‘And you thought I had the chip. You thought that was why Webster wanted me.’
‘Partly. Our sources had seen you hanging around Webster junior. Like you were stalking him. They found out that you fancied yourself a private detective. We thought you might be useful. You were, eventually.’
‘So who are you really? The boss? Webster’s Orion contact?’ Not that it particularly mattered.
‘I’m just the guy they sent to shut Webster down. His legitimate mining got in the way of business. It didn’t need to be this ugly.’
‘And the girl?’ He looked at me blankly. ‘She had a revolver. I should have registered sooner. She said she killed one of Webster’s guys and took his gun. But they all carry these.’ I waved the automatic.
He smiled. ‘Not bad for average. This was my first stop after I arrived.’ He idly waved his hand around the clearing. ‘I thought if I freed one of Webster’s girls, she’d have a better chance of finding the data chip than us. She’d know things. She’d have heard things. She’d know people. And of course, her hatred of Webster should have made her easy to use. She also helped out in getting my other little agent free.’ He smiled again.
‘You gave her that recording,’ I said. Then I laughed.
‘Yes. Hilarious.’ His smile wasn’t so sincere this time. ‘Webster junior arrived just after she came out of your apartment… But am I right in assuming now that she took the data chip out of the barmaid?’ I nodded. ‘Yeah. When you told me she’d been an experiment, there was a click, but I couldn’t quite place it. And she told me the girl didn’t have anything… If only I’d looked in Lawrence’s evidence box, I’d have seen the knife I gave her and I’d have known right then. She took the chip to Van Graaf because she didn’t trust me, and thought he could do more with it.’ He snorted, with little humour.
‘Maybe you’re more transparent than you think. She’s smart.’
‘Well it doesn’t matter now. It’s all a mess of an operation, but the fact of the matter is that the data chip is now in our possession.’
‘And where is she now?’
‘Dead. Rotting in the mud over there somewhere.’ He flipped his hand off the side. ‘I found her snooping around the containers. Trying to find the ones with the girls. It all looks the same, I suppose. She didn’t notice me. So I stepped up and slid my gun all the way into that pretty mouth.’
The anger was again in danger of overcoming me. My vision was becoming tinted with red. It was what he was pushing for. I did my best to calm down, if only for that reason.
‘I liked the way she tried to fight back,’ he continued. He noticed the anger. ‘Oh, and those big round eyes looking up at me when I pulled the trigger…’
‘I’m going to kill you, DeMartino,’ I told him as calmly as I could.
‘I like you, Mr. Mason. You could have worked for us.’
‘Jack has a prior engagement,’ said a voice from the shadows. The man with a first name for a last name stepped into the open. ‘He’s got a cell waiting in Anshan.’
DeMartino clearly wasn’t sure what to do.
‘Detective,’ he said simply.
‘No need to keep playing your little game, DeMartino,’ Lawrence said. ‘Even if I hadn’t heard enough from your own mouth, there is protocol. I may have neglected it when you arrived, but when Jack told me he had you hostage, I had to inform the UPSF. Imagine my surprise when they told me they had no such agent.’
DeMartino turned his eyes back to me. I smiled.
‘My guess is the UPSF is coming after all,’ I said.
He hesitated. Thought for a few seconds. He was still cool and collected. Just more unsure than usual.
‘It doesn’t matter. The data chip is gone. All they’ll find is a lot of dead men and some strippers saying those men kidnapped them. Do you think my bosses are careless enough to allow any trails from us to them?’
I knew he was right. And telling the truth. The off-worlders had been organised from the start. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be traced by the authorities because of something as simple as a failed business takeover.
‘So what now?’ DeMartino said again. ‘Detective Lawrence arrests us both and returns to Harem a hero? Doesn’t seem the place for it, does it? You appear to have come alone, Detective. Is that because you don’t know who you can trust in your own precinct? Because so many of those fine officers were in Webster’s pocket, and now in ours?’
I thought about it. He’d be right. Lawrence would be alone. No backup. ‘Whom.’
DeMartino ignored me and turned his head to Lawrence. Turned his body halfway. Trying to give himself the chance to shoot either one of us. I looked at Lawrence too. His face gave nothing away. I knew he was calculating his chances of getting us both to Anshan, or to wherever the UPSF had agreed to meet him, without DeMartino’s men stopping him. Probably the idea of shooting us both on the spot was floating around his head too. But he was better than that.
This was a stand off and it wasn’t going to end well. Especially for me. I had no problem shooting DeMartino, but I didn’t want to shoot Lawrence. Neither of them, on the other hand, cared who they shot.
My arm was beginning to get tired holding the gun out. But the moment of peace didn’t last long.
