Chapter Text
In the space of a few weeks, RK had begun to think of the car he used to commute between the android occupied city and human Detroit as “his car”. It wasn’t his. He didn’t know whose it was, and he assumed that if talks about beginning to return property to the former human residents of the occupied city bore fruit, he would be compelled to return it to its rightful owner. He had wondered, more than once, if that person would happen to see him driving and parking it in the human city, and would perhaps object to his use of it in person.
He had a plan prepared if that did happen. He would simply get out of the car and hand it over.
In the interim, it was curious to have something that was tentatively his. He also had a room at the St. Regis, and he did work and periodically idle there, but that seemed so much more like a way-station, an anonymous space. The car had a work-related function and its use had purpose and thus it seemed attached to him in a way the room did not.
Commuting from the room was a decision he had made given the financial reality of the occupied city. Androids were not legally people. They could not have their own bank accounts. While there was money, a small amount of urgent money coming in from donors, it had to be handled carefully. Handling it to allow a living space for the police liaison in the human city had seemed difficult.
He could have idled at the precinct when not actively working, he had volunteered. Markus had vetoed that. It wasn’t safe, he had told RK. More than that, he’d added, “it’s not exactly a relaxing way to spend your leisure hours.”
“I do not require leisure hours,” RK had informed him.
Markus had shot a glance at Connor, who was occupied assembling their belongings to take back from the St. Regis to their usual residence. He did not say anything and perhaps would not have decided to ask him anything, but Connor had looked up.
“Are you wondering what I did, when I was working there but not actively engaged in work?”
“Yes,” Markus had said.
“I idled at the precinct.”
RK felt somewhat vindicated.
Markus seemed to have actually become concerned. His face had such an easy human affect, as if it were entirely natural for it to move that way. It confused RK how deeply he was still struck by that.
“You don’t really want to do that though, do you?” Markus said. “You didn’t like it, did you Connor?”
“I don’t recall that I had a preference one way or the other,” Connor said. Then he shut his eyes. He took a moment to open them, and when he did, he seemed to have decided something. “But I suspect I probably did. Markus is right. It makes sense that you would have a space of your own.”
“I fail to see that it makes sense,” RK said. “I will acknowledge the safety concern, but beyond that I do not follow your logic.”
Connor and Markus exchanged a glance. RK did not like that, since it was clearly about him. He supposed he could guess the nature of their thoughts, but those thoughts were incorrect.
“RK,” Connor said, “Markus is right.”
RK had understood then that there was little point in continuing to argue. He had proposed that he would take a room and commute and Markus had agreed. “I’m sure you’ll find that there are things you like to do besides working,” he’d said, and RK had decided there was no point arguing with that either. Those two would never understand how androids should really operate, that was apparent in everything they did. Even during this conversation, Markus had moved over to inspect Connor’s packing, but that was clearly a pretext to stand near him and place a hand on the small of his back. To stroke there. They touched each other constantly, even though they had no need to.
RK’s car had acquired one alteration since he had been using it. A keychain, which had been hung around the rearview mirror since as an android he did not require keys. The keychain was made in the likeness of a cartoon robot and on the reverse side read ‘bite my shiny metal ass’. Gavin had put it there. RK had not precisely objected to continuing to use Gavin’s car for work, but - as strange as it was to have a preference - he had been surprised to find that he did in fact prefer to drive something that was not greasy or full of food wrappers. He had not said that aloud, but Gavin seemed to understand it anyway. If Gavin took it personally, he did not say. If anything, he seemed also to have understood without being asked that in RK’s car, he should save his food wrappers for the trash.
In addition to “his car”, he also had “his parking space” at the precinct. The city had arranged that for him and he appreciated it. He did not feel any nervousness at being among humans, but the more official his capacity here, the easier it was to be sure.
Regrettably, the sentiment was not the same for the majority of humans. RK was aware that most people went out of their way to avoid him, dropping their gaze and stepping wide when they saw him in the hallway. Hurrying by as if his presence were something shameful.
