Muckle was angry. I think he would have taken a swing at me if we were somewhere else. “You understand nothing, Johnson. These people are different. They’re better than your kind.”
“People are people. Good, bad, and benign. People are all some combination of those three. The difference is power, and how that power is used to impact other people. A thug in Midtown who mugs people at the point of a blade affects how many people? The same thug with a billion credits would do what, Muckle? Is he suddenly going to change his stripes and open orphanages?”
“You understand far less than you think, Mr. Johnson,” he said with an edgy voice.
“I already know that,” I said, still smiling. “You understand less than you think as well. A soiree takes place in the evening, little man. This is lunch.”
“Fuck you, Johnson. You’ll never understand,” he spat before he stormed away red-faced.
Fell was right about Muckle’s hot button issue, and I always felt buttons were meant to be pushed.
I suddenly noticed we had a small audience who were listening to our exchange. One of them was Bubkes Jones, the owner of Cassandra’s.
He was amused. “You just pissed off half of the people in this room, Johnson,” he said as he shook my hand.
“I don’t really care,” I replied.
He smiled. “I know, that’s what I like about you. It will take you far. Nan speaks well of you.”
“That’s nice. Nan’s smart, but it just goes to show that nobody can be right all the time.”
Jones laughed. “You were wrong on one point. If you have enough money they have to accept you,” he said pointing around the room, “no matter your background, look at me. Even if you come from old money you will still get sniped at. You might fit into a different clique than one such as I, but ultimately it’s the money that counts. You were correct that these people are human. It’s no different than the Red Light or Midtown, it’s just the rules are a little different and they dress better. They belittle we of new wealth a little better than we do them, but they have training,” he said with a small laugh.
I think Bubkes was probably right. During the war I knew a lieutenant that came from the upper crust who was serving because he and his parents thought the military would ‘broaden’ him and come in handy later in life. He once told me, “The rich have ways of belittling each other. Select snide little comments, timed titters behind the back. We learned it in boarding school. We grew up with it.”
I asked him if that was a course, Etiquette of Boorish Behavior 101. He found that funny as hell. “Boorish Behavior 101, it was slotted in between Condescension and Elocution classes. I’ll tell some friends back home of this, Sergeant Johnson,” he said with a laugh. He never got the chance because he was dead by the end of the day. Rich or not, I don’t think the war worked out for him like he and his parents thought it would.
I grabbed some food, only a fool passes up free grub. A few people asked me for my card. A couple of them wondered why there was no magnifying glass printed on them. I thought they might be in the market for a PI, but maybe they just wanted to know the identity of the asshole that caused a minor disruption at lunch. When I was finished hobnobbing with Gulf City’s elite I caught a skycab back to the familiar environs of the Red Light.
~~~:{o}:~~~
Chapter 11
on the QT News Service - World-at-Large, Gulf City, Spire
Well Known Attorney Murdered in Republic of Havana
Spire attorney Alex Foster was murdered in a Republic of Havana hotel room in what Havana officials have determined was a robbery.
Foster was a respected practitioner and authority on criminal and corporate law. Wife Judith, and children Taylor and Christina survive him.
on the QT - If it’s said, we hear it.
---o---
I took the stairs up to my floor. Arlo was sweeping the stairwell, maybe the first time in years a broom had pushed dirt in there.
“There’s some people waiting outside your office,” he said.
“Lawyers?”
He smiled. “Maybe,” he said shrugging his shoulders.
The kid was fucking with me. They sure as hell weren’t lawyers. It was the rat boy Haphazard and what I presumed were his hacker buddies.
One of them was a tall, wiry kid with stark black hair and pale tight skin. He looked like a defanged vampire.
The other two were brother and sister obviously. Twins was my guess. Nice looking with brown hair and eyes, but nothing that would make them stand out. Throw them in a crowd and they’d disappear.
One thing they all had in common was the shifty eyes of those born and raised in dangerous places.
“Johnson,” Haphazard said when they saw me coming down the hall, “this is the rest of the crew.”
“Great,” I said without a bit of enthusiasm.
The girl thought it was funny.
“If you promise not to jump up and down on the sofa you can come in,” I said as I unlocked the door.
Hap sat down in the chair in front of my desk while the other three sat on the sofa.
“That’s Wireworm,” Hap said pointing at the vampire.
“Worm,” the guy said.
“Those two are Loblolly and Lollygag,” Hap said gesturing at the twins.
“Lob,” the boy said.
“Lolly,” said his sister.
“They’re—” Hap started to say.
“Twins,” I said. “I can tell.”
“What’s your handle?” Worm asked.
I pointed at the door to my office. “R.R. Johnson, PI.”
“Railroad, it’s Railroad,” the girl said.
“Huh?” Hap said.
“The door,” Worm said pointing. “Two R’s, Hap. Rail. Road.”
“I get it,” Hap said.
“Nice to meet you, RR,” Lolly said.
Her brother and Worm echoed her greeting.
