A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4)

by Mike Resnick

  Kinoshita looked at the men and alien Nighthawk had indicated. "How can you tell?" he asked. "They were here when we arrived."

  "The men put their mexalite away the second he entered," answered Nighthawk softly. "And the Mollutei checked his holster to make sure the strap was off his pulse gun. They're on duty now."

  "They haven't given him a second look."

  "They're here to protect him, not shoot him. They've been studying everyone else in the room."

  "What if you're wrong?" asked Kinoshita.

  "Then he gets to enjoy a few drinks and maybe some mexalite, and live a few hours longer."

  Bellamy sat down at a table near the door and signaled to Minx, who brought him a bottle and half a dozen sticks of mexalite without asking what he wanted. He shoved a wad of notes down her neckline and gave her bottom a familiar pat as she walked away.

  During the next ten minutes a man and a Canphorite each entered Horatio's, walked directly over to Bellamy's table, sat down and conversed with him in low tones. They handed him various currencies, got up, and walked out.

  "This must be his office," observed Kinoshita.

  "Makes sense," agreed Nighthawk. "Why let anyone know where he lives? Better to meet them here, where he's got men protecting his back."

  "It can't be that hard to find out where he sleeps," said Kinoshita. "You could just follow him back to his hotel, or wherever it is he's staying."

  Nighthawk regarded his companion as a teacher would look at a very slow child. "He won't take a direct route to his rooms," he said. "And he'll have three or four more gunmen posted along the way, just in case someone's stupid enough to follow him."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "Because he's survived long enough to be worth six million credits," said Nighthawk. "You don't have to be a bounty hunter to claim the reward. Anyone who works for him could stick a bullet in his ear, or burn a hole between his eyes and turn the body in. Most of them wouldn't hesitate a second if they thought they could get away with it. The fact that he's still alive means he knows how to protect himself."

  "Then he'll be protected the second he steps outside," said Kinoshita.

  "Probably," agreed Nighthawk.

  "We should come up with a course of action, then," said Kinoshita.

  "We aren't doing anything. I am."

  "I'm willing to help," protested Kinoshita. "I'm no Widowmaker, but I was pretty good at my work."

  "Pretty good won't be enough, not here in the District," said Nighthawk. "I can't face him and whoever's waiting for him if I have to worry about you too."

  "You don't have to concern yourself with me. I can take care of myself."

  "In most places, against most men, I'm sure you can," said Nighthawk. "But not here, and not now."

  "But—"

  "If you want to help, stay here after he and I leave, and make sure the two guns and the Mollutei don't come out after me. If they do, they're your responsibility."

  "All three?" asked Kinoshita, unable to hide his nervousness.

  "If they're here in the District there's paper on them," replied Nighthawk. "Just remember that it's not a sporting contest. Stick a beam or a bullet in each one before he knows you're there."

  Kinoshita swallowed hard and nodded his assent.

  "Good," said Nighthawk. "Now let's order something before Bellamy notices that we're not drinking or smoking." He signaled to Minx.

  "You didn't seem to care about that before," commented Kinoshita.

  "Bellamy wasn't here before."

  "The others were."

  "The others don't matter," said Nighthawk, making no attempt to hide his contempt for them.

  Minx approached them, and Nighthawk ordered a bottle of Cygnian cognac. She returned a moment later with the bottle and two glasses.

  "Thanks," said Nighthawk, handing her a roll of Maria Theresa dollars.

  She counted it, smiled, and handed him two sticks of mexalite.

  "I didn't ask for that," he said.

  "I know—but you paid too much for the drinks."

  She walked away before he could argue.

  "She must be the owner," Nighthawk he remarked to Kinoshita as he put the mexalite in a pocket. "Or at least living with him. I can't imagine any other reason for her to make sure we didn't feel cheated."

  Kinoshita examined the bottle. "This looks like the real stuff." He smiled. "I don't think I've ever had Cygnian cognac before."

  "It's just for show. Take tiny sips, and not a lot of them. It's stronger than you think."

  They nursed their drinks in silence for the better part of a half hour. The Hesporite took a brief break, then returned and began playing an evocative melody on the sax-like instrument again.