RK did not feel ashamed. The work he had done with regards to the assassination attempt within the occupied city had been acceptable, though, RK himself was the first to admit, not exemplary.
It got the job done, that was what Gavin had told him. There was some peace of mind in that, though in truth Gavin had told him a lot of things since he had begun coming into the precinct regularly, and RK was not sure how sincerely he meant most of them.
Admittedly, RK had difficulty calibrating his social relations programming to get a proper read on Gavin in most situations. He was mercurial and erratic, and his behavior patterns did not map clearly along the pre-set routes programmed into RK’s psychological databases. However, it did seem that Gavin tolerated the arrangement, at least for the moment.
When he arrived at the precinct that morning, he found that Gavin was already there. His inability to stick to a schedule meant that half the time, when RK checked in promptly at 8:00, Gavin was already hard at work at his desk, and the other half of the time RK would not see him for the better part of an hour.
Today, at least, it seemed that RK was in luck. Gavin was seated at his desk, drinking a cup of coffee and picking the stiff icing off the cake part of a donut.
“Morning, sexy robot lady from Metropolis.”
RK felt a sensation akin to fondness and exasperation at once. It was difficult to parse, and so he marked it for analysis later, adding it to an internal list that was growing at an alarming rate.
“You seem to be nearing the end of your knowledge of fictional robots to reference when addressing me. Perhaps I can prepare a list of additional options for you?”
“Not necessary, sexy robot lady from Ex Machina,” Gavin replied. “I’ve got 37 years of Netflix and chill under my belt. My knowledge of the first 20 minutes or so of robot movies is second to none.”
“I don’t doubt that,” RK said. He sat down at the desk that had been placed opposite from Gavin’s for his use.
“I don’t know why you keep showing up here,” Gavin said. He had finished removing the icing from his donut and began to eat the pink slabs, leaving the cake untouched. “Everything is quiet on your side. Everything is quiet over here. No need to push our luck, right?”
RK was surprised by that. He had not thought that Gavin was growing annoyed by his presence, though upon reflection it was only natural that he would. Still, RK had a job to do, and proving his right to exist to the humans was part of it.
“That was not my intention,” RK replied. “However, as I’ve been assigned to act as police liaison, perhaps I can assist you or your colleagues with open investigations.”
“Oh, my ‘colleagues’ would fucking love that,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes. But he retrieved a folder from the stack filed neatly on his desk and tossed it over to RK. “Take a look, by all means. Let me know if you see anything with your Elf Eyes.”
RK found that, instead of instantly turning his attention to the case, he was instead compelled to keep looking at Gavin. Though there was nothing outwardly unusual about his demeanor, it still seemed that RK could detect something different about him today. Though he knew that the question would most likely not be welcome, RK ventured, “Is everything… all right?”
Gavin scowled, but to RK’s surprise he did not immediately raise his voice or bluster. Instead, having finished the pile of icing, he tossed the naked donut into the trash next to his desk before answering.
“Everything’s fine. I just have some stuff going on right now. Human stuff, if you know what I mean. My sister--”
“Ms. Linda Reed,” RK said, accessing the name instantly. “Who is neither your wife, nor your ex-wife.”
“Jesus…” Gavin muttered. However, it did not seem that RK’s outburst had irritated him into sullen silence. Gavin was on the verge of continuing, when all at once he spotted something behind RK. His eyes focused on a spot just past RK’s left shoulder - the elevator RK calculated, instantaneously and effortlessly.
“What the fuck?” Gavin muttered. “You’ve got to be shitting me. I’ll be right back.”
Without another word, Gavin got to his feet and started toward the elevator. Though he had not indicated that he wanted RK’s involvement in whatever was occurring, RK turned all the same to follow him with his eyes.
It seemed that Gavin’s intended target was a uniformed officer who was escorting a tall, slender woman in a black dress and precarious high heels. The woman looked as if she had been impeccably put together several hours ago, but by now her curled hair had begun to unravel and her makeup was smeared.
RK watched Gavin turn himself sideways and slide into the elevator just before it closed behind the uniformed officer, severing RK’s line of sight on the trio of humans.
