Aaron Conners’ “Under A Killing Moon” A Tex Murphy Novel –– PROLOGUE –– In the moonlight, New San Francisco sparkles like a chunk of cubic zirconium, an island of hollow beauty surrounded by a red sea of radiation. Five million souls drowning in gamma rays. It’s December 2042. Some optimistic visionaries predicted that this millennium would usher in a new age, where technology and enlightened minds would combine to create some kind of heaven on earth. Well, that isn’t how it turned out. We kicked things off with another “war to end all wars,” only this one may have lived up to its name. Half the planet took it on the chin, forests turned into ashtrays, oceans into cesspools, and a large minority of human beings into genetically disfigured casualties of war. These unlucky souls are called Mutants. The effects of radioactive fallout added another check box to the census forms. Now, there’s a whole new form of discrimination. New San Francisco is one bad decision away from civil war. Most of us got lucky, or at least our genes did. The lucky ones are classified as Norms. I’m one of them. Most of them live in the new city, but I don’t. I live among the unfortunate souls, the Mutants and the destitute, in the wreckage of Old San Francisco. My name is Tex Murphy. I’m a private detective - or at least I used to be. Since my marriage hit the rocks, I haven’t done much more than look for the bottom of a bourbon bottle. I haven’t had a case in weeks, or months, if I don’t count the ones I wasn’t paid for. In my book, this chapter’s titled “The Year I’d Like To Forget and Probably Will.” I hand my hat in a dingy joint called the Ritz Hotel. My office on the third floor doubles as a studio apartment. Just like me, the Ritz used to be something. Now it’s just another grimy building in a rundown part of town. And I’m almost out of bourbon. –– CHAPTER ONE –– Not a single pack of Lucky Strikes in all of Mexico City. I shook my head as my speeder glided through the clammy, grimy darkness that lay like a rotten blanket over the metropolis. From a quarter-mile up, I looked down on a sea of city lights, sparkling like sequins on a private dancer’s too-tight dress. Just above the horizon, the blood-red moon was a bullet wound in the night sky. I’d spent most of the day scouring the city for a pack of Lucky Strikes, moving frantically from one tienda to another, like a high-school sophomore on a scavenger hunt. I’d run out of time and was forced to abandon my search for the cigarettes that meant fine tobacco. I glanced at the small red box of cigarillos festering on the passenger seat and exhaled through a grimace. It was at rare times such as these that I cursed my addiction. I cracked the window of my speeder, took a final, excruciating hit from a Marlboro rojo, and flicked the sizzling butt into the night. Below me, the red hot cherry ejected and burned out, leaving the charred filter to spiral softly down into the world’s largest ashtray. Directly ahead, the Torre Latino Americana, once the Mexican capital’s tallest building, stood forty-seven stories erect above a knuckled clump of runty buildings. Together, they strongly resembled a common hand gesture. Back at ya, pal. I descended through the two-packs-a-day layer of atmosphere frosting and touched down on a street south of the Dulce Vida apartment building. There wasn’t a lot of luxury to be found in Central America’s largest capital, but the Dulce Vida had an aura that would pass for luxury in any civilized spot. This was the sort of residence inhabited by tasters of decay, rather than swallowers - people who liked the idea of living in Mexico City, but preferred to avoid the hands on experience. I slumped down in the driver’s seat and peered up at the top floor of the Dulce Vida. The two windows on the far right were nice and dark. A less careful shamus would’ve made his move immediately. I, on the other hand, saved that kind of recklessness for conjugal minefields and offers of free liquor. The windows of the neighboring apartment were lined with Christmas lights and ablaze in holiday cheer. There was no reason to take unnecessary risks. A silhouetted figure passed by the window. I glanced at my watch: 8:29 P.M. It was Saturday night, and there were only twenty-one shopping days until Navidad. I figured the odds were fair to good that Eddie Ching’s neighbors would eventually go out for the evening. Fortunately, I wasn’t in a hurry…as long as I didn’t think about my lack of Lucky Strikes. I settled in to wait. Out of sheer habit and a pathetic dependence on nicotine, I pulled a Rojo out of the pack and torched it. After a long drag and with renewed disgust, I removed the cigarillo from my mouth and inspected