I knew it was a big case the second she walked in my door. A typically atypical dame: sensible, thick continental plates that teasingly hinted at dynamic vulcanism underneath. And past that, a heart of freshly-carbonized diamond that peeked out through a gaze that could warm you over or trigger an ice age.
I didn’t chance it, and kept the handshake strictly professional. No lingering, no fondling, no surreptitious examination of her mineral assets – nice though they were. Wasn’t in the mood for trouble, and she looked it.
“Mr. Chix?”
“Yeah, that’s me. And you, oh darling of the solar system?” I inquired.
“That’s terrible. And I’m Lithia. They say you’re the best. In your price range.” She smiled a little smile that made her look a lot less attractive in my eyes. “I’ve got quite a case for you. Do you know the dinosaurs?”
“Sure, who doesn’t? We’ve palled around a bit, but nothing close. Passed them by a few times, that’s all. What happened?”
“They’re dead.” That little smile got a bit littler. “Yesterday afternoon. And we don’t know who did it.”
It was obvious in retrospect. The dinosaurs had been big, the biggest players in town for a long time. They’d had plenty of time to marshal fame, fortune, success, and enemies. But they’d never met any they couldn’t quash, until now.
I figured I’d check with the usual suspect first. Stratus was closest to home; he almost never left my favourite pub. He was tipping back what looked like his twelfth million gallon when I got there. Those bleary nimbus eyes grasped onto my face, then narrowed.
“Chix? Whassafuck you doin’? Go ‘way. Busy.”
“I’ll bet.” I would’ve seated myself without asking, but I liked my face clean-shaven and free of glass shards. “Hey, you seen the dinosaurs recently?”
The glare deepened. “Yeah, last mornin’. Looouusy stinkin’ birdies. Wouldn’t give me, give me so much as a cent, and me with the billlss comin’ in tomorrow and needing to relax up a bit, you know?”
“They’re dead. That afternoon.” I watched the reaction, such as it was. Stratus was too far gone to hide anything, and the most he did was look confused. “Whuur? Reeally?” His hands tensed on his glass. “Shit, man. I mean, really? Who did it?”
“You tell me.”
I could practically see the fear washing into him, bringing with it cruellest sobriety. “No way. Not me. I don’t know nothing, I didn’t do nothing. Those stingy assholes were my best friends, Chix, no way did I fry ‘em, freeze ‘em out! My weather patterns are stable, man, I’ve been clean and holding fast for at least two hundred millennia! You gotta believe me!”
I did. At least, a little. “Fine. But if I see so much as a hint of glaciation, I’m going to want to see you again. Maybe with some other people, who won’t be as friendly and charming and considerate as I am. Got that?”
Defiance and submission in one surly nod. “Yeah. Got it.” He stared back into his drink. “Man. All the dinosaurs.” He shot a glance at me. “All of them?”
“Just some of the birds left over.”
“Fuck.” The drink was consumed. “Get the fucker for me, will ya?”
So much for the first shot. But then again, I’d expected little more. The next one would be more promising.
Lithia was pretty when she was annoyed, especially cross-armed and sarcastic, a volcano pinched in one hand between finger and thumb. “I just hired you, and you’re already accusing me of murder? That’s a bit far to go on the second meeting, Chix.”
“Calm down. You’d be surprised how often it happens. Good way to cover your ass, being the first one to be helpful on the scene.” I waved away faint wisps of sulphuric ash. “Now, how did you know the dinosaurs anyways?”
“I run the Sphere.” Fanciest condominiums in the solar system. My client was a lady of the upper crust. “They were tenants of mine. Good ones, too. They were in it for the long haul, paid their rent regular, kept the noise down. They were a bit hard on some of their neighbours, true, but they were good guys. Self-made, pull-yourself-up-on-your-boostraps kind, but not as bullshitty as some of them get. I know it sounds cold, but losing them is going to put a dent in the rent for me. I have no motive, Chix.”
I made some notes, a couple of which were actually real, the rest for filler and to give me time to ponder. “Right. Thanks, Lithia.” I put on my hat, then paused halfway out the door. “The dinosaurs conduct any business at your place?”
She nodded. “Lots. High-level meetings and such.”
“Any newcomers?”
She tapped her chin as she thought, making her volcano wobble and shed magma on the carpet. “Yeah. This one guy, showed about a week ago. A mister Bolide. Big shot, always in a hurry. Never seen him before, but acted like I should’ve. You know the type.”
“Right. If it’s yours, can I be it?”
She sighed. “Please. Don’t even try next time if that’s your best.”