It did not concern him, RK told himself. Gavin had made as much clear. However, when RK turned back to the case he had been given to work on, he found it hard to concentrate. He could not absorb the information with sufficient reliability, which would only serve to make him a detriment to the task at hand.
Better to go and remove the distraction so he could work efficiently. He could apologize to Gavin later.
RK rose from his seat and went to inspect the elevator. It had stopped on the basement sublevel, where the holding cells and interrogation rooms were. RK turned to the adjacent stairwell and headed down.
He caught up with Gavin just outside of the processing area. Interestingly, Gavin did not seem troubled by his arrival, though he did acknowledge him with raised eyebrows and a nod. He did not shift his focus other than that. His focus was on the woman who’d been brought in. He was talking to her while the other officer was handing over her purse, things from her pockets.
“It’s just a weird kind of deja vu,” he was saying. “A shitty kind.”
“Sorry to have disappointed you, detective,” the woman said. She sounded tired.
“I didn’t say I was disappointed, I said…” Gavin trailed off. He addressed the other officer. “Hey, Patrick, I can process her.”
The other officer - Patrick - had dumped the contents of the woman’s purse out on the processing counter. He was bagging things before handing them to the officer behind the window, but he paused mid-movement at Gavin’s words. He looked oddly as if he were buffering before he answered, but RK understood that humans did not buffer. “I gotta file my report.”
“Put her name and the arrest details in now. I’ll take her through.”
There was another long pause from Patrick, but eventually he assented. “Okay,” he said, then went back to parsing the purse contents.
Gavin took the woman by the arm and led her towards the room where he’d take her fingerprints and photo. RK hesitated in following until Gavin called back to him. “You coming?”
“This is RK,” he said, by way of explanation. “What the fuck, Mia?” he added, as soon as the door closed.
Mia put out her hands for the fingerprint machine but she didn’t answer Gavin. “You’re an android,” she said to RK. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” RK told her. Then he addressed Gavin. “Should I obtain a copy of the arrest report?”
“I know what she was arrested for. Drugs, she was selling drugs. A really stupid amount of drugs too. Seriously Mia, you’ve been clean for so long. If you were getting back into the pusher game you should have at least made it worthwhile for yourself.”
“You know this person?” RK asked.
“Oh, we go way back,” Gavin said. The truth of that seemed evident in that Mia was familiar with the fingerprint machine. She hadn’t needed any prompting. When she was finished, Gavin checked the scans, found them satisfactory, and then waved her over to the mugshot background.
“Mia used to get herself into all kinds of trouble,” he said, as Mia arranged herself. His tone was conversational as he pressed white, plastic letters into the placard, but that was a lie, RK could tell. There was something else lurking under Gavin’s simulated ease. It wasn’t disappointment, Mia had been wrong about that, but it might have been actual anger.
Mia, for her part, seemed to be ignoring him. She also seemed very tired. Perhaps she would find it a relief to sit down in the holding cells, though RK doubted they would be entirely relaxing.
“What kind of trouble?” he asked.
“Usual vices,” Gavin said.
“Look, detective,” Mia said. “I don’t exactly wanna be back here either, okay? Let’s just get it over with.”
Gavin handed her the placard and stepped back to position the camera. “Seriously. You were doing so well. What happened?”
“I didn’t ask you to be invested in my life. Big stalker energy. You’d better not beat off to my fucking mugshot, you creep.”
“I don’t beat off to photographs, I’m not a hundred,” Gavin said. “I’m not invested in your life either. I just have a soft spot for coked out hookers with hearts of gold, it’s a cop thing.”
“You could try not saying ‘hooker’. Not liking when people say that is a sex worker thing.”
“You’re not a sex worker anymore,” Gavin said, in that same strange tone. “Right?”
Mia thinned her lips. Gavin took the first mugshot, then told Mia to turn to the left.
He didn’t take the next shot right away. “Seriously, Mia.”
“Why do you care?” she said. She was clearly fed up with Gavin, RK could tell that, but Gavin didn’t seem to have the sense to stop bothering her.
