Authors: Ross Harrison
I turned back to
the enforcer. He must have guessed from my face that he needed to do something very
quickly to help himself. He held up one hand, palm open towards me. Telling me
to keep cool while he slowly reached inside his jacket with the other hand. I
kept one gun pointed at his chest.
‘You’ll be working
for us because of this,’ he said.
Just as slowly, he
pulled the hand back out. In it was a small rectangle. He tapped the side and
one half, in an L shape, floated about ten inches through the air. Then a pale
blue hue appeared between the two halves. They made the diagonal corners of a
fancy datapad.
His eyes flicked
down to it for a few seconds while he tapped the screen twice. Then he flipped
it in his hand to show me. It was a video. He knew something he shouldn’t.
‘We had to do our
research before we came in to take over from Webster. We were watching. We know
exactly what happ—’
I shot him. With
both guns. I didn’t know how many times. Perhaps six. Then I took two steps and
kicked him in the chest before he had time to collapse. The window was severely
weakened by all the bullet holes and his nearly lifeless carcass smashed
straight through. As he dropped to the floor below, the rest of the window
crackled and shattered. Only a few jagged pieces remained in the frame.
The datapad had
retracted back to its compact state. I bent and picked it up. Put it in the
inside pocket of my coat. I didn’t fool myself that it was the only copy, but
after we took down Webster and a good chunk of these off-worlders, the video
would do them no good. They wouldn’t need me for anything. All they wanted me
for now was cannon fodder. Maybe to give them an inside track on what DeMartino
was doing. Then they’d have finished what Little Dick had started.
‘You all right?’ It
was the Italian himself. About time. Not that I’d wanted him to catch up any
time soon.
‘Fine. There’s more
of them downstairs.’
‘Not any more. I
saw you having a chat with…’ he stepped to the empty window frame and glanced
over the edge, ‘…that gentleman. So I went to check out the rest of the place. You
took care of everyone up here.’
‘Not everyone. That
blonde buzz cut…’
He turned back to
me. ‘Oh, he tried to get past my gun with a rather small knife. It didn’t work.’
So he wasn’t going
to ambush us in the basement then. ‘What was downstairs?’ Part of me didn’t want
to know the answer. Van was as close to a friend as I had. Which said a lot
about me, I guessed, since we were barely on a first name basis.
‘A lot of blood.
And a very unpleasant sight sitting beside Mr. Van Graaf’s body.’
I closed my eyes.
Not sure why. It wasn’t as though that would shut out reality. Okay, we may not
have actually been friends, but as far as the degenerates of this city went,
Van was the one you’d want in charge. Part of me had hoped that would happen. I
was probably fooling myself. The off-worlders would take control of Harem now
and if they’d let Van live, he’d have stayed in the same position.
‘I’m guessing that
unpleasant sight is a shaved gorilla with no nose?’ I said.
DeMartino smirked.
As though it was just the comparison he’d been trying to put his finger on.
‘Yep.’
‘I’m surprised they
took him down with anything less than an airstrike.’ I began to transfer the
remaining bullets from one gun into the clip of the other.
‘They didn’t.’ I
stopped and made my gaze a question. ‘He seems to be guarding his boss’ corpse.
I went down there and found three guys pretty badly broken. I don’t think
shooting him did much. He has at least three bullet wounds. And he doesn’t seem
to know.’
I was glad I hadn’t
broken my chair over his head earlier.
‘He didn’t seem too
hostile towards me so I identified myself. He just said two words. Would you
like to guess what those words were?’
I finished
transferring the bullets. Thirteen plus one.
‘What were the words?’
I asked.
‘Jack Mason.’
*
We went through the door at the
bottom of the steps. The basement wasn’t the bare brickwork of my own. The
floor was carpeted in black and the walls were painted black too. The lighting
was soft, coming from lamps along the walls.
The passage we
found ourselves in was lined on either side with doors. I glanced through a
few. There was a lot of rubber, chains, whips, handcuffs, electrodes, metal
clips attached to batteries. I decided to stop looking after I saw the wooden
table with wrist and ankle straps. In any other building, I’d have thought I’d
stumbled into some psychopath’s torture chamber.
