The Troubleshooter: Red-Eyed Killer Read online

  The Troubleshooter: Red-Eyed Killer

  Title Page

  Chapter 1: Dinner at Luzzattis

  Chapter 2: Sweet Natasha

  Chapter 3: Trubble With Luzzatti

  Chapter 4: The Big Fat Deal

  Chapter 5: The Low Down On the Down Low

  Chapter 6: Scene Of the Crime

  Chapter 7: The Storm

  Chapter 8: Fishing for Pike

  Chapter 9: Red-Eyed Killer

  Chapter 10: Slick Talk

  Chapter 11: Case Closed

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Red-Eyed Killer

  By Bard Constantine

  The Troubleshooter and all related characters and properties are © Copyright 2012 Bard Constantine. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Help stop piracy. If you believe this novel was made available by illegal means, please report it to the author at http://bardwritesbooks.com

  Cover and logo design by Stefan Prohaczka featuring Mark Krajnak of JerseyStyle Photography

  DEDICATION

  To the dieselpunks…

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Stefan Prohaczka and Mark Krajnak of Jersey Style Photography continually give of their time and talent to make sure that the visual aspects of The Troubleshooter are top rate and bring the world of Mick Trubble to life. Gentlemen, consider yourselves owed a favor...

  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

  Chapter 1: Dinner at Luzzattis

  In a town like New Haven, favors can be better than money in the long run. Sure, it’s great to have the berries, but when it all hits the fan sometimes all the cabbage in the world ain’t enough to keep a mug from biting the big one. I’ve seen it, so I know. A wise man once told me that if you wanna stay ahead of the game on the streets, you gotta know how to handle your favors. You gotta know when to deal ‘em and when to call ‘em in. Because everyone owes somebody something. And sooner or later you’re gonna have to pay your taxes.

  Take me, for example. When I came to The Luzzatti, I had nothing. Just the rags on my back and the one thing that I had to barter with.

  A favor.

  Mr. Luzzatti gave me a keen once-over when I strode into the lobby of his apartment complex. Luzzatti wasn’t tall, wasn’t quite bald and had the girth of a mug who loved his chow. He didn’t look hard enough to run a housing unit in a neighborhood like the Flats, but appearances are never what they seem in New Haven. He was a pretty smart mug in some ways. Smart enough to let me state my case despite the fact that he knew that I was down on my uppers.

  “You’re looking for a place to stay, Mr.…?”

  “Trubble. The name’s Mick Trubble.”

  “I require a month’s deposit for my rooms, Mr. Trubble. Pardon my saying so, but you don’t look as though you have it.”

  “No offense, because I don’t. But I’ll be getting a gig real soon. My line of work is always in demand around here.”

  He tapped his chin as he studied me. “And what is it that you do?”

  “I’m a Troubleshooter. You might find it advantageous to have someone like me around. You look out for me, and I’ll be sure look out for you if you catch my drift.”

  Without any hesitation he smoothly slid a keyless access chip across the counter for me to synch to the holoband around my wrist.

  “You should feel right at home in room 2046, Mr. Trubble. Consider the first two months on the house. That should give you the time you need to establish yourself.”

  Turns out I was able to establish myself in no time at all. There’s a lot of situations that the brass won’t touch, and a lot of situations that folks don’t want the brass to touch. In either case, when people are in a jam of that sort they usually wind up giving someone like me a buzz.

  Word got out, and my cabbage started to grow. I bought myself some new rags: a sturdy flogger and a real darb fedora, or a Bogart as they like to call it in New Haven. In a couple of months I had a cramped office of my own a few blocks away, and my pad at Luzzatti’s was still rent-free. When you ran a complex like his, there was always the unlucky sort that got well behind on his rent or tried to skip out without paying his tab at all. Well, Luzzatti wasn’t the type to get rough with folks, and he’d probably have gotten laughed outta town if he tried.

  But getting rough was never a problem for me.

  I handled the chasing and bruising while Luzzatti got to focus strictly on the business side of things. He was happy and so was I. Mugs like me are always better off keeping busy. When you’re working, you don’t have time to dwell on your problems. You know, those ghosts that haunt the inside of a bourbon glass late at night when sleep deserts you. I had a few every night. Bourbon shots, I mean. The ghosts came after.

  So I stayed busy. I worked at putting aside enough crumbs to buy a wheeler: one of those retro, Tesla-powered roadsters. I hardly took the time to sleep as I took small time cases and worked for Mr. Luzzatti on my downtime. Ol’ Luzzatti took a shine to me after a few months and would even have me over for dinner with his family. His old lady was a stately, slender dame with worried eyes; though it was only later that I found out she had a valid reason for that. They had a daughter, Natasha.

  Sweet Natasha.