Terrific. It was what I had always wanted, a hacker handle. “Likewise,” I said. “Does this mean I have to get my brain wired now?”
They all laughed.
“I told you he’s just like us, only he’s old and ain’t wired,” Hap said.
“How is Fell forcing you into working for him?” Lob asked.
“He’s not,” I said. “What exactly is your deal with Fell?”
“He said Security Forces had us cold for hacking into the city database,” Worm said. “Said we could go to prison. He told us if we helped him the slate would be wiped clean.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
They all four answered in unison, “Seventeen.”
I shook my head. What Fell was doing wasn’t right. To start with, it wasn’t legal using someone charged with a crime to commit more crimes, and especially so using minors. Fell was an intel operative, a spook. He had no juice to get these kids off a legal hook.
“Did he show you any documentation? A charge sheet, subpoena, arrest warrant, evidence of your crime, anything like that?” I asked.
They looked at me with blank stares.
“Did he show you anything that proved you were in trouble with the law or a document stating you’ll be cleared if you assist in his investigation?”
“He showed us his SecFor ID and badge,” Hap said.
“He told us we’d be clear if we helped,” Worm added.
I sighed and went to the refrigerator as I thought about the situation. I held up a bottle of water to see if they wanted some. They all nodded.
I passed out water bottles to everyone and sat down. They might have been stupid, gullible, hacker punks with idiotic handles, but they drank the water without the pompous display of upturned noses like the Langtry PIs.
“Fell is pulling a fast one on you,” I said.
“You mean we can just walk away?” Hap asked.
I shook my head. “It might be too late for that. Have you been hacking for him since he came to you?”
They all nodded.
“I
thought so. He’s intelligence, not law enforcement. The problem is, he can go to the police with evidence of what you have done recently. He’ll use that to force you to keep working for him.”
“What if we don’t?” Worm asked.
“He’ll take what he has to the cops and they’ll come down on you.”
“But he told us to,” Hap said.
“We can’t prove that,” Lob said. “He got us to trap ourselves.”
“You’re hackers. How are you not savvy to some of this?” I asked.
“We’re kinda new to Gulf City,” Lob said. “We haven’t had a lot of encounters with the law before.”
“Where are you from?”
“Sowtown,” he replied. “We got out of there just about a year ago.”
Sowtown. A low rent war zone and shitty place to spend a childhood. A pretty neat trick for those four to grow up there and not become feral and homicidal like most would, I thought.
“How did you manage to make it out?”
“We snuck through the wire one night when the Security Forces were dealing with a fight between cadres that got too close to the city,” Worm said.
“Okay. How did you manage to survive growing up in Sowtown and get your brains wired in the process?”
“We look out for each other. There used to be more of us,” Worm said.
“There used to be eight of us,” Lob said. “Worm’s brother and another one of our group joined a cadre a couple years ago. They were getting rich quick and got dead soon after.”
“We decided to get out of Sowtown when that happened,” Lolly said. “One of us got shot crossing the wire into Old Houston. The last one of us that died got arrested by cops in Midtown, but she never made into custody. They found her dead in some hallway the day after. We saw the cops take her away. That’s why we’re worried about Fell turning us over to them, but he’s been straight with us so far.”
“Not entirely he hasn’t,” I said. “You got your brains wired in Sowtown?”
“Yeah,” Hap said. “We did jobs for people, saved or stole till we had enough to get someone wired, then we’d do it again and again till all eight of us were hooked up. Never had to worry about cops catching us down there.”
“Ain’t no cops,” Worm said.
They’d made it out of Sowtown, but they still had a ways to go before they were out of the woods. They’d learned to avoid the desperate get-rich-quick route. They’d learned from the mistakes of others. They were learning the Fell’s of the world will fuck you, that a badge is a license to screw people over in the worst possible ways. If they stayed the course, stuck to the straight and narrow maybe they would do okay and end up like me, middle-aged and still clawing their way to who the hell knows where.
“Fell know you’re here?” I asked.
“No. We don’t tell him everything,” Hap said.
“Good. Play your cards close to the vest with that guy.”
Hap looked confused.
“A card-playing term,” I said demonstrating what I meant. “You don’t let your opponents see what’s in your hand. If you do you probably lose the game.”
“What’s Fell’s game anyway?” Lolly asked.
She asked a good question. Maybe Fell was pushing hard to nail BluCorp and willing to use whatever assets he had, even if that meant using kids and beat up PIs. Maybe it was something else. “I don’t know, kiddo. We just need to make sure he isn’t cheating, whatever it is.”
“What did you learn from that guy in the Spire?” Hap asked.
I gave them a rundown on what Browne had told me. The hackers scowled through most of it.
“Fell said we’d have to get into the central computers to get what he needs,” Hap said. “If there’s no connection from the outside...”
“Maybe Fell has an idea already that he is waiting to dazzle us with,” I said. “I’m supposed to call him. Let’s see what he has.”
