Her name was Clarique Moreno, and she said that her sister had been abducted. It seems that she had been meeting a fellow on the net by the name of Rico; Rico from Rio. Somehow Rico had abducted the young and naive Mirabel Moreno.
When I asked how she knew Mirabel had been abducted and not just seduced, Clarique showed me two things.
“She got this for her confirmation. Mirabel would never leave without it,” Clarique showed me a very old, very expensive looking necklace with a crucifix dangling from it.
“Perhaps she lost her faith?” I asked.
“Are you a religious man, Mister Iron?”
I shrugged, “I don't go to church, and I keep whatever the government lets me, but I believe what I believe.”
“Then you would not understand,” she replied curtly.
The second item she showed me was a book of matches. A real, honest to God book of paper matches. The last time I'd seen one of those was when Hammet's first opened; they'd given packs out as novelties. This pack did not look like it was meant to be ironic though, as some of the matches had actually been used.
I read the front of the book, “Barzinho Paraiso” it said in neon pink, and then below that, in smaller, but equally bright letters, “Rua Guido Santo Schiavini, Rio de Janeiro”.
I looked at Clarique, “So you think she's gone to Rio to meet this guy?”
“I think she was taken there, yes, and I want you to go bring her back.”
I thought Ms. Moreno was fruitier than a pack of gum, but if she was willing to send me to Rio, I was willing to go.
I arrived in Rio tired, minus the contents of my flask (security told me to dump it out, I did: I drank the whole thing right there at the scanner), and with my neck still aching from the skin sample they took for the airport DNA test. I rented a flyer at the airport, and drove to my hotel.
I slept in the next day, a victim of jetlag and a hangover. It's not like a bar was likely to be open at nine in the morning anyway.
In the vids you always see Rio as this glamorous place full of attractive women wearing little to no clothing. It looks like a great time, and it is provided you stay near your hotel scraper, but the farther you get from the beach, the uglier that city gets, and Rua Guido Santo Schiavini was nowhere near the beach.
The road leading to Barzinho Paraiso looked like it had been victim to a bombing run, and I was glad that my client was willing to spend enough money for me to get a flyer instead of a groundcar. I'm not certain anything with wheels could have even gotten close to the place. I parked as close to the bar as possible, not wanting to be too far from my getaway vehicle should a fast escape become necessary.
There were a couple of tables in front of the bar sheltered from the sun by the building's second floor. A couple of upstanding looking gentlemen sat at the front-most of the two table playing dominoes and nursing bottles of beer. They made like they did not notice me as I approached, although the similar looking gentleman standing on the balcony above made no effort to hide his glare.
The afternoon heat had started beating on me through my coat the moment I got out of the car, and entering the darkened bar brought little relief. It took me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. The place reeked of failure; that mix of booze, smoke, and sweat normally found in low-end casinos.
I took a look around the bar; it's grubby, old. I've been to some dive bars before, both legitimate ones ones just trying to reproduce the look. None of them came close to this.
The tables looked like they might have been around when Clinton (the first one) was president, and were covered in years of burns, scratches, and graffiti. The chairs hadn't fared much better, and the booths looked like they were upholstered more with tape than with actual upholstery.
There were four men in the bar who looked a lot like the men I had seen outside. They matched the atmosphere perfectly with their white t-shirts decorated with various stains. One of them had a plate of some sauce-drenched food that I could smell from the door. It smelled like rotting meat.
I sauntered up to the bar, which looked no better than the tables, and was greeted by the bartender. This bot tending bar made Ernie's old Tinbo, look quality by comparison. Not only did the head and body not match each other, but I don't think any of the manipulators even matched each other; certainly none of them matched the body.
A couple of feet to my left was an overflowing ashtray, and sitting next to it was a book of matches that exactly matched the one that Clarique had found in her sister's room. At least I was in the right place.
The barbot said something to me in what I assume was Portuguese. Guessing that it was a request for a drink order, I asked for a beer.
I must have guessed right, because the bot produced a glass that may or may not have actually been clean (it was too dark to instantly tell), and then filled it with what looked like carbonated urine from the nozzle at the end of one of its arms. The beer was warm and tasted pretty much as good as it looked, although the glass may have been adding in some flavours of its own.