DeMartino knew my eyes would be on Lawrence, because he’d intentionally passed the focus over to him. After that, all he had to do was wait for the inevitable moment that Lawrence looked at me. And he did. I would never get to know what decision Lawrence had come to, but when he reached one, his eyes flicked from the Italian to me.
In that instant, DeMartino swung his gun to the left. In the time it took, me and Lawrence both caught on, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t know who fired first. It was just a couple of seconds of deafening noise and flashing. In the cacophony of gunfire, I wasn’t sure who fired what. I thought I fired three or four shots into DeMartino.
The claps of the gunfire resounded in the metal around us for what seemed like a whole minute. Then it was just the pattering rain again.
DeMartino was dead. He lay slumped against the facedown UPSF impostor. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open. The way he’d fallen had caused his arm to get propped up. His gun was still raised as though he hadn’t yet realised he was dead.
Lawrence was still alive. But not for long. At least two of DeMartino’s shots had landed. He lay on his side in the mud and the blood. Some of it his. His eyes were locked on me. They slowly moved down to where his gun lay in front of him. Then they closed.
I stood and listened to the pattering for a minute. I didn’t know what to feel. Had everything just changed? Or had nothing changed? I felt the same. The one man who was determined to put me in prison or the chair was now dead. So was the one man I’d considered an ally of sorts. Perhaps when the UPSF arrived, I’d tell them I was helping Lawrence and that would be that. But I couldn’t think that far ahead. My mind wouldn’t leave this circle of shipping containers.
Eventually I flicked the safety on the gun, checked the barrel wasn’t too hot, and stuffed it back in my waistband. Then I stepped over to DeMartino. I stood right where he seemed to be aiming his gun at me again. I took it out of his hand. Dropped it in the mud. Then I reached inside his jacket. Pulled out a cigar. In my pocket, I found the lighter. Maybe I’d quit tomorrow.
I lit the cigar and took a long drag. Then I looked down at DeMartino. ‘How do you like me now?’
He didn’t answer.
SIXTEEN | NO PLACE FOR A HERO
There was a sound behind me. I turned to see Lawrence dragging himself through the mud. Maybe he hadn’t been hit as badly as I thought. I walked over and tried to help him back against the container. He shrugged me off weakly with a grunt.
‘Are the UPSF really coming?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘And I told ‘em.’ It sounded like he had to force his voice out through blood. ‘Told ‘em you were a killer helping him.’ He looked at DeMartino. Smiled. Tried to laugh, but it didn
’t really happen. ‘They’re gonna fuck you up.’ The laugh made it out a little better this time.
Even in death he was going to get me. If I’d been able to think properly a minute ago, perhaps I’d have remembered that Lawrence would have recorded our conversation. So now the UPSF had that.
I smiled too. A laugh was a little beyond my humour though. Lawrence was a hero. He’d got his man. Me. A killer. He’d got DeMartino. He’d got the UPSF to take notice of Harem. They were on their way now. They would shut down everything Webster had been doing. Everything the off-worlders were in the middle of trying to take over. They’d take a good hard look at the police. Stamp out the corruption. Maybe Harem had a future after all. Perhaps not bright, but not so dark.
But DeMartino was right. This was no place for a hero.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. He ignored me. It was true though. I was sorry for everything that had happened. I wasn’t who I was meant to be. The man I’d tried to be. The man I’d spent the last ten years pretending to myself that I was. And I was sorry that I’d got Lawrence killed.
I threw the cigar away. Didn’t like the taste anyway.
It was only then that I realised I’d lost something. I tried every pocket but all I had was my gun and the lighter. And an old handkerchief. The datapad was missing. That was probably why I’d been unable to think any further than the ring of containers. A part of me must have noticed it was gone earlier. But I’d been too focused on other things. That part of me knew what happened now. That part of me could see how this ended.
Lawrence’s breathing became more laboured. The pattering continued, oblivious to our imminent death, and uncaring. Behind me, the pattering had a different quality. More of a tapping.
I turned around. Standing on the fringe of the torchlight was a girl in a transparent raincoat. It was going to be either her or the gorilla. She wouldn’t have let me away with it. Even if DeMartino had been telling the truth, she’d have already passed the datapad on to the gorilla. I was glad the Italian lied.
The rain tapped out a smooth rhythm on her plastic-covered shoulders and her flattened, sodden hair. A beaten, nearly broken angel of vengeance. Her eyes glittered as she stared me down like I was a mouse and she was a cobra.
Sixteen raised her revolver. Anchored it with her other hand. Squeezed the trigger.
I felt something hard hit my back. All of my back. It took a couple of seconds to realise it was me hitting the shipping container. I couldn’t make sense of it. Then my legs were suddenly not holding me up properly. I began to slide down until I was sitting in the mud beside Lawrence. I didn’t know if he was even still alive.
