A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) (12 page)

"Seemed reasonable," said Kinoshita.

"It was," replied Nighthawk. "How the hell could I know that it would take them more than a century to effect a cure, or that the economy would go through an inflationary spiral for more than a decade? I was still locked it at eight percent, but suddenly it was costing five million credits a year to stay frozen. It didn't take me long to run through most of my principal."

"That's when they created the first clone?"

Nighthawk nodded. "They had to wake me up and get my authorization. I still remember it. I was too weak to sit up on my own, and when I saw my hand in front of me I knew I hadn't been cured. I thought they were about to tell me that they'd decided they could never come up with a cure." He smiled bitterly. "What they told me was just as bad. I was almost broke, and they were going to have to wake me and toss me out. The only alternative was to create a clone for some guy on the Inner Frontier who'd heard the Widowmaker was still alive and was willing to pay enough for a replica to do a job for him that I'd be able to stay frozen for a few more years."

"That was the first clone—and my first experience with the Widowmaker," said Kinoshita. "He had all of Jeff's skills—all of
your
skills—but he had none of your experiences or memories or judgment. He fell in love with the first girl he met, a girl who was didn't give a damn about him and was working for men who wanted him dead. He let his heart rule his head—or maybe it was his gonads that ruled both of them. At any rate, it's something I never saw happen to you or Jason, and in the end it got him killed. But at least he accomplished his mission, and brought in some money."

"Half of what he was promised, from what I've been told," said Nighthawk.

"There was more than enough corruption to go around," answered Kinoshita. "His friends, his enemies, your barristers. Still, it was enough to keep you going for two more years, and by then they were on the way to curing
eplasia
. But they hadn't cured it before you ran out of money again, and that's when a second clone was created."

"Jason Newman."

"Yes, though I'm still not used to calling him that. He was Jefferson Nighthawk when I traveled with him and we took Pericles IV. They'd made a breakthrough in the science of cloning, and he was born with all of your memories. In fact, I'm told they had quite a job convincing him that he was a clone, because he
knew
he was you."

"I never thought about that," admitted Nighthawk. "Yeah, I can see where that would be a problem."

"Anyway, his mission paid enough to keep you alive and give you a nest egg when they revived you." He paused and looked across the table at Nighthawk. "I still remember the first day I saw you in the hospital. I'd have almost bet money you'd never wind up looking like a normal man. What was the toughest adjustment you had to make after being frozen for a century?"

"Seriously?" said Nighthawk. "It wasn't the new technology. Technology is just another word for machines. You learn how they work, and you adjust to them or you don't bother with them. The biggest problem I had was being attacked by enemies the two clones made, men and women I'd never seen before and couldn't recognize. Hell, you were with me—you can remember. Every time I thought I'd found a planet were I could settle down and live out my life in peace, someone with a grudge against the Widowmaker, someone who'd been born sixty or seventy years after I was frozen, would come hunting for me. That's why I finally went back to Deluros VIII and had them clone Jeff."

"Well, I'm glad things worked out and that you didn't end it all when you came down with the disease," said Kinoshita. "Though I'm not leading quite the life I had in mind when I was a young man just starting out." He paused and stared at Nighthawk. "How about you?"

"I'm glad I didn't end it all too."

"I meant, is this the life you had in mind when you were a young man?"

"No," said Nighthawk. "I confidently expected to be dead almost a century ago."

"Damn it, you know what I'm asking!" said Kinoshita. "What made you become the Widowmaker?"

"Because I could."

"What kind of answer is that?"

"The best you're going to get," said Nighthawk. "Now decide what you want for dessert, or else I'll pay the tab and we'll get going."

"Are you
ever
going to tell me about it?" persisted Kinoshita.

"It's history," replied Nighthawk. "And evidently it's not even very good history. At least, whenever I see one of those holos they make about the Widowmaker, they're never the way it happened."

"Maybe someday you should dictate your memoirs so there'll be an accurate record."

"There's a record. Just follow the trail of bounties I've collected."