“I’m trying to help here.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’ve got kids. Just play ball with me and we can try to get you out of here.”
“Yeah, I fucking do have kids,” Mia said. She turned her head so she could look Gavin in the eyes. She was glaring. “And childcare is fucking expensive. No shit I’m looking for income. You ever think you could maybe just not arrest people? Especially people who are barely doing anything wrong?”
“Yeah, sure, let’s just make the law optional, right?” Gavin said. “Look to the left, come on.”
“Fucking androids going rogue never thought about that, I bet,” Mia said, but she did turn her head back so Gavin could get the shot. Then, in the middle of turning to the right, she seemed to notice RK again. She flushed. “Sorry.”
She did actually seem sorry. That was curious, and noticing it caused a curious sensation in RK’s body too. He didn’t know what it was, but he did know it made him want to apologize in turn. “There is no need for apology,” he told her. “I do not understand the correlation, however.”
“I had an android nanny,” she said, sheepishly. “Now I don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” RK said. He did not say it intentionally. Rather, it had leapt out of him compulsively. That embarrassed him.
“Not your fault,” Mia said. She gave him a little smile. “How come you’re here? I thought none of you worked out here anymore.”
“The city has instituted a police liaison program, in the interests of diplomacy.”
“Huh,” Mia said, while Gavin was checking the photos. “Listen, sorry,” she added. “I’m in a tight spot right now, but I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Please don’t worry,” RK said. “I understand your perspective.”
“Worry about yourself right now,” Gavin interjected. “Come on.”
He led her into the next room for interview. By now, the initial arrest report had been entered into the system, and Gavin brought it up on his phone before showing it to RK. She’d been caught selling red ice. A very small amount of it, Gavin had not hyperbolized. The amount that had been found on her, including what she had been caught selling, would have been worth less than $100.
“Where’d you get it?” Gavin asked, once he’d got her sat down, and had sat across from her. He didn’t need to clarify that he meant the drugs. Mia clearly understood that. Her responding stare was incredulous.
It seemed as if Gavin had expected that. Nobody ever answered that question. Definitely not right away. But, RK understood, they were required to ask it right away anyway.
“It’s a weird amount to have,” Gavin went on. “For dealing, I mean. It’s a personal use amount. You don’t seem high though.”
“I’m not,” Mia said. “I’m not using again. I know I can’t afford that.”
RK had the impression that she did not mean that solely in the financial sense. Gavin had seemed convinced that this woman had both the motivation and the capacity for reform, but from what he had seen RK was not so sure. He was aware of the recidivism rate for street crime, and he felt a deep suspicion of anyone who claimed to have left that life behind. It was not an impression or a personal opinion, but rather something lodged deep in his programming. A fact that his creators had thought it essential for him to know if he was going to function as a law enforcement officer.
He had suspected for some time now that Gavin did not operate strictly on statistics and the cold hard truths of the world. Still, RK was surprised when he saw him set the intake paperwork aside and say, “Forget about that for right now. Why don’t we start with you telling me where your kids are?”
Mia’s expression tightened up almost at once. She dropped her eyes to hide it. “They should put that higher up on the form.”
“It’s not on the form,” Gavin replied. “There’s nothing in the intake paperwork about dependents. I’d say it’s an oversight, but it’s one they’ve been making longer than I’ve been working here. Look, if you left them alone--”
“Then what?” Mia snapped. “You’ll call CPS on me?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll do,” Gavin shot back. “What do you think CPS is for?”
Mia made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. Then she shook her head fiercely. “They’re with their dad. It’s not part of the custody agreement, but he said he’d watch them while I was working.”
“Are they safe with him?” Gavin asked.
“He’s trustworthy,” Mia said. “In small doses.”
“That’s all I needed to know.”
It did not seem, however, that Mia was quite finished. RK watched her hands clench into fists on the table in front of her. Though her hair was hanging in her eyes, he could also see her lips pressing together so tightly they looked pale even in spite of her lipstick.
“I promised Tanya I’d be back before she went to school,” Mia said quietly.