it closely. It certainly resembled the cigarettes I’d come to know and love - it even burned like the real thing. But it was an abomination, plain and simple. The kind of creation Sauron and his minions worked through the night creating in the foul-stench bowels of Barad-Dur. But even a mutated distant cousin of nicotine had to be considered family. I leaned back, my eyes locked on the windows of the Dulce Vida and my mind idling in neutral. In the distance, Christmas music floated merrily through the polluted night air. What a way to spend the holidays. Could’ve been worse, I supposed. I could’ve been working as a mall Santa. That was a mistake I wouldn’t make twice. A noisy, old-fashioned pickup truck roared past my speeder. I’d seen more four-wheeled vehicles after five days in Mexico City than I’d seen in New San Francisco in a year. Being out of the States made me appreciate my lot in life. Personal airborne transportation was still a novelty to ninety percent of the world, and being among the other ten percent made me smile - until I inhaled again. A few minutes later, a scraggly group of teenagers paused to check out my speeder. Realizing that the vehicle was occupied, the apprentice lifers meandered off in search of fun and profit. Like the juvenile delinquents in New San Francisco, these hooligans were continuing the age- old tradition of cultivating a look that would be as incomprehensible and distasteful as possible to the preceding generation. The latest form of fashion rebellion was to shave a narrow strip of hair from the forehead to the back of the neck. This was known as a racing stripe. The width, depth, and design of the racing stripe apparently indicated gang affiliations as clearly as the color of one’s socks had when I was growing up. I sat in my speeder for almost an hour, smoking compost sticks and staring up at the Dulce Vida. At last, the lights in the Yule-filled apartment went out. I tossed most of the rojo out into the street and rolled up the window. There were four large, festively wrapped boxes in the trunk. After getting them out, I closed the hatch and activated the security system. Mexico City was notorious for its crime rate, and I, being a monolingual-and-damn-proud-of-it Yankee, wasn’t about to take a chance on finding myself speederless and at the mercy of 30 million capitalist-loathing Latinos. I looked both ways to avoid getting run down by some local reveler filled with mucha tequila, and crossed the street toward the covered parking lot that nestled up against the ground floor of the Dulce Vida. At the far end of the parking lot, a nondescript door provided a private entry for tenants. The majority of foot traffic went through the front door, which was around the corner on the east side, inaccessible directly from the parking lot. Having cased the location several times over the past few days, I knew the back door had a lock that would open only to the magnetic-strip cards given to tenants. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a card. But I had something almost as good: a plan. Peering out from behind my teetering stack of presents, I walked slowly into the parking lot. With any luck, someone would use the door in the next couple of minutes. If no one appeared, I would go to Step 2B of Plan A: intentionally drop the boxes, then stall until someone showed up. I’d seen plenty of Three Stooges movies while researching the technique and was confident I could pull it off. A bright light flashed across the far wall as a car pulled into the parking lot and drove past me. I maintained my nonchalance as the driver parked and stepped out. It was a tiny, though sturdy elderly woman, always my preferred duping target. Laden with shopping bags, she trudged wearily toward the door. I maintained my leisurely pace. The woman reached the door, set a shopping bag on the asphalt and, after what seemed like an eternity of purse searching, came up with a card, which she ran through the card reader. After replacing the card meticulously, she grabbed the door handle with both hands and heaved. At that moment, she became aware of me and turned. I threw every ounce of charm I could muster into a wide smile. “Feliz Navidad!” The woman smiled back at me and eyed my huge pile of brightly decorated packages. “Feliz Navidad!” She stepped to the side and, as expected, held the door open. I was in. The old lady followed me inside and down a short corridor to a set of elevator doors. An armed security guard sat on a chair nearby, reading a Condorito comic book. He barely glanced at me, probably assuming that I was helping grandma with the boxes. The old lady reached passed me and pushed the up button. We waited silently for the elevator to descend. My nerves began to kick in, causing my stomach to slowly twist and tighten. It probably didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten anything for five days. On the flight down, I’d made the mistake of studying my Spanish for Idiots book, which had only reinforced my fear of native Mexican food by including translations for such phrases as ‘What species of meat is that?’ and ’No lettuce, for God’s sake!’ As I waited for the elevator, I could feel my digestive juices deciding that my stomach was not only edible, but nutritious and delicious. After what seemed like a long time, the elevator chimed and the doors opened. Grandma and I stepped in, and I breathed a sigh of relief. As the doors closed, she pushed the button for the third floor, then swiveled her head in my direction. “Que piso?” She seemed to be asking which floor I wanted. I quickly traveled through time to seventh- grade Spanish and began counting. “Diez y ocho.” The old lady pressed the eighteen button and offered me a crinkled smile. Ten seconds later, we came to a halt at the third floor, and grandma stepped out of the elevator. “Buenas noches.” “Buenas noches.” The doors closed, and I began my ascent to the top floor. –– CHAPTER TWO –– Two days before, I’d paid my first visit to the Dulce Vida. I’d found out which apartment Eddie Ching lived in and that he was out of town––a lucky break, since apartments are almost easier to ransack when they’re unoccupied. I then approached the manager under the pretense of wanting to lease an apartment. The manager, a well-heeled, swarthy man by the name of Alfonso, had agreed to give me a tour of the facilities. His English was as perfect as the white teeth that gleamed from beneath his astonishingly manicured mustache. I’d said I was only interested in an apartment on the top floor, with a spectacular view of Alfonso’s uncommonly beautiful city. Obviously pleased, Alfonso had been more than happy to oblige. As we rode the elevator to the eighteenth floor, Alfonso detailed the many benefits of becoming one of his tenants. The combination of the high crime rate and the rich clientele, he said, required that the apartment building be a veritable fortress of security. Not only were the entrances to the residential areas sealed off to outsiders, but each apartment had its own personalized security system. A keypad was installed on each apartment door, and the code to unlock the door was chosen by and known only to the tenant. Moreover, additional security systems, such as individual laser grids and LCD alarm glass for the windows, were offered optionally inside each apartment. If I’d actually been a potential renter, it would’ve sounded lovely. As it was, it made me nervous. On the eighteenth floor, Alfonso had escorted me to an empty apartment on the far end of the hall from Ching’s. I’d casually looked over his shoulder as he entered the code 1-2-2-1 on the keypad. The access code was all I’d been after, but to avoid suspicion, I went along with the compulsory tour, lavishly complimenting the architecture, the décor, and, of course, the fabulous view. Alfonso and I then returned to the lobby, where I told him I would need time to make up my mind. The next day, I’d gotten everything together to execute my plan, then waited outside the building. But the tenants in the apartment next to Ching’s didn’t go out that evening, so I was forced to try again. This time everything was going smoothly. The elevator doors opened on the eighteenth floor, and I walked briskly toward the door to the empty apartment. To be safe, I knocked several times. There was no answer. I punched in 1-2- 2-1 on the keypad and opened the door. Except for the dim city glow coming through the windows, it was dark inside the apartment. I set the packages down and opened one of them. Inside was a flashlight, a laser blade, a bent piece of metal, and an extremely expensive pair of ultra sensitive night-vision goggles. Placing the implements in my deep overcoat pockets, I walked to one of the windows and, after checking to make sure it had no alarm, opened it. There was a wide ledge below the window. I stepped out onto it and made the mistake of looking down. It hadn’t seemed so high up from the ground. I turned around to face the window, closed it, and then began shuffling slowly along the ledge. The first two apartments I slid by were dark. The third was lit up, but the only person I saw inside was a bald man, sitting in an easy chair and facing away from me. I reached the first window of Ching’s apartment without incident. Then I pulled out the particle-beam-detection goggles and put them on. As I’d learned from my tour with Alfonso, the