Chapter 5: Neon Monkey, Royal Evening

"Anyone ever tell you that you drink too much, Tarelli?"

"Just once. He drank his meals after that."

The bearded twenty-something kid across the table laughs.

The Neon Monkey is clouded with smoke tinted blue and swirling in visible currents. Onstage, the house band is deep into a mellow set.

He goes by the name of Fox, and he's young enough to be my son. He's covered in tattoos and dresses like a gang member, but that's just an act. In reality, he's one of the best-connected brokers of information in all of Amber City.

I've placed his customary fee on the table: a drink to open his mouth, and a couple hundred credits to get him to say something worthwhile.

"I don't buy it," says Fox. "Nobody sees Rutherford Harland."

"I did," I say.

"Old man must be getting senile."

"He probably is, a little."

"I was talking about you."

I reach across the table to take back my money, but Fox is quicker, snatching the bills up between his fingers and rolling them into a little paper tube. I lower my hand and close it into a fist on the tabletop. He takes a drink.

"Rutherford Harland?" says Fox. "We talking about the same guy? The shipping industrialist? The richest man in Amber? One of the richest on the planet? Ten billion in property values within the city limits alone? Net worth-?"

"The same one," I cut in. "And the same one whose son was found dead on a factory floor a few hours ago. What do you know about that?"

Fox cocks an eyebrow. "You got some angle here, Jack?"

"You've got this backward. I pay you to talk."

Fox smiles. "I might have something juicy."

"Go on and impress me."

"Nathan Harland's always been high up in his dad's companies, but in recent years, he's kind of kept his distance from the old man, working mostly off-planet. Whether for business reasons or something personal, I don't know. But then, all of a sudden, Nathan moves back home to Jannix and starts living with Rutherford at his mansion-until recently." He punctuates this thought with an impious slashing motion across his throat and a lolling of the tongue.

"You're practically reciting his obit," I say. "Give me something I can use."

I'm bluffing. I didn't know Nathan had been living at home with Rutherford and Yvonne. If I had, the first place I'd have gone would have been whatever room he'd been staying in. If Rutherford just forgot to mention this fact, that's okay. But if he intentionally left it out, lied by omission, then I'm going to have a problem.

Fox takes another drink, swishes it around in his mouth, savors it, takes his sweet time just to get on my nerves. I wonder if he realizes most working folks don't sit in bars all day and night.

"Here's the thing," says Fox. "A large sum of money changed hands on Invictus about a month ago in exchange for several blocks of the condemned factory district in East Amber. At the time, it piqued the interest of some of my clients, so I did some digging. What's funny about it is, no record of the transaction exists. So I get my hands on the documents, and guess what I find? The buildings are still all listed as condemned. They belonged to the City of Amber until recently. But now, they belong to somebody named Royal Evening."

"And no bill of sale?"

"None. One day the records say one thing, the next something else."

"Royal Evening. Some sort of corporation?"

"It's listed as an individual."

"Sounds like a front."

"That's what I thought. So I dig some more, and I find a possible match: a decommissioned starship by the same name. The Royal Evening was a luxury spaceliner that was retired and melted down for scrap about fifteen years ago. And the owner of the Evening? Surprise, surprise. Nathan Harland."

"Hmm."

"Like I said, bank records indicated that some big money changed hands on Invictus around that same time the properties came under new ownership. There's no data trail to connect the two, but you do the math."

"And Nathan Harland also happened to be working on Invictus at the time, didn't he?" I say. "The property purchase could explain why he moved home. There was a new investment he had to keep an eye on."

"You haven't even heard the kicker," says Fox. "Ready for this? The properties in question: twenty-five square blocks worth of real estate, located between 99th and 106th in East Amber."

East Amber. 105th Street. The factory where Nathan Harland was found dead.

I flag down a waitress, pay for my drinks, and tip her. I stand from the table and adjust my hat. "I'll be in touch, Fox."

Fox chuckles. Guys and gals in his vocation have no names or numbers to keep in touch with. They exist only in the back sections of bars like the Neon Monkey, and only when they want to.