Chimera(person)—noun; colloquially kimmie, kay, tail, or fuzz—a descendant of a survivor of second-stage Plague; a person exhibiting a combination of physical and mental traits, one part from human heritage and one part from animal. Sentient, with some groups considered second-class citizens prior to the Atomic Restoration, locale dependent.
-Webster’s Dictionary, 2291 Edition
The devil had chased me these past few months, but I’d escaped. That’s the story of my life. And the devil—necessity is his real name—isn’t the Bible guy with the horns and the whole eight meters of sin. He keeps coming back no matter how fast I run. Perhaps he will catch you, my dearest thief. Since you’ve been so bold to dare his attention, want to hear about a time when he did get his due?
My client had called at four. Now? Nine in the evening, Tuesday.
The sun had gone down, same as the wind cutting between the city’s buildings. I was up on the sixth floor of the Sternwood Building, my office. Like outside, no heat. Down on the street, the chill crawled up your legs. Upstairs, I’d long ago found it safer to smoke and drink the evening away. Another hour. That’s all.
I hadn’t bothered with the cracked desk lamp when the last hint of sun gave up. The streetlights gave up as well as the night went on.
Everything had its curfew or last breath. A world full of potential energy and the average person only gets the scraps. On the hills above the city, you can bet the light bulbs were bright and changed often. Especially on the biggest, the one where you can hear the capitals: The Hill. We don’t get called The City of Lights for nothing. I can manage with far less, but living by the scraps of other people’s leavings wasn’t my dream as a little kit.
Everything costs money, and at the day’s end whatever you have left is paradise. If I had more in my wallet than a twenty due to the devil himself, maybe I’d have given some for a new light bulb. Not a bright one, just enough for the job. Mirror, too. Where the frame had been, chipped plaster.
Wouldn’t have shown much. Just another vixen. Our kind tend to spend our nights tending to families. Not me. They would be in demure house dresses of cheap cotton or linen. And they wouldn’t dream of sullying themselves with my vices. Among them, dressing like a man.
I paired pinstriped navy slacks and jacket with a crisp white shirt, and a hat pulled low. Outside pocket, a red-slashed black handkerchief to match my tie. One of my inside pockets had a pair of aviators. Can’t let my eyes catch the wrong light, day or night.
But sometimes that slight glow just above a sharp muzzle of red and flecked fur is better than a gun. I’ve got one of those too. Not some derringer or pearl-handled lady gun. It’s a nice revolver that punches holes bigger than a bare-knuckle boxer’s moneymakers. I paid dearly for the gun, partly because of quality workmanship. A stamped metal machine gun will jam before it saws through a man. My revolver and I got results. Call me short, call me a vixen, call me trouble or mannish. Some women pay their way in life with a kiss. I’m not just another vixen.
The Sternwood creaked like an old priest with his throat gone sore from saving the city’s souls. Easily thirty years old, it had been designed back before electric lights were reinvented. In ten more, it would be dust once it settled and cracked.
On the first floor was the lobby and Hartman’s, the confectioner. Stairways on either side arced up to the law offices on the second floor. I’m up on the sixth, on the southeast corner. I’ve got five neighbors across the hall, four more this side. I can’t make out soft words at the hall’s end. But when the first cuts of winter hit, I can follow footsteps in the evening two floors below.
He took the south stairs up to the fourth, each step stilted like a piano teacher’s student. Made a machine sound sloppy. They faded into the building’s sighs, then increased in volume as his well-heeled shoes tapped the old floorboards a few meters below. The last stairs, he took two at a time. He hadn’t sounded old on the phone, but you never know.
A human outline darkened the glass of my door for a heartbeat before turning the knob with a pause and flinch. “Marlowe?” the voice asked.
“Come in all the way. Sit. Feel free to light one, but I’m not opening the window,” I said, then tucked my cigarette back in.
The door clicked shut in near silence. Humans wouldn’t have heard it, but my next client felt the smoothness of the latch. He understood. I hadn’t wanted another fool even if it meant money.
The only light was whatever crept past the open blinds of my south window or the unlit lamp on my desk. It left me backlit and my guest in slashes of fading light.
He was still taking in the unfamiliar space while I cataloged him. Youngish, but old enough to be more than the lowest officer if war broke out again. He debated taking his hat off and did after touching the brim four times. Dark hair, parted down the middle. Creased slacks and good shoes, his wool coat lighter. Tall enough that I’d be staring at his chest if I got up, and I’m not that short.
A touch long in the face, but not unattractive. The ladies probably smiled for him, but he wasn’t the one they’d gossip for hours about. He toyed with the hat, long fingers tapping in coordinated patterns. No ring. Each hand had its own rhythm. Well-dressed enough to afford a secretary in a nice blouse and skirt, so his dexterity wasn’t from woman’s work. Too well dressed for the radio orchestra, so wealthy enough for better than a tiny spinet. No, he had green in the bank, and plenty. Not just wool, but the finespun kind that says a man can afford a woman and children.