“You're a long way from the beach; you lost, tourist?” A man with a thick mustache asked, sitting on the bar stool next to me. The sleeves of his white shirt were missing; they'd probably been scared away by the tattoos that covered both of his arms. I figured we'd be friends.
“No,” I replied, “I'm right where I intend to be.”
“And what brings you out here?”
“I heard you served the best beer in Rio,” I said, and took a sip, grimacing slightly at the taste.
“And?”
“And I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read on the net.”
The man laughed, and a moment later the other men laughed too, all of them except the man in the middle of his lunch. I guessed that he must be the guy in charge, which meant my new friend was likely his second.
“Well now that you have insulted my bar, maybe you wanna leave.”
“Your bar?” I asked, and pointed to the man with the food, “Not his?
“It's our bar, and we don't want you here.”
“I haven't paid for my beer yet,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my phone.
The man tensed, “It's on the house,” he said, “To make up for it not meeting your expectations. We wouldn't want you to go around talking bad about our customer service after all.”
“Well that's very kind of you, but I must admit that I did have one other reason for coming here,” I pulled out my phone slowly so as to not panic the locals. I brought up a picture of Maribel Moreno that her sister had sent me, “I'm looking for this girl.”
My friend's eyes narrowed, “You see any girls here?”
I looked at the other occupants of the room. Each of their faces was adorned with hair of some sort; mustache, stubble, all quite manly.
“Well, I certainly don't see any as pretty as her, but you see, she had one of your matchbooks,” I pointed to the ashtray, “and, well, her sister's kinda worried about her; convinced she came here to meet someone.”
My friend's eyes narrowed even more, but remained locked on me. I could see the other men trading glances; looking between me, each other, and the man with the smelly meal.
“She looks like she is old enough to make her own decisions,” my friend said, “so maybe sister should mind her own frassing business.”
“Maybe she should, but she's made it my business to find her.”
My friend produced a knife from his waistband, its blade popping out of the handle with a snick, “Maybe you should be on her way.”
“Maybe you should put that knife away; I'm not keen about having a blade shoved in my face.”
“Maybe I won't”
I shrugged, “Okay.”
One of the reasons to dress like a schlub, especially some place as flashy as the touristy areas of Rio, is that people underestimate you, and that's exactly what my knife-wielding pal did. He did not see it coming when I grabbed a handful of his greasy black hair, and slammed his face into the bartop. His knife dropped to the filthy wood of the floor, and he toppled off of his barstool and joined it.
As a famous man once said, “the first one you get for free, the rest you pay for”. I didn't even look to see what the reaction of the other people in the bar would be, I leaped over the bar and ducked down for cover.
It's a good thing I did to, because the friends of my friend pulled guns and started firing, with no consideration for their fallen. Thankfully the bar was well built, because it stopped the bullets from hitting me, although the barbot took a couple of rounds, causing it to bleed sparks and smoke.
I pulled my pistol from inside my coat and waited. They didn't know how to get into a shootout, and their aim was pitiful, as their now non-functional bartender could testify. While they should have waited for me to show my head, they just kept firing wildly in my general direction until they ran out of bullets. That was my cue.
I popped up from behind the bar to see the two men not eating the foul smelling meal fumbling clips into their own pistols. I fired two shots at each of them. The first guy twice in the right arm, causing him to drop his gun, and howl in pain. The second man got it in the shoulder and the chest, and went down.
The man sitting at the table, had ducked down behind it for cover, but had not pulled a weapon of his own.
I heard footsteps from the front and back of the bar, and dropped down behind the bar again as the guy from the balcony came in through the back door, and two domino playing fellows stormed the front. They didn't see me, and instead rushed towards their boss.
It's as I duck down that I notice the shotgun mounted to the underside of the bar. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. I wrench it free of its wire holster.
The boss yells something in Portuguese that I cannot understand, but my guess is that it was something like, “Behind the bar, you idiots,” because when I popped up with the shotgun, the mooks had already turned to face me, but hadn't actually pointed their guns at me yet.
I aimed and fired off three quick shots, the spent shells flying off to my right. I had been hoping for scattershot because, believe it or not, I am not really into killing people, but what I got was even better.
I had already dropped back behind the bar when I heard the crackling noise and an absence of return fire. I poked my head up and saw the three newcomers writhing on the floor. As they thrashed, I noticed a blinking blue dart sticking out of on of their chests. The gun had been loaded with shockshells.