I punched in Fell’s comcode to my phone. When he answered, I told him I had some info for him. He said he was coming over immediately.
Less than two minutes after I hung up Hap’s mobile rang. It was Fell telling him to collect his hacker buddies and meet him at my office.
“Does Fell need to know we’re friends?” Lolly asked.
“Should he?” her brother said.
“Maybe it’s better he don’t,” Hap said.
Sowtown taught them more than a few useful lessons it seemed to me.
“We’re not friends,” I said. “You’re just a bunch of irritating hacker punks who drink all my water.”
“Hey,” Hap said. “I thought we... oh I get it.”
Fell arrived about twenty minutes later.
“Babysitting isn’t part of our deal, Fell,” I said when he came into my office.
“I’m sorry, Johnson. I thought I’d get here first.”
“Well you didn’t. I barely understand half of what these punks say.”
“Dude’s office sucks, Fell,” Lob said.
“He gave us water,” Lolly said holding up an empty bottle. “It’s from Missouri or something. Weird.”
“Everybody settle down,” Fell said. “What did you find out from Ned Browne?”
I repeated the same thing I told the hackers earlier.
“Hmm. That does present a problem,” he said.
“The only way we can get into the central computer is to get inside their facility and tap into it from there,” Worm said.
“Then we need to find a way to do that,” Fell said.
I glared at Fell. “You’re going to sneak into BluCorp’s computer center. That’s your plan?”
“Not me. One or more of you will if it is feasible. And if it is, we need to figure out how.”
I shook my head. “Can you get maps, blueprints, and images of the place?”
“I have some of that already. I’ll see what I can do and we’ll meet here in the morning.”
Fell and the hackers left. I didn’t like the idea of Fell sending teenagers into BluCorp’s computer compound. Maybe he had a plan, but I sure as hell didn’t like his way of doing business.
I decided I would go see how angry Lacey was. I called her on the way over. She hadn’t checked her messages yet. She told me she wasn’t mad and didn’t understand why I thought she would be. One of us was very confused.
She was busy with work, so I told her I would stop by later. I grabbed a cab and went to the med center to check on Bob.
The same asshole cop that was on duty the last time I visited Blanc was there again. He saw me coming and was eyeballing me the whole way.
“You’re not going to try and stop me this time?” I asked.
“Blake put you on the fucking list, so no. Besides, Blanc is awake now. Maybe I can get off this shit detail soon.”
“What, too much work for you?”
“Fuck you.”
I smiled. “Have a nice day,” I said as I went into Bob’s room.
Blanc was sitting up in bed. Doc Bryant was in the room poking at Bob’s head with some kind of probe.
Bob raised a hand and waved.
“Is that you waving or is the doctor doing that?” I asked.
Bob smirked and glared at me.
“I am nearly finished,” Dr. Bryant said with a laugh.
I sat down in a chair next to the bed. The champ looked pretty good for a man whose brains had been on the sidewalk just a few days before.
“You are doing splendidly,” the doctor said as he finished his examination.
“How’s it feel to be a member of the ‘my brains have seen the light of day club’?” I asked.
He ignored me while Dr. Bryant gave me a disapproving look.
“They tell me you saved my life over by Oleg’s,” Bob said.
“Bullshit. I left you to die on the sidewalk and chased after a gangster.”
They both glared at me.
“You called for an ambulance,” the doctor said.
“Well, yeah, but
I was just going through the motions. You’re supposed to do that when your partner gets shot in the head. It’s clear to me now that I underestimated the abilities of modern medicine.”
“And what about the assassins you stopped here in the hospital?” Bryant asked.
“I wasn’t doing much else that night. Besides, I thought it might impress Sergeant Blake.” I thought I might get a rise out of Bob, but he wasn’t biting.
“Are you always so modest?” Bryant asked.
“I’m fairly certain that isn’t modesty,” Bob said. “I think he’s being obtuse.”
“You woke up cranky,” I said.
“You have a way of bringing that out in people.”
“I suppose it’s a gift. Blake know you’re up?”
“Yes. She stopped by at lunch. She filled me in on what’s been going on. There anymore assassins out there?”
“I’d bet they left when they learned Bartram was dead. Dead men don’t get favors.”
“Good, because I don’t think the guard out there likes me very much.”
“Well, I suppose part of that is because you’ve been a lousy conversationalist lately, but mostly he knows you’re tight with Blake. You’ll be as popular as her if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, unless you’ve changed your mind about your career choice.”
“Not yet,” he said. “I’ve only been on the job for a week or so. I’ll reconsider the next time someone shoots me in the head.”
“Okay. You’ll have a long backlog of cases waiting for you when you are finished lounging around here. Your fellow cops haven’t changed a bit.”
He laughed. “No doubt. Hey, how is our friend from Old Houston doing?”
“Fine. I think almost all the interest has faded. She ought to be able to resume her studies soon I think.”
The Lowdown in High Town: An R.R. Johnson Novel Page 20