His gaze swept over the shadows in my office, blinking every few seconds as he rubbed at either brow or chin. Not much to see even during daytime.
There’s a pair of metal filing cabinets to my side but not quite in the building’s corner. Two chairs in front of a battered oak desk, plain as the old scars in the thin varnish. Behind me, the east window. To his left, a hand-me-down couch and an unrelated low table. No pictures, no clever rich people parsley for the small room. The black huskbake phone was standard issue and in a frontless side drawer. My two pens and what little paper I kept were in the top drawer. Those were tucked away for now. Just me behind my desk with a cloudy glass of rot, a cigarette between my fingers, and second helpings on either side of an ashtray.
I smiled beneath the brim of my fedora, whiskers catching the misered light and his eyes. Yet another client that went prey cautious as I played the too calm game. “Sit. Or don’t,” I suggested.
He did, backside meeting the chair several centimeters lower than expected. Keeps people from looking down at little me. And what he saw was a vixie with wide eyes and ears back. Or something like that. I doubted he saw more than a shadow and a few hints of my shape.
I continued, “You were supposed to be here at half to seven.”
There are rumors among some humans about what the average chimera can do. None of us are keen on revealing the few secrets—even to each other—that even the score of life, especially the subtle ones. I don’t tally it. There is no single scent that screams lie, and no single noise that strikes an alarm bell. I’m just better in some ways.
Baseline humans leak clues when there’s nothing else to do. My late-night caller avoided looking across the desk. I wash up each morning and smell more of cigarettes and whiskey than an animal. It’s better when they try to avoid offending me by studying the blinds for the fifth time. Or, in my guest’s case, committing sins against headwear.
He finally placed the damned thing on my desk and folded his hands between his knees. “He … I got delayed. Not by who I think did it, no. Or about to.” He swallowed and dared to look me in the eyes.
No one had told him mine were amber, slit like a fox. The whole vixen thing should warn anyone with ears.
He broke our shared gaze and continued faster, “Mr. Creeson is halfway to a saint. But I don’t dare give him reason to add any lines when he’s singing my praises.” The guy had an annoying habit of ending his sentences on a rising pitch, so I subtracted a few more years from his age.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“An early dinner, and one with too much high society. I …”
The pause drew out. He apologized again, each sentence of his explanation disconnected from the next. A pair of important facts slipped out. He owned a recent model groundcar and hadn’t gotten over the cost of fuel. He’d ridden the streetcars home after dinner, then waited a half-hour to catch the last run here. His hands shook as he unbuttoned the wool overcoat, then withdrew a pack and lighter. Fresh pack, too. The ritual steadied him until he failed to light a spark five times. A deep breath, and magic six. He inhaled, coughing briefly at the sudden change of weather. The guy should have slugged a couple of doubles before heading this way.
He shook his head and said, “I’ll end up walking an hour back.”
“Fine by me.” I stroked the russet fur at one cheek before taking a drag on my cigarette. The exhale caught my client in the face. “You didn’t want to talk on the phone. Get on with it.”
The lawyers on the second floor left two hours ago; well, I doubt that fancy talker had the whiskers on his jewels to drink anywhere but home.
I continued, “I understand this feels worse than going to the cops, but I’m not some Follies girl that’s holding your hand.”
“Uhh …”
“Start with your name. Next, Mr. Creeson. I know of a Creeson and Ellis, architects.”
He nodded and spoke faster. “The same. I’m Nathaniel Berrymount, soon to be partner. My father was the lead draftsman until he died a few years back. Mr. Ellis is a harsher man, but evenhanded.”
“College educated, but not married? Firms, even smaller ones, like stable family men,” I said.
“Part of the reason I was held up.”
I let my smile spread until the angels’ prayers kept my teeth from showing. “You don’t say. Doesn’t sound like your problem, girls.”“Well, umm, I’ve been unlucky in love. And all I keep thinking of is I might die before my wedding night. Not that …” His cigarette had burned halfway down, and it dropped ash the second he rushed it to my ashtray. Either the guy just picked up the habit, or what he saw shot his nerves. Both counted against him in war or trouble. “I can handle myself and my heart. We’re about to be swindled. I know it.”
“How and who? No guessing, that’s my job.”
Berrymount went through a complex line of reasoning. Ellis had brought their client in, and Creeson petitioned his partner to give the young man the challenge. No hard feelings there, and Berrymount’s guess on his future seemed reasonable. Not quite assured, though. Ellis had lectured Berrymount on confidentiality after the younger’s first suspicion. Kid had his eyes too open.
And while I already had the roughest idea of the setup, smart guesses aren’t worth owl pellets. My ears twitched further forward as I drew out details. Ellis had a better relationship with the bankers. Creeson was better with fine details.