apartment windows could contain the special and very expensive LCD alarm glass. Sure enough, with the goggles on, I could see faint blue lines cycling through the glass in a grid pattern. I wasn’t surprised - in fact, I’d counted on it. What suddenly concerned me was the net of motion-detecting beams I could see beyond the window. The lines of light were about three feet off the floor and crisscrossed from the wall under the window to about ten feet into the room. I checked the second window, but it was equipped with the same safeguards. The laser nets, in effect, were high-tech moats. Unless I turned them off, access through the windows would be impossible. I didn’t have much to lose. If the apartments were all set up the same, there would be a switch on the wall about six inches to the right of the window, about four feet off the floor. After establishing the approximate location of the switch, I watched the cycling pattern for several minutes, then get out my laser blade and flipped it on. A razor-thin beam of light appeared, about three inches in length. With the care of a rabbi performing his first circumcision, I sliced into the glass and cut a hole with a two-inch diameter. Then I turned off the laser blade and grabbed the bent piece of metal. Inserting it into the hole, I began twisting it, feeling for the switch. After several seconds, I felt some resistance, then pushed down. The blue lights in the glass disappeared. The laser net didn’t. Using the laser blade, I cut an even wider hole in the glass, large enough to stick my head into. Peering around in the dark, I soon decided that whatever controlled the laser net was not within reach. I’d been foiled. My first reaction, as always, was to light up. Then I reconsidered. Even though it was dark, I could be seen easily, and some might consider my conspicuous presence on the ledge of an exclusive penthouse apartment suspicious. The sooner I got inside, the better. I decided to try the neighbor’s apartment. It was certainly preferable to being seen in my current position. On the plus side, the windows next door were made of ordinary glass and there was no laser net inside, at least not an activated one. I peered inside and made sure the neighbors hadn’t just gone to bed early. A preliminary check of the window confirmed that it was locked. I took off the goggles and, using the laser blade, cut a rectangle large enough to crawl through. Removing the section of window carefully, I stepped down into the apartment. I got out my flashlight and moved the beam around. The apartment was furnished sparsely, but tastefully. The motif was floral, a school to which I didn’t subscribe, but could certainly appreciate. A simple, black leather couch took up a large section of the wall on the right. On the other side of the wall behind the couch was Ching’s apartment. I touched the surface of the wall, then knocked on it. A previously overlooked option occurred to me. I pulled the couch carefully away from the wall and pulled out the laser blade. I’d never used the laser blade on anything more dense than glass, but I thought it might have enough juice to cut through plasterboard. Kneeling down, I aimed the laser beam and began to cut. The wall studs were about two feet apart and, when I finished, there was an opening approximately two feet wide by three feet high. Luckily, this section of the wall had no electrical wiring. Once the hole in the neighbor’s wall was opened, I cut into the plasterboard on Ching’s side. Two minutes later, a matching section of plasterboard came loose and toppled over. I replaced my laser blade, snapped on the goggles, and squirmed partway through the opening. The laser net I’d seen from outside extended to about halfway between me and the wall under the window. As long as I didn’t get too careless, it looked like I’d be relatively free to explore the rest of the apartment. I pulled myself all the way through the opening, then stood and took a look around. The first things I noticed were nearly a dozen terrariums, tanks, and aquariums of various makes and sizes, filled with everything from tropical fish to a boa constrictor. The soft and flickering ambient light provided plenty of visibility, so I didn’t bother to turn on the flashlight. As I looked back up, a figure moved suddenly on the far side of the room. I froze as my heart rate instantaneously tripled. Trying not to breathe, I peered toward the opposite wall and saw the face of a middle-aged man staring back at me, wild-eyed. After an instant of confusion, I realized it was me. My knees nearly buckled with relief, and it took a minute for the pounding in my ears to subside. As my breathing slowly returned to normal, I inspected