Chapter 11: Mechanics Don't Wear Neckties

The undying night can play tricks on your mind, but the traffic in the skies is a clear indication of midday as my cab flies over the industrial zones that ring the outskirts of Amber City like cancerous growths. The cab drops me off in the dirty little neighborhood known simply as Port Town: a noncommercial spaceport district home to various methods of interplanetary travel, legitimate and otherwise. Not my favorite place to visit. On the bright side, it's stopped raining for the moment.

I pay the driver and step out into the street, right into a large puddle. The water goes over my ankle, down into my shoe. I swear and hop on one foot as the cab takes off.

People are everywhere; assorted breeds of rogues and miscreants. It's an old understanding that the Amber PD leave Port Town alone. Despite its unsavory nature, this district brings in a lot of money. The legality of such matters is a technicality to which the city is willing to turn a blind eye for the sake of the almighty credit. The only law here is bouncers and hired muscle.

The streets are lined with bars, taverns, and ratholes advertising pleasures for sale. I shoulder past men and women of all sizes, shapes, and colors, wearing a patchwork of clothing and armor from across the star system. I see akslug pistols holstered at hips, particle rifles strapped to backs, and wicked blades sheathed on forearms and ankles.

A broad-shouldered, unnaturally muscular fellow wearing an all-black breather mask with two Xs scratched into the eyes of the visor goes out of his way to elbow me as we pass. I bounce off him. My blood boils, but I keep on walking.

It's been a long time, but the neon sign is still there, partially blown out and flickering. Good Caesar's Garage. For a moment I stand there, thinking of days gone by. Days when that sign wasn't blown-out or flickering. Back when I came here not as a shamus, but as an Amber City Detective. On a weekly basis, my partner and I would visit "Good" Caesar: the owner and operator of this establishment, and a snitch for the Blue Wreath mob. He'd feed us info, and we'd pretend not to notice the illicit activities going on in his chop shop. But that was over a decade ago-back when there was still the occasional police presence in Port Town. Back before Blue Wreath won.

I can hear the bug-zapper buzzing of the neon sign above me as I step through the doorway. A sensor catches my movement, and a two-note salute echoes through the building, announcing my arrival. The place looks more like a cave than a garage, with the skeletal remains of hovercars, small airships, half-disassembled bots, and other unfortunate machinery lying dejectedly throughout. The roof drips from the seam of a set of bay doors.

The big man at the counter barely looks at me as I approach.

"Need to speak with Caesar," I say.

"Ain't here," says the big man.

"Need me to say it again?" I say, louder this time.

That gets his attention.

The big man sneers. He wears a mechanic's jumpsuit with an out-of-place, skinny necktie. He outweighs me by a good seventy-five pounds, but it's mostly fat. He's got a face like a bulldog. One of his eyes wanders.

"Ain't here," he says again. "Get your ugly mug out of here before you regret it."

"People lose teeth over words like ‘ugly.' Look..." I lean forward and place my palms on the counter. "I'm not some goon here to work him over, no more than you're a mechanic. I just need to talk with him a minute. Don't make me get physical. I'm an old man. You're apt to make me pull a muscle."

The big man leans forward too, mimicking my move, but with one small adjustment: He puts one hand under the counter where there's certainly a weapon. A sawed-off shotgun, if I were him.

"What makes you think I'm not a mechanic?" he demands.

He's only just finished the question when I grab his necktie and drop all my weight to the floor.

His face slamming against the countertop sounds like a bowling ball bounced off a sidewalk slab. Before he can react, I stand, wrap my arm around his head, and pull him the rest of the way over the counter-where he can't reach that weapon-and hold him suspended there.

"Mechanics don't wear neckties," I growl into his cauliflower ear. "Bound to get them caught in something and get churned up real nasty."

A stream of words in a foreign language erupts from the far end of the room. I turn to see a skinny little man standing near the rear doorway of the garage. He's dressed in a similar jumpsuit stained with grease. Thin, scruffy fuzz sprouts from his unshaven face, and his eyes stare at me with fright.

"Hey, Caesar," I say, still holding the struggling thug as blood dribbles from his nose. "You caught me in the middle of teaching some manners to your doorman-"

Caesar turns on his heels, flings open the door, and takes off into the darkness.

"Damned if you don't need a lesson, too." I pull my hostage headfirst over the counter and toss him to the floor. Before he can recover, I roll over the countertop. I dash through the back door just in time to see "Good" Caesar turn and race down a back alley.

I clench my hands into fists and pump my arms as I make chase. I turn the corner and barely manage to avoid a pair of trashcans toppled to slow me down. Picking my way around them, I knock a gawking bystander to the ground and keep running. I can see Caesar up ahead-

He turns around, aiming something at me. I throw myself to the ground, realizing a moment too late that it isn't a gun. He's fooled me. He throws the empty beer bottle at me, and it shatters a couple feet in front of me. When I look up, he's gone.

"Caesar!" I yell, getting to my feet.

I jog to where I last saw him. The rusty, metallic frame of a fire escape ladder is still trembling against its counterweight. I look up at the roof, growl a curse, and grab the rung of the ladder to begin my ascent. But a tiny rattling noise from behind gives me pause.

I look over my shoulder and see the boxy frame of a metal dumpster in the shadows. Panting from my run, I take a deep breath, stomp over to the dumpster, and throw open the lid.

Caesar is huddled inside. At his exposure, he tries to hide by pulling a garbage bag over himself. I reach in and grab a fistful of his shirt.

"Up you go," I say.

I haul him out and place him on his feet in the alley. No sooner have his shoes touched the pavement than he tries running again, only to be yanked back like a dog on a chain. I hold him by the shoulders in front of me, trying to lend him a bit of the dignity he can't seem to find himself.

"Don't kill me, Mr. Tarelli!" he sputters in thickly accented speech.

"Kill you?" I say, genuinely surprised. He looks up at me, sniveling. "I came here to talk to you, not to kill you."

He doesn't look convinced, so to show him I mean it, I let go of his shirt and stand with my palms open.

A yellow smile with a few missing teeth breaks across his face. He all but falls apart with relief. "Oh, Jack Tarelli!" he says, slapping me on the arm. "I see you breaking the nose of my associate, and gives me quite a scare. Today I did not want to be crushed, into pieces."

"Well, it's early, yet. Why'd you think I was here to kill you?"

Caesar waves it off. "I have policy. Too many people trying to kill me these days, and too hard to remember which ones. I decide, run. Then think. I am still alive, so it has worked so far. Let us talk in shop."

Caesar gestures for me to follow him, swatting clinging garbage from his hair and jumpsuit without pretense.

The big doorman is waiting for us. Blood wreathes his nose, lips, and jaw. In his hands-as I suspected-is a sawed-off akslug shotgun. Before he can use it, Caesar rattles off some speech in his primary language. The thug shoots me a walleyed glare, then unhappily tucks the weapon back under the counter.

As we walk by, I take the handkerchief from my breast pocket and toss it to the thug. "Your nose is running."

He growls. The handkerchief falls to the floor.