by Kieran Shea
“Bang away,” Flynn says with a magnanimous wave.
Koko turns back and pounds the nail between her fingers. Limping sideways, she pounds a few more nails in place. Sweat flies from her skin as she swings, and she doesn’t miss her mark, not once.
Koko’s hair is now back to its original deep black shade and has grown out some, feral and unkempt. When she’s finished, she drags her sun goggles down from her eyes and hangs them loose around her neck. After loping across the roof, she straddles her boots on either side of an aluminum ladder and drops down to join Flynn. Together they admire her handiwork as he hands Koko her white walking cane. Soon the sign’s solar-powered lettering begins to flicker, and one word glows in a radiant, cobalt blue.
SALOON
“What do you think?”
Flynn slides his sun goggles up to the crown of his head.
“Simple and direct,” he says. “I think it looks pretty sweet.”
Koko grins. “Yeah, I think so too.”
Flynn shuffles his bare feet in the sand. “I still can’t believe we’re doing this, though.”
Koko angles back slightly and playfully slaps his arm. “Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport.”
“Yeah, you say that, but I don’t know. I still don’t trust those CPB bastards, despite their assurances…”
Koko huffs. “Oh, will you stop it? The CPB board know I’m more valuable to them alive than dead. Even with my being Delacompte’s quasi-accomplice way back in Helsinki, they realize it was all her madness in the end. You were right, Flynn. I’m irrelevant. After all that went down, CPB needs a good spin on the narrative.”
“Still—”
“Still what? Honestly, Flynn, I know you have a real hard time seeing the good in things, but everything is back to where it should be. Both of us have been cleared of any charges, and I got my life back. Hell, we both got our lives back. And you? C’mon, man, just look at you.”
“What about me?”
“Do you need me to spell it out? Off those stupid meds, looking all tan and buff. Your so-called Depressus symptoms are all but gone. You’re a whole new person. You’ve a brand-new life ahead of you. A life of noble purpose.”
“Pimping whores and slinging booze? Hardly noble purposes.”
“There are worse things.”
They stand and regard the sign some more.
“Besides,” Koko says, “you really make me tingle.”
Flynn arches an eyebrow and laughs. He lunges lustfully for Koko’s waist, and she spins into his arms.
“Really, I make you tingle? Is that what you call it? Woman, I’ll have you know you have me walking cross-eyed and sore-cocked. I’m surprised I can still get out of bed in the morning and walk a straight line.”
Koko giggles. “Aww… it’s all part of your therapy, lawman. All part of your therapy. You’re finally coming around to what living is really all about.”
She pinches his cheek and hobbles off. As Flynn watches her go, he once again finds his feelings all a-twirl for Koko. Is he in love with her? Maybe. Such loopy sentiments and affections have always seemed impossible and unreachable for Flynn. All he knows now is he doesn’t really care if he is or isn’t in love. The woman is nothing short of amazing.
With the shamble in her caned gait, Koko pops her way up the building’s short steps, crosses the broad porch, and slams the batwing doors inward. Immediately she starts giving orders to all the whores assigned to last-minute preparations inside.
Flynn looks up and reads the sign on the building once more. Shielding his eyes, Flynn gazes beyond the building and past the tree line. Thick slates of weather are brewing in the sky, and it appears an afternoon thunderstorm is on the way. A web of cloud-to-cloud lightning crackles on the horizon as miles higher and further in the distance a lone Second Free Zone barge creeps through a rising orbit. Even at that range, Flynn can see the navigational beacons on the barge’s hull strobe, twinkling on and off like dying stars.
Indeed, he thinks, there are worse things.
Meanwhile, a mere three hundred meters south of the new building, a clump of glossy leafy vegetation rustles and parts and a small orange lizard switches out into the open road. Another one of the resort’s countless synthetics, the lizard stops and raises its shiny diamond-shaped head before it darts off into the dark brush on the road’s opposite side. A moment later, a second creature emerges from the parted vegetation. Standing and stretching from a long bush squat, the second creature adjusts a pair of sunglasses over her ocular imbed, draws a HK U-50 from a leg holster, and patiently waits for the bearded man to head inside.
Ultimate Sanction.
The bounty agent known as Wire walks slowly toward the bar.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Foremost, the most heartfelt appreciation has to go out to Stacia J.N. Decker at the Donald Maass Literary Agency for believing Koko had the onions to go the distance. In that vein, I also wish to express my gratitude to Cath Trechman and everybody at Titan Books for their tireless dedication and can-do professionalism with this book.
No one gets a book published alone, so big, pumping thank-you handshakes with extra hand sanitizer to my ever-widening hoop of writing comrades, ass-kickers, and first readers, including Greg Bardsley, Stephen Blackmoore, David Cranmer, Steve Weddle, Chris F. Holm, Benoît Lelièvre, Cameron Ashley, Dan O’Shea, Chris Rhatigan, Jimmy Callaway, John Hornor Jacobs, Keith Rawson, Ruth and Jon Jordan, Karen E. Olson, Patti Abbott, Frank Bill, Bob Randisi, Sophie Littlefield and (of course) the big, crinkly dog—Ed McCarthy. A special tip of the hat goes out to Anthony Neil Smith for pushing back on some of my early forays into speculative fiction, and Jed Ayres deserves at least a six-pack of beer because he saw Koko’s potential way back at NoirCon 2010.
Naturally, I also wish to thank my wife and family for always being there for me. To say you mean the world to me falls short.
Peace.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kieran Shea’s fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Plots With Guns, Word Riot, Needle: A Magazine of Noir as well as several modern crime fiction anthologies. He divides his time between 38°58ʹ22.6˝N-76°30ʹ4.17˝W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W. This is his first novel.
COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS
KOKO THE MIGHTY
KIERAN SHEA
After dispatching the woman hell-bent on destroying her, ex-mercenary turned saloon madam extraordinaire Koko Martstellar is ready to rebuild her life in paradise, along with her lover, former orbital sky-cop and recovering Depressus case Jedidiah Flynn. But the Ultimate Sanction bounty on her head is still outstanding, and Wire will stop at nothing to collect it.
COMING JUNE 2015
TITANBOOKS.COM