He had hoped that the interview with Hoenveld on Tuning In With Tuning would have satisfied the crazies and conspiracy buffs enough to keep them off his doorstep. No such luck.
Diamond crawled up on Grego’s lap to watch the screen and Grego absently started stroking the soft fur of the Fuzzy’s head.
“Why Big Ones look angry, Pappy Vic?” Diamond asked.
Grego tried to think of a simple answer and gave up. Besides,he suspected after two years of associating with humans the Fuzzies understood more than they let on.
“Some unwise Big Ones showed pictures on the screen of the, um, bones we found. Now these people want to see the bones for themselves.”There, simple and to the point.
“Do Big Ones want to help?” Diamond asked. “Maybe know what bones are?”
“No, Diamond,” Grego said, shaking his head. “These are amateurs, um, less wise Big Ones who know a little but…”
Know a little!
Grego’s mind kicked into high gear. Some amateurs accomplished some pretty amazing things in the past. Forrest Mims III was an amateur scientist and won an award for developing a miniature instrument that measured the ozone layer back in First Century A.E. ‘Amateur’ did not mean ‘stupid.’ Maybe somebody in that crowd might be good for something other than blocking the entrance. Grego decided not to fire the photo-takers after all. Just demote them. Grego put in a call down to Chief Steefer.
“Yes, sir?” As usual, the Chief ’s uniform was parade-perfect on the screen.
“Chief, do you have enough bodies to talk with those protestors and see if any of them know anything about paleontology?”
Steefer didn’t even look away to pretend he was checking. As usual, he knew exactly who he had and what was available. “Certainly. You think some of those mutts outside might be useful?”
“It can’t hurt to ask them. Hey! Also, see if there are any amateur linguists out there.”
The Chief smiled and nodded. “I’ll have Glazier, Matedne and Schröter bring in candidates three at a time and do background checks on them. I should have a list of potentials in a few hours. Will that be quick enough?”
“More than quick enough.” Another idea struck the CEO. “I’llhave Dr. Mallin sit in on the interviews. Maybe he can weed out the nut-jobs while your men do their thing. And see if they will consent to veridication.”
The chief nodded and screened off. Grego turned to his Fuzzy.
“Diamond, I think we need to make you a company officer. Division head of the common sense department.”
Diamond didn’t ask if it was good to eat; he had been around the corporate world enough in the last two years to know better. “Is much fun?” the Fuzzy asked.
Grego laughed. More company heads should have a Fuzzy to help them run things.
* * * * * * * * *
Ivan Dane sat in his office watching the morning broadcast on CZCN and wondered if he was the favored son of some ancient deity. A rival network was handing him the planet on a silver platter.
“The sale of Zeta Continent, which will put three hundred million sols in the colonial treasury, will be off-limits to all civilian personnel. According to the Chartered Zarathustra Company CEO Victor Grego, the area would be dangerous for everyone except the trained and experienced miners that have also bought the mining rights to Zeta for a paltry two hundred million sols.”
The broadcast went on with an interview of Ben Rainsford endorsing the sale; however, Dane was not paying any more attention. He was dancing around his desk humming a tune. He was still dancing when Murdock and Lundgren entered the office.
“Havin’ a party?” Murdock asked.
Dane stopped dancing to catch his breath. “Soon, Brandon, soon!” He quickly outlined the high points of the broadcast.
“So?”
“Ghu, how can you be so dense?” Dane yelled at the ceiling.
Murdock clenched his fists and Lundgren quickly stepped between them. “Brandon, let Dane explain. Then you can beat him up.”
Murdock glared at Dane over Lundgren’s shoulder, and then backed away. “This better be real good.”
Dane, too excited to realize how close he’d come to being beaten half to death, pointed at the viewscreen with a look of unholy glee.“Rainsford just sold an entire continent to a bunch of outsiders from Ghu-knows-where. Moreover, Grego sold these same outsiders the mining interests on Zeta for a pittance.”
Murdock was unimpressed. “Again, so what?”