But both were getting on in years and disagreed as often as not. All it takes between former friends is one nasty argument and then an innocent accident. People got hungry when that was on the air, and the young were always the first to suffer.
The kid … no, I had to stop thinking of him like that. If he was old enough for the Army or to knock up some girl, then the last thing he needed was to see his PI as a dance partner. I’d sooner treat him like a suspect. Professionalism before personal pleasure. Too many forgot that. My tail and ears knew how to hunker down and listen to the city’s story.
“This sounds like a half-baked sweetheart deal,” I said. “Average guy, I’d squeeze him.” Berrymount smelled of sudden interest, so I continued, “No, not that kind of squeeze. Make you do something illegal kind of dirty. But a fellow like yourself?” I pointed at him and then counted on my fingers, grin getting wider with each one. “Decent job, employer sounds decent, and no obvious debt? You set them up for a good payout, then let the floor collapse. So sorry, what a shame. Sometimes it’s deliberate malice. Others the grift gets you to do his part. Either way, plenty of money left over for a funeral and flowers, and dignity be damned.”
Berrymount’s interest had faded and his fidgeting returned. Not the hat, thankfully. Instead, he loosened his tie and said, “I do not handle our firm’s money, but believe me when I say that architects watch their accounts. Any banker foolish enough to participate in, what was your word, grift? Solvency equals trust for businesses.” He laughed at a joke I didn’t know and tapped off ash properly. “But if things were as they should be, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t worry. You and your firm were getting cheated before. Just didn’t notice it.”
“Our clients and business partners are trusted men. Construction is a serious matter, and no one wants to find themselves—”
“On the toilet in the middle of the street?” I suggested. With one last drag on my cigarette, I pieced together the big question in my head. “If I needed you to confirm facts in the next few days, you up to the task?”
He set himself like green concrete and said, “I will be as determined as a dog, Mrs. Marlowe.”
A moment of horror drew his face longer. Younger men talk faster than good sense steers, usually when they’re not among their fellows. Some places aren’t right for the shared jokes that grew from the soil of adversity or cheated death. I didn’t have to ask which of the three meanings his slip was. His hand darted for his hat, then he thought better of it.
Well, I thought, that solves any romantic ideas he had. A man’s mouth gets him into trouble with his girl, and his feet dance him out of it. Zero chance Berrymount’s previous loves stuck around to practice the second.
I said, “A few corrections. You can’t shock me. I’ve heard every joke from the revue shows and over-educated boys,” then ground my cigarette out. “Second, it’s Ms. Marlowe. I’m as married as sevies—Section 137 violators, if you’re not the drinking type—are dry. Let’s start with an address.”
He scribbled down a place on the Northeast side. Not the Hill, not the best theatres and hotels. Bit north, but better than prime real estate if businesses kept having kids. “Please be circumspect, ma’am. I heard your name mentioned in more than one circle of acquaintances.”
“If you’ve heard my name, then you’ve also heard how I operate. I’ll go out there eventually.” I stopped him with a finger and then lit a fresh cigarette. “So please do not go there for any reason except normal business. Got that? Assume you’re being watched. And don’t ask when I’ll go there.”
Berrymount adjusted his tie with scrubbed and very clean fingers, then said, “Time is not unlimited. All I wish is a definite answer: is my firm abetting criminals, even if accidentally. Every day that passes could damage my professional—”
I rubbed at my brow. Just what I needed. “You’ve given me enough.” I wrote numbers on a bent card, then tucked the pen back inside my coat. The card slid across to Berrymount. “My rate. It’s fair, and I’m better than some say.”
My guest resumed using his hat as a wheel. If he kept it up, he’d need to explain a visit to the haberdashery. “But what if it’s nothing?” he asked.
“That’s my problem. If you put some green on the table, first order of business is visiting the kind of places you shouldn’t be in. That means tonight, which you’ve made shorter. By morning, I’ll be sniffing your problem down.”
“I’m—”
“Out of your depth?” I finished for my new client. “Yes. Act normal. All you are is an associate, soon to be a full partner.”
I gestured, and he removed an oiled leather wallet. Five twenties floated across my desk. A small fortune in this age.
I still remember my dam telling us kits tales of the Before, when a kilo of pennies only bought part of a dinner. How the times have changed, I thought.
Berrymount’s eyes followed what was once his as I tucked it in my jacket. The guy either had to be desperate to consider me instead of the police, or his acquaintances were my kind of problems. I hadn’t scored a decent case in weeks. That one I fell into up in North Chimeratown had only paid me two dead bodies after my advance. This could save my tail. Months of sneakiness and bleeding heart pro bono had me eager for fresh green.
“Now get out of my office,” I said.
He did so, and I poured another finger of the local rot. Put my feet up too. Life in Nuevo Carcangel wore a person down, I mused as the smoke from one last cigarette swirled around the small room.