She took a few steps towards me. Pulled something out of her pocket. It was a black rectangular device.
‘I took this out of your pocket earlier,’ she said.
I looked down. Red was soaking into my coat. I had a bullet hole in my lapel. Forget that. I had a bullet hole in my chest. Why couldn’t I feel it?
‘Like DeMartino said: I was there before Webster, so I was pretty sure the whole time. I hoped I was wrong. You were helping me, after all. But this was my proof.’
She switched the pad on. Touched the holographic screen. Then dropped it in the mud in front of me and Lawrence.
‘Thank you for helping free the girls. Are the others at the train?’
It took a moment for her words to get through to me. I nodded. Or I thought I had anyway. I couldn’t feel my head. Or the rain beating against my face.
‘A flyer,’ I said. I heard the same voice from my own mouth that I’d heard from Lawrence a minute ago. I couldn’t swallow the blood back down. ‘At the mansion wall.’
Sixteen gave a small smile. I couldn’t tell what kind of smile it was. Apologetic? Sympathetic? Grateful? Triumphant?
Then she melted into the shadows again. ‘Let’s go,’ I heard her say. From the squelching on the other side of the containers, I guessed there were at least a dozen people with her. A rumble from a giant throat. They’d be safe.
As the sounds gave way to the rain again, I looked down at the datapad. When it had detected that it was lying on a surface, it projected the hologram up. Through whichever of my eyes was still working, I watched the 3D image of myself and the barmaid. Listened to the distorted conversation. Heard the words I’d blotted out with the rest of the early morning. After the pale orange, translucent barmaid had denied for the third time that she knew anything about Webster’s trafficking operation, and that she was involved, the little pale orange me lost his temper. Hit her. He was desperate to get the truth. Didn’t believe that she wasn’t there to spy on his investigation for Webster.
I didn’t remember any of it. Only the red in my eyes before. Then the red on my hands after.
The girl smashed a plate on me, only succeeding in cutting herself. She tried to run for the door so I shoved her. Harder than I meant to. She hit the wall face first. The little orange me put his hands on his head. Pulled at his hair in some emotion I couldn’t remember. Distress and self-loathing most likely. I hated violence towards women and anyone who perpetrated it.
The girl was badly hurt and I was desperate and panicking. The recording was good. Detailed. Even the tears on my orange face were visible. The girl was falling over everything. I looked like a terrified driver who’d hit an animal on the road and didn’t know if it should be put out of its misery.
She grabbed a lamp to hit me with but I hit her hand so the lamp smashed over her own head. She collapsed. Toppled the armchair.
Then came a minute of pacing and hitting myself in the head like a psychopath. Then roaring out the last of my rage and anguish into a pillow. Finally, I lifted her and put her on the bed. Lay beside her, staring at her for a while. Long enough that whoever edited the recording sped it up at that point. I kissed her. Told her I was sorry. Then left.
Maybe I was in shock when I left. Maybe that’s why I’d gone about my morning normally. Maybe that was why it didn’t even occur to me when I returned that the cops were there for me.
The recording turned itself off.
I didn’t know how she’d got the broken arm or moved from the bed to the overturned chair. Probably Sixteen. Perhaps she’d tried to get the girl out of the apartment and downstairs to DeMartino, but found it too hard. Or maybe realised then that she’d found the data chip. Maybe the girl wasn’t even dead when I left. I didn’t check her pulse. I was too out of it. I knew from the recording that I hadn’t caused most of the damage to her. My bet was that Little Dick had done it when he found her dead and useless to him. It would be one of them who’d called the cops, too. Little Dick would like me getting put away for it, but also needed me free to spill my guts. Sixteen was too good a person to leave Leonne lying there, dead, alone and with no one to care about it. Probably her.
I couldn’t really think about it. If I’d still been able to feel anything, I’d have felt sick to my stomach. Watching that made me realise I belonged in Anshan, strapped to a table with needles in my arm. Or lying in the mud and the rain with a hole in my chest.
‘I hope you burn,’ Lawrence mumbled, a few inches from my ear. I knew I would. I wasn’t going to see Lucy. I was going the other way. What I’d done here tonight wouldn’t change that.
I couldn’t even tell if I was breathing. Blood ran in a thick string from my mouth onto my coat. My head rolled back. I didn’t feel it hit the container.
The rain blurred my eyes. But, just as I thought my eyesight had gone completely, a distant flash of thrusters appeared over the container in front of me and shone for two seconds before they were swallowed up by the clouds.
‘Last thing I wanted,’ Lawrence said. Whispered, really. ‘Was to die with you.’
He wasn’t. I’d already died. Ten years ago.
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