Sideways in Crime: An Alternate Mystery Anthology (2008) by Lou Anders

Author:Lou Anders [Anders, Lou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction, Alternative Histories (Fiction), Alternative History, Adventure, Short Stories, Mystery & Detective, Science fiction; American, Science fiction; English, SteamPunk, Alternative Histories (Fiction); American, Alternative Histories (Fiction); English
ISBN: 9781844165667
Publisher: Solaris
Published: 2008-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Our waitress wore a transparent plastic carapace molded to her naked breasts and torso, black lurex panties, tights and musketeer boots. Her hair was pouffed up and her makeup could’ve sustained a platoon of Calder gynoids. She carried an outrageously baroque toy blaster holstered at her hip. I didn’t know where to put my eyes.

I had decided to take Polly Jean Hornbine out for supper, rather than relay my news in my office. I chose the nearest franchise of La Semaine de Suzette, because it was a fairly classy low-budget place, and I was in the mood for French food.

The restaurant chain was named after one of the French zines that had gotten behind Hearst and his program shortly after the Brits came onboard. The French bande dessinee artists (and their Belgian stripverhalen peers) had joined the ranks of the Utopian Funnypaper Boys with awesome enthusiasm and international solidarity. And in Germany, artists like Rodolphe Topffer and Lyonel Feininger, and zines like Simplicissimus, Humoristische Blatter, and Ulk weren’t far behind. And when the Japanese invented manga--

But like all Geeks, I digress.

I knew that the waitresses at La Semaine de Suzette dressed like characters from their namesake zine. But during all my previous visits, their outfits had mimicked those of Becassine and Bleuette, modest schoolgirls.

What I didn’t realize was that La Semaine de Suzette had also published Barbarella, starting in 1962, and that the waitress uniforms went in and out of rotation.

No matter how much you knew, it was never everything.

So now Polly Jean and I had to place our orders with a half-naked interstellar libertine.

It was enough to make Emma Frost blush.

Somehow we stammered out our choices. After Barbarella had sashayed away, I attempted to recover my aplomb and relate the revelations I had picked up from Ted Harmon.

P.J. absorbed the information with dispassionate intensity, and once again I was taken with her quick intelligence. Not to mention her adorable face. When I finished, she said, “So a visit to this fellow Greenstock is next, I take it?”

I began sawing into my Chicken Kiev, which was a little tough. The chain keeps prices down by using vat-grown chicken, which is generally tender and tasty, but this meat must’ve been made on a Monday.

“That’s right. If we’re lucky, the trail will end there.”

She shook her head. “I can’t see it. If this were just a simple case of Dad refusing a bribe, there’d be no call for murder.”

“If it was murder--”

P.J.’s temper flared again. “It was! And that could only mean a big deal, bigger than Greenstock and his company. You’ve got to find out who’s behind them!”

“I’m not leaving any tern unstoned, as the nasty little kid said when he was pitching pebbles at the shore birds.”

P.J. relented and smiled at my bad joke. “Did you actually imagine I had never heard that one before?”

“No. But I did imagine that you would imagine that I would never be dumb enough to say it. And so it made you smile anyhow.”

“Touché...”

“Now let’s finish up.

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