"There's got to be more than just that."

"That's what made me the Widowmaker," said Nighthawk. "If you want to know every meal I've eaten, every planet I've been to, every woman I've slept with, then you want the Nighthawk Laundry Lists, not the record of what made me different." He turned and signaled to the human waiter. "Make up your mind. Do you want dessert and coffee, or not?"

"Not," said Kinoshita. "You're ruining my appetite."

Nighthawk paid the bill, and the two men went back down to the ground level. Nighthawk stopped at a shop in the lobby specializing in alien tobaccos and picked up a small box of smokeless Greenveldt cigars.

"How much?" he asked.

"Sixteen credits, five Maria Theresa dollars, or six Far London pounds," said the robot clerk. "I cannot accept New Punjab rupees."

Suddenly a woman came out from the back of the store and approached Nighthawk. "For the man who killed Hairless Jack, no charge," she said.

"I pay my way," said Nighthawk.

"Your money's no good here," she said. "I won't accept so much as a credit."

Then he remembered his talk with the owner of the weapon shop inside the District and asked for a piece of paper. When she gave it to him, he wrote a glowing endorsement of the shop, proclaimed that he would buy his cigars from no other establishment on New Barcelona, and signed his name with a flourish.

"Will you accept this?" he asked.

She read it and a huge smile spread across her face. "I'll put it in the front window, Mr. Nighthawk."

"We're square now?" he asked, preparing to leave.

"Far from it," she said. "I'm in your debt." She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to make up her mind about something. "Maybe I can even the score. Lean over." Nighthawk bent down and she whispered in his ear.

"You're sure?" he said, straightening up.

"Absolutely."

"Thanks." He lit a cigar and walked out, followed by Kinoshita.

"That was a very generous thing you just did," said the smaller man.

"I'd be like that all the time if I could."

"But?" said Kinoshita. "There's always a but."

"But as hard as I try to avoid it, the path I travel puts me in contact with a lot more Jack Bellamys and Cleopatra Romes than law-abiding cigar store proprietors."

"It must be something in your character."

"It wasn't anything in my character that caused me to leave my wife and my home and come to a cesspool like the District," said Nighthawk. "It was a would-be Samaurai named Kinoshita, who asks too damned many questions."

"If that's the way you feel, I'm all through asking them," said Kinoshita in hurt tones.

"Where have I heard
that
before?"

They rode the slidewalk for half a block when Kinoshita spoke up again. "I have one more question, and then I'll be quiet," he said.

"That didn't last very long, did it?" said Nighthawk, more amused than annoyed. "All right, go ahead and ask."

"Where are we going now?"

"Off to find Cleopatra Rome."

"I thought you wanted to learn what her particular skills and abilities were."

"I haven't got time."

"What are you talking about?"

"The lady in the cigar store," said Nighthawk. "What she whispered to me was that if I had any intention of going after Cleopatra Rome, I'd better do it quick. The guy she's living with works at the spaceport, and Cleopatra Rome has booked passage out tomorrow morning."

Suddenly the shellfish began doing flip-flops in Kinoshita's stomach.

14.

They came to the building that housed Horatio's and entered it, but instead of going to the airlift Nighthawk walked straight through the large lobby to the dilapidated men's room that was off in a corner.

"That's not a bad idea," said Kinoshita. "I think I'll join you."

The room was quite large, the remnant of better and more lucrative days. While Kinoshita sought out a urinal, Nighthawk walked over to the row of sinks and began carefully removing his weapons and laying them on long counter just above the sinks.

He tested the battery on his burner, drew it out of his holster a few times to make sure it moved swiftly and smoothly, that there was no hidden grit on either the surface of the weapon or the leather of the holster.

Next came the screecher. Nighthawk usually kept it tucked in the back of his belt, so the only thing he checked was the battery. He didn't like what he found, so he removed the coin-sized power source, tossed it in a trash atomizer, and inserted another.

After that came the projectile pistol. He cocked and uncocked it a few times, made sure it was fully loaded, and checked the spare clip he kept in a pocket.

