This Cat Can’t be Skinned Again (Original Neo-Noir Short Story)

By Connor MacDonald

This Cat Can’t be Skinned Again

DECEMBER 14th – 2148

I can’t sleep. The sirens below have kept me up all night, twisting and turning throughout the lower streets, pursuing unknown men. It was always something during the holiday season. The insanity of it all caused parents to do things they’d never dream of doing. I was the same, even if my daughter didn’t see me and my ex-wife moved from hab to hab, dodging my attempts. I lit a cigarette and floated in my bathtub, and thought about better days.

This wasn’t really a life suitable for a wife and daughter anyways. Being a Bagman for the Civil Disobedience Unit had its perks, but substantial disadvantages as well. My beeper came to life as I was drifting in and out of consciousness in my tub.

ATTENTION: BAGMAN ELEVEN – COME TO 483 WEST STREET.

I got out of the bathtub and walked over to my uniform, which was draped across a chair. I put the mask over my face and large goggles, and followed it up with the tight leather uniform provided to me. I didn’t need a weapon. I never did.

The air was thick with industrial smoke, and I got into my van. In the back of it were my tools: a metal gurney, abstract-juice, needles, pincers, scalpels. Locked inside of a secure cage. I got another beep.

DON’T TELL THEM EVERYTHING.

I frowned at that, even if my mask hid it from the world. I could feel my face twist. “Don’t tell them everything.” At least, I suppose, I could tell them something. I pulled up to the scene, and two inspectors wearing long coats were waiting for me.

“He’s over there,” the fat one said, a cigar hanging out of his mouth. I turned my attention towards the ‘man’. This adolescent punk was no more than sixteen. His lip was split open, and his one eye was closed.

“We tried to get him to talk,” the skinny inspector said. “But he didn’t talk too much.”

I looked him over. “Do you know what I am?”

“You’re a bagman.” His voice was distant and soft.

I turned towards my two comrades. “What do you need to know?”

The fat one stepped forward. “One: Why is he pushing moon-rock? Two: Where is he getting this moon-rock? And three: Who got him into this?”

“That’s all?” I was dry as gin.

“Not quite,” the skinny inspector said, stepping towards me. “We also want to know where his girlfriend is. Genie Hamilton.” He handed me a photograph of a young girl.

Don’t tell them everything. This was the catch. Whoever Genie Hamilton was doesn’t matter now. She’s best left forgotten.

The two inspectors loaded the boy into my van, and I strapped him down to the gurney. The inspectors quickly left. There was no need for them here.

“What are you gonna do to me?” the kid asked.

“I’m going to find out what you don’t want us to know.” I put some abstract juice into the syringe and plunged it into his temple.

The kid began to twist and seize while on the gurney. Good thing they strapped him down tight. A small computer terminal was set up beside me, and I spun around to look at it. The kid stopped moving so violently, and I put a little metal skull cap over his head. Tubes ran out of it and into my terminal.

“Make it stop!” he cried. “Please!”

I put a leather strap into his mouth for him to bite down on. “The more you fight it, the stronger I need to make it.”

I turned the knob on the terminal, and his eyes bulged out of his sockets. He was dying, but he should have known better.

The smell of wet shit and musty piss assaulted my senses. Even through my mask. They told us that the mask was two-fold. To hide our identity, and to mask the smells. It did one well enough, but not the second.

“Quit your crying,” I instructed. His memories were now being mapped onto my computer terminal, and I tuned them. The moon-rock was simple enough. He was a low-level street dealer for the aptly named ‘Rock-Crushers’, a group of young men and women who were supplied by one of the many cartels in the city.

Genie Hamilton. There she was. A cute little thing being passed around by the boys, which the kid didn’t seem to mind. A memory flashed quickly on the screen. The young boy giving Genie over to Civil Unit Chief Deidreich.

I assume they weren’t setting up a play-date.

I extracted most of the memories onto a hard disk, but kept that Genie memory for myself. The inspectors wouldn’t know. I opened the door to the van, and the two men were waiting for me.

“So, what do you have?” the skinny one asked.

“Here is all the information on the drug pushers. Nothing on Genie.” I handed them the disk.

The fat one popped his cigar out of his mouth. “You didn’t find nothin’ on Genie?”

“No. He died before I could extract it all.”

The two men peered behind me, where the lifeless body was on the gurney.