  Natasha was a rose that had only recently bloomed. By that I mean grown into her womanly body, swelled at those places that men pay close attention to. She was slender and raven-haired like her mother, but pleasantly curved and had a face that made you wanna make excuses for hanging around. Her eyes were the smoky gray color of rainy night fog, and just as mysterious. She was a dish, all right.

  But in a locale like the Flats, that meant there were a lot of scumbags that wanted to dig into that dish and lick it clean afterwards. Luzzatti knew it, and tried to shelter her as much as possible. But you can’t stop the sun from shining, or put the jack back in the box once it pops out laughing at you.

  So it was a major sign of trust that he’d invite me into his home now and again. Mrs. Luzzatti was one of those dames who could cook dishes that looked almost as good as they smelled and smelled almost as good as they tasted. We’d eat, sip wine and discuss whatever was on our minds.

  “What do think started the Cataclysm?” Natasha asked one night.

  Luzzatti and his wife looked at each other. “No one really knows,” he said.

  Mrs. Luzzatti shook her head. “Do we really have to talk about this?”

  Natasha rolled her e
yes. “Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about it? It happened so long ago. Hundreds of years…”

  “Because we’ve moved past all of that. It’s ancient history. Our life is in the Havens, and that’s that.” Mrs. Luzzatti was a sensible dame, like a lot of people. If you couldn’t do anything about the sky being overcast, you ignored it and went about your business.

  “What do you think, Mick Trubble?” Natasha always called me by my full name. That tickled me for some reason.

  I looked at the Luzzattis before answering. “I don’t tend to think much about old news. The Cataclysm happened, and we’re here because they built the Havens and survived. That’s about all that matters, anyhow. The reasons why won’t put food on your table or a roof over your head.”

  Mrs. Luzzatti nodded. “Mr. Trubble is right, Natasha. No point in dwelling on things you can’t change.”

  Natasha’s smirk let me know that she was on to my subtle grift. “Then there’s nothing wrong with talking about it.” Her eyes brightened as she leaned forward. “They say that the Havens were supposed to be like paradise. A place to start over and make things right. Where people worked together to create… a utopia. No crime, no hate…” her voice trailed off as she realized how naive those words sounded.

  Her father sighed and touched her hand. “So long as humanity is driven by selfishness, no utopia can exist. It’s… not in our nature. Building something that idealistic is hard. Near impossible even with full cooperation. Tearing something apart is so much easier.”

  I drained my glass. “So long as there’s power and profit to be had, men will claw and fight for it. Folks out there will cut the next man’s back out for a little of nothing, kid. That’s just the way it is. The Cataclysm didn’t change what makes us tick. Just slowed us down for a little while.”

  Natasha looked at me with her smoky eyes. “What makes you different, Mick Trubble?”

  I paused. “Whaddya mean, ‘different?’”

  She smiled. “You’re the only man that Papa allows at the dinner table. You work for him but don’t try to cheat or double-cross him. He tells me all the time to see you instead of calling the cops if anything goes wrong. So if people are inherently bad, then what makes you so different?”

  I hated being gut-punched by unexpected questions. The Luzzatti’s eyes fixed on me. They knew more about me than Natasha did. Knew enough to not ask questions about things that they’d rather not know. I was on the square with them, and that was good enough. Anything else they considered none of their business.

  I gave Natasha my most charming grin. “I guess there’s an exception to every rule, darlin’. I live by a simple code: do right by the folks who do right by you. Besides, your Ma’s cooking is too good for me to cheat myself out of. Right, Mrs. L.?”

  Everyone laughed. Conversation moved to other things.

  Chapter 2: Sweet Natasha

  A few days later I clapped eyes on Natasha down the hall as I came in from working a case. I caught the bad vibes right away. One of the locals was busy pushing up on her. You know –the up close and personal touch some mugs resort to in order to almost forcibly convince a dame that she should buy what they’re selling.

  The kid’s name was Stix, one of those hardheads that bark like bad dogs, but tuck tail when they spot a wolf coming around the corner. Not hard to find a few on every block in the Flats. He had Natasha hemmed up in the corner, spitting some tired game with a casually placed arm to keep her from ducking out. I could tell from the slightly panicked look on her face that she’d have rather been anyplace else but there.

  I decided to take the friendly approach. “Hey Stix, why don’t you let the lady go about her business? Luzzatti don’t take kindly to no one trying to make time with his daughter. House rules.”

  Stix wasn’t smart enough to take the hint. He had one of those tough guy sneers on his ugly mug when he turned his head.

  “Hey Mick, why don’t you mind your own business? Quit being Luzzatti’s bitch and maybe you’d be up on this too. I figure the girl’s been waiting for a real man to show her a good time. You don’t seem to be up to the job, so I guess I’ll take care of it myself.”

