakfast. That’s the deal.”

Lord Troll nearly broke his neck nodding in agreement. “Right. Look, I was just trying to make a quid here, mate. Nothing personal — thought it was just a bit of going off, you know? No gig is worth carking it. I’ve had it with these SS ratbags, anyhow. Just let me outta this box and I’m your best mate.”

I tapped my holoband. “You got that, Ms. Sinn?”

“I heard everything, Mick. I’ll be set up to download his data load when you’re ready.”

I looked at Benny. “You’re up, kid. Get to a safe house and work with Sinn on squeezing cyber boy for all he’s got. If he tries anything, break a few bones.”

Benny tried his best not to look startled, the result being a comical scramble of facial muscles. “You going somewhere, Mick?”

“Yeah. I got a date I can’t miss.”

“You serious? With who?”

“With your cousin Electra.”

Despite everything he’d just been through, Benny’s face still turned pale. “Right. Good luck with that, Mick.”

Chapter 18: The Widow’s Web

Le Chat Noir was a Downtown joint just a few blocks away from the Red Light District. It served as both a hotel and a popular entertainment venue that attracted the artist crowd and patrons that liked to dress up but still have a rowdy evening. I’d read somewhere it was painstakingly constructed by a man named Anthony Salis, who apparently traced his roots back to the famed Rodolphe Salis, who emceed for the original joint in pre-Cataclysm Paris.

The entertainment varied by night with alternations of cabaret, burlesque, and other music hall acts. It wasn’t the smooth jazz club experience I preferred, but you couldn’t find too many joints that compared in sheer excessive celebration of art, music, and utter ridiculousness. The audience hall was comfortably lit, massively spacious with tables of different Victorian styles scattered about. A band of scandalously clad chorus girls kicked up their knickers on the main stage while a fire eater, a contortionist, and a Shakespeare reciter performed from the balconies — all dressed in the skimpiest rags decency would allow.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad a joint.

I sat across from a beautiful woman, and normally that would have been a good thing. But beauty was usually synonymous with deadly when it came to my dealings with the opposite sex, and with Electra Flacco the two blended together like gin and vermouth.

She possessed a charm that reflected her privileged upbringing, a sense of poise under pressure that most men would envy, and a manner of speech that assumed she wouldn’t be denied what she wanted. That was expected considering who she was. What I didn’t expect were the outbursts of girlish giggles and the genuine smile that graced her lips and lit her eyes in rare moments. It was surreal in a way — we could have been just another couple out for a raucous evening at Le Chat Noir and no one would have been the wiser.

She was dressed to the nines in a leather curve-hugging corset and matching pencil skirt. Her pale shoulders were draped by a fur stole, and a ruby the size of a hen egg glimmered from the choker around her neck. A stylish fascinator was pinned atop her scarlet bob, adorned in feathers and gemstones. A regular at Le Chat Noir, she had warm greetings for admiring patrons and hosts alike. She sipped a blend of Blavod Vodka and cranberry juice, appropriately called a Black Widow.

“How is it?” She gestured to the drink she ordered for me — a smooth blend of Wild Turkey, Courvoisier, St. Germain, vermouth and bitters called a Carre Reprise.