“You never went after them?” Hammer asked.
“Why?” I said. “What good would it do? Mitsuhama buried their tracks too well. It was pure chance that I found the records of the black-ops nuyen paid to the gangers. Taking on a whole megacorp would have been pure suicide, and I was pretty sick of revenge already.”
I thought of the Asphalt Rats on fire, the smell of burning hair and burning flesh. I remembered standing at the end of the alley and watching them burn. My appetite was suddenly gone. I set down my fork.
“Well.” Boom spoke up, breaking the moment of silence. “We do know the Hiramatsu-
gumi
and Mitsuhama are involved, and that, along with some social wizardry on the part of yours truly, gives us the in we need to call in some extra help.”
Kelly’s was an old-fashioned Irish pub in South Boston, the kind of place where I would have hung out as a street kid fifteen or so years ago. Just walking in the door brought back memories of my old turf and all of the people I used to know. The interior was dimly lit and smelled strongly of smoke, scotch whiskey, and sweat. It was an honest place, with no pretense of being anything other than what it was.
Even in the late afternoon, many of the tables were occupied. The regulars looked at us with no small amount of suspicion and distrust, but they carefully minded their own business. I’m sure the presence of the big troll watching my back had a lot to do with it.
I walked over to the bar and ordered a couple of beers, slapping some scrip on the countertop to cover them, along with a generous tip. The bartender took the bills without comment and waved us toward a table in the back of the room. I sat where I could see the length of the pub and keep an eye on the door. Boom sat watching the rear area. The beer was good, and made me realize how much I missed some parts of my old life in Boston.
“You should probably let me do the talking at first, term.” Boom said. His Cockney accent was back in evidence, although I suspected it would disappear again when there was a need. “The man’s interested, but he doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall. I think I can get on his good side.”
“Okay.” I said. “I’ll leave it to your courtly charms. I’m still impressed you managed to set up this meeting.”
“We’ve got something he’s interested in.” the troll said. “And I’ve done him a few favors in the last couple of years. He owes me at least this much.” It was still so hard to think of Boom as a fixer, dealing in favors, services, and information, rather than as the down and dirty shadowrunner I used to know.
The door of the pub opened and a dark figure appeared, silhouetted for a moment against the brightness outside. He scanned the room before allowing the door to swing closed. Even in the dimness, he wore a pair of dark shades that I was sure covered cybereyes capable of adjusting to any level of gloom. His suit was dark and conservative, neatly pressed, with creases sharp enough to shave with. The cut of the jacket almost completely concealed the slight bulge of the holster under his arm. I wondered for a moment if he and Boom frequented the same tailor.
He walked up to the table with purpose in his stride. I felt Boom tense slightly beside me and I did the same, ready for the possibility of a double-cross, but none came. The razorboy looked us over from behind his shades.
He said simply, “My boss is waiting.”
Boom and I exchanged a look, then rose and followed the razorboy out of the pub. Parked in front was a dark Rolls Royce Phaeton limousine, its engine running. The back door opened silently and Boom gestured toward it.
“After you.” he said. The Cockney accent was gone, replaced by one that was more an amalgam of the faint Irish and Italian accents found in South Boston. I climbed into the car, followed by the troll. It was a bit of a tight fit for Boom, even in the spacious interior of a Phaeton. A smoked glass barrier separated the back of the limo from the front. The door closed behind Boom and, a moment later, the car pulled smoothly away from the curb.
Seated in the back of the limousine was an elf with dark hair neatly slicked back from a high forehead, falling just short of the white collar of his shirt. He wore a dark suit and a green and gold silk tie worked with Celtic knot patterns. As with many elves, it was nearly impossible to guess his age. He hovered in that ageless elven range between twenty and who knows how old. His green eyes, however, were mature and his gaze steady. He took us in carefully, sizing us up.
“Gentlemen.” said Conor O’Rilley, the don of the Boston Mafia, “I understand you have some information for me.” His accent was faintly Irish, giving a slight lilt to his vowels.
“That’s right.” Boom said. The troll’s presence seemed to fill the small space as much as his bulk. I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t want to find myself having to negotiate with him in a confined space like this. “It’s about the Hiramatsu-
gumi
’s involvement with Manadyne.”
“I’ve heard.” O’Rilley replied. “Hiramatsu has ties to Mitsuhama here in Boston, and MCT is working with Manadyne on a project.”
“Yes, but it looks like there may be some kind of private deal going on between the yaks and Manadyne.” Boom said. “Whatever it is, you can be sure Hiramatsu is planning to use the leverage to expand yakuza operations in town. That is the New Way, after all.”
O’Rilley’s face darkened. He clearly wasn’t pleased by the idea. Boston was a Mafia stronghold in northeastern UCAS, but the influence of the yakuza was growing just about everywhere, and plenty of Mafia bosses were feeling the pressure.
The New Way was a yakuza movement that had begun along the East Coast, down in New Jersey, with the Honjowara-
gumi
. Honjowara—and their corporate interests, the Nagato Combine—had broken with yakuza tradition by allowing women and metahumans into their ranks. The Honjowara oyabun’s own honor guard was made up of a group of elven adepts specially trained to protect him. The New Way also included embracing magic, something the yakuza had traditionally shunned or treated as an afterthought.
Since the Mafia was often superstitious, they too tended to shun magic and metahumans. Conor O’Rilley was the only metahuman don in the Cosa Nostra, and he knew firsthand the advantages of magic and metahumans in a mob operation. The fact that the Hiramatsu yakuza were catching on to the same idea had to be a concern for him.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
I took the opportunity to speak up. “I have a personal matter to settle. In return for some information, we will pass on whatever we learn about the yakuza and their operation. They, or their allies, have decided to target me for some reason, and I aim to find out why. If the yaks get in the way of the truth, then I'll have to deal with them.”
