At Roby's, I was stopped by the bouncer. He was done up in gladiator garb-boots, skirt, and one of those helmets with the upside-down brush on top. At the mention of Ian's name, he ushered me inside where fiendish music dug into my ears with its reverbed drone. I struggled to see; my eyes were slow to adjust to the near-black lighting. The place was small, no more than twenty tables. Over the floor, pantyless dominatrices rode swings that hung from the ceiling. On the stage, three Roman centurions with strap-ons play-whipped a bare-breasted woman tied to a stake.
The tables were occupied with offworld clientele, all of them showing off their artificially enhanced perfection. The men had milky skin stretched over weight-lifter bods. Their faces all had piercing eyes and laid-back smiles that were underscored by strong jawlines. And the women, they all showed off their no-end-in-sight legs, which were topped by hourglass waists and a pair of melon tits. A couple tables of offworlders were morphed out into some seriously freaky shit. I saw a snake-headed medusa, a dude with a bat's head, a lobotomy-scarred zombie…
“Quite a show.” The words barely registered over the music.
I turned toward the voice. It was Liz, Ian's squeeze. Gone was the cool elegant woman my eyes were glued to at The Beat, and in her place was a kinky librarian. Her eyes were framed by horn-rims, and her hair was pulled up into a bun held together with a pair of slender spikes. She was out front with her cleavage, her breasts overflowing a studded black leather bra only partially obscured by a half-unbuttoned white blouse. She took me by the good hand and led me past the bar and into the side room, her hips swiveling beneath a conservative plaid-print skirt that had been cut to show some not-so-conservative thigh.
“Ian will be along soon,” she said as she gestured me toward a table made to look like a medieval rack surrounded by bar stools. I took a seat at the end with the gears. She slid onto the stool next to mine and waved for drinks. “I'm Liz.” I could hear her clearly now, the music reduced to nothing more than the pounding beat.
I peeled my eyes off Liz and scanned the windowless room. The lighting was brighter in here. The walls were castle gray with black lines painted on to make it look like it was built from stone blocks. The ceiling was black with a pair of moss-covered chandeliers assembled out of what was supposed to look like human bones. Around the perimeter, upended skull sconces sprouted electric candles with flame-shaped bulbs. I counted four cops at a corner table. I spotted Hoshi, Ian's finger-cracking accomplice, who toasted me from across the room, his date sitting in a mock electric chair at the head of the table.
“Ian told me about you,” said Liz as the drinks arrived in goblets.
I raised an eyebrow.
“He said you used to be a cop.”
I nodded.
She picked up one of the rack's four iron cuffs and slipped her hand through it like a bracelet. “He said you were close to Chief Chang.”
“That's right.” From the goblet, I took a sip of brandy and was irked by the metallic taste from this cheap Henry-the-Eighth shit.
She pulled her hand free from the shackle, rattling the chain it was attached to. “Is it true that you used to be the chief's enforcer?”
I answered with a question of my own. “Why does Ian want to talk to me?”
“He didn't say. He just said that I should keep you company until he gets here.”
“How long have you known him?”
“A long time,” she said with a playful smile. “I heard you once beat a man to death.”
It was more than once. Again, I changed the subject. “Who's that guy?”
Liz followed my eyes to an offworlder sitting with a young cleavage-popping local. They were seated at an operating room table with a holographic autopsy-scarred corpse on top.
“That's Horst. Why do you ask?”
“He's been staring at you.”
“How do you know he's not staring at you?”
It wasn't so much what she said that made me smile. It was more the way she looked with that big girly grin, totally at odds with her naughty librarian getup. “Who is he?” I repeated.
“Just a businessman who likes to hang out in clubs like these.”
The offworlder's body was so perfect that he looked plastic, like he was some mannequin come to life. He was definitely watching me now, our eyes meeting uncomfortably. He held up his goblet in a long-distance toast. I toasted back, taking another sip of brandy that tasted like it came from a can. I set my goblet down on the rack, wondering if they'd used real blood to stain its surface.
The offworlder came walking over with his powder white skin and his inky black hair. He was wearing pressed black pants with a billowy white shirt and a black cape that left him looking two fangs from a vampire. He gave the back of Liz's hand a little peck and slipped into the chair next to hers. He held his hand out for a shake, and I brandished my shaking splinted right.
“My,” he said as he took his hand back, “looks like you had a bit of an accident.”
“Something like that,” I responded.
“I'm Horst Jeffers,” he said with a barely noticeable offworld accent.
“Juno Mozambe.”
“It's nice to meet you, Mr. Mozambe. I hope I'm not intruding. I just saw you and Liz talking, and I thought I'd introduce myself. So tell me, what is it that you do, Mr. Mozambe?”
“I'm between gigs.” An uncomfortable silence followed as he waited for me to elaborate. I didn't. Instead, I turned the question back on him. “How about you?”
“I'm a businessman,” he responded, matching my ambiguity with some ambiguity of his own.
“What kind of business?”
“I'm in tourism.”
He was still being vague, but I let it drop.
He turned to Liz and eyed her up and down. “You've really outdone yourself, sweetie. I just love this getup.”
She accepted the complement with a coy smile.
Sweetie? I thought she was Ian's sweetie. I asked, “How do you and Liz know each other?”
“We run in the same circles, she and I. Over the years, we've gotten to know each other. Quite well, I might add.” He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. Liz pecked his cheek in response.
I remembered what Josephs had told me about her: a woman like that's not exclusive.
I took a sip of my brandy and must've made a face because he said, “Tastes awful, doesn't it?”
“Like shit.”
“Don't you love this place?”
I took a look around the room. “Not bad, I guess.”
“No, not Roby's,” he said. “I mean Lagarto.”
“It's home.”
“Have you ever been offworld, Mr. Mozambe?”
“No.”
“So few of you Lagartans have. Have you ever wanted to?”
“No.”
He turned to Liz. “Now there's a man who knows what he has. You could learn a thing or two from him.”
Liz rolled her eyes at him.
Horst laughed an easy, flawless laugh. “She's been after me to take her up with me.”
Liz turned to me. “I'd like to see what life is like in the stars. What's so wrong with that?”
“You're not missing anything,” he said to her. To me, he said, “She won't listen. I'm amazed how many of you Lagartans sit down here feeling sorry for yourselves, thinking life is so great up there, but I'm telling you, I'd rather be here. If it weren't for my business calling me up a few months a year, I'd live here full-time.”
“And just what is it that you love so much about Lagarto?”
“Lagarto is real. You don't know what it's like to live inside a metal tube your whole life, where water comes from a faucet instead of a river, and food comes in plastic packages. Life up there is overrated. It's all so artificial. Do you understand me, Mr. Mozambe?”
I nodded politely as my brain tried to reconcile the fact that these words were coming out of this mannequin-man.