  "He could spend the next few hours here," whispered Kinoshita.

  "I doubt it."

  "Why?"

  "When you've got as many men after your head as Bellamy's got, you don't want to be predictable. He's probably got six to ten joints just like this where he makes his contacts and does his business. He'll be leaving soon."

  "You're sure?"

  Nighthawk didn't even bother to answer him.

  Kinoshita dwelled on the comparison Nighthawk had made between the young athlete and the older one. Jeff was simply the best: he didn't plan, didn't analyze, didn't try to stack the odds in his favor. He saw his prey, he confronted it, and he killed it, seemingly without effort. Nighthawk, like the aging athlete, had lost half a step. Maybe he could still take anyone but Jeff, maybe he couldn't, but he saw no reason not to use everything he'd learned, every observation he'd made in his long career, to better the odds. Jeff and Newman had been created to be the Widowmaker, but Nighthawk had had to learn the job from the ground up, step by step, and he never stopped learning.

  "There he goes," said Nighthawk as the bald man got up, threw some more money on the table, and walked to the door. "Don't follow me out unless his flunkies do."

  Only you would think of skilled bodyguards as flunkies, reflected Kinoshita.

  Nighthawk got to his feet, went to the airlift, and reached the street no more then twenty seconds behind Bellamy. He didn't follow the huge man until he'd scanned the area, spotted a man loitering half a block away and a Lexonian sitting in the middle of the street a block in the opposite direction, swaying drunkenly with a bottle in its hands.

  Bellamy turned to his left and continued walking. Nighthawk's hand dropped to the butt of his projectile pistol, then moved to his burner. No sense making an identifying bang in enemy territory; the hum of a laser would attract a lot less attention. He drew the burner and aimed it, not at Bellamy, but at the Lexonian. The beam was straight and true, and the alien keeled over without a sound.

  For a huge man Bellamy's reactions were incredibly fast. Without seeing the source of the laser beam he hurled himself between two buildings, firing his pulse gun in Nighthawk's general direction as he did so. Nighthawk knew that it would take Bellamy a couple of seconds to right himself and aim his weapon properly, and he used that time to spin and take out the loiterer, who was trying to draw his weapon when the beam burned a black smoking hole in his forehead.

  "Who the hell are you?" demanded Bellamy from the darkness.

  Nighthawk didn't answer. There was no sense wasting words or letting the huge man home in on their sound. He knew he couldn't wait more than a few seconds for Bellamy to emerge, because there was every chance that he'd follow the narrow corridor between the buildings and escape into the next block.

  Taking a deep breath, Nighthawk stepped between the buildings, crouched down in case a pulse of energy was coming toward his head or heart, and put a beam down the middle of the corridor. In the brief instant that it illuminated the area, he was unable to spot Bellamy.

  The corridor was about thirty yards long, and he was sure Bellamy couldn't have covered that distance, not with those muscle-bound legs. That meant the bald man had ducked into an alcove while he was planning his next move.

&
nbsp; All right, thought Nighthawk. Let's make sure you don't go out the back.

  He aimed his burner at the path between the buildings and melted the last ten yards of it. It would be an hour before it was cool enough to run across, and he was sure that a man of Bellamy's bulk couldn't jump it.

  He considered melting the rest of the corridor, but decided against it. If he made the whole thing too hot to cross, there was no way he could flush Bellamy out or go in after him. He was content to wait; the red-hot molten pavement had to be making Bellamy very uncomfortable.

  It took less than a minute. Then Bellamy's voice called out: "Okay, you win—I'm coming out!"

  "Toss the pulse gun out first," said Nighthawk.

  "I'm in an awkward spot. I can't throw it that far."

  "Toss it onto the burning pavement."

  The pistol flew out, making a splash of red-hot sparks.

  "Now the two weapons you had tucked in your belt."

  "I've only got one," called Bellamy.

  "Hunt around for the other," said Nighthawk. "I've got all night."

  Two more splashes.

  "Can I come out now? I'm burning up."

