No Dogs in Philly by Andy Futuro Read Free Book Online

an
option.”
    “ No, maybe not. I hope you won’t
take this as a critique of your professionalism, but perhaps you
would allow me to offer some advice? Some information that may be
of use?”
    “ That’s actually why I called.
You’re the expert.”
    “ It would be better if we met in
person. When are you free?”
    “ Now, if you like.”
    “ Very good, here is my
address.”
    He sent her the address and she hailed a cab.
No walking for this rich bitch. She tipped the cabby a
hundred—there you go bud, buy yourself a toothbrush—and he dropped
her in front of a nondescript brownstone. There was no plaque
announcing who lived there; even the number was tiny and hard to
read. That was just like Friar—attention to detail, subtlety,
discretion; he was like her polar opposite.
    She knocked softly, noticing the door was not
wood, as it appeared, but some sort of hard alloy. She guessed it
was bullet proof and fire and acid resistant. She looked at the
stone and wondered what was beneath—reinforced concrete? Steel
micromesh? This wasn’t a house; it was a fortress. She wondered who
the neighbors were. No neighbors of course, he would own the other
two houses and they would be just as tricked. Interesting. Not a
lot of crime in this part of the city, so what was he expecting?
Enemies? Old scores? The apocalypse?
    The door swung open and he was there,
tit-height and grave-faced.
    “ Come in please,” he said,
ushering her in with his hand. He wore the same tweed jacket that
she now suspected was more than just tweed. She stepped inside.
Yes, it was like she expected—the house of an old bachelor
professor, a little dusty, full of knick-knacks and relics,
artwork, carved wood furniture, globes, and other gilded trash. She
would buy it all when she solved the case and cram it into her
foyer so you’d have to shuffle sideways to get through the
maze.
    “ This way please.” He guided her
down the hall; she caught a glimpse of the living room with a grand
piano and the dining room with a crystal chandelier. They passed
the kitchen (“Would you like anything?” “No thanks”) and he lead
her down to the basement. This was more like it. It was part
workshop, part lab, part hospital room and—oh my God there was a
man in a cage. No, not a man. An elzi, a once-man. That was a
little shocking.
    “ Yes, you see my friend
Jonathan.”
    “ You keep him locked up in
here?”
    “ I do. It’s for his
benefit.”
    She could believe that. It was common knowledge
the rehab centers were fancy crematoriums and she couldn’t see much
difference between him roaming the streets and being locked in a
cage in her colleague’s basement. At least he couldn’t take a chunk
out of anyone this way. The elzi dozed, serene, fingers clenching
and unclenching in typical stereotyped behavior. She approached the
cage and saw that it was suspended from the ceiling by chains. The
floor was actually a deck and the cage hung a few feet out from the
railing. She looked down and was surprised to see that there was no
ground below—it disappeared in darkness.
    “ How deep does that go?” she
asked.
    “ It’s quite deep. Let me show
you.”
    Friar flicked a switch and harsh yellow lights
popped on at regular intervals, going down what must have been
eight stories. At the bottom they formed a circle around a hatch
the size of an aboveground pool.
    “ Where does that lead?”
    “ To the under city, of
course.”
    “ The under city?”
    “ Yes. The sewers, the abandoned
Broad Street Line and all its stations. It is quite large, and
grows larger. There are things down there, digging things, things
that tunnel and carve and build.”
    He was almost reverent as he spoke. She
shivered.
    “ Why do you have this? How did you
even build this?”
    He smiled sadly.
    “ What did they offer you? A
million? Five million? Ten million? Twenty?”
    “ Uh, it was ten.”
    He nodded. “Yes, what they offered me. That was
not the first job I have been