Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World
- Автор: Мосли Уолтер
- Год: 2001
- Язык: английский
- Год: Aspect / Warner Books
- ISBN: 978-0-446-52954-9
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World». Краткое содержание книги:
“Tell that to them when they get in power. As a black man you should know what they’ll do.”
“I know four black men went down in the Central Develator and they never came back. They were going in for some questions and stayed.”
Aldo Thorpe’s mouth tightened and his bushy eyebrows furrowed slightly — then he forced a smile. “Let’s hear it,” he said.
Johnson related everything he knew to the police detective — the dead men, their club’s activities, the assassin. The only thing he lied about was the whereabouts of his client.
“He’s off-continent,” he said. “I don’t know where.”
“What’s wrong with you, Folio?” the policeman asked.
“All systems functioning normally, sir.”
“This is no joke. If what you say here is true, I can’t do anything. The files’d be closed. These killings aren’t random, they’re sanctioned assassinations. Anybody close to it will be in just as much trouble as these Seeker people. Why don’t you forget this shit and come to work for us? We have lotsa independents on the payroll.”
“That means I’d be on a cycle right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nuthin’. I’m not a termite, Aldo.”
“You could be dead.”
“Will be,” Folio agreed. “One day. But at least I’ll be the one to call that last charge.”
“Idiot.”
3
“So,” Folio said over a steaming plate of bok choy and tofu, “you’re keeping secrets and we haven’t even known each other two days.”
“Most secrets are kept at the beginning,” Tana replied, “and I wasn’t hiding anything anyway. I told you that Jim was supposed to kill me. What did you think he did for a living?”
“I don’t know. It’s just strange to find the adopted daughter of an assassin fighting it out with a sixer in the house of a marked man.”
“You brought me there, remember?”
Folio used his plastic chop sticks to spear a limp leaf of bok choy. He held the dripping petal in front of his mouth a moment before biting it.
“Come on, Johnson,” the young woman moaned. “You met me three days ago. You said that this guy, this Spellman, only came at you yesterday morning.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I guess so.”
“I tried to get you to take me that first night.”
Folio let his mechanical eye roam back over its memory database (which had complete recall back over five years and partial memory back even further). She had been standing at the outer rim of the open-air DanceDome at the Sixtieth Street pier. She was wearing an orange-tinted transparent cellophane dress, with nothing underneath, and drinking a Blue Moon from an oversize crescent-shaped glass. Four men and two women were asking her to plug in with them and dance to music that only they would be able to hear. She chose a tall black woman who was bald and powerful. Before they twirled out on the floor she pulled away from the amazon and handed Folio a scrap of paper with her number on it.
“Maybe,” he said. He was trying to think of a way that she could have known that he would meet Charles Spellman. “Maybe.”
The China Diner was closed. D’or Hallwell was in her bed three floors below street level. She had served Folio and the girl and left them to lock up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you, Fol,” she said.
“Maybe. But anyway that doesn’t matter. We are where we are. You’re going home and I’m going to finish my business with whoever it was sent that sixer.”
“I don’t wanna be alone.”
“I’ll call you.”
“I might not be there.”
“Then, where will you be?”
“Either dancing or dead.”
“Mingus Black?”
The broad-shouldered young man turned to face the tall and slender black man who had called his name. “Yeah?”
They were standing at the railing of the Crystal Plaza Bar that hovered on invisible gasses above the East River at South Street Seaport.
“My name is Johnson, Folio Johnson.” Folio extended his hand.
“Do I know you?” Black was instantly on guard.
“No, no you don’t. I’m a security expert for Macso but I want to get into real estate. I’ve been studying the brothers in that field and you, Mingus Black, are at the top of my list.”
The black Seeker ran his tongue under his lower lip and wondered.
“Can I get you a drink, M?” a young, naked white girl asked Folio from the outward side of the railing.
Folio looked at the girl through the clear Glassone bar. She was shaven from head to toe and perfectly proportioned. He wondered what his hero, Humphrey Bogart, would have said in that situation.
“Real rum,” he said. “And, honey, do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Put in an ice cube and stir it with your finger.”
“You’re somethin’ else, mister.”
The young woman, who was unashamed to walk around naked in the bright sun of downtown New York, blushed under the detective’s intense blue eye. She moved away to get his drink.
“Macso, huh?” the real estate genius asked. “What division?” Folio was still watching the barmaid, enchanted by the words that had passed between them.
“Home,” he said.
“You shittin’,” Mingus said with a Backgrounder twang.
“No. I worked as Kismet’s main bodyguard. Nine years I was with him.”
“Was?”
“Seven years ago Home was hit by a Peruvian kick squad. They wanted to wipe out Kismet before MacroCode could annex their country. They got pretty close.” Folio ran a finger above his blue eye.
“You get that then?”
“A cinder broke loose from a wild shot. It ruined my eye and part of my brain.”
“Damn. That’s why I never work for nobody full out,” Mingus said. “They pay you to die for ’em, that’s all, they pay you to die.”
“You right about that, brother,” Folio said. “You right about that, but still that cinder was the best thing ever happened to me.”
“How you figure?”
“I saved Kismet’s life by puttin’ mine on the block. Motherfucker’s crazy to the bone but he’s loyal. Had his surgeons save me and then give me this synthetic eye to make up for what I lost. Between the fight and this new eye I see the world in a whole new light.”
“And in that light you see real estate?” Mingus Black asked.
“Sure do. I wanna move a half a million Kenyans to downtown Tokyo and spend my life lookin’ at cute girls at Crystal’s.”
“You’re here right now.” The black Seeker was getting comfortable.
“I’m working, though.”
“Here’s your drink, mister,” the bald girl said.
When Folio reached for the glass she dipped her finger into the amber liquid and stirred it around. Folio took her hand and put the finger into his mouth, sucking hard enough to get all the rum off. The girl’s eyes widened and she forgot to withdraw her hand when he let it go.
“Working on what,” Mingus asked, “a hard-on?”
Folio laughed, looking deeply into the starstruck girl’s eyes. “I sure am workin’ on that one.” Then he turned back to his target. “But today I’m here representin’ a new world Nazi boy named Charles Spellman.”
Mingus leaned back on his translucent barstool. For a moment Folio was afraid that he might bolt.
“What’s up with Chas?” Mingus asked.
“He’s drinkin’ synth and worryin’ about death.”
“He is?” Mingus looked down at his wristcom.
“If you wanna know the time, I can tell ya — it’s almost up,” Folio said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mylo, Laddie, Bill Heinz, Derry James. They’re all dead before their time. All the little Itsies.”