Gavin had reached for the intake paperwork again, but he paused. Leaving the forms off to the side, he pivoted back around, turning his attention to Mia. “Tanya’s the, uh, big one?” he asked quietly.
Mia nodded. “She’s seven. I mean, eight. It’s her birthday today.”
A suspicion had begun to take shape in RK’s mind. He was not sure what had led him to make the inference, but before he could trace it back to its source, Gavin gave voice to exactly what he had been thinking.
“That’s why you were selling the red ice, wasn’t it?”
Mia hesitated before answering. Gavin held himself still all throughout the awkward silence, and RK felt he had no choice but to do the same. At last, Mia said, “I wanted to get her something nice for once. I’ve missed just about every birthday either of my girls have ever had. But I fucked up, all right? Like I always do. Like I’m going to keep doing. Is that what you want to hear, Detective Reed?”
All at once, Gavin’s hand snapped out and he pulled the intake paperwork back in front of him. “No, it’s not. Because there’s no space on here to write how often you fuck up. There is, however, a space for where you got that red ice.”
Mia hesitated again, but this time Gavin did not give her time to think it over. “You picked up the bag. That’s not great, Mia. But all I give a shit about is who set it down. Someone is moving enough of this stuff that you knew they wouldn’t miss a couple of ounces of it. So you tell me who that was, and we can talk to my captain about dropping these charges.”
Mia maintained her silence. She seemed to be thinking the offer over.
“I’m not messing with you,” Gavin said. He jerked his head in RK’s direction. “The big guy wouldn’t let me. If I said anything untrue, he’d be beeping and booping all over himself to correct me.”
Mia raised her head, and RK found himself suddenly subject to a different kind of suspicion than he had become accustomed to moving among humans. Mia, he realized, was assessing his sincerity. RK was not sure how he had conveyed it, but at that moment it seemed that she was satisfied.
“It’s… it’s crazy,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” Gavin replied. “I’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks already.”
RK became aware that Gavin’s gaze had slid over to his, that his eyes had narrowed as if slyly sharing a joke. RK had no idea what he was getting at.
Mia sighed, resigning herself.
“All right,” she said. “It started on Thursday night. I was tending bar at a place called the Red Ivy. It’s not as classy as it sounds. Anyway, one of the other girls says she got tapped to work at a private party and she could use some help. It’s a bunch of rich guys, she says. I ask her if it’s just mixing drinks or if there’s more to the job. She tells me that it’s up to me, but these guys tip well for service that goes above and beyond.”
“Sounds like a pretty standard catering job to me,” Gavin said. “No sex work involved.”
It certainly did not sound that way to RK, but he was quick to realize that Gavin was in fact deliberately glossing over the insinuation. If Mia told them where she had gotten the red ice, then Captain Fowler might very well agree to drop the drug charges, but a prostitution charge would be harder to clear. Gavin, it seemed, was willing to let the second infraction slide as well. Though he did not interrupt Mia, RK’s expression darkened at the realization.
“We showed up together at this big place out in the new subdivision upriver from Belle Isle. You know, the artificial island with all the weird pointy mansions on it?”
“Ponte Posterum?” Gavin said. He rolled his eyes. “Stupid name…”
“The worst,” Mia said. It seemed, for an instant, they achieved a kind of human-specific sympathy with each other. It was enough to spur her to go on.
“A car picked me up. There were a couple other girls I didn’t know there too. We drove out to one of the houses on the island and I started to set up the bar--”
“Whose house was it?” Gavin asked.
Mia paused. She seemed to suddenly become reticent, as if once again worried that they would not believe her. She had good reason for that, because what she said next struck RK as suspicious in the extreme.
“I don’t know,” she said. “A woman transferred money to our accounts when we arrived. She made it really clear that she was just the party planner, and then she took off before the guests got there. It was… about 15 men, and they each had one or two younger women with them. Maybe forty people total.”
“Any of the girls look underage?” Gavin asked.
“No,” Mia replied. “They were a lot younger than the men there, but I'm sure they were legal. There was a security guy at the front gate, and another one at the door of the house. They were both checking IDs. The men… they weren’t all that old either. Just older than the girls. It kind of surprised me. They weren’t really well dressed or anything. They sort of looked like the guys I usually see at the Red Ivy.”