the walls of the room, which turned out to be covered with pricey-looking paintings and ornately framed mirrors. The room was not large, maybe twenty-five feet wide and forty feet long, but the mirrors gave it a much bigger feel. Some furniture was scattered here and there, but this appeared to be more of a den than a living room. I noticed a desk in one of the corners and decided to start there. On top of the desk, I found a computer printout containing a list of names. As I looked it over, one name jumped out at me: Lowell Percival. The billionaire industrialist had been a client of mine years ago. I scanned the list and, as far as I could tell, it consisted of people interested in buying rare artifacts. I continued on and quickly rooted through the drawers of the desk, but turned up nothing related to what I was looking for. The terrariums and aquariums didn’t seem to be worth checking out, but I did anyway, just to be on the safe side. I paused to take a closer look at Ching’s boa, which was curled into a dormant mound the size of a stegosaurus dropping. To the right of this terrarium was another, this one containing three brightly colored, venomous- looking serpents. Ching certainly had strange tastes. I imagined that poisonous snakes would be slightly less cuddly pets than, say, a puppy. Between the terrariums, I saw a long metal pole with a noose on the end. The thought of one of the snakes getting loose made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. There was only one door leading out of the room, directly across from the freshly cut hole in the wall. I opened it and stepped into Ching’s living room. The second window I’d looked in was on my right, opposite the front door to the apartment. The reflections of the city lights provided some light, but not enough for a thorough search. The room was about the same size as the den, but was much more lavishly furnished. Directly across from me, I saw a large, wooden bookcase, crammed full of books. To the right of the bookcase was an open doorway, leading to a small kitchen area. To the left was a closed door, then a five-figure couch and love seat that occupied the entire corner of the room. I paused to examine a display cabinet teeming with exotic objects. The room was filled with plants, vases, and other ostentatious decorations. The exposed walls were covered with paintings and still more mirrors. The apartment was a narcissist’s dream. I walked around the room, examining the objects d’art and feeling like a tourist. In one section of the room, I found a panel that opened to reveal a small but magnificently stocked liquor cabinet. Ching kept an admirable selection of bourbons and scotches, as well as the usual token bottles of rum, gin, and vodka. I was thirsty and nervous, but all I really wanted was to finish the job and get out. Eventually, I made my way to the bookcase and looked through it. Many of the volumes were foreign. Unless these were just for show, it looked as though Ching spoke at least English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and probably several other languages I couldn’t identify. The selection of books ranged from The Complete Works of Shakespeare to a collection by some guy named Flannery O’Connor. Regrettably, my preferred reading material had always fallen somewhere between Spider-man comics and the back of a Cheerios box. Of the several hundred volumes in the bookcase, I’d read only one - For Whom the Bell Tolls. Well, read was an exaggeration, but I’d seen the movie. Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Now that was a woman. Women like that had disappeared around the time tube tops and tie-dye became fashionable. What a goddess. I sighed involuntarily. So very lonely. I moved to the closed door, which turned out to be the entrance to the bano, the most commonly used Spanish word not directly related to food. There was nothing remarkable about the bathroom. To be thorough, I opened the medicine cabinet and casually glanced over the contents. Unlike some people, I’ve never had an interest in inspecting other people’s medicinal and hygienic inventories. It looked like a pretty typical selection, so I closed the cabinet and returned to the living room. The last area I checked was the kitchen. A stove, a microwave, a refrigerator, a sink, and a small dinette set were crammed into a space maybe fifteen feet square. Cupboards mounted on the walls circled the perimeter of the room. I took a peek in the refrigerator, but the interior was even more vacuous than the back at my office. After ten minutes, I realized that there was nothing to find in the kitchen. I stepped back into the living room, discouraged. I’d searched carefully, but