Jumping over the bar, I saw the boss rise from his shelter, and start to run towards the door. I let him get past me, then shot him in the back. He dropped to the floor, the sound of his feet jittering against the floor almost drowning out the sound of his grunting.
The power had been spent from the shockshells I'd hit the other three with, and they were starting to regain control of their bodies. I placed the shotgun on the table next to the boss' unfinished lunch, and quickly dug the wirecuffs out of my coat pocket.
I cuffed the wounded together, except for the guy I shot in the chest, who I doubt survived, and my friend with the knife who was laying motionless in his own puddle of blood. Then, grabbing the shotgun off the table, I went for the boss.
The shockshell in his back had expended all of its energy, and he was struggling to regain control of his muscles. I kicked him in the side to roll him over onto his back, and pointed the shotgun at his chest.
“You're Rico, aren't you?” I asked.
“Frass off,” he replied.
“Yeah, you're Rico. Where's the girl, Rico?”
“She's here 'cuz she wants to be, she's staying!”
“Yeah, sure she is,” I said, pushing the barrel of the shotgun into the center of his chest, “You know, a shockshell fired right into your chest would probably cause the same damage as a slug? It'd be a shame to stain the floor of your lovely establishment with more blood.”
“If you kill me, you'll never find her.”
“That's where you're wrong, Rico. I will find her, it's just a question of how long it takes, and how many people like you I zip along the way.”
“You're lyin'. You ain't gonna kill me, tourist.”
He was right, I had no intention of killing him. Of course he didn't know he was right; this was just bravado.
“Look, Rico, I know you're trying to stay all big and bad for your pals over there. I know how important the respect of other men is to someone like you, but there's a couple of things you need to understand. The first is that I was hired to bring Mirabel Moreno home, and I intend to do my job. The second thing,” I raised my voice to a very dramatic yell for this last part, if I didn't know any better, I would have been scared of me too, “is that I am the big bad monsterfighting wolf, and I will tear your slag up if you don't tell me what I want to know!”
My performance combined with the barrel of a shotgun digging into his breastbone finally convinced Rico that I was serious, “Okay, man, okay, she was in back. She's still there if you didn't scare her off with all your Captain Spacey slag!”
“There you go, Rico, wasn't that easier? Smooth as butter. No come over here with your friends.”
I dragged Rico over to his buddies, and cuffed him into the group. Then I went in back to look for Mirabel. I found her hiding in a bathroom.
“Don't kill me!” she cried, seeing me come through the door with a shotgun.
“Kill you? Doll, I'm here to rescue you.”
“Rescue me? You just killed my boyfriend!”
“What, Rico?” I asked, “He ain't dead, sweetheart. So you mean you are here of your own free will?”
“Of course I am, your psycho! Who said I wasn't?”
“You know what, I think you need to talk to someone,” I pulled out my phone, and dialed Clarique's number, “Ms. Moreno? I have someone here you need to talk to.”
While Mirabel and her sister screamed at each other on the phone, I went to check on Rico and his friends; just making sure no one was trying to cause trouble. They were behaving well enough.
I helped myself to a bottled beer from behind the bar, and it tasted a hell of a lot better than the stuff the robot had given me.
“Lets go!” Mirabel ordered me, practically throwing my phone at me, “You're to take me to the airport!”
“You're going back?” I asked, “but what about loverboy there?”
Mirabel looked over at her boyfriend and his buddies laying in a bleeding, defeated pile, “I'm sorry, Rico, my sister's nuts. If this guy goes back, she'll just send someone else,” she said with a shrug.
“That's okay,” Rico said, “I don't think this is gonna work out anyway.”
“I'll message you,” Mirabel said, and started towards the door, “Come, Mr. Iron, if you want the rest of your fee,” she snarled.
After she walked out into the blazing sunlight, I turned to Rico, “Hey, pal, sorry about...” I motioned to the mess I had made of his bar, “but you might want to consider being nicer to tourists in the future; none of this had to happen, you know?”
“Go die!” Rico spat.
“You might want to choose your dames a little better too; love can get you killed.”
I walked out of Barzinho Paraiso with his cursing at my back. After taking Mirabel to the airport I had a very important meeting with an umbrella drink and a swimming pool to get to.