"I hope so. I'm looking for some company tonight"
She took a half pace forward and looked both ways along the street "Are you recording, Officer?"
"I'm off duty, and getting my ass busted is the last thing I need right now."
"Very well." She gestured him in. "We have to be careful, you understand."
"Yes, ma'am. Same in my hometown." The hall had a marble tile floor and a high ceiling. A big crystal chandelier hung from a long brass chain, shedding a bright light It could have been an ordinary house, except that someone had draped gauzy white fabric from just about every surface, giving it an odd chintzy appearance. A broad staircase led up from the rear of the hall, curving into a landing that ran around the second floor. Two girls wearing simple white cotton dresses with lace-up fronts leaned on the rail, peering down at him. One of them winked. It was all he could do not to wolf whistle at them. This was the right place all right Classy.
"Humm." The tip of the madam's tongue licked at her lavender-colored lips. "We've never had an alien here before."
There was a nasty moment when he thought she was going to be the one. Not that he would have minded too much, but he was kind of looking for someone younger. Hal grinned roguishly. "I might be an alien, but I'm still compatible, ma'am."
"Before we go any further, I'm afraid there is the question of money. Which also has to be compatible." She told him a figure that made him hesitate. Goddamn locals, they knew he was desperate—but then everyone who came here was. Under her level gaze he pulled out a thick wad of bills and handed over most of them.
"Are there to be any unusual requests placed upon the lady in question?" the madam asked. "Understand, we can provide almost anything you ask for. But I have to be informed in advance. It will avoid any alarm and subsequent unpleasantness."
"No, I just like it kinda straight, you know. Nothing too weird."
"I see. And you are a young man. A virile man."
"Hey. You know. I keep in shape."
She arched an eyebrow suggestively. "I can see that. There are several of my ladies who probably have the stamina to keep up with you. Though certainly not all."
Hal knew he was grinning like a baboon. Didn't care. He was getting hard already.
"Micha, perhaps," the madam pondered. "Although she is very experienced. Perhaps that is off-putting to you?"
"Anyone who knows what they're doing in the sack is okay by me."
"Perhaps." The madam tapped a manicured finger to her lips, as if Hal were an exceptionally vexing problem. "Yes. I think Avril for you. She is very young, which is exciting, no?"
"Oh yeah." It took a lot of control not to yell.
"Very well. This way." The madam beckoned and started up the stairs. Hal followed hot on her heels. Both of the girls at the top of the stairs pouted at him as he went past.
The madam opened one of the doors around the landing. When he saw what was waiting for him, Hal almost shoved her out of the way. He couldn't believe the girl standing by the big bed inside. Back home she probably wouldn't even have been legal. Avril was lean and tanned, with fine shoulder-length chestnut hair framing a coy smile. She was wearing sports gear, very short running shorts and a Lycra halter top that was tight enough to hold up her pert little breasts and outline their nipples.
"Jesus H. Christ," Hal growled between his teeth.
The madam bowed slightly. "Until later." She closed the door.
Hal spent a long moment staring at Avril as his breath grew hotter, then moved purposefully across the room.
* * *
To start with, it was a standard missing-person report. Gemma Tivon waited for three hours past the time her husband usually arrived home from the night shift before trying to open a link to his bracelet pearl to ask where he'd gotten to. There was no reply; the datapool communications management AS reported there wasn't even a standby link to his bracelet. It was switched off. He never did that Gemma called the spaceport and asked if Dudley was working some unexpected overtime. The department supervisor told her no, then got the security people to check the parking lot and the gate log. Dudley Tivon's car wasn't in the lot. The gate log showed he'd signed out at seven minutes to six that morning, slightly earlier than usual.
Because they were conscientious employees, the spaceport immediately called the police and sent someone around to Gemma Tivon. The police accessed the local traffic regulation AS and used its log to track Dudley's car after it left the spaceport. As usual, he'd driven along the main highway back to the city; then his routine changed. He'd turned onto Durrell's outer beltway and continued on eastbound for another three junctions. After that he'd taken a minor road, then turned off that for an unmonitored track leading through a forest. There was no record of the car coming out of the forest on any of the approach roads.
As the spaceport was pressing hard, the police sent a couple of patrol cars into the forest and dispatched a spotter helicopter. It took them two hours, but they eventually found Dudley's car under a big pine tree. The interior had been soaked with some inflammable liquid and set alight. A forensic team was immediately sent to the scene, along with three more cars.
The Zantiu-Braun AS that monitored all capital zone police activity tagged the case for attention anyway because of the strange circumstances. The Third Fleet intelligence agency AS also tagged it, but for a slightly different reason: Dudley Tivon was connected with spaceflight, and Gemma was collateral.
Five minutes after the patrol car officer informed her dispatcher they'd found the car and it had been deliberately set alight, the relevant case datapackage was delivered to Simon Roderick's DNI from his personal AS.
"A cold trail, unfortunately," he said as Quan and Raines arrived in his office. "Over four hours now since the car was abandoned and torched."
"We can divert some of our helicopters to the forest to help with the search," Quan suggested.
"No," Simon told him firmly. "We don't initiate anything. I don't want us to draw attention to our interest If the police want our assistance they can apply for it through the appropriate channels. In any case, simply finding poor old Tivon's body will prove little."
"Forensics might give us something."
"I doubt it. In fact I doubt we'll ever find the body. If our opponents have any sense, and as far as I'm concerned, they have plenty, the body won't even be in that forest. Besides, I'm not interested in how he died, only why."
"He'd delivered something to them and wasn't necessary anymore," Raines said. "Or he'd delivered something to the spaceport for them—a bomb, perhaps—and thought he was collecting his payoff."
"That's very crude for these people," Simon said. "In any case, you're overlooking his wife, Gemma. He isn't going to get involved in any venture that could jeopardize her. No, I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time." He glanced at the two intelligence operatives. "Run up a week's timeline profile for me. Access every sensor log in the data-pool, starting with last night and working backward from there. When you come back to me, I want to be able to watch his whole day, every single minute of it. And once you've done that, set up a secure link to the Koribu and correlate as much as you can from last night with skyscan."