  "Hands behind your head, one step every three seconds."

  The huge man slowly emerged from the corridor, his massive fingers interlaced behind his head.

  "Who the hell are you?" he asked once again.

  "Just a morally outraged citizen," said Nighthawk. "Turn around."

  Bellamy turned around slowly.

  "Okay, I don't see any more weapons," said Nighthawk. "You can put your hands down."

  "How did you spot my men?" asked Bellamy.

  "The Lexonian had a bottle."

  "So?"

  "They're desert creatures," answered Nighthawk. "Any liquid, even water, is poison to their systems. And if he wasn't drinking, then he was on duty."

  "And the man?"

  "I wasn't sure about him. But even if he was working for you, he wasn't going to shoot anyone walking out of Horatio's just for the hell of it, so I took the Lexonian first, and he was so startled I had time to take him too before he even got his weapon out."

  "You're not bad for an old man."

  "Correction," said Nighthawk. "I'm damned good for an old man."

  "Yes you are," admitted Bellamy. "But you'll never get off New Barcelona alive."

  "I'm not leaving it at all," said Nighthawk. "But you are. Dead or alive—it's your call."

  Suddenly Bellamy smiled. "I don't think so." He took a step forward.

  "Your next step's your last one," Nighthawk warned him.

  This time Bellamy laughed out loud. He took another step, Nightawk fired his laser at the huge man's chest—and nothing happened.

  "Nice try, old man," he said. "You're every bit as good as you think you are—but this is Hairless Jack Bellamy you're up against."

  Nighthawk fired again. Still no effect.

  "You think I was born looking like this?" said Bellamy. "This isn't my skin. It's all artificial."

  "If it's impervious to pain, why did you run and why did the heat drive you out?"

  "I ran because I have good instincts—after all, I wasn't born with this skin—and you should have figured out by now that the heat didn't bother me at all. I just wanted to get a look at you, learn who you are and what you have against me, before I kill you." He smiled. "I'll tell you something else. My new skin is more than impervious to pain—it's invulnerable. Nothing can harm me!"

  "Bullshit," said Nighthawk. "I've counted five bodyguards so far. An invulnerable man wouldn't need any."

  He pulled his projectile pistol and fired at Bellamy's head. He could hear the thunk! of the bullet as it hit—but then the misshapen metal simply bounced off.

  Bellamy walked toward him, and Nighthawk aimed his laser at the street, turning the pavement a brilliant red-gold in front of the huge man, who laughed and walked right across it.

  When Bellamy was six feet away Nighthawk changed the setting on his burner from kill to flash, closed his eyes, and pressed the firing mechanism. The resultant brilliance momentarily blinded the unsuspecting giant, and he staggered off, rubbing his eyes.

  Think! Nighthawk told himself. Use your brain! You've bought yourself fifteen or twenty seconds before he gets his vision back. Don't waste it!

  Nighthawk stared at Bellamy. There's got to be a way or he wouldn't have bodyguards. So where's his vulnerability? Burners don't hurt him. Bullets don't hurt him. How do you penetrate that artificial skin?

  And suddenly he saw the answer. You don't penetrate it at all! If you can't hurt him from the outside, you do it from the inside. Quick, now, before he can see again!

  Nighthawk stepped forward, pulled the two sticks of mexalite from his pocket, and crammed them into the giant's nostrils. Bellamy opened his mouth to breathe—and the second he did so, Nighthawk stuck the muzzle of his burner into Bellamy's mouth, past the invulnerable epidermis, and fired. The huge man collapsed without a sound.

  Nighthawk was still standing there next to Bellamy's body when Kinoshita finally emerged from Horatio's. The smaller man spotted the dead gunman half a block in one direction, the dead Lexonian a block in the other direction, and the corpse of Hairless Jack Bellamy right in front of him.

  Nighthawk looked up as he approached. "I'm really getting a little old for this shit," he said.

  9.

  "What do we do now?" asked Kinoshita, staring at the three bodies.

  "Get some airsleds and cart them off," replied Nighthawk.

  "Cart them where? There's no bounty station on New Barcelona."