Halfway through the
basement we came to a circular open area. A long red leather couch ran all the
way around the walls. In the centre was another table with straps. Obviously
for the more extroverted sexual deviants.
Around the table
lay three bodies. The enforcers were indeed badly broken. Bones poked through
the skin in places. One of them appeared to have had his head crushed. It was
the gorilla. He sat on the edge of the couch right at the opening to our
passageway. His back was to us and he was looking at the table. Or rather, what
was strapped to the table.
Covered in blood,
and cut and beaten, Van was strapped by his wrists and ankles. Beside the table
was a tray. Instead of the implements that would usually reside on it, the tray
bore two knives, a knuckle-duster and two wires connected to a battery.
I couldn’t imagine
what information they’d wanted from Van. Or why it would have required torture
to extract it from him. He and the off-worlders should have been on the same
side. He wanted Webster taken down too. Perhaps he thought these people would
be worse.
They’d tortured him
for the same reason as I’d come looking for him. He knew all the comings and goings
in Harem. He’d have a lot of information they’d need in order to successfully take
over the city.
The gorilla heard
our footsteps and stood. He spun to us, but relaxed when he saw me. I still had
the gun in my hand. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. Maybe he blamed me
for his boss’ murder.
A rumble came from
his throat. His scowl and hard eyes gave away nothing as he stepped heavily
towards us. For some reason I was reminded of a golem. Had Van come into
possession of an ancient Jewish golem? Probably not.
His hand was
suddenly outstretched towards me. If he had held a gun or a knife, or even been
aiming for my throat, I’d be dead already. I hadn’t expected someone so large
to be able to move so quickly.
‘What’s this?’ I
asked.
He held a tiny,
clear, flat square in his hand. It was barely visible and being in the palm of
a giant didn’t help.
‘Data chip. Van
said: give to Jack Mason. No one else.’ His eyes turned to DeMartino, who put
away his gun. Probably to show that he could be trusted.
‘The data chip from
the girl?’ I asked.
My heart had
started racing again. Was it really that easy? He was just handing it to me?
His face remained motionless and he said nothing. I reached out and carefully
took the data chip. I half expected his hand to close around mine and crush it.
DeMartino let out a
sigh. It came with a smile. Probably thinking about how simple it was too.
I nodded thanks to
the gorilla, who went back to the couch.
‘So that’s the end
of Cole Webster,’ DeMartino said, stepping round in front of me and nodding at
the little flat square.
‘That…or this.’ I
held up my gun.
DeMartino took it
from my hand in a quick and unexpected move.
‘I know how
tempting that would be,’ he said. ‘So I’ll hold on to this for now. Cole
Webster is going to take your place in Anshan. He can’t be punished if he’s
dead.’
I stared at him for
a moment. Considering punching him and taking my gun back. But not all that
seriously. Of all the things I’d done today, that would probably be the most
stupid.
Instead, I held the
data chip up to my eye. It just looked like a thin piece of clear plastic or
glass. On it was the key to Webster’s downfall. Even if the data had been
erased by the person who took it, DeMartino and the UPSF would be able to
retrieve it. I was sure it hadn’t been erased though. Because after seeing the
fast-forwarded recording on the enforcer’s datapad, I knew who’d cut it out of
the girl.
‘I’ll take that, Mr.
Mason,’ DeMartino said. He’d given me enough to time to stare at my salvation.
Now he wanted it. ‘I’ll pull the data off it and send it to the agency tech
guys. I’ll send my pilot back with it if necessary.’
‘You go on,’ I told
him. Carefully handed him the chip. It probably wasn’t as fragile as it looked.
‘I’m going to stay a minute.’
DeMartino handed me
an inch long rectangle with a soft blob on one side. A comm unit.
‘So I can contact
you when the information is decrypted,’ he said. More like so he could track me
and make sure I didn’t go after Webster alone. I wasn’t about to do something
that stupid. ‘And when we bring Webster in.’
‘I assume he got
away from the Lakeside Rooms?’
