The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (15 page)

      
"What have we here?" he said. "A carnival of thieves?"

      
"Go away," said Matilda contemptuously. "You don't have anything on me."

      
"I will soon, Tilly," he said.

      
"The name's Matilda, and you can tell me about it when you have it. Now get out of my dressing room."

      
"When I'm ready," he said with a smile. "As it happens, I didn't come for you." He turned to Dante. "Hello, Danny Briggs, alias Dante Alighieri, alias The Rhymer."

      
"All three of us bid you welcome," said Dante with no show of fear or alarm.

      
"Got a nice price on your head, Danny Briggs," continued Legree. "I could blow you away right now and take what's left to the nearest bounty office for the reward."

      
"The nearest office is halfway across the Frontier," said Dante. "I'd spoil."

      
"That wouldn't do either of us any good," said Legree. "Perhaps we should consider alternatives."

      
"I'm always happy to consider alternatives."

      
"What do you do for a living, Danny Briggs?"

      
"My name's Dante, and I'm a poet."

      
Legree made a face. "Poets don't make any money, Danny. You're going to havbe to learn another skill if you want to live." He paused. "Do you rob or kill?"

      
"I write poems about colorful characters like you before history has a chance to forget them."

      
"Damn it, I'm trying to give you a chance to buy your way out of this!" snapped Legree. "Usually I take thirty percent of your earnings for life—but what the hell does a poet earn?"

      
"I'm rich in satisfaction," replied Dante. "I love my work and I have loyal friends. What more does a man need?"

      
Legree shook his head. "No good, Danny. If you know a short prayer, you've just got time to say it."

      
Danny look him in the eye. "I pray that you die quickly and painlessly," he said.

      
And before the words were out of Dante's mouth, Simon Legree blinked and frowned, as if he couldn't quite understand what had just happened. His weapons fell from his hands. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak; nothing came out except a stream of blood.

      
"I
told
you I have loyal friends," said Dante, just before Legree fell to the floor with a knife protruding from his back, and Virgil Soaring Hawk entered the room, stepping over the lawman's corpse.

      
"Ma'am," said Virgil, staring at her with unconcealed lust, "you are unquestionably the most gorgeous creature to grace this forsaken world since the Maker Of All Things set it spinning in orbit."

      
"Matilda, this is Virgil Soaring Hawk," said Dante.

      
"Dante's Virgil at your service." The Injun bent low in a stately bow. "Or the Scarlet Infidel, if you prefer."

      
"The Scarlet Infidel?" she repeated.

      
"It's a long story, ma'am," said Virgil. Suddenly he smiled. "But it's an interesting story, if you've got time to hear it over a couple of drinks."

      
"Leave her alone," Dante said. "She's one of us."

      
"What better reason to initiate her?" said Virgil.

      
"Don't,"
said Dante, and something in his voice made the Injun back off. The poet jerked his head toward Legree. "Get him out of here before someone sees him."

      
Virgil smiled apologetically at Matilda. "If you'll excuse me, ma'am, I'll just pick up this poor gentleman's body and put it somewhere where it won't bother anyone." He lifted Legree's corpse to his shoulder. "If you need anything, ma'am, now or anytime I'm around, just holler."

      
Dante stared at him for a moment, then turned back to Matilda. "If he lays a hand on you, tell me."

      
"I'm not the complaining type," she said. "Anything either of you try to do with me, you do at your own risk."

      
"Fair enough," said Dante.

      
Virgil vanished into the hallway.

      
"He seems to work for you."

      
Dante shrugged. "He attached himself to me the moment he heard my name. He insists that Dante needs a Virgil to get through the hell of the Inner Frontier." He smiled wryly. "So far he's been right."

      
"Does he do anything you ask, or is it limited to killing and disposing of bodies?"

      
"I don't know. I suppose I'll find out someday."

      
An uneasy silence followed, broken at last by Matilda.

      
"I'm sure you have things to do," she said. "You'd better be going."

      
"I will be. We can cover twice as much territory and consider twice as many candidates if we split up. I'll be in touch every week or two until we've finally found our Santiago." He paused. "I'm just giving the Injun a couple of minutes to get the body safely away. Don't let me keep you from doing whatever it is you have to do."

      
"You're not."

      
"Of course not." He smiled, walked over to the window, opened it, and pulled up the bag containing the currency. Matilda surreptitiously picked up a nail file from her vanity and held it behind her back as she watched the poet. He hefted the bag without opening it, then tossed it on her dressing table. "You can drop the knife," he said. "We're partners now—and partners don't rob each other."

      
She placed the file back on the vanity, opened the bag, pulled out the money, checked to see that it was all there, then turned to him.

      
"How did you . . . ?" she began—but Dante Alighieri was already gone.

10.

      
      
He has no future, he has no past,

      
      
His eye is sharp, his gun is fast,

      
      
He lives for the moment, he lives for the kill,

      
      
He's Dimitrios, and he's angry still.

      
Men aren't all cut from the same mold. Many bounty hunters started out as lawmen, and when they decided they were good enough, they went out to Rim or one of the Frontiers to ply their trade for far more money than a lawman makes.

      
Some were outlaws, who decided that killing other outlaws was far more profitable than killing the agents of the law who pursued them.

