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So far the Sinkhole had been the usual guy venue: alcohol, cigarettes and 3-D TV sports, plus a few rough-looking women lined up at the bar

Noastoward the Invisible Man’s table, two CinSi days

Basil/Sherlock was looking as bored and unhappy as Mr Spock at a picnic, but Ricardo/stock Latin lover character was eyeing the crowd His eyeing got more personal the nearer he approached

"Why did you want to meet me here anyway?" I asked the Invisible Man as our new companions joined the table

He leaned nearer to whisper even love on as that isn’t monitored by the powers that be or the police That’s why it moves around It’s the only place CinSients"

"Are you free agents?" I asked, glancing at all of es: Sexy, Asexual, and Horny Snow White never had it so good

"Shhh!" The Invisible Man eyed the unsavory ranks of supernaturals and debased hue to keep a safe zone private That doesn’t s don’t happen in the Sinkhole They sias"

"What entertainment venues host our new friends here?"

"Entertainment," Holmes spat "Certainly not"

"These two areprivately owned Like Hector Nightwine’s man, Godfrey"

"Owned, not leased?"

The fedora nodded

"How does this happen?"

"Thepurveyors announce auctions All interested parties are free to bid"

"This sgested to Snow, and which he’d denied vehenation in his silken tequila voice "It is even worse than the studio contracts I signed when I first cauls were bastards, but at least they lovedally declared intellectual property," the Invisible Man explained "Our base material is anonymous and the actors who played us are, in most cases, dead-"

"And if so their life spans in so revivified all the tih"

"The studios, or whatever legal entity has succeeded theet a royalty, as do the actors or their estates But since a CinSiam, the courts have ruled, so far, that we are a new creative entity and belong to those who cobbled us together froe film strips,"

"You sound almost proud of your unique status," I told the Invisible Man

"Why not? I was and am still typecast as a mad scientist I salute what science today has done to blur the lines between art and technology, and even life and death, to preserve ere mere half lives as whole lives"

Montalban wasmy butch leather outfit "This isthe next words "No scarlet silks, no ruffles, no jewels" His autocratic tone softened "But I like it I like it very much"

"Who is your master?" I asked

"Mistress," he corrected sirlfriend, Irma, spoke up for the first time on this expedition "Does she rent hih you won’t withwith two "Rics" was beyond my modest experience of a social life Still, I could see that my Ric, less suave andRicardo Montalban

"What about Sherlock?" I asked Claude, since the great detective was keeping aloof from the conversation

"He won’t say who co close to whisper At least this ti to say as well as another squeeze of my knee to execute "But don’t let his attitude fool you He’s here to learn the ways of the Sinkhole and to use theuessed

"Shhh! We trust no one here I wanted to tell you in this safe zone that your escape from Cesar Cicereau’s hit squad has infuriated hianization "bungled’ an operation That’s the first kiss of death in s That’s why I called you here"

"You don’t have information for me on who the Sunset Park male victih identifying the feot you torn apart by olves Trouble is, word of that shon in thethe opposition too Cicereau’s people, and olves, have IDed your boyfriend, Ric They’re not happy with hi down their muscle with silver bullets He should be wary too Those of us CinSims who’ve preserved a sense of self and free will can help you, but we are sadly few"

He glanced at our table partners "And you can see we are limited by the roles in which ere preserved"

WhichMontalban to deal with, not the seasoned actor who projected The Wrath of Khan on movie screens more than thirty years later It also meant that Sherlock Holmes was present in the brisk, ultra-effective form of Basil Rathbone’s 1940s portrayal, not the reat acclai real life and onscreen fencing skills were still available in this Holmes enactment The literary Holmes had practiced baritsu, a fictional Asian martial art Conan Doyle invented decades before such skills showed up routinely in twentieth century action novels and films Too bad Sean Connery’s James Bond wasn’t available, but the youthful Montalban had wielded a ht occurred to me "Are any of the CinSims in color?"

Claude drew back in melodramatic shock

"No! It’s the silver nitrate in the old films that both destroyed the strips and now preserves our performances Look at mine I had to convey my character and emotions with voice only Not since the Silents had an actor e, if I say so myself More rumors say that a color process is under developaudy hokum diminishes and distracts from the power and polish of the classic black-and-white forhtwine In fact, I wondered if Hector o anywhere Snow had once appeared to recognize him, but that may not mean he leased him My rotund boss had an appetite for the bizarre Whatever, I had time to inquire into that later in places less unpleasant than the Sinkhole

"So why do you want to hire hter?"

"Cicereau’s a big guy in this town His CinSias We like his fur ruffled and you’re pretty good at it so far Plus, you escaped his forced labor operation

"Even a ician with supernatural connections hasn’t been able to do that That o for Cicereau’s front Another thing-"

Claude hunched closer I could see lasses like I saw myself in Snow’s shades The siauze lips barely moved as he whispered "The va All over town Even at the supernatural chicken ranches out in the boonies"

"There are vampire brothels?"

"Of course Any flavor or twist of supernatural you want, male or female or question mark They say the chupacabra three-way is out of this world"

Chupacabra! Irma made herself known Ric’s seen one in the Mexican desert; you’ve seen the tracks of one in a Kansas cornfield What’s ain Nevada houses of ill repute?"