“You said they were rich guys.”
“Yeah, but nerd rich,” Mia said. She’d said it dismissively, and she went back over it when she saw Gavin was waiting for more information. “Tech money. I didn’t recognize any regulars, but I did recognize the type. It’s not just the clothes. It’s what they talk about.”
“Tech?”
“I mean, yeah. They’ll talk to you about their projects or whatever, but it’s more than that. It’s how they talk too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Mia said, but she looked like she was trying. “Once guys like that get a drink in them they’re… proud of themselves for existing. They want to tell you that, and they want you to confirm it. They’re angry with you if you don’t.”
“So you do,” Gavin said.
“Yep.”
RK could not understand the point of this diversion. Surely it did not matter to the facts of the case what kind of attitude these men took to law-breaking, if they had in fact been breaking the law.
“The other women there,” he asked, and Mia’s eyes were upon him suddenly. “You said they were of age. Were they sex workers?”
Gavin glared at him. Mia did too. She seemed to be weighing something up before she answered. “No idea,” she said. “I didn’t ask. As far as I know they were just private citizens.”
When she’d finished telling RK that, she looked back to Gavin. “I think a couple of them were in tech too, actually. A couple of the women.”
“So, it’s a bunch of tech guys having a party,” Gavin said. “Maybe some women colleagues, maybe not. You’re making drinks for them. There are girls there and I guess drugs, that’s what you’re about to tell me right? That there were drugs there too?”
“Yeah,” Mia said. “A lot of drugs. There was more red ice than anybody could have taken in one night. It was just kind of heaped up on the table, on a tray, with a razor blade to cut lines of it. They were doing it in lines, not smoking it. I remember thinking that it was weird there wasn’t cocaine. I mean, if you’re having this rich guy party - and shit, that house. Like, it wasn’t classy, that’s for sure, but it was big money. People like that can afford cocaine. But it seemed like it was a big deal it was red ice. They got off on it. Slumming it, maybe.”
“Whose was it?” Gavin said, narrowing in. “The red ice.”
“I don’t know,” Mia told him, and it sounded honest. “I didn’t see who set it up.”
Gavin seemed to be thinking that over. It wasn’t a lot to go on, RK thought. Of course, they could start investigating houses out on Ponte Posterum, but there was nothing to give them a warrant for a specific residence. He thought to press Mia for details about the house, but he suspected it wouldn’t do much good. She might recognize it from the inside, but it was apparent effort had been taken to obscure the outside of it, and the exact location.
“Did anyone tell you their name?” Gavin asked her.
“No,” she said. “It was a no-names kind of affair. Like, I actually heard someone say that, one of the guys. Hey, no names, like that. Which was weird because they all seemed to know each other. And they’d taken down all our IDs, so they knew our names too. It was a game I think. Some kind of Eyes Wide Shut shit.”
“And you didn’t recognize anybody?”
“There was one guy…” Mia said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t recognize him, but I remember him. Probably because he seemed pissed I didn’t recognize him. And I pissed him off anyway.”
Gavin’s lips curled. It wasn’t a smile exactly, but it was halfway there. Familiarity, RK thought. Familiarity and distaste. “What’d you do?”
“You’ve gotta be careful with these guys,” Mia explained. “They’ll start talking like they want a conversation, but they don’t. They want to tell you something. I made him a drink and he asked if it was real bourbon. He asked me if I knew how I could tell if it was real. I learned that at work, it’s only “real bourbon” if it’s from Bourbon County, Kentucky. So I said that, and it pissed him off.”
“What a charmer,” Gavin drawled. “Go on.”
“He wasn’t doing anything with anyone,” Mia said. “He was just kind of lurking. He had like… a Japanese man bun. He really wanted to be the one to tell me about the bourbon and I definitely got the vibe he wanted to say “m’lady” about it. Big studied the blade energy, this guy."
Gavin snorted through his nose. “Nothing personal, kid.” He pronounced personal like personnel.