      
And then there were men like Dimitrios of the Three Burners. No one knew his last name. No one knew where he came from. Some said he grew up on a small world in the Spiral Arm, others say he spent his youth on the Outer Frontier. There was one point where the speculation ended, and that was the day Johnny the Wolf shot his wife and infant daughter. He wasn't aiming for them. In fact, he probably never even knew they were there. He had just finished robbing the bank of Marcellus III, and they blundered between him and the law.

      
Dimitrios had never fired a hand weapon in his life, but he bought a matched set that afternoon, and spent the next hundred days working from sunrise to sunset at becoming proficient with them. When he felt he was ready, he went out hunting for the Wolf, and finally caught up with him in a casino on Banjo, an obscure little world in the Albion Cluster.

      
That fight was the stuff of legends. Dimitrios walked right up to Johnny the Wolf as he sat at a table playing cards, placed the muzzle of his burner in Johnny's ear, and fired. Johnny never knew what hit him—but six of his hired killers did, and Dimitrios shot four of them down before one of his burners shorted out and the other was blown out of his hand. He began throwing whiskey bottles, chairs, spittoons, anything he could get his hands on. The two men were no cowards. They fought back gamely, but they were no match for the vengeful Dimitrios, and within a few minutes of Dimitrios entering the casino the Wolf and all six of his men were dead.

      
Most men would have considered themselves lucky to have survived and returned to their normal lives, but Dimitrios had nothing to return to. He also had the feeling that for the first time in his life, something he'd done had made a difference, that given the geometrical permutations involved, he may have saved as many as a hundred lives by killing those seven murderers, and he decided then and there to go into the bounty hunting business. The first thing he did was buy an extra burner to stuff in his boot, just in case one of the two he wore in holsters should ever short out again, and since he never offered his last name to anyone, before long he was known simply as Dimitrios of the Three Burners.

      
He didn't talk much, socialized even less, rarely drank, never drugged. If he ever felt like hanging it up and going back to his former life, he just forced himself to remember how it felt when he learned his wife and child had been killed, and he re-dedicated himself to preventing others from sharing that terrible, aching emptiness, that undirected hatred at the universe.

      
He wasn't interested in bringing anyone back alive. If the rewards didn't specify Dead or Alive, he ignored them. He was even particular about the types of killers he went after. He much preferred to go after those who had killed unarmed women and defenseless children, and he frequently passed up closer, easier, and far more lucrative prey to go after the ones who fit his criteria.

      
He lived very simply. His clothes were commonplace, even his weapons were not of the best manufacture. His ship was old and unimpressive. Most people felt he was hoarding his rewards. They would have been surprised to know that he kept only enough to live and travel on, and sent the rest to hand-picked charities that gave help and comfort to women who had survived violent attacks and children whose parents had been murdered.

      
He was on Prateep because he'd been given a tip that Hootowl Jacobs was there, but he hadn't seen any sign on him. He'd heard about this new character called the Rhymer, but when he looked into it, he found it far more likely that the Democracy had killed the Duchess than that the young poet had.

      
He knew all about Matilda, too, but he had no interest in bringing her down. In fact, he admired her. He liked the way she drove the Democracy and the Frontier's authorities crazy. He knew that she plundered every world she visited; what impressed him the most was that everyone else knew it too, and no one had been able to prove a thing. He'd stopped by the Diamond Emporium to watch her dance—he'd seen her before, and was intrigued by her combination of grace and athleticism—and to see if there was anyone in the crowd who might point him in the direction of Hootowl Jacobs. As usual, he didn't socialize; there was no one there that he either trusted or respected—there were mighty few of either in the galaxy—and so he simply relaxed and enjoyed his drink.

      
When the show was over, he got to his feet. He'd seen the Rhymer sneak into Matilda's dressing room, but that was no concern of his. He walked two blocks to his hotel, stopped at the bar for a nightcap, and went up to his room.

      
A few minutes later he heard a single knock at the door. He was still dressed, but his weapons, all three of them, were on the dresser. He quickly walked over, grabbed one, and trained it on the door.

      
"Come in," he said, uttering the code words that unlocked it.

      
"Thank you," said Matilda, entering the room. "I think it's time we met."

      
He shrugged. "I know who you are—and I know what you're supposed to have done. Makes no difference to me. As far as I'm concerned, you're free to keep on doing it."

      
She smiled. "That's very comforting."

      
"Is that what you came to find out?" asked Dimitrios.

      
"No."

      
"Then have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?"

      
"No, thanks."

      
"I don't do drugs, and I don't let anyone around me do them," he said.

      
"That's all right. I don't drug."

      
"You're a cheap date," he said, finally lowering the burner and stuffing it in a boot.

      
"I believe in making every credit count."

      
"Really? I've heard that you've got money you haven't even counted yet."

      
"Oh, no—I always count it. How else would I know that I'm not being ripped off?"

      
"I like you, Waltzin' Matilda," said Dimitrios. "I like the way you dance. I like the fact that you drive the Democracy crazy. And now I find that I like your wit." He paused. "But I still don't know what the hell you're doing here."

      
"I want to get to know you."

      
"That's a line I usually hear from some floozy the hotel manager sends up to make sure I don't shoot up the place," he said.

      
"I'm sure it is," she replied. "But I really
do
want to get to know you."

      
"Why?"

      
"Because from everything I hear you're an honorable man, and they're pretty rare."

      
"All right, I'm an honorable man. Now what?"