Read It Sometimes Snows In May: A B.E.A.N. Police Novella for Free Online Page B

scrambles to her feet and scurries up to the display until she’s half a meter in front of it. “I can’t believe it. You son-of-a-bitch. You’re alive! My payday is alive, and I better get my ass in gear to claim it, before someone else beats me to it.”
     
    Ryles swipes her right earring again, and initiates an outgoing call. She’s pacing back and forth on the memory mattress, pulling down her dress and smoothing it out. The call connects.
     
    “ Ispari State Guard, I can I help you? ” a woman asks.
     
    “Thank you Jee-sus,” Ryles says.
     
    “ Ma’am? ”
     
    “You found him! You’ve found my brother,” Ryles says. “I just saw the news broadcast about the Joe Doe.”
     
    “ You’ll need to come down to our headquarters, and ask for Guard Morefishco. Let me give you the address… ”
     
     
    The next morning, a black man, in his sixties knocks at a motel room door. Ryles answers it wearing a denim skirt, a snug and revealing blouse, and three-inch, open-toe high heels. Her face is made up heavy to enhance what nature and life had laid on her. She even managed a manicure and pedicure.
     
    Ryles lets in a man wearing a work overalls with James embroidered over one of the breast pocket, and a toolbox in his left hand.
     
    “What took you so long?” Ryles asks. “The guardies are gonna be expecting me this morning. You get everything?”
     
    James plops his toolbox on the desk across from the bed. He opens it up, and pulls out net-paper of various sizes, ID cards, flash chips. “Hey queenie, you just can’t pick these up at your local office supply store.” He pulls up an ID card with thumb and retinal,  biometric output panes. “New state ID for Maria Brown, ground vehicle license, passport. I also set up financial records, relational history, back ten years...including your wedding to Mister Brown. And, since you’re one of my favorite, if not best looking, customer’s, I threw in wedding images, and courtship e-mails…”
     
    “Damn.” Ryles blushed. “How well will it hold up?”
     
    “It’ll be fine...as long as they don’t dig deeper than Misses and Mister Brown. The fake friends are hologram thin, so if some guardie with a hard-on goes hunting for your maid-of-honor, you may have some explaining to do. Unless you want to go for broke and get some cyber-actors?”
     
    “Huh?”
     
    “It’s the latest thing in the bazaar. Unemployed and aspiring actors are getting cybernetics to play any a-list actor they can dream of. It’s their edge to break into the biz. They can be anybody you want them to be.” James smiles.
     
    “How much is that gonna set me back?”
     
    “If you have to ask…” James lays a net-paper on the table facing Ryles.
     
    Ryles glances at the price matrix. Her eyes widen. “I’ll take my chances.”
     
    “I figured as much,” James says.
     
    “How much do I owe you?” Ryles asks.
     
    “three-fifty,” James says. “And before you have a little heart attack, that includes first and last month’s rent for the furnished house.”
     
    Ryles sighs. “Where?”
     
    “I know what you’re thinking. It ain’t no mansion. But, it’s a nice and respectable, everyone-minds-their-own-damn-business neighborhood in New Neasden.”
     
    “Okay.” Ryles pulls out a department store shopping bag from under the bed, and holds it against her. “There’s three in here…”
     
    James frowns.
     
    “I wasn’t expecting that much, and it’s all I can get right now, without raising alarms.” Ryles stares at James and watches him size her up. “It’s in cash James, and you know that ain’t easy.”
     
    “I’m impressed.”
     
    “You’ll even be more impressed, when you count it.” Ryles closes the space between herself and James to about a meter.
     
    “Hey, I’m old school,” James says. “You know I’m gonna count it.” He continues to study Ryles. James grabs the bag from Ryles and immediately feels the weight. He pulls