Mia laughed a little too, at that, and Gavin winked at her. Another moment of peculiar human solidarity. RK did not understand the reference. There had been a joke in the pronunciation, but he did not know what it was. He almost asked Gavin to explain, but that was a pointless impulse. They were not alone. Additionally, they were here to work, not to educate RK on the finer points of human discourse.
Mia, it seemed, had noticed that he wasn’t laughing. She smiled sympathetically. “You didn’t get that, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t know what a studied the blade guy is?”
“I do not,” RK said, carefully, “know what a... “studied the blade guy” is.”
“They don’t program androids with incel memes,” Gavin said. He wrote something down on the intake form before looking up.
“That’s okay,” Mia said. Her voice took on a very kind inflection. RK could hear the intention of that when she spoke. Perhaps it was because she had children, and was talking to RK as if he was a human child. He had the strong impression that this should have bothered him, but it did not.
“It’s just a nerdy guy trying to talk like he’s tough,” Mia explained. “And they think talking about swords makes them classy. They can’t beat anyone up so they just talk a big game about “gentleman’s combat”. It’s a type, I don’t know, you know when you meet them.”
“I’ll tell you later,” Gavin interrupted. It wasn’t quite sharply, but it was clear he intended to bring the attention back to Mia’s story.
RK felt shame. In his chest, impacting and then spreading as if he had been struck there and then bruised. It wasn’t clear why. He hadn’t done anything wrong, precisely, but he felt strongly that his programming and his awareness of the subtleties of the conversation were inadequate for what was actually going on. He could feel his face reacting and fought to make sure it did not. Like Mia, he thought. When she’d dropped her eyes.
“That was the whole energy,” Mia went on. “Of this whole thing. This was guys who never got a date in high school and they’re really fucking loving that women will talk to them now. This one guy was worse, maybe, but they were all like that.”
There was little in the story they could use. It did not seem that Mia’s testimony would amount to much that was useful, though Gavin certainly seemed to want it to.
“You see Handsome Squidward take any of the red ice?” he asked. It seemed irrelevant to RK. Even if the man Mia had mentioned had indulged in drugs, they didn’t have his name and knew next to nothing about him. Pursuing him would be a dead end, unlike the woman in the chair right in front of them, the one who Gavin, for obscure reasons known only to him, seemed intent upon tormenting into providing her own exoneration.
“No,” Mia replied. “He just skulked around for a bit. Kind of looked at the girls but didn’t seem particularly interested.”
Gavin was on the verge of asking another question, but Mia answered it before he could, “He didn’t look interested in the guys either. He wasn’t even interested in the Manhattan I made him. He took about two drinks and then forgot about it. Anyway, after dinner was over, I didn’t see him again. I think he must have said a French goodbye and snuck out.”
“What happened after dinner?” Gavin went on.
RK spoke up suddenly. He had wanted to ask the question for some time now, but he had not known until the moment the words left his lips that he was actually going to say them. “Detective Reed, are you certain that this is a productive use of our time?”
“If you’re bored, you can leave,” Gavin said. He did not look in RK’s direction, but RK was aware of his eyes narrowing slightly, as if to conceal an emotion he did not want to betray in front of another human. “She hasn’t even said how she got the red ice, though.”
Without waiting for RK to respond, he continued to Mia, “Go on. What happened after the rich guys had dinner?”
“That’s when the red ice started coming out,” Mia said. “I don’t know who brought it. I was behind the bar, and I only saw it when I came out to deliver a round of drinks. It wasn’t just red ice, there was a lot of club kid stuff, too. The molly was a big hit among the girls, it looked like.”
“Not sure I like the way this is going, Mia,” Gavin said.
“Well, that’s because it gets real gross from here,” Mia retorted. “Even by your standards. There were about three or four big rooms in the front of the house. The guests spread out in couples and groups of three. There was a lot of making out, a little under the skirt action. It didn’t feel like people were cutting loose, though. There was a really weird, uncomfortable vibe. Those tech nerds were finally having all their adolescent sex and drugs fantasies come true, and they absolutely hated it.”