Dane mentally counted to ten as he reminded himself that Murdock was brought in for his brawn and knowledge of underworld management, not for his questionable intelligence. “Since the day this planet became reclassified as a Type IV Inhabited world, people have been hoping to get rich on the unseated lands, and would have done so had Rainsford and Grego not brokered a deal that gave all those unseated lands back to the CZC for the next millennium. People don’t like to have money dangled in front of them and then snatched away just as they reach out to grab it. Now, out of the blue, an off-world consortium buys up an entire continent. An. Entire. Continent. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land denied to the existing population and handed over to a bunch of mysterious foreigners. I couldn’t have come up with a better scenario if I tried.
“My editorial tonight on B.I.N. will crucify both Rainsford and Grego. Darloss being trashed by Hoenveld doesn’t matter, now. It’s all over except drowning the kittens. By the end of the week even the legislature will be signing the petitions for a recall vote.”
Murdock nodded, then said, “That’s no guarantee u’re gonna be elected gov’ner. I know enough politics to know ya can’t depend on the public to do what ya want. There’ll be a new crop of candidates ten minutes after the recall’s passed.”
There must be a brain inside that thick skull after all, Dane thought. “True enough, but we have an edge on all of them. First of all, I’ve been campaigning for the job with every editorial I broadcast for the last two months. I’m already in everybody’s mind as a candidate. Secondly, I have all of Bowlby’s files and tapes. He had quite the little blackmail operation going on as a sideline to his entertainment business. Every person who engaged the services of one of his prostitutes or bought his drugs ended up on a video feed. Lundgren here identified no less than twenty-three members of the legislature as having used such services. They will back me to the hilt…or else.”
“There are a lot more people besides those in the legislature on those feeds,” Lundgren added. “People in positions of influence that can be made to work for us.”
“The only thing missing are shots of Rainsford, Brannhard or Grego doing something illegal or immoral,” Dane said. “That kind of publicity would bury them. Either they’re monks or they chase their secretaries around the desk. Well, not Grego. I’ve seen his secretary.”
“Dummy up some shots?” Murdock said. “Maybe even have them doin’ somethin’ really weird.”
“Oh, I could do that, easily enough, but Grego surely has people in his employ who would catch the fakery and prove it,” Lundgrenexplained. “We couldn’t air it on B.I.N. without being sued later, either.”
“So what? Once the feeds are out there most yucks will believe what they see an’ ignore any evidence that they’re fake.” Murdock took a seat. “An’ ya could dump it on the data stream where every basement-dweller on-planet will find it while lookin’ for porn.”
Dane sat on the edge of his desk and considered the idea. “That’s not bad. Not bad at all. We’ll keep it in reserve until the night before theelection. That way they won’t have time to refute the evidence. Timing is everything. Lundgren.”
“I’m on it.” Lundgren left the office whistling an archaic tune the other two men couldn’t identify.
“I’ll finally have them all,” Dane said. “Oh, Murdock, was there something you needed when you came in?”
Murdock stood and stretched for a moment and then said, “Naw, just this.”
He backhanded Dane across
his left cheek nearly knocking him to the floor.
“Next time ya mouth off at me, it won’t be a little love tap. Got it?” Without waiting for a reply, Murdock turned on a heel and strolled out of the room.
“Wait.”
Murdock stopped and half turned to look at Dane. “What?”
He paused to waggle his jaw, just to make sure it wasn’t unhinged. “I have a small job for you. Something I think you might enjoy.” Dane told him what he wanted. As he expected, Murdock liked the idea.
After Murdock left Dane rubbed his cheek and made a mental note to do something unpleasant and permanent to his associate the second he ceased to be of value.
* * * * * * * * *
Murdock left the B.I.N. building from the rear and collected a few men along the way. There could be trouble at The Bitter End and he wanted backup just in case. His hand felt warm from the slap he had given Dane. It was a very satisfying sensation. He had been wanting to hit Dane for the last few weeks but held back. Dane was the boss and one didn’t go around beating up their boss if they wanted to stay healthy, as a rule.