“Not by a long shot, sweetheart.”
Bolide was harder to find. Just like Lithia’d said, he couldn’t stay still. I traced a dozen hotel rooms across town before I caught him coming out his door, clothing rumpled and hat at an odd angle that was decidedly unrakish atop his pock-marked silicate-and-oxide surface. He’d seen some hard living out in space, that was for sure.
“What is it? Who are you? What do you want? I have somewhere to be in five minutes!” All at once, all still walking. I had to follow him, nearly jogging to keep up. Bolide’s legs weren’t exceptionally long, but they were whirling along at a terrific clip.
“Word has it you’ve been doing deals with the dinosaurs, Mr. Bolide,” I said through the huffs and puffs of unwanted exercise.
Bolide stopped dead so fast I nearly ran into him. His eyes were a little wild, but angry, not guilty. “Yes. Yes I did. Did. Those greedy little amniotic bastards are on my shitlist as of the day before yesterday, Mr….?”
“Chix. I’m a PI.”
A sharp, fast nod. Everything was fast about Bolide. “They cut me out, that’s the long and short of it. I was negotiating for space on the Sphere, and they had the strings to pull to get me in there. They wanted more than I was asking, said they were planning to rent the space themselves, and in the end they gouged too hard. Told them enough’s enough, good riddance. Happy to see the last of them.”
“You certainly have. They were murdered last afternoon.”
Bolide didn’t panic, like Stratus, but he certainly didn’t keep as cool as Lithia. He started glowing like he’d just entered atmosphere. “Hah! They were, were they? Figures! How else would they die but in a manner guaranteed to fill me with profound inconvenience! How else? Now you – and soon the police, and every busy-body within seven thousand light-years – are going to come and poke and prod at me! Bah!” Stratus was a solid man, and his hands looked to be making to throttle his briefcase straight into nonfunctionality.
“Got an alibi?”
He sighed, the heat leaking out of him with a wheeze. “Certainly. I wasn’t even intending to stay at the sphere when I arrived in this dead-end town a month ago on business, and I certainly hadn’t heard of the dinosaurs before then. I am not accustomed to murdering strangers, Mr. Chix. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late. Later.” He took off towards a cab, climbed in, and was gone in an instant.
I thought to myself. Yes, that was probably it. I’d need to play it safe, keep it cool, but the path ahead was clear and obvious. First things first: I went to the hotel desk.
“He’ll be back around six to check out,” I was informed by a boring young man at the desk.
“Leave this note for him,” I said, thrusting a crumpled page from my notebook at him. “It’s urgent.”
He regarded it as if it were freshly decayed carrion, but relented under my firm glare. “Right, sir.”
Stratus was asleep in his booth. I tucked his note inside his cup, where he’d have time to read it while still sober. Two down.
Lithia picked up the phone on the fifth call. “Stubbornness. I admire that in a businessman.”
“Cute. Listen, I’ve got a lead on the case, and I think the thing’s about to fold up and shut itself before this evening’s out. Meet me at the dinosaur’s condo at seven-thirty.”
“You do fast work.”
“I can take it slower if requested.” Yes, it was lame, but I had to keep my hand in.
A small and undelicate snort trickled through the line. “I’ll pass. You’re a bit of a little man, too little for my liking, Chix.” She hung up before I could protest.
The phone was returned to its cradle. The dinosaur’s former condo was a nice place, although some of the furniture was a bit old and beaten. Had a sign on the door that said “Apartment Yucatan.”
I spent the two hours remaining ‘till the meeting thinking and checking my backup plan. Just in case.
Bolide was there at seven-twenty, naturally. Lithia fashionably late at seven-forty. And Stratus stumbled in five minutes after her, scared and sober.
“I didn’t do it, man!” he moaned.
“Yeah, I know, I heard you. Shut up and sit down.”
He took his place. I’d arranged some chairs in a loose semicircle facing me, at a table. They were creaky things, spindly in the leg and sagging in the seat. I’ve known a lot of people like that.
“Right. Thanks for coming, everyone.” I lit a cigarette; I don’t often smoke, but it’s good for effect and gives me something to do with my hands when I talk. “You guys are my suspects, and I’m telling you this second, I know which of you did in the dinosaurs. And make no mistake, one of you DID do in the dinosaurs. Okay? Just so we’re clear on that, there’s a killer in this room blinking at us and looking shocked and appalled at the very thought of something so awful and nasty. Now, let’s do the rundown.”
