Free The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue by Louis Shalako Page B

car's voice sounded like someone had poked holes
in the speakers with a piece of wire or a knitting needle or
something. "It's a pleasant evening, isn't it?"
    Betty was right there in his ear, and
she had an answer for that one, too.
     
    ***
     
    Inspector MacBride was at home, in bed,
with his wife sitting upright, propped up by pillows, reading
beside him. He was just in that fuzzy, cottony-soft state where he
was convinced that sleep was indeed possible, this in spite of
fifteen cups of coffee over the course of the day, and a flaming
row with the eldest son on the inspector’s arrival home from work.
Lately his legs ached. The only time he noticed it was when he got
into bed. It took a couple of minutes and then it was
there.
    It was the end of a long day and he’d
earned his rest, and it was right about then that the telephone
buzzed.
    It was on her side of the
bed.
    “ Shit. Honey.”
    Inspector MacBride opened his eyes,
sighed deeply and rolled over.
    “ Oh.”
    He took the phone.
    Argh.
    He was used to such calls, never
welcome but usually important.
    “ Yes.
MacBride.”
    “ Dave Parsons. Eighth
Precinct.”
    “ Yes?” Gene MacBride
struggled with his one free arm to sit up in the bed.
    He snapped on the bedside light on his
side and reached for his pen and note-pad.
    Parsons. 8th.
    “ We’ve got a funny one
here. Assault in a park. Victims say it was a blind man—and a
robot.”
    “ Uh-huh.”
    “ A robot with long, sexy
legs.”
    “ Ha.”
    They were getting all kinds of crank
reports on this one.
    “ Yeah, well, eh. I just
thought you’d like to know.”
    Up until now it was mostly just
sightings. Crackpot sightings.
    An assault. He liked it.
    “ So what happened? I mean,
allegedly?” That was a rough neighbourhood down there.
    Parsons laughed.
    “ Yeah, I hear you, man.”
The voice, a man Gene had never met, although he might know the
face to see it, went on. “Apparently these three punks were
innocently minding their own business—which in my humble opinion,
involves petty drug sales, petty theft, assault, petty extortion if
there is such a thing, not above the odd dope-fueled date-rape,
making bad porn and grand theft auto. Gang-bangers, anyway, you get
the picture. But they say they were jumped by a blind man and a
robot, who beat them up pretty bad. Oh, yeah. All for no reason at
all.”
    “ Really? How
bad?”
    “ Broken collar-bone,
broken humerus, broken wrist, fingers, two victims there, a broken
orbit over the left eye, broken cheekbone, broken jaw, broken
noses, two, ah, fat lips, black eyes, cuts, scrapes, abrasions
and contusions—the one guy says, ‘she’s real strong, almost
strangled me to death’…it goes on, mostly nonsense about how they
weren't doing nothing to provoke it.”
    “ Wait a minute, wait a
minute…how many victims?”
    “ Three, sir. Apparently
the blind guy can fight too. They say he’s like fucking Bruce
Lee—sorry, sir, that’s a direct quote from one of our, ah,
victims…sir.”
    Parsons went on.
    “ This is straight from
street intelligence. They had to find a doctor and like the fools
they are, they went straight to the nearest emerg and started
making a lot of noise.”
    He digested that thought. A blind man
and a robot with long, sexy legs, beating up three hard-cases for
no reason.
    Street intelligence.
    A smart citizen with big ears and an
ongoing account with Crime Shoppers.
    Drop a dime and earn a ten.
    But that was the story.
    Yeah, sure they did. I'll just bet they
did.
    If nothing else, it was unusual. And
the victims couldn’t help but talk about it, of course.
    That was their turf and they ruled it.
They'd be going around making a lot of loud talk now, wouldn't
they?
    Not.
    They’d be a laughing stock.
    “ Where did this happen,
exactly?”
    “ A park across from a
subway station. The incident happened earlier this evening. It was
around eleven o’clock, a little after, maybe.”
    “ Okay. Any
leads?”
    “ I can ask