‘I got a call after
you left the car,’ DeMartino nodded. ‘Webster’s men were all killed, but his
body wasn’t there. Nor was his car.’
‘Shame.’
DeMartino was about
to walk away when a thought seemed to hit him.
‘What did that
enforcer say to you?’ he asked. ‘You seemed to be talking for a while. Anything
important?’
‘He wanted me to
work for them.’ I smiled.
‘And you said no?’
He smiled too, but he was mostly serious. ‘Why did he think you’d agree to
that?’
‘Money,’ I told
him. ‘And a nice tie.’
DeMartino
considered me for a moment. I could feel his eyes boring into me.
‘And you still said
no,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You know what?’
‘Let me guess.’ I
turned to him. ‘You like me.’
DeMartino grinned.
Produced one of his out of place cigars from inside his pristine jacket and
stuck it in his mouth. Then he turned and walked away.
I watched him until
he was out of sight.
‘What happened to
the girls?’ I asked the gorilla.
He didn’t reply.
Didn’t move. I wondered for a moment if the bullet wounds had finally done
their job. But when I walked closer, I could hear the ragged out-breaths
through what was left of his nose.
I knew I’d regret
it the moment I left the club, but I took off my suit jacket. Emptied the pockets,
then carefully laid it over Van. The gorilla scrutinised my every move. He’d
got tenser with each step I took towards his boss. Practically hovered over his
seat when I reached out. But he relaxed a bit when he saw what I was doing.
I made sure I
looked sadder than I was when I turned back to him. I opened my mouth to tell
him I was sorry for his loss. But that just wasn’t me. I couldn’t make myself
say it. Would have sounded forced anyway.
‘You should
probably leave,’ I said instead. ‘More of these assholes will turn up at some
point. When they realise something’s wrong.’
He still said
nothing. His face still didn’t betray a thing.
There was no point
in me saying anything else. I certainly wasn’t going to try to drag him out. If
he wanted to stay then that was his problem. Besides, he probably wouldn’t take
kindly to it.
‘At least find the
first aid kit for those,’ I said, pointing at the bullet wounds. Two were in
the arm but one was in his chest. I guessed at least that one had been fired
from a fair distance otherwise not even he would have still been standing.
I headed down the
other passageway. It was the same in the other direction. The same rooms full
of the same tables, chairs, beds and implements. Except the last one. That was
full of bodies. About six or seven. I recognised one of them as the bouncer
who’d taken my gun earlier.
In his left jacket pocket,
I found the pistol. I checked the cylinder. Empty. I tucked it into my waistband.
The door at the top
of the stairs took me back into the reception area. I opened the front door.
Carefully. A hail of gunfire would be just my luck at this point. This close to
the end of my bad day. But there was none. The street was empty except for some
woman letting herself into a building on the corner of the block.
The rain was still driving
into the tarmac like…no, I didn’t want to use bullets as an analogy. I’d had
enough of those things. My clothes were just starting to dry out now and I was
damned if I was going to walk all the way home in that rain. Instead, I closed
the door again and walked into the little room. There was a comm unit bolted to
the wall and the numbers of the city’s two cab firms scrawled on the paint
beside it. I ordered a cab to pick me up at the corner of the block.
THIRTEEN
| MY BEST COAT
The cops posted outside my
apartment had gone now. DeMartino must have dismissed them.
I felt lighter. Not
back to normal though. After today, I might never be back to normal. But I’d
feel better when Webster was behind bars or in the ground. No matter what those
off-worlders had planned for Harem, it didn’t involve me. My bad day ended when
Webster’s freedom did.
I paid for the cab.
Felt generous enough to let him keep the change. Inside, I noticed a puddle of
water outside apartment three. I’d buy him a new umbrella for Christmas. If I
remembered. In some effort to feel a little closer to normal, I checked my mailbox.
Nothing. That helped. That was normal.
When I reached my
floor, I realised that normality was further away than I thought. Shouldn’t
have been surprised. Outside my apartment stood my best trench coat. It still
contained the girl. I stopped at the top of the stairs. I was tempted to turn
and walk back down and out into the street. Go to a diner and hope she’d be
gone by the time I returned.