Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy

by Shelley Singer

  “Okay. That leaves the cabinet. I’ve been thinking about Timmy.”

  Judith looked up from her globe, brightening. “That’s a wonderful idea! He has maturity, stability, charm. Everyone knows him. I love it.”

  Jo sat back, pleased. Drew and Timmy on the cabinet. Perfect. “I’ll ask him. When will you file?”

  “Today. Actually, I’m looking forward to it. Trips to Hangtown, building alliances, playing the grande dame. I’m glad you talked me into it.”

  They were still laughing about that when Drew and Lizzie came through the door, sweating and flushed. Lizzie’s hands were a mess.

  “Is that blood on your shirt, Liz?” Jo was sure it was. What was the girl doing now? And Drew— his collar was ripped nearly off.

  “Yes. Wait until you hear—”

  “Sit down.” Judith looked stern. “And tell me whose blood it is.”

  “Billy Scorsi’s— but you’ll be glad when you hear what we found out.” The kids threw themselves onto the couch, side by side, Drew watching his sister. “Hannah Karlow is a spy for Newt Scorsi.”

  Jo felt bile rise in her throat. Oh shit. Samm had been off the mark on that one. Why hadn’t she seen it? Against her own uneasiness, she’d convinced herself the fixer would do.

  Okay, who are we going to run for mayor now? Maybe, she thought wryly, I can convince one of the Rocky recruiters to take the job. On pain of death.

  Lizzie told the entire story of how they’d broken Billy. Judith didn’t look pleased, but she wasn’t angry, either. They had done what had to be done, on their own initiative. Jo didn’t want to discourage that any more than her sister did. Because, after all, they’d succeeded.

  She pulled her sys out of her vest pocket and punched in Samm’s numbers. He had to know about Hannah right away. And they had to decide what to do with her. Kill her? Offer her more money than Newt was paying?

  They had to find her first. Jo hadn’t seen her around the casino, she realized, since the night before.

  * * *

  There was only one word for Tim and Fredo’s cottage: cute.

  We’d gone to lunch again at our Chinese place and then I’d driven them to the house so I could see it.

  The chief topic of conversation was, of course, the arrest of the Rocky spies. I told them I’d seen the whole thing, including the shooting. Timmy was just full of stories about what was going on at the jail. The spies, he said, were being interrogated. And the word was that they were confessing to some pretty terrible things. He’d heard that one of them had said they were doing reconnaissance for an invasion Rocky was planning. I was seriously wishing I could be in on those interrogations. I had no reason to disbelieve what Timmy had heard, but I had to wonder, just a little, when he said the information had come from Drew by way of Jo.

  “Imagine!” he said. “The nerve of those people. Just let them try it!”

  The house was on the northern edge of town. Small, two little bedrooms, a twelve-by-fifteen living room with a nice stone fireplace. Old. Built before the regs that demanded pellet-burning stoves.

  Oh, yeah, that had really helped a lot. It wasn’t wood smoke that ended the world.

  The yard was big and backed up to woods. Pines flanked the front walk. A picket fence, for god’s sake.

  The house had needed paint, inside and out, but the inside had been finished the day before. I caught a whiff when we clomped in.

  “Tomorrow he’s going to start painting the outside!” Fred was clearly ecstatic. Tim had found the money to actually hire a neighbor, a handyman named Daniel, to paint the place for them.

  I wandered through the rooms. Nice sim-wood floors. Not old enough or new enough for the real thing. At least it didn’t have that ridiculous carpet you found in a lot of the relics, stained and smelly, holding decades of bad memories and pet piss. In the too-bright yellow kitchen, the faucet leaked and the sink was stained with rust. I suggested that Hannah could probably take care of that for them. Timmy thought that was funny.

  “Maybe. Some time next year when she runs out of bigger jobs. We’ll have to let Daniel give it a try.”

  I couldn’t decide whether I was jealous of their domesticity or glad to be free of it. I suppose, if I were as happy with someone as they were with each other, I would want to nest. Both Sylvia and Jo passed through my mind. What an idiot I could be.

  I was fiddling with the fireplace damper in the living room when the button-sized sys-link Newt had insisted I carry “in case of emergency” vibrated. This was the first time he’d used it. Could be important. I strolled aimlessly around the corner, back into the kitchen, flicked it on and stuck it in my ear.

  “This is all your fault, Rica! Hannah’s gone. I told the boys not to kill her, she’s ours, but now she says she doesn’t trust them not to blabber. She says everyone is watching everyone else, following everyone else. That Jo had someone following the boys. Last straw, she says. She isn’t hanging around waiting for the Colemans to find out and kill her.” He took in a ragged breath. Since this device was listen-only, I couldn’t respond. “So! Now! You’re going to have to make up for this by working twice as hard, taking her place. I want you to join their army right away. And another thing. Hannah says that they never had those war games anywhere but the one place, they don’t move them around. You lied to me.” Oops. I waited for more. He seemed to be gone.

  I flicked the “heard-you” button with my fingernail and stuck the thing back in my pocket.

  Was I supposed to run for mayor, too?

  I couldn’t wait to get back to Blackjack and see if the Colemans knew she was gone. It amused me to think that she might have literally flown the coop in the Gullwing. But I didn’t really care how she left, I was just delighted that she was gone.