  "We'll get some body bags and ship them to the station on Binder X."

  "Right now?"

  "I don't plan to leave them on the street all night," said Nighthawk. "Scare up some airsleds. I'll stay here with the bodies. I'm better able to protect them than you are."

  "Protect them?" asked Kinoshita, puzzled. "Protect them from what?"

  "From claim jumpers," answered Nighthawk.

  "All right," said Kinoshita. "I'll be back in a few minutes. I'll try to hunt up some body bags too, or at least get some blankets to cover them up."

  "Don't bother. Just bring the airsleds."

  "You don't want body bags?"

  "I want everyone to see who we've got here, and to know who killed him."

  Kinoshita frowned. "Are you sure that's a good idea? You'll be making yourself a target for every killer in the District. Bellamy may not have had any friends, but nobody's going to want word to get out that bounty hunters can come here and live long enough to collect the rewards."

  "It'll save me the trouble of hunting for them," said Nighthawk. Suddenly the trace of a smile played about his lips. "Besides, I'm an old man. I tire easily."

  Kinoshita took another look at the devastation surrounding him and declined to reply. Instead he walked off in search of the sleds.

  Nighthawk leaned against a building and lit a smokeless cigar. A woman crossed the street half a block beyond the fallen Lexonian, but paid no attention to it. A moment later two men turned the corner and found themselves confronting Bellamy's huge body.

  "Son of a bitch!" muttered one, walking over to it. "Is that who I think it is?"

  "It's got to be," said the other. "How many bald seven-footers do you know?"

  "Is he dead?"

  "Sure as hell looks like."

  The first man leaned over the corpse. "I wonder if he was carrying any cash."

  "Don't touch him," said Nighthawk.

  Both men jumped, startled.

  "I didn't see you there," said the first man.

  "How the hell did you kill him?" asked the second. "I thought he couldn't be hurt."

  "You thought wrong," said Nighthawk. "So did he."

  "Did you do the other two?" asked the second man, gesturing toward the other dead human and the Lexonian.

  "Yes."

  "You must have had one hell of a grudge against them," said the man.

&nb
sp; "Can you think of any other reason to kill someone?" replied Nighthawk.

  "One."

  "Forget it," said the first man. "This is the District. There's no law here, no bounty hunters, nothing. Besides, he's an old man."

  "He's an old man I've never seen here before, and suddenly Hairless Jack Bellamy is dead. Take a good hard look at him. Have you ever seen him before? Ever see his face on a Wanted poster?"

  "I don't give a damn if he's one of us or one of them," said the first man. "I just want to know why we can't divide the spoils."

  He reached down toward Bellamy's pocket, then froze when he heard the click of Nighthawk's pistol.

  "Show a little respect for the dead," said Nighthawk.

  "You didn't have much respect for him when he was alive," said the man.

  Nighthawk made no reply but simply stared at him, and the man slowly straightened up.

  "Come on," said his companion. "Let's go."

  "He's an old man and there are two of us."

  "There were three of them," said the second man, indicating the bodies, "and one of them was Jack Bellamy. Let's go."

  "All right," said the first man unhappily. He turned to Nighthawk. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

  "I'm the guy who's not going to let you pick Jack Bellamy's pockets."

  "Have you at least got a name?"

  "I've had a lot of names in my life," replied Nighthawk, "Out here on the Frontier people change names the way they change clothes."

  "You got any I'd know?"

  "Maybe one—the Widowmaker."

  "The hell you are. I heard there's a new Widowmaker on the Inner Frontier, and he's a young guy."

  "Talking people like you out of suicide has aged me," said Nighthawk.

  "Suicide?" asked the second man.

  "Your friend's inching his hand toward a gun he's got tucked in the back of his belt," said Nighthawk. "He's got about two more inches before I have to send for another airsled."

  The first man froze.

  "We're through talking," said Nighthawk. "Start walking."

  "We're on our way," said the second man quickly, keeping his hands in plain view, well out from his body. "We don't want any trouble." As he passed Nighthawk, he stopped and added, "If you're smart, you'll get the hell out of the District before anyone knows you were here."