“Are you asking me to go to war with the yakuza?” O’Rilley said in a tightly controlled voice.
“No. I may be helping you to
avoid
a war with the yaks, at least for now. If Hiramatsu is in with Mitsuhama and they're working on a deal, it can only hurt your position. I want to put a stop to that. In return, I need what you know about the Hiramatsu-
gumi
and their allies.”
O’ Rilley considered for a few seconds, his green elven eyes intent on me. “Well, then.” he said with a pleasant smile. “I’m always willing to help out someone who wants to hurt Hiramatsu. I’ll give you what I have on the yakuza operations in the plex, but if you tangle with the Hiramatsu
-gumi
and they hand you your head, then I never heard of you.”
“Fair enough.” I said.
A few moments later, the limo pulled over. The Don reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and handed me an optical chip. The door of the car opened and Boom climbed out, followed by me.
“A pleasure doing business with you.” I said.
“One more thing.” O’Rilley said with a hint of steel in his tone. “If I find out that my information has gone wandering, you and I will have another . . . talk.”
The Mafia razorboy gave me a wolfish smile as he got into the limo alongside his boss, pulling the door shut. Then the Phaeton pulled away.
* * *
“So, how’d it go?” Trouble asked. I had the visual-feed on my headphone turned off so I could concentrate on
driving while I talked. The East Coast quake of 2005 may
have sparked a lot of urban renewal and renovation in Boston, but the streets were still as tangled and congested as ever, probably more so.
“It went.” I said. “O’Rilley gave us what the Mafia has on the local yakuza, including the Hiramatsu-
gumi
. It’s not a whole lot, but it looks like Hiramatsu is the big fish in the small yakuza pond in Boston. They also have some definite ties to Mitsuhama.”
Rumors about MCT’s ties to the powerful Japanese yakuza clans abounded in the shadows, but Mitsuhama kept a tight lid on such things. No one was able to
prove
that the major backers of the corp were actually mobsters, using Mitsuhama as a legitimate business front to launder some of their ill-gotten gains, a “front” that had grown far beyond any of its founders’ expectations.
“Isogi, the slag who was talking to Garnoff at the party, is Hiramatsu
-sama
’s right-hand man.” I said. “Whatever is going on, the yakuza are in deep on it. How’s it going on your end?”
“Still doing some fishing in the corporate databases. Mitsuhama has seriously upgraded their ice in the past couple of years. Hell, everybody has since Renraku’s network was compromised. It’s made all of the corps ultraparanoid about Matrix security. So far, if MCT knows about any top-secret operations involving Manadyne, they’ve managed to hide the connections pretty well. I’ll keep looking, and hopefully I’ll have something by the time you guys get back.”
“Wizard.” I said. “See you soon.”
“So?” Boom asked when I disconnected the cellular link. “She’s still looking.”
“She’s good. If there’s anything to find, she’ll find it. In the meantime, why don’t you drop me off at the club? I’ll do some more asking around and there’s some other business that’s kind of been piling up.” I realized that, as a fixer, Boom probably had a lot of irons in the fire, not just my problems to worry about.
“Sorry about taking up all your time, chummer.” I said. “Talon, this is me you’re talking to, okay? We’ve put our lives on the line for each other before. There’s nothing else going on that I can’t handle. There aren’t enough people in the shadow-business these days who understand what loyalty means, term. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” I said.
“So.” Boom said, changing the subject as he idly looked out the window of the car. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you about Trouble?”
I nearly swerved into the wrong lane.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Oh, c’mon, Talon! I’m a bloody troll, not an idiot. I’ve made a profitable career out of reading people, you know. I can tell there’s some tension where she's concerned. I can also tell that she likes you ... a lot. What is it about her that bothers you so much?”
I thought about it some before answering.
“Honestly? I just don’t know, chummer. I like her too. She’s a good runner and a good person. There aren’t nearly enough in this line of work. But there’s something else. Something I noticed.”
“What?" Boom asked.
“I’d rather not say until I’m sure.” I said. “It might be nothing. It’s always hard to tell with magic whether you’re seeing something that’s really there or it’s just your imagination getting away with you.”
I glanced over at the concerned expression on my
friend’s face. “Don’t worry. If I figure it out, you’ll be the
first to know.”
“You should probably have a talk with her anyway.”
Boom said.
“Why?”
“Because she’s interested in you, term. Don’t you see it?”
I shrugged. “I dunno what you’re talking about. She’s a lot more charmed by your smooth-talking.”
Boom shook his head. “I don’t think so, Talon. Charming as I may be, I don’t think Trouble is the type who goes for trolls. She’s got her eye on you, mark my words. You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
“No.” I said. “It never came up. It’s not important. This is a professional relationship.”
“I think you might want to mention it.” Boom said. “Before things go any further.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll think about it.” I said. That seemed to satisfy him for the time being.
I dropped Boom off and he promised to come by the safe house later. When I got back there, Trouble was sitting on the couch, jacked into her deck. I hoped she was making more progress that I had and went to the little tabletop fridge to get something to drink. You don’t disturb a decker while she’s working any more than you mess around with a mage while he’s doing magic. It was best to leave the experts alone to do their thing.
A gasp from Trouble almost made me drop my can of Tribal Tropics. I saw her muscles tense up for a second as her fingers flew faster across the deck’s keyboard. Frag. Was it ice? Was it dangerous? For a split second I thought of jacking her out, but decided that would probably do more harm than good. Trouble was a grown-up and she knew what she was doing.
So
fraggin'
much of shadowrunning involved watching over a chummer’s meatbody while he was off doing something in cyberspace, astral space, or remote-land without you having a clue of what to do if something went wrong. I shifted to my astral senses, hoping they might tell me something if she was in danger from lethal ice or the like.