He withdrew a knife from each boot. The one in his left boot had a serrated edge for close-in hand-to-hand fighting. The one in his right boot was a perfectly balanced throwing weapon, and Nighthawk could throw it with remarkable accuracy.

When he was satisfied that all his weapons were in perfect working order, he put them back, each in its place, and removed a small pouch from a pocket.

"What's that?" asked Kinoshita.

"Contact lenses," said Nighthawk.

Kinoshita looked puzzled. "I didn't know you had any trouble with your eyes."

"I don't."

"Then why—?"

"The left one sees into the infrared spectrum, the right into the ultraviolet."

"Still why?"

"Because I don't know what to expect, and it's best to be prepared for anything. I probably won't have time to make adjustments once I confront her."

"Isn't this a little premature?" asked Kinoshita. "You don't even know where she is."

"It's better to prepare in advance than after the fact," replied Nighthawk. "And I've got a pretty good idea of where she is. I just don't know what she's capable of doing."

"Where do you think she is?"

"Everyone else knows I'm on the planet, so she must know it too. And she knows I killed Bellamy and I'm still here. Bellamy didn't work for anyone, so she'll conclude that I'm not after one particular gang, but rather the biggest bounties—and she's as big as they come. If she wanted to confront me, she'd have been looking for me last night and this morning, and I haven't been that hard to find, so it figures that she'd rather avoid me. We know she's leaving New Barcelona tomorrow morning, and she can't count on the fact that someone wouldn't have told me or sold me the information by now, not with the price she's carrying around on her head. So she's going to want to get to the spaceport as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. There's a bullet shuttle that goes nonstop from the District to the spaceport every four hours. We're heading for the spot where it picks up its passengers from the District. That's where she's going to show up sooner or later."

"You're just going to stand there for hours and hope she doesn't know what you look like or that no one will point you out to her?" demanded Kinoshita.

"Don't say foolish things; it's unbecoming," replied Nighthawk. "I've never yet seen a shuttle stop that didn't have a couple of restaurants nearby. We'll set up shop at a table where I can keep an eye on things and wait for her."

"If she wants to avoid you, she'll just take some other route to the spaceport."

"No she won't," said Nighthawk. "She's worth nine million credits dead or alive, and any other route to the spaceport requires her to set foot outside the District, where she's fair game to any sniper—and I saw a number of them when we walked to the police station this morning."

"You did?" said Kinoshita, surprised. "I never saw a single one."

"You weren't looking for them."

"True," admitted Kinoshita. Then: "When do you think she'll show up?"

"The first time? Maybe a couple of hours."

"The first time?"

Nighthawk nodded. "I figure she'll disguise herself as anything from a beggar to a whore and check out the shuttle stop to make sure no one's lying in wait for her. Nine million credits is a lot of money; there are lots of Men and aliens in the District who would like to claim it—even those with prices on their own heads—or what passes for their heads."

"And you're sure she's going to behave the way you say, even though you've never met her and know nothing about her?" said Kinoshita.

"I know one thing about her," said Nighthawk. "She's still alive, when everyone wants her dead. That bespeaks a certain intelligence, or at least a high level of cunning, and a well-developed sense of self-preservation. She'll do what I said."

"And if she spots you?"

"She probably will."

"What then?"

"I'll be curious to see her reaction," said Nighthawk. "Either she'll try to kill me before I know it's her, or she'll leave and hope I never know how close I was to her." He paused. "It's up to me to spot her before she either leaves or attacks."

"That's a tall order," said Kinoshita. "How will you be able to know who she is?"

"There are ways," said Nighthawk. He came to a stop. "See that little island surrounded by all the slidewalks? That's the shuttle stop."

"How do you know?" asked Kinoshita. "We've never been here before."

"I've got good eyes. I can read the sign."

"
Good
eyes?" exclaimed Kinoshita. "If you could read that little sign from a block away, you've got eyes like a goddamned devilhawk!"