city blues 01 - dome city blues Read Free Page B

on as the clock had been.  It was the woman from the bar: Sonja something... Sonja... Winter.  Yeah, that sounded right.
    The insides of my teeth felt fuzzy.  “House, let me have two-way audio, please.”
    A soft chime told me that House had enabled the connection.
    I cleared my throat.  “Good morning, Ms. Winter.  To what do I owe the pleasure?”
    She looked directly at the camera pickup.  “I need to talk to you.  Can I come in?”
    I squinted at the clock again; it was a little after noon.  I climbed out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom.  “Sure, just a minute.  House, audio off.”
    Again the chime.
    “House, run a hot shower and start some coffee.  Scan the lady for weapons and then let her in.  Oh, and keep an eye on her.”
    “Of course, David.”
    The sound of the shower starting told me that House was on top of things.

    Fifteen minutes later, I was clean and reasonably awake.
    After a stop in the kitchen to grab two cups of coffee, I went in search of my guest.  I could have asked House where she was; he knew to within a millimeter.  I preferred to find her myself.  It gave me a little extra time to think.
    I knew what my uninvited visitor wanted, and I wasn’t prepared to give it to her.  I was going to have to disappoint this woman for the second time in as many days.
    I found her in the loft, examining one of my sculptures, a hammered-iron casting of a pair of woman’s arms reaching up through a plate of blackened steel.  The iron fingers were curled and grasping, as though the unseen woman in the sculpture were trying to claw her way up out of some dark pit.  I called the piece The Quest for Air.
    Ms. Winter was dressed more conservatively than she had been the night before: brown slacks and a cream pullover sweater.  Gone were the porn queen shoes and pheromone perfume.  Only her eye shadow and lipstick tattoos spoiled the girl-next-door image.
    She turned around and caught me staring at her.
    I handed her a cup of coffee.  “I hope you like cream and sugar.”
    She took a tiny sip.  “This is perfect.  Thank you.”
    Her eyes swept the room, taking in the polished oak decking and vaulted ceilings.  “This place is huge .”
    I nodded.  “It used to be the local LA-Trans office.  We bought it for a song when they pulled the MagLev trains out of the Zone.”
    Her eyes turned back to the sculpture.  “I like this.  It’s, I don’t know... dark.  It sort of... broods.  Is it one of your pieces?”
    “Yeah.  An old one.  I never have decided if I like it.”
    She reached out to touch it, glancing at me sideways to see if I objected.  She gave a little gasp of surprise when her fingers passed through it.  “Oh!  It’s a hologram.  But it looks so real.”
    “The projector is built into the pedestal,” I said.  “I keep the lighting soft in here, to make it hard to see the scan lines.”
    She looked around the room at the other dozen-odd pieces.  “Are the rest of them holograms too?”
    I pointed.  “That one’s a holo.  So is that one, and those two over there.  Most of the rest are real.  When I sell one, I shoot a holo of it before I let the original go.  Silly I guess, but they almost feel like my children.  I hate to let them go entirely.”
    She nodded.  We stood without talking for a few moments.  It became a stalemate, each of us waiting for the other to break the silence.
    I gave in first.  “How did you get Rico to give you my address?”
    She raised one eyebrow.
    “Come on, Ms. Winter, the business card you handed me is four years old, and there’s nothing in the data strip to link me to this address.  In my book, anyone good enough to follow a trail that cold doesn’t need to hire a detective.  You got the card and my address from Rico, didn’t you?”
    She nodded.  “He said you were the best.”
    “Rico exaggerates,” I said.  “He’s a great guy and a damned good bartender.  But that doesn’t exactly make