“That’s the downside with you bagmen. You never give ‘em a chance to survive.” He popped the cigar back in his mouth.

“Seeya around, Bagman,” the skinny one said, and they both entered their vehicle.

I stood in the dark street and rolled up my mask. I put a Zan-Pek stick in my mouth and lit a match. A soft drizzle of acidic rain came down, a gift from the industrial section. I hadn’t bagged the boy yet.

“Hey…Mister…” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t you wanna know about Genie?” The boy was sitting up on the gurney now, his eyes still bulging out of his head.

“I don’t care to know.” I looked back at the street.

“Why did you put it on the disk then?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Leverage, I guess.”

I breathed in the Zan-Pek, and the boy didn’t seem to have much more to say. I climbed into the van and bagged him. It was a far drive to the “Paste Factory”, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t have much waiting for me when I got home anyways.

The Pleasure Palace was near the factory, and I figured I could stash the disk there. It was a place where hologirls danced for the amusement of men. Ralph was leaning idly on the counter.

“Bagman,” he said, half bored. “Let me guess. Do you want the usual?”

“Yeah. Same room. The far right one.”

He nodded and handed me the keys. When I entered the dingy pink room, I reached under the sofa cushion and placed the disk. For some reason, I figured it’d be a good idea to store that. Though, I didn’t know why.

I smashed the holo projector in the middle of the room with my boot. The soft glow of the girl disappeared slowly until it finally evaporated into darkness.

As I was leaving, Ralph stopped me.

“Hey, you didn’t even get me to set a girl up for you?”

“Your room’s projector is broken. Looks like somebody smashed it to bits.” I handed him a credit strip. “Here. Figured I owed you something.”

He took it and eyed me suspiciously. “Alright. If you say so…”

I left the Pleasure Palace and went back to the van. The streets were largely empty, with bundles of people huddled together on the pedestrian walkways. The occasional car here or there, but nothing which slowed me down. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. My pager rang, and I looked down at it.

GOOD WORK. -CCD IS IMPRESSED.

The “Paste Factory” was a giant mash of concrete buildings, smokestacks, and hab-units which stretched up above the black mist which engulfed the city. I parked near the loading bay and loaded the kid into a filth-covered receiving bay. Several men in white uniforms took the black bag which contained the kid and wheeled him off down the corridor.

An older man with a beard approached me. “Here is your pay.” He tossed me a credit chip.

“Don’t think he’ll be missed,” I said.

The man squinted towards me and walked off without saying a word. I stood alone in the receiving bay for a moment, thumbing the credit chip. I left when they returned the black bag.

When I went to my apartment, I noticed that the frame was broken. Somebody had broken in. I stepped into the apartment and saw that my entire apartment had been worked over. They even flipped over my bathtub. Probably to just insult me.

“For fuck’s sake.” I ripped my mask off and looked under my mattress. It was gone. I screamed loudly.

I don’t know why a burglar would want to take a photo of me and my daughter, but I did not like the implication.

I could smell synthetic tobacco, and I turned around. Standing there was the Chief.

“Bagman,” he said simply. “I thought I was clear on my instructions.”

I raised a brow. “I followed what you asked.”

He puffed on his stick. “Then why did you download the files?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Exactly.” The Chief flicked the cigarette out of the window. “You betrayed my trust. I don’t like that. Hand it over.”

“I don’t have it.”

He shook his head and kicked the wall. “You’re gonna get it for me. If you don’t…”

“If I don’t?” I asked.

“Your girl might find herself in the same place Genie is.” He smiled politely. “Bring it to me in an hour. At the old pier. You know where it is.”

He casually walked out of the apartment, and I saw two shadows outside follow him down the narrow corridor. I wanted to puke, but my bathtub was upside down, so I just swallowed it.

I quickly got into my van and drove towards the Pleasure Palace. When I arrived, I saw the two inspectors outside talking to Ralph. They looked towards me and called me over.

“Bagman, we were just about to ring you,” the fat one said.

“Oh, I come here when I want to relax. Good timing, I guess.”

Ralph raised a brow. “You was just here only an hour ago.”

“Yeah. I figured I’d just use another room. What’s going on?” My mouth was dry.

“Some junky destroyed his holoprojector,” the tall inspector said. “We’re the only inspectors on duty. We figured you could get into the surveillance around here? See who entered before you?”