I looked the atmosphere straight in the eye. “Stratus. You have no real reason to kill beyond getting stinking drunk and pissed off, and you’d be caught on-scene instantly. But you could do it. You could’ve screwed with their climate, caught ‘em offguard with glaciation or global warming. And you sober up fast when you’re scared shitless; you could’ve killed them, panicked, and gotten the hell out.”
Without stopping to watch his face, I turned to Lithia. “Lithia. The dinosaurs were good tenants, but they hogged space and got pushy, turned away other potential customers just to preserve their space. Maybe a little long-term gain would be worth the short-term pain? Word is you vulcanize pretty heavily when you’re angry. Enough to kill the dinosaurs? Maybe.”
I whirled about and pointed at Bolide. “Bolide. You’re the unknown, or you’d like to be, but I think you’re a boring-ass known. You turn up in town about a week ago on “business,” make pals with the dinosaurs, move around a lot so you’re hard to find, and then they die. That smells of hitman to me, and not a very good one either. Sloppy, Bolide, sloppy. And I checked the scene, too. There’s traces of iridium and tektite glass all over the damned place. Almost as if someone slammed into them at a high velocity/”
Only now did I examine them. Lithia fidgeting with her volcano, Stratus quivering with stress, both staring at the man I’d pointed out. Bolide was staring at me, unmoving, flat-faced.
I stubbed out the cigarette. “So, Bolide’s guilty. But you know what? He isn’t the only one. I can guess who hired him. Lithia? You have cash to burn. Speaking of burn, awful lot of sulphurous gasses and volcanic ash you’ve been putting out. Could make a mess of the Sphere, maybe cripple a few bothersome tenants, am I right? Soften them up for a kill? Speaking of which, Stratus, I went over this place while I was waiting for you. Low sea levels. Sounds an awful lot like glaciation, wouldn’t you say? Altered climates? I thought you said you were stable, Stratus; is there something you haven’t been telling me? You’ve got some good drinking money for someone who was begging for a loan a day ago. Did anyone slip you a little something to cut loose on somebody? Some dinosaurs, maybe?”
Now all of them had that blank, flat face. Not friendly.
“Chix,” said Lithia, breaking the silence. “You’re right.”
I smiled, but kept my hand ready under the table. “I do that.”
“Don’t get snotty with me, asshole, I haven’t finished. You’re right, but there’s one thing you left out.”
“Yeah?”
“You hired me to do it.”
All of a sudden, there were four flat faces. It really was hard to change expression after hearing something like that. “What?”
“You’re terrible at voices, Chix. And not just for pick-up lines.” She was smiling now. Very grimly. “I only just recognized it after that smug little rant of yours; all the rhetorical questions and oozing self-satisfaction. You put up the cash anonymously, over the phone. I hired Bolide and bribed Stratus. And you knew I’d come to you. And then presto! The cunning and brave Mr. Chix invites the suspects over to the Sphere and reveals….they’re all guilty! Ta-dah! Amazing, spectacular! You’d be the talk of the town and fat in the pocketbook. Not least because you wouldn’t have to deal with that hush money you pay the dinosaurs every month.”
That last sentence was all I needed to break my silence. “You knew?”
She smirked. “Of course I knew. I make it a habit of reading my tenant’s mail, if they’re worth the time. Quite a neat little rap sheet they weren’t releasing to the cops at the low, low price of…quite a lot. Assumed names don’t count if they’re just shortened versions of the original, Mister Chicxulub.” All three of them stood up.
I did too, and pulled out the shotgun. “Resisting arrest,” I said calmly. “A terrible thing. Self-defence, all of it. Yes, officer, they had me outnumbered and lethal force was the only recourse.” I pointed it at Bolide first. He stared along the barrel at me.
“Go on. Try to make –“
The police force is barely wasting half an officer on me; there isn’t much I can do, not now that half of my land area is a sunken crater. God that hurt. Bolide wasn’t fast when I met him; I know that now. When he’s fast, he means it. Or meant it, seeing as he’s now several million very small fragments on the floor of the Apartment Yucatan. I guess he couldn’t outrun the bullets, but damned if they slowed him down until after I’d dropped and half the Sphere had detonated from the impact.
At least I have company. The hospital put me, Lithia, and Stratus in the same ward. They got off light compared to me – Lithia’s dented and she’ll be coughing smoke for months, and Stratus is hazed and overcast, shot through with ashes and debris – but they’ll recover. I’ll be stuck like this for life. Which is what I got, incidentally. The court was firm on that, even as they struck those other bastards off with reduced sentences for testimony. A goddamned injustice.
And the birds are still pressing charges.