Future Crimes Part 45

The building was a nine-story brick tomb. The original bricks had long since been re mineralized to prevent crumbling; otherwise it was strictly Second Millennium.

The window holo sign said Tantric s.e.x in lavender script.

"You sure about this?" Murrillo asked Dawn O'Leary as they paused outside the entrance.

"It's a known front for confidential consulting."

Gil spat.

"Call it what it is: d.a.m.ned fortune telling."

Dawn indicated a red-lit hemat.i.te statue in a window.

A nude woman had an equally-nude bearded man in a painful hammerlock.

"That's s.h.i.+rley MacLaine getting the best of the Amazing Randi," she said dryly.

Murrillo pushed his way in, ignoring the Entry Scanner and the hostess, and announced: "FBI. This establishment is hereby federalized under Section Four of the Spiritual Privacy Act of 2012."

Several holo-clad females scampered for the back rooms as a matronly woman with aluminized hair emerged from behind a beaded curtain and threw out her ample chest.

"Not again! Why don't you people just put us on retainer?"

Murrillo swallowed his surprise.

"If you cooperate, we won't interfere with business. I'm looking for a rogue astrologer named Smith," The woman called over her shoulder.

"Smitty! It's for you!"

Smith looked like a typical pre-Schism holdover-droopy mustache, gold pirate earring, and a bluish M tattooed on the back of one hairy hand.

A stale contraband Lucky Strike hung off his lower lip. Eyeing Murrillo, Smith asked, "Leo Sun?"

Gil flinched at the direct hit.

"Ever see this man?"

Smith took the grease pencil suspect drawing.

"No, but I guarantee you he's an eighth house person.

Heavy-duty Scorpio influences. Death is written all over his face."

"All we have to go on is the name Mel or Melvin Drum. Help us find him and you won't be charged with Contributing to the Undermining of Free Will, and other violations of the Spiritual Privacy Act."

"Deal, But I gotta have something in return." He smiled broadly.

"Pizza. A real one. Red onions and red peppers."

When the pizza was laid out before him. Smith sprinkled it liberally with a white crystalline substance from a pocket tube.

Murrillo paled.

"Is that .. . salt?"

"My blood pressure medicine," Smith explained, lifting a wedge to his mouth.

Dawn stepped in.

"There have been three victims, all high-level banking executives, and all spiritually transfigured against their will in an identical manner."

Smith snapped impatient fingers.

"Dates. I need birthdates."

Three b.u.t.ts cooled in an ashtray after Smith finished running charts on a pocket system. He consulted a battered blue book ent.i.tled, Ephemeris of the Years 2000-3000.

"The next one will disappear in two weeks," he announced.

"How do you know that?" Murrillo demanded.

"He's doing this on the full and new moons. It's a pattern. The next victim goes on the next new moon.

That means you have a clock running and a head's up on when the alarm will ring."

"We'd prefer to find the perpetrator before then."

"Good luck," Smitty said dryly, reaching for the last cold slice of heavily-salted pizza.

"Don't you ever think about your HDL count?"

Dawn wondered.

"Cholesterol," said Smitty, "is voodoo." He continued.

"All three victims had chart warning indicators for ma.s.sive psychic breakthroughs--Scorpio moons, Pluto going over the ascendant, a heavily aspected Ura.n.u.s.

They were super-Alphas just waiting to happen.

Especially under the present Neptune transit. If it wasn't this Mel Drum, it would have been something else. He's just shooting fish in a barrel."

"Karmic bulls.h.i.+t," snapped Gil.

"Welcome to the harsh world of natal astrology, where your life has been charted for you," Smith said archly.

"Based on his facial features, I want to say your perp is a Capricorn."

"You can tell that by his face?" Dawn asked.

Smith grinned mischievously.

"Takes one to know one. Note the coa.r.s.e hair and heavy brows. But these cold cobra eyes mark a Scorpio moon, ascendant and probably a Hock of other Scorpionic planets. Scorps merge with their environment like chameleons. He'll be as tough to find as a rainbow during a lunar eclipse.

Makes me thank my lucky stars my moon's in Virgo.

It's a very sane moon."

Gil interrupted, "Can you or can't you ID the next victim?"

Smith frowned darkly.