| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <Shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Wrongful Deaths |
| Date: | Mon, 24 Aug 1998 20:43:47 +0100 |
>>>>>[For the official record, since your employers are paying me for
this... (not much but they're paying me) Should keep IAD from any nasty
allegations...
+++++begin video
Marlowe's office, as he looks up from his terminal to see Detective-
Sergeant Hart (now DSgt Hart-Kryzdanovich) walk in. She looks tired.
"Bad one?"
"Yeah. Puyallup." Julianne drops into the chair opposite Marlowe's desk:
he pours her coffee, adds a shot of brandy from a bottle in his desk
drawer. The Martell VSOP shares its space with a fifth of Talisker, a
Max-Power automatic in a Bianchi shoulder harness even more worn and
hard-used than the pistol, and two boxes of Remingtom "Ultra" .36
Caseless jacketed hollowpoint ammunition: none of which seem to engage
the PI's attention.
Hart continues, "Seven dead, three wounded. Messy. Looks like a Mafia
hit."
"How so?"
"It was one of Chung Kuo's chip houses. Kuo's butting heads with Luigi
Bartolo right now." Julianne sighs. "Think I know who did it, too."
"Let me guess. Our Elven friend in Tarislar?"
"Looks like her. One hitter. No clear description, but apparently the
killer went in, killed everything that looked like a threat with
generous doses of nine-mil, walked out." Hart-Kryzdanovich passes a disk
to her husband. "See for yourself."
Marlowe loads the disk into his terminal, begins skimming the data.
After a few seconds, he says "It wasn't Easy."
"I never... oh. You don't think she did it?"
"Look here." Marlowe zooms in on a trideo still of one corpse, a young
Elven man. "Shot three times. Two in the chest, one in the head.
Mozambique drill. That's a special-forces routine. Easy's a spray-and-
pray merchant. Plus, all the rounds fired were 147-grain JHPs, and the
firing pin and extrator claw marks peg them as from the same weapon, an
old SIG 9mm. The P226 or maybe the 228. Not her, she likes those old
M9s. Lastly, the chica on the door, got bounced off the wall. Concussion
and a hairline skull fracture to keep her broken arm company. Someone
went out past her hard and fast. But, what would Easy do?"
"Rip her throat out with handrazors." Julianne reluctantly concedes.
"Not waste time knocking her out. Okay, so I jumped to a conclusion."
"You're the one she carved up, not me." Marlowe allows.
"Which means I should be more, not less, careful. Think it's worth
talking to her anyway?"
"Sure." Marlowe shrugs. "She might tell you something useful. Even if
she doesn't, it'll remind her to behave."
"Okay. I'll be polite. She's been downright saintly recently by Barrens
standards... no need to annoy her unnecessarily. The other thing, the
place was cleaned out. Money, chips, weapons. All the dead guys were
armed, but we only recovered two weapons -"
"A Sandler TMP that rattled when you shook it and a rusty Warhawk."
Marlowe dismisses them after a glance at the photographs. "The wheelgun
would probably have burst if you'd fired it, the Sandler was jammed on
the first round. Our hitter took what was useful, left the rest."
"Right." Julianne sighs, smiles. "Want some consultancy?"
"Is that ethical?"
"I'll cc. the authorisation to IAD and get them to sign off on it." Hart
finishes her coffee. "Shouldn't be a problem. See if you can get us more
background on this."
+++++end video]<<<<<
-- Marlowe <20:42:25/08-24-59>