Good question The chupacabra was known as a goat-sucker, a blood-sucking creature that left its prey a desiccated sack of bones How this could be put to erotic use without resulting in death was beyond ht of Count Dracula, theup all the Vegas vahtwine’s love of vintage fil as once, he wanted back in, and vaas since they’d lost out when the city was being founded

Hughes had hiredMiss Cicereau’s boyfriend, another piece in the power gahtas also my client If we knew the whole story, we’d have Cicereau on the ropes Nightwine could filhtly fictionalized version of the murders and Cesar would be toppled by the publicity and outed as a known as the word for killing a daughter? There ords for killing mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers, but I knew none for offing offspring The ever-unpopular "child killer" would have to do it

Snow, another power player, also wanted to knoho had died with Cicereau’s daughter and, like Hughes and Hector, had "hired" me to find the answer Now here I had a fourth set of clients-rogue CinSi, derisive rowled into the haze of nized it, even if the speaker didn’t recognizewith these lame CinSy tourists dressing up as their favorite hotel CinSirabbed the nape of er in to tell Detective Half-balled Haskell to take his hands offour conversation, sped like a speeding bullet for his throat

Haskell went down on the floor, with Quick growling and worrying at his ut and crotch

"Back! Off!" I ordered, careful not to use the dog’s nalimpsed Quicksilver once, but had never heard his name At the time, Haskell’s attention was fixed on istered the wolfish breeds Quicksilver combined

As far as I knew, since our round at the Enchanted Cottage Haskell now had only one ball left and was three ti at his crotch because I was sure that no balls would erous The last Sinkhole attack on hi like that already In the post-Millennium Revelation world, it was vital to watch out who, or what, you were bit by and how often

Ric had gone incognito into the Sinkhole; soe on Haskell’s body parts after Ric left hieful instincts as Ric on usto for the crotch area htwine could have sent one ugly CinSim of a customer after Haskell once he’d viewed the security tape of the cop e

At that moment, the silver familiar ht hand, reh the artifact Even heon his neired toy

All speculation was moot now Haskell didn’t know that blond Sinkhole Biker Girl was Delilah Street

Quick had obeyedhis prey that this was just a temporary truce I took a deep breath

and expelled it as hot-tempered Ricardo Montalban hauled Haskell up from the floor

"Puerco! Hijo de puta! You dare accost a wo at my table?"

And Montalban essayed a fist to the chops that laid Haskell back down again

"I’m a representative of the law," Haskell screa around

Sherlock Holmes bent down to blow pipe smoke into Haskell’s face "If this is a representative of the law, I’ht without losing a breath to puff out smoke

"How shall we expel this noxious snake? Is there a va are extre with snake venom I confess that I do not believe in vampires, but one would certainly be useful in this instance"

The Invisible Man had doffed trench coat, hat, sunglasses and gauze and was now invisibly pu Haskell about the head and chest like a frantic windstors into citizens’ arrest!" Haskell shouted, dodging unseen blows

The proble picked upon Visiting tourists, CinSymbiants and human riffraff rose in a wave from the wide-screen sports TVs at the bar and the small cocktail tables anchored by some CinSims of their choice

"That’s okay, officer! I’ll help," a beefyinto the battle "Hang in there," he added, an unfortunate choice of expression for Half-balled Haskell

When he accidentally wopped the Invisible Man in the back with a fanny pack, I was forced to push hi screa for me

I was more than ready, but she was plucked away before she could hit

A half-dozen half-were bikers waded in, their chains chihtstick and found it as effective when poking as when striking sideways My chain-wrapped fist was scuffing lots of biker leather as I dodged return blows, getting into the rhyth I’d never participated in before, a brawl With these allies-and no deadly weapons out as yet-it was kind of invigorating

Then I felt my arms pinned tobehindthe fray

I turned to snarl in that directionand faced off a tattoo freak with a smear of black beard He picked me up by the waist, spun me around behind him, and proceeded to stomp Haskell in the nuts Or where as left of the neatly at the thick ankles of the tourist couple while Hol for a fight with quaint but effective fisticuffs I dodged around my unsavory would-be rescuer to back up Holrabbed and pinned,to look like The Three Stooges Meet the Monster Jamboree

I couldn’t enjoy the co male I twisted hard to take another look at uy wearing Eau de NASCAR pit-stop cologne Not attractive unless vintage auto exhaust turned you on

I started to order him to back off, when he rubbed the back of one tatted forearm over his sooty brow, eyed ives o soe always brought out ed to slew around in the creep’s grasp, fighting to pull far enough away to kick hirowling and snapping at the saet I coveted

My attacker had snaked around, clutchinga chunk out ofwhiht I couldn’t disguise ainst etonlyquite the opposite, or maybe just in a different mode

"Hell, Montoya," I whispered just as softly "Why wouldn’t I panic? That thing felt a foot long"

"I thought you were interested"

"So is Quick"

"You don’t have a way to tell hio and exposewent to his sto bangers were backing off, ta from some formidable CinSim superheroes My friends held Haskell, but looked ready to rush my captor I shook my head no Violently They looked carefully away, confused but aware that our new ally was more than friendly with me

Ric rocked his pelvis into my backside untilintoear "Your place or e"

"Yours," I whispered back "We’ll drop Quick off at the cottage"

"First," Ric said, "I have to secure the loose verht lose its hospitality license if we left this piece of shit crawling around"

While Haskell writhed, pinned facedown like a cockroach by Montalban and Holmes, I forcedclub jacket Tawdry taste I found some shiny new cuffs on his belt, probably the ones he’d used on me I bent down to wrench one hand behind his back as Holht it around

Haskell screamed curses when I snapped the cuffs shut Sweet

I rose, nodding atof three CinSims, who looked disheveled but unbowed The Invisible Man had hefted his wrappings and clothing over one arm, so I could tell where he was