Dane was smart Murdock had to admit that to himself. Getting Thaxter out of jail the way they did was pure genius. Too bad Thaxter got away before Murdock could kill him. That was a loose end and he hated loose ends. Still, odds were Thaxter caught the next hyperspace ship off-planet and headed to parts unknown. That was almost as goodas killing him.
One thing that didn’t seem on the level was the explosion that killed the mining team over on Beta. All of the sunstones and medical data they had collected had been shipped off maybe an hour before the M/E converter, or something, blew the whole operation to Em-See-Square.That was just a little too convenient. Murdock suspected that Dane somehow arranged the accident to get out of paying the miners their cut. Murdock didn’t care much about that, or wouldn’t if Joe Quigley hadn’t been one of the victims. He had liked Joe.
Dane would have to be dealt with, sooner or later, Murdock decided. If he did kill the Beta team, then there was no way of knowing who could be next. Murdock had no intention of it being him.
XX
Ricardo La Rue was not expecting visitors at this time. There had been a few over the last couple of days who needed to have it explained to them that he was now the man in charge, that Laporte had signed over all of his business interests over to him and that he expected the same level of respect and deference originally attributed to his predecessor. A few mild examples had to be made to bring the more reluctant ones into line, but that was to be expected. Once La Rue “explained” that the new boss was the same as the old boss, people quickly fell into line.
La Rue had just finished counting the previous night’s receipts when his desk intercom buzzed. It was Rico, one of his personal bodyguards and assistants.
“Mr. La Rue, there’s a man here to see you,” came Rico’s voice from the speaker. “He says it is about an opportunity you might be interested in.”
Another opportunity. People like that came in all too frequently, usually with some half-assed caper they needed bank-rolled. “What is his name?”
“He didn’t say, but he said the previous owner and his boss worked on a project together.”
That piqued La Rue’s interest. “Very well, send him in.”
La Rue pressed a button that disengaged the deadbolt on the door and it instantly opened. The gentleman who entered had the look of a man familiar with the workings of the underworld. It wasn’t anything he was wearing or any distinguishing features or tattoos; it was the way he moved, the way he took in the room as he entered.
After the door closed, La Rue relocked it and offered his guest a seat.
“I’d rather stand,” the man said. “I’ve been sittin’ all day and need to stretch my legs.”
“I see.” La Rue started getting a bad feeling about his guest. “What can I do for you, Mr.—”
“Murdock. I’m here for Mr. Dane. He wants that I should tell ya to sell this joint.”
“Oh?” La Rue reached under the desk and grasped the hilt of a knife. “I have only recently acquired this establishment. I very much doubt you could make it worth my while to part with it so soon.”
“Yeah,” Murdock said menacingly, “we kinda thought that would be your attitude. So, we had a back-up plan ready to go in case ya refused to work with us.”
* * * * * * * * *
Marshal Fane was just getting ready to leave his office to have lunch when his viewscreen signaled that he had a call. Muttering a profanity he picked up on Shesha, he went back to his desk and flipped on the screen. Piet Dumont stared out at him.
“Inspector Dumont, how may I be of service?”
“Marshal, I think I found something on our Mr. La Rue,” Piet said. That got the Marshal’s attention. “I did some data stream scanning on the name and came across an article about a B-movie actor from Baldur by the name of Ricardo La Rue. He was a real Lon Chaney type—”
“Who?”
“Lon Chaney,” Piet explained, “The Man of a Thousand Faces back in pre-atomic silent films, and later the talkies.”
“Oh, right.” Max nodded. “He was the Wolfman, right?”
“That was his son, Lon Chaney, Jr., sir.”
To Nifflheim with the history lesson, thought Max. “How does this apply to our Mr. La Rue?”
Piet continued, “La Rue got semi-famous doing B-movie police dramas and gangster films on Baldur. One time he played four parts in the same movie by altering his appearance with stage make-up. He was so good at it that he even fooled the director during most of the film. He was about to break into the big time when he was caught fooling around with a major producer’s wife. That killed his career. The producer got him blackballed with every movie studio on the planet. Probably throughout the Federation.”