had nothing more than the name of an old client and an unwelcome reminder of my lack of exposure to classic literature. I swung the flashlight beam around, hoping to spot something I’d overlooked, but there didn’t appear to be any container or space large enough to hold the item I was looking for. I started moving everything that wasn’t ruggedly attached to a wall and inspecting the areas underneath. Behind an antique-looking oil painting of buxom fruit, I found a small wall safe. Naturally, I was excited, but after experimenting with the dial for some time, I lost interest and returned to my search. There was nothing but wall behind the living room mirrors and paintings. The kitchen didn’t turn up anything, so I moved into the den. After fifteen minutes, I’d come up empty again. After I checked the wall behind the last painting, I stopped to consider my options. Taking another look at the wall safe, I decided that I’d just have to accept the fact that I would probably never get inside it. Then a thought popped into my head. I returned to the living room and examined the layout. The kitchen, living room, and bathroom formed a horseshoe shape around the bookcase. Unless my calculations were way off, there was a rectangle of space about fifteen feet square unac-counted for. I carefully inspected the bookcase, which appeared to have been built directly into the wall. I tried to push it; I might as well have been trying to move my ex- mother-in-law. I briefly considered using brute force, but for all I knew, there might be an alarm of some sort attached to the bookcase itself. There was only one thing to do. And it had worked before. I entered the bathroom and removed the towels from a rack on the right wall. I’d bought the laser blade at Radioactive Shack and wondered how much longer I had before it would break. Hopefully, it still had a little life in it. Like I’d done in the neighbor’s apartment, I bent down and began to cut through the wall. As I started on the second layer of plasterboard, a ray of greenish light appeared through the slit above the laser blade. A light source! There was definitely an en-closed area behind the wall. I’d almost finished when the laser blade sputtered and went out. Using the heel of my hand, I punched the center of the cut section. The plasterboard broke free, followed an instant later by a crashing noise. I wriggled through the opening, into some sort of treasure chamber. The room was no bigger than the kitchen, but was stuffed to the ceiling with paintings, statues, vases, and glass cabinets full of loose precious stones and jewelry. As I stood up, I saw the source of the crash: I’d tipped over a stack of framed paintings. The one that had been nearest the wall had been nicked by the laser blade. I was no art expert, but it looked like an original Rembrandt. I wouldn’t have known an original Rembrandt from a decorative place mat, except I had one back at my office. At least that’s what the guy who’d sold it to me had said. For seventy dollars, it better have been. The small room’s contents had to be worth millions. It was like I’d found some legendary pirate’s cave full of booty. A painting hung on the wall to my left and looked remarkably like a Van Gogh. I hadn’t felt this overwhelmed and insignificant since my last date at divorce court. But this time, everything was going my way. In the center of the room sat the Holy Grail. Figuratively speaking. There was no question that this was what I’d come for. It was just the way Countess Renier had described it to me: a statuette, formed in the shape of a bird, about sixteen inches in height and constructed of some crystalline substance. It sat atop a marble pedestal and didn’t appear to be hooked up to anything. It was a ripe peach, waiting to be picked. I got close to the pedestal and examined every square inch. It had no visible security attachment. Moving slowly, like you do when extracting the funny bone in a game of Operation, I reached for the prize. As my hands touched it, I felt a tingling sensation, similar to the way frozen hands feel when they’re first soaked in hot water. I ran my hands over the surface for a moment. I’d never felt anything like it. It felt almost malleable, though it was obviously made of some solid material. Unsure of how heavy it would be, I tensed up and lifted the statuette from the pedestal. A deafening alarm immediately tore through the apartment. I hesitated, unsure of whether I was responsible for the alarm going off. It didn’t matter. The fact was, I’d broken into an apartment in one of the most secured buildings in Mexico City. Getting caught would not be good. I passed the statuette through the opening in the wall, then