Bard Constantine
Little White Bird
After the Cataclysm nearly wiped out humanity, the remnants of mankind survived in Havens: city-sized constructs built to reboot society and usher in a new age of mankind.
However the new age was not the type that the architects had envisioned. The same greed and lust for power that existed before the Cataclysm had resurfaced, and the Havens quickly became quagmires of political and economic conflict that threatened to destroy the future envisioned by the Haven’s founders.
This is the world of Mick Trubble, a man without a past. A man with nothing to lose. But when your luck is down and no one else can help you, he can. He takes the cases that no one else will touch. The type of trouble that no one else can handle.
Mick Trubble is…
The Troubleshooter.
Little White Bird
In New Haven, a day without rain is like a day without a homicide — not likely to happen. Rather than feeling depressed about it, I reclined at my desk with my Bogart tipped over my eyes and a few shots on my desk. One of them was whiskey, the rest were lead. The slugs were about to be loaded into a snub-nosed, seven shot revolver I appropriately dubbed the Mean Ol’ Broad. As I cleaned and polished her, I listened to the downpour outside. I can usually tell how bad my day is gonna be by the sound of the storm. From the way the rain pounded the pavement, it sounded like things weren’t about to go my way anytime soon.
About the time I got the Mean Ol’ Broad loaded and polished, the intercom on my desk buzzed. “A client to see you, Mick.”
“It’s my day off, Angel. Give Poddar a buzz, he’ll be glad to take a dive in that weather.”
He actually wouldn’t have been glad at all, which was why I made the suggestion. I got a perverse kick outta annoying Poddar, my partner by way of India. He’s such a polite lug that it takes a lot to get under his skin.
“Poddar’s running errands for Ms. Kilby,” Angel said. “Besides, your client says she’ll only talk to you.”
I sighed and took my heels off my desk. Whenever anyone wants to ‘only talk to you’, it’s a sure sign of bad news. I pulled a gasper from the deck in my pocket and lit it, inhaling the sweet poison.
“Guess you better send her in then, Angel.”
I almost groaned out loud when the dame entered. She was instantly recognizable, because her face was displayed in holographic detail on every picjector in the city, not to mention the brilliantly lit billboards that plastered the buildings and airbuses across the New Haven skyline. Gwendolyn Mannering’s plain features and beautiful eyes haunted the city as she crusaded for the return of her missing daughter, twelve year old Maimie.
I knew all about the case. Hell, the entire city did. Kids go missing all the time without the press swarm, but her daughter’s case struck the rare nerve that puts a populace on hold for a few moments. Folks forgot about their own misery for a collective bout of genuine concern for another human being. Maybe it was the angelic picture of Maimie’s face that transfixed people when they stared at their picjectors, or maybe it was Ms. Mannering’s poise in the midst of the tragedy, her heartbroken eyes that pulled you back to the screen when all you wanted to do was turn away from the catastrophe.
I felt the same as everyone else. It was a rotten deal, snatching a kid like that away from a home that looked as if it were genuinely happy. It was bad news all around, impelling the city’s activities to pause at every posting, every news flash about the disappearance. New Haven might be a boiling pot of corruption and murder, but the case of Maimie Mannering reminded the city it still had a heart that could bleed for the children.
Ms. Mannering’s blond hair was pulled back in no-nonsense fashion and she was dressed in modest rags under a fur-trimmed coat that had seen better days. It was her eyes that caught my attention, though. They were the color of melancholy waters, harrowed by unconcealed distress that practically pleaded for salvation. In a strange way, the distress made them more beautiful than they had a right to be, glistening jewels in a face that would otherwise escape notice. Eyes like that would make any decent man want to dust off his armor and vow upon his sword to right any wrong for her.
Of course, decent isn’t a word folks apply to me. Not when I can hear them, anyway. “I already know what you’re here for, Ms. Mannering, and the answer is no. I don’t take missing kid gigs.”
“It’s Mrs. Mannering, actually.” She pointedly ignored my rudeness and sat in the chair in front of my desk with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes downcast. “My husband didn’t want to come here. Said it was a waste of time. But I came anyway because I was told you help people, Mr. Trubble. You have a way of solving cases that confound everyone else.”
“Not this type.” I crushed my gasper in the ashtray with unnecessary force. “You’re all over the six o’clock. This case has been touched by a lot of different mitts, most of them with polished badges on their chests. What can I do that hasn’t been done already?”
She lifted her eyes, fixing me with the heartbreak in her gaze. “My daughter is missing, Mr. Trubble. Anything you can do is one more step to bringing her home.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “The button boys are all over this, Mrs. Mannering. They’ve been combing the streets, turning over every stone. For once they actually seem to be on the job, too. If there’s a lead to be found, they’ll find it.”
“It’s been two weeks, Mr. Trubble.” Her voice trembled. “Two weeks without my little girl.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. There’s probably no worse case to take than that of a missing kid. If they’re not runaways or domestic kidnappings, there’s a hundred other scenarios that come into play, and every one of them reeking with disturbing details that will keep you from sleeping at night. If you go down that road as an investigator, the only sure thing is you’ll emerge from the muck with stains you’ll never be rid of, no matter how hard you try to clean them from your mind.
“Your daughter’s dead, Mrs. Mannering.” I tried to ignore when she flinched as though I’d struck her. “And if not, she probably wishes she were. There’s nothing I can do this far into the case. I’m sorry.”
The truth is always a hard dish to serve, but I had to give it to her square. I expected her to take it hard. Maybe scream at me or rush out of the office in a flood of tears. But she just sat there with a glare hard enough to drive nails with.
“How dare you.” She spat the words through clenched teeth. “How dare you say you’re sorry without having the nerve to even try.”
She stood abruptly, nearly overturning the chair in her haste. If looks could kill, I’d have been a case for the next Troubleshooter to deal with. She stalked to the door, letting her silence speak for her contempt. Halfway through, she paused and stabbed me a final time with a gaze like melting ice.
“What if it were your little girl, Mr. Trubble?”
The door shut quietly, yet somehow louder than a glass-shattering slam. I heard her heels fade away, and the mocking sound of the rain as the outside door opened and shut.
Angel’s voice buzzed through a second later. “What did you tell her, Mick? Did you refuse the case? I can’t believe that you would—”
I shut the com off and stared at my desktop. The ghosts from my ashtray drifted somberly toward the ceiling as the dim light turned the whiskey in my glass into liquid amber. The rain poured outside, the ice in my drink melted, and Angel finished her shift without another word. After she left, I still sat there, listening to the storm as it finished playing the blues.