“Okay…?”
“Here’s the thing that caught my attention, though; one of the parts he played was that of a crime boss by the name of…get this…Raul Laporte. I don’t think this is a coincidence, Marshal.”
Max stared at the screen for several seconds without moving a muscle or saying a word. Piet couldn’t even tell if he was breathing through the video feed.
“Raul Laporte,” Max finally said. “Did this article have any pictures?”
“You bet, Marshal.” Piet disappeared from the screen to be replaced by two side-by-side photos. The left one was the spitting image of the missing Raul Laporte, complete with handlebar mustache and reddish scar on the left side of his face. On the right was the face of the man they had sitting in the interview room just a few days earlier.
“My god, man!” the Marshal screamed, “Why aren’t you over there arresting him, already?”
“And leave you out of it? I figured you would hang me by my thumbs if I denied you the pleasure of being in on the arrest.”
Max admitted to himself that Piet was probably right. Instead, he said, “Hang you? If you weren’t so damned ugly I’d kiss your ass! Get a team together and meet me on the roof right away.”
“On it, Marshal!”
Forget getting a sandwich from the commissary, I’m going to have Raul Laporte for lunch.
* * * * * * * * *
For the second time that week Piet led a team into The Bitter End. Unlike the first time they met with no resistance. Once Piet was satisfied the lounge was secure, he allowed the Marshal to come into the building.
“Where is everybody?” asked the Marshal.
“The restaurant opens around 1600, I think,” Piet said. “They never did any lunch business, as far as I know.”
“Not legal business, you mean.” Max looked around the empty room. “Still, according to your report there were armed men in the lounge when you stormed in last time.”
“They might be upstairs in a meeting,” Piet said thoughtfully. “That collapsium-lined office of Laporte’s would keep anybody from hearing us bust in.”
“He would still have vid surveillance, though,” the Marshal s
aid. “They might be making a break for it.”
Piet swore. “Damn. Chang, Matedne. Check the other exits. Van Damme, York: you’re with me. The rest of you go through this entire building and bring anybody or anything you find back here to the lounge. Let’s go.”
Piet led the charge up the stairs to Laporte’s office with Max, breathing heavily from the exertion of moving his considerable bulk to keep up, bringing up the rear.
“I gotta join a gym,” muttered the Marshal between gasps.
“I can recommend a good one, Marshal,” Piet shot back. The inspector had no trouble running up the stairs.
Unlike their previous visit, the collapsium-laminated door to Laporte’s office was ajar. York took one side while Piet took the other and van Damme pushed the door open and jumped back out of the line of fire. Kicking the door open the way it was done in the Tri-Ds would have resulted in serious injury; collapsium was a very unforgiving mistress.
Piet counted three on his left hand, then he and York rushed into the room with their assault rifles at the ready. They need not have bothered. On the floor were five men lying in a spreading pool of blood. Across the table was Ricardo La Rue. Piet pressed two fingers to La Rue’s carotid artery, then shook his head in negation.
“You can come in, Marshal, but mind where you step,” Piet called out.
Max entered the room and his eyes went immediately to the body on the desk. “Dead?” Piet nodded. “The son-of-a-bitch got away from me again.”
“You could say that,” Piet agreed. “He’s holding a bowie knife with some blood on it.”
“He got a piece of the citizen that killed him, eh?” Max gingerly walked around the bodies on the floor and carefully avoided the spreading pool of blood. “The ones on the floor look like they were shot, but I don’t see any holes in La Rue, Laporte, whatever his real name is. Hmm…no blood trail, either. Wound is either small or just soaking into the clothes, or the killer had some sort of wrap or binding on it.”
Piet examined La Rue’s body more closely. “From the angle of his head and bruising on the neck I would hazard to say his neck was broken…by somebody who knew how. Ex-military would be my guess.”
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