“They said that to you?” Gavin asked. His voice was quiet, demeanor unaffected by the scandalous details. RK felt nothing about the story either, though it seemed like something that ought to embarrass a human.
“No,” Mia admitted. “But you can tell when the mood’s been killed. I’m almost glad I didn’t have to cringe my way through to the end.”
“Why not?”
“One of the guests asked me if I wanted to look at something upstairs with him. He was a big guy. Like, gym big. But he was just as awkward as everyone else. He looked like he’d rather die than make eye contact, but he was compensating for it by giving you an unblinking stare. I tried telling him I needed to man the bar, but by that point no one was asking for drinks.”
“Where did you go with him?” Gavin asked.
“Upstairs. He had this room, he called it his art collection. It was just a bunch of sculptures of weird cubes and stuff. Very modern. I didn’t get it.”
“I guess you looked at the art of the rest of the night.”
Mia stared at him hard. Gavin’s eyes were down, focused on the paper. He was not writing anything, but his hand was poised to, as soon as Mia answered his question.
“Yes,” she replied firmly. “We just looked at art for the rest of the night. I was scheduled to leave around four in the morning. He told me he wanted to give me a tip. For being such a good sport about his… art collection. At first he tried to give me crypto currency, and he got pretty frustrated when I told him I didn’t know how to accept it. So he took off his watch and handed me that instead.”
“The watch…” Gavin’s head snapped up. “Where is that now?”
“In my purse. They’ll have it at booking, I’m sure.”
“You had a watch which was presumably worth a not-insignificant sum,” RK put in. “Why did you also feel compelled to take the red ice?”
Mia sighed. “I don’t know. I just saw it sitting there on the way out. There were still a lot of drugs just laying around untouched, and when I peeked in the other room, the guests were all passed out in a big… a big cuddle puddle.”
“If you could just refrain from calling it that…” Gavin said.
“What, cuddle puddle?”
Gavin made a noise as if something foul had caught in the back of his throat. “Yeah, that. It really grosses me out.”
“A bunch of pasty weirdos having an orgy is fine, but cuddling grosses you out?”
“It’s objectively much grosser,” Gavin said. “So, you saw the red ice and you got greedy so you took some.”
“Pawn shops don't open until 10. I knew I could get rid of the red ice anytime. I… I was really stupid. But I just wanted some quick cash for Tanya’s birthday. Those guys at that party had way more than they were ever going to use, but I’m the one who got picked up. It’s--”
“What?” Gavin said. “Not fair? Maybe not, but you knew how unfair the rules were going in. You fucked up tonight, in a way that a bunch of rich losers having a dress up party on Ponte Posterum never could.”
Mia’s expression had hardened. She was glaring at him now. “You think I need you to tell me that?”
“Maybe,” Gavin replied. “But what you need more is for someone to cut you a break.”
He looked down at the papers in his hands, sighed, pushed them into a neat stack. “Okay, Mia. I’m going to cite you out today. That means you’ll be released immediately on your own recognizance. You can go home, see your kids, whatever you need. In a couple of days, you’re going to get a summons to appear at arraignment. You’d better check your mail, and you’d better not ignore the letter. Got it?”
“Yes,” Mia said, surprised. “You can do that?”
“I can,” Gavin replied, “As long as I’m sure the person I’m citing isn’t going to blow me off. This is going to buy us a little time. I’m going to look into what you told me, and if it seems like something I can kick up the chain to find the real supplier of all that red ice, then, congratulations, you’re a witness cooperating with an ongoing investigation and the DA will drop the drug charge.”
“I didn’t tell you much,” Mia admitted.
“If there’s more, you’d better spit it out now.”
“No,” Mia said. “Honestly, that’s all I really saw. It was just a weird night and I want to forget it happened.”
“Okay,” Gavin replied. “We’ll see if it’s enough.”
He stood up, taking the papers in one hand and reaching down to touch Mia’s arm with the other. He escorted her with a light touch back to the intake desk. RK followed at a distance, watching Gavin’s turned back.