  I didn’t say a word. I let my hands do the talking when they seized him by the scruff of his neck and introduced his face to the dimensional wallpaper. I heard the drywall crunch from the impact. Or maybe it was his nose. Didn’t matter much.

  I leaned in close so that he could hear me clearly. “Maybe you’re not understanding me, Stix. So let me make this clear. You just crossed the line. So I’m crossing you out. You’re two months behind the bend right now. Consider this your eviction notice.”

  He clutched his face and moaned like a baby with a soggy diaper when I allowed him to crumple to the carpet. I didn’t exactly feel sorry for him.

  “Just so we understand each other, Stix: I see you again and I’m assuming that you want something. I won’t be so nice when I give it to you. Now scram before you get on my bad side.”

  He scrammed.

  I tipped my Bogart at Natasha. “You all right, kid?”

  She smoothed out her blouse almost angrily. “I’m fine.”

  I could tell that she was more upset at herself than at Stix. I understood. Nothing worse than feeling helpless. A dame wants to be able to handle herself, and it grated to have to be rescued, even if it was necessary.

  Her discomfort quickly dissolved when she looked up at me with one of those shy expressions that no man has a defense for. “I want to show you something, Mick Trubble. Come on.”

  I trailed her back to her folk’s apartment. It wasn’t until we were inside that I noticed that her folks weren’t at home. Alarm bells rang in my head.

  “You know, I probably shouldn’t be here, Natasha. Violation of trust and all that.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “What? Oh. Don’t worry, Mick Trubble. I just want you to see something, that’s all. It will only take a minute.”

  She bent over to fiddle with something on the floor. She had on one of those cute stretch-knit pencil skirts that did a great job of showing off her shapely behind. I took in the view while she opened a panel in the floor that was so well hidden that I could barely see the seams. It was one of those concealed panic rooms, or a safe house of some kind. A narrow set of stairs descended into the darkness.

  “Come on.”

  Despite my better judgment, I followed her into the hidden basement. Our movement activated the lights.

  She gestured around. “Well? What do you think?”

  I took it all in and slowly nodded. “Wow.”

  It was massive collection of junk. Everything was dated before the Cataclysm. Ancient electronics, collectibles, toys, clothes, pictures and more items were haphazardly scattered around. It was a lot to take in. I walked over and peered at what looked like a unfinished painting of Downtown.

  “This doesn’t look vintage. Your work?”

  She looked down and smiled. “I’ve been trying to pick up on painting. Not too many people do it by hand anymore.”

  I nodded. “Looks good.” I turned and hefted a volume of bound pages stitched to a faded leather cover, with a faded, barely legible title: Immortal Musings. The author’s name was obscured. “This is a book, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “I have a few of those. Some of them I don’t touch much because the pages are so fragile. Can you believe that people used to have one of those for every story? I heard that there used to be huge buildings filled with hundreds of thousands of books. People would come from all around the area to borrow and read them.”

  I set it down gently. “You know these are worth a fortune, don’t you? How did you get this stuff?”

  “Folks give it Papa when they don’t have any money for rent. He holds it as collateral. Sometimes they don’t buy it back and we get to keep it. He gives those things to me.”

  “What are you gonna do with it? A lot of high pillow types would love to get their mitts on loot like this for their c
ollections. You can score a lotta cabbage for what you got here.”

  “What do I need money for?” Natasha sighed and fiddled with one the smaller electronics on the table. “Papa takes care of things. He says one day I’ll be the one to run this complex. It’s like everything’s already laid out for me. I’ll be some old maid still in the same spot in the Flats.” She looked up at me. “Have you been Downtown, Mick Trubble?”

  “I’ve been all over, sweetheart.”

  “I’ve only been once. When Papa had to sign some papers for taxes. It’s so big, the buildings so bright and flashy with the airlanes with all the floaters and zeppelins flying around…” she sighed again. “If I go on the rooftop I can see it when it’s not raining. At night all the lights glitter like a handful of diamonds.”

  I had to smile at her wistful naivety. “A lot of things look nice from far away, darlin’. Not so much when you get up close. You outta see the Uppers, though. A lot nicer up there. Safer, too.”

  “A girl doesn’t always want to feel safe, Mick Trubble.” The thing she had been working with turned out to be a little digital music player. It was hooked up to some small speakers that probably weren’t at their best, quality wise. Still, some vintage mambo flowed out and swelled around us in the room. It was fitting in a way. Vintage music doesn’t sound the same coming from some sterile digital recording. The ancient speakers warbled the sound a bit, gave it that grit, that flavor that you find in live sessions and hazy clip joints.

  Natasha stepped up and slipped her arms around my neck. “Dance with me.” Her eyes glowed like dark moons and her lips were parted in a way that almost begged for kissing. “Pa teaches me how sometimes, but I’ve never danced with anyone else before.”