“Sure, sure,” I said. “I can do that.”

Accessing the eye in the sky wasn’t hard at all. The Pleasure Palace was frequented by lots of people, and the poor bastard who entered before me was a portly man named Rueben Martinez, a dockworker. Well, not for much longer.

“This is the guy.” I pointed. “Already got all the info on him.” I handed the surveillance stick to the tall inspector.

“Well, you wanna come bag him with us?”

“No, I can’t. I’m kind of late for something. I just wanna use the holo girls and go to my…date.”

“Date?” the fat one asked. “Give me a fucking break. You’re not going on any date.”

“I got a date on the pier.” I was honest about that.

He didn’t seem convinced. “Well, whatever you’re doing can wait. You’re the only bagman on duty.”

“Well, if I’m the only bagman on duty, I suppose I can make you guys wait, can’t I? I’ll help you in an hour.”

The two looked at each other.

“Fine. We’ll take an early lunch,” the tall one said.

“Whatever. Like I give a shit,” the fat one said, and got into their cruiser. They slowly drifted down the road into the concrete jungle.

“Ralph, think I can catch a quick session? Fifteen minutes?”

He shrugged. “It’s your money.”

He took me to the far left room, and the projection of a girl was dancing in the middle of the room. After a couple minutes, I leaned out and saw that Ralph had gone. I quickly entered the room where I stored the disk and pulled apart the cushions.

It wasn’t there. Why wasn’t it there?

I stopped to think. The only people that could possibly have it were the inspectors or Ralph. Ralph. He would be the easiest to deal with.

I crept down the hallway, peering inside the rooms. Nobody else was in the Palace. Just Ralph and I.

Ralph was sitting at the front desk, his face resting on his hands.

“Hey, Ralph!” I shouted from behind him.

He fell off the stool. “What the fuck!” he shouted. “You scared me. Jesus…”

CRACK.

He didn’t see my boot come towards his face. No time to react. I could feel bone break beneath the metal.

“Find something in the room?” I asked.

“No…” He spat blood. “I never went into the room.”

My boot struck his face again, dislocating his jaw.

“Where did you put that fucking disk!” I kicked him again.

He groaned on the ground, a pool of blood escaping his mouth. I searched the drawers. Nothing. No disk.

“Hey, Ralph, hey…” I tried to sound gentle. “Sorry about that, buddy. You know how things are.”

He tried to talk but couldn’t.

“I’ll get you some help, don’t worry.” I pulled a syringe from out of my pocket, and his eyes went wide. He was weak, far weaker than me. He struggled, but it was just a waste of his energy. The syringe entered his body, and the liquid death too. His body thrashed around violently before eventually settling down into an even pace. Soon that stopped too, and he was limp.

The inspectors have it. They must have it. I looked at my watch. I only had twenty minutes to get to the pier. I knew they usually ate at Cindy’s Diner, just a couple blocks from the Pleasure Palace. I enjoyed the place myself. There wasn’t enough time for games. Not now.

I hopped into the van and drove there as fast as I could. I saw their car parked outside, and half a dozen people inside the diner. It didn’t matter. I had to get that disk.

I crashed the van through the window, sending debris flying everywhere. I think I broke my nose on impact. The two inspectors were underneath the van, a mangled mess of flesh and bone. I got out as people screamed all around me. I had to get it.

The fat one had it. I don’t know what they were planning, but it didn’t matter now. I had to get to the pier. I reversed the van as people screamed at me. I could hear sirens in the distance. The van limped along as best as it could towards the pier. I only had three minutes left.

As I pulled down into the pier, I could see three cars there. The Chief was there, as well as the two men he had brought with him to the apartment. The van was smoking by the time it reached them.

“I have it.” I fell out of the van. In my haste, I didn’t realize my own leg was broken. “I have it.” I held up the disk.

The Chief took it and looked it over, then tossed it into the water. “Well, you’ve caused quite a bit of problems for us.”

I looked up, and the baton struck me across the face. The two men began to beat me, and beat me. At first it hurt, but eventually it stopped hurting.

The Chief looked down at my body, “This cat can’t be skinned again, eh boys?” He flicked his synthetic stick towards my van.

They kicked my lifeless body over the pier, and it floated down the industrial wastewater which was the Central River. It didn’t matter though. I hoped she was safe. I hoped he’d keep his word.

But somewhere, somebody found my daughter.