recreated by cylarn, erucia, mincaldenteans, and zarkanians
lorekept and secretaried by sylvanstreak
January, 2020
Trouble never failed to start with a woman.
Unlike all the stories, though, this particular woman wasn’t a redhead with legs up to...wherever. Not at all. Don’t get me wrong, she was nearly as tall as me. But the way she looked around curiously at everything, now that screamed, off-island. Even my nameplate on the dashboard, with my photo large on the left. Then my taxi ID number under it, the taxi hotline under that, and my name on the right. PRISCA SIMON, all in fading black letters.
I still don’t know why I did it. Oma en Opa would have smacked me in the face with paintbrush handles and then given me a lecture each. On a good day. The trip from the airport to the cluster of nightclubs on Bird of Paradise Terrace over in Whitaker sure didn’t give me any reason to, either. Only thing out of the ordinary was her asking to turn the radio up. Turned out, she had the same taste in music as me. Just one of us would be taking the A train, though, sure wasn’t going to be me.
Surviving was good enough.
I’d adjusted my ballcap a bit as she swiped her card and left my cab in a flurry of long, wavy blonde hair. Bird of Paradise Terrace had the most distinct street layout in all of Condominium, sitting atop a hill as it did. So the shallow curve bulged up vertically in the middle, right? Going all three-D. Most people liked to start the night at one end and finish on the other. All of which meant it was one of the safest places in all of Condominium, too, ‘cause someone would have to run straight up or down a steep hill to get out of there after doing any messy business. Criminals were a lazy lot, even here.
And somehow, someone still managed to do it.
I let the docs know her name was Carol Saint James, a few someones in ski masks had plugged her six or seven times, and she was with Phoenix. Yeah, the nightclub with the tacky theme name to match the street it was on. Either she was working there, or about to, or they were about to work for her. Either way, she was the ER’s business now. Mine? Cleaning her blood off my seats and clothes.
Hydrogen peroxide. Never leave home without at least 3 bottles.
*****
Word spread fast enough about an offlander getting popped in one of the safest places in the middle of the safest island. To all the right ears, that is. Not so much as a peep was heard by the partygoers and revelers.
The gangs didn’t care much, it wasn’t their business anyhow. But for a select few, more in the know? Carol Saint James had been a major opportunity for the drug ring working out of the Phoenix to change their line of work into something less risky and less attention-getting: pirated music.
Scratch less attention-getting, because she was - had been also the agent for an up and coming surf rock band. They’d been setting up a gimmick deal, tour of a bunch of islands via cruise ship. A lot of offlanders were about to wake up to a lot of red ink in their bank records. And once that happened...
*****
The gentle thudding of the tires connecting with the runway bounced through the plane. There were worse landings, all things considered.
Only three seats were filled this time around. The sunlight shining through the windows heated up the fine-grained leather, but it was short-lived as the pilot swung the smallish business jet into the hangar. The whine of the engines deepened and then quieted completely.
Down below, the usual BMW sedan waited. Characteristic of Lichter, no markings, discreet. Nothing to indicate it was armored up to anything except a tank shell, or the rack of Swiss-made SIG automatic rifles deep in the trunk, right behind the fold-down rear seats.
*****
...there was no telling what kind of mayhem was coming.
Phones rang across the Condominium, from Whitaker Grand Casino & Hotel to Embassy Row. The Phoenix Circle was on the hunt, that was for sure.
But the Lichter Solutions team wasn’t on anyone’s radar, yet.