  * * *

  Jo was waiting in her office for word of Hannah. Samm had commandeered Drew and a dozen of his other soldiers, left Zack running the poker tables, and searched for Hannah through the afternoon. Jo was not surprised when he reported that she was nowhere they’d looked. Not in the storage room fixing slots, not in the bar, not at the poker table, not in her motel room and nowhere on the strip. They’d prowled through Scorsi’s Luck, earning glares and gasps of surprise, even opened Newt Scorsi’s office door, slamming it back against the wall, to find him deep in conversation with his brother Larry, Billy’s father. They got out fast when he called for help. No time for a fight. They had a fugitive to catch.

  They’d even gone to the airfield; the plane was still there.

  Somehow, Hannah must have known that they’d found her out. Or guessed. She was smart. Maybe she’d heard that the kids beat up Billy. Or saw him afterward. Maybe she even saw them coming back to Blackjack after the fight. Lizzie’s bleeding knuckles, the spatter, Drew’s torn shirt. It wouldn’t take many pieces of the puzzle. A word, a look, and any cautious merc would get out while she could.

  In any case, she was gone. Now who the hell was Jo going to run for mayor?

  What about Waldo? She wouldn’t care much if someone offed him and she thought he was, underneath it all, loyal to the family in his way. He’d probably do as he was told, unless the instructions involved women.

  But no, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Watching him swagger around town would be more than she could bear.

  Timmy? She’d never forgive herself if he got hurt. He was so trusting, not to mention small, old, and effectively one-armed. Oh, hell. She needed some air, needed to clear her head. She locked the office door behind her and trotted down the stairs.

  She was striding through the casino, intent on the exit, when Zack waved her over to his table.

  “What’s on, Zack?”

  “Got a problem now, huh, Jo? No mayor?”

  “It’s a problem, Zack.”

  “I’d as soon do that as sit around with the cabinet, yakking about nothing. A mayor gets to do things, give executive orders, right?” He grinned at her, his ice-blue eyes sharp and humorous.

&n
bsp; “You volunteering?” Not a bad idea. And this was a man who could take care of himself pretty well. How would Samm feel about it?

  Zack was smart enough to know she’d be wondering that.

  “Why not? I can still stay close to the army, be where Samm needs me. Maybe I can talk Samm into taking a cabinet job.”

  Jo burst out laughing. “You do that and I’ll give you a raise.”

  Samm wouldn’t go for it, she knew. But with Drew, Tim, Doc and Andy, they had four already.

  She still needed a third candidate for the council.

  Samm had mentioned that young blackjack dealer, Emmy. Early twenties only, but very smart. He said she was interested in politics and admired the Colemans. She’d been there for six months now, done several jobs and worked her way up to the table. He said she was a rock and that the gamblers, men and women, loved her. Jo hesitated. Samm had recommended Hannah, too. But she had a better feeling about Emmy. She’d consider her, talk to her, see what was what. Monte, the gray-hair, Judith, imposing matriarch, and the strong, good-looking, charismatic youngster. Not a bad slate.

  And then there was Rica. What could she talk her into? The thought made her smile, and led to other ideas that she pushed to a far corner of her mind, if only for the time being.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Huddled over a scarred table

  When I got to the restaurant later that afternoon, Timmy dashed up to me, a big grin smeared across his sweet pink face.

  “Have you heard about Hannah?”

  “You mean her disappearing?” Was that what was making him so happy? I knew he didn’t like her much, but this seemed extreme.

  “Oh, you know about it then.” He looked slightly disappointed. “But there’s more!” He was beaming again. “Drew says Zack has volunteered to be the mayoral candidate. And Judith and Jo want me to be on the Tahoe cabinet! Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Very.” This was all moving pretty fast. Timmy in politics. The cabinet would be keeping few secrets.

  “And Drew is going for the cabinet, too, and he says Judith is probably running for Council.”

  “Not Samm? Not Jo?”

  “Well, not Jo, anyway. Drew thinks Zack might want Samm with him on the cabinet, though.”

  Samm was big and pretty and a popular man. He would inspire confidence in the voters, help Zack win the election. But Warrior Samm on the cabinet? He was bigger than life in so many ways, it was hard to picture him sitting in meetings.

  As for Jo, someone had to run the casino, especially if Judith won a seat on the council. But I didn’t think that was the only reason she was sticking around the home shop.

  Judith was the queen and Jo seemed more like the power behind the throne. She wouldn’t run for office unless she had to; she’d rather plan and coordinate everyone else’s plotting and warring than fight for votes or policy right out in public. Yes, indeed, it could take a lot of time and energy to draw up a master plan for world conquest. The thought made me laugh: Jo, huddled over a scarred table with only a candle to light a dark room, poring over a map of the western half of the continent, her sensual mouth sneering, connecting all the people and all the pieces, laughing evilly. Kind of sexy, actually. Right there at that table with her pretty hands in everything at once. Timmy was looking at me oddly. I stopped laughing. I needed to stop picturing her body parts.

  A party of three sat at one of Tim’s tables. “Well, more gossip later…” He dashed across the room.

  Drew on the cabinet. So young. I wondered if he really wanted the job. He was smart and thoughtful, but maybe they were pushing him to do something he didn’t want to do. Maybe his moodiness wasn’t about me at all. I didn’t want it to be about me, so I liked my newly-conceived alternative. He and Lizzie were, after all, heirs to the casino. They were going to teach him more than dealing and serving and managing. They were grooming him for power. Pushing him. I could stop taking his unhappy look personally.

  I scanned the restaurant for him. He was bussing one of my tables, Lizzie cleaning up another one nearby. Drew was down to just a couple of hours a night in the restaurant now, working the rest of the time at the tables and the bar.

  And Lizzie? The girl was only 17. What did they have in mind for her?

  What did Drew and Lizzie have in mind for themselves?

  When Samm came in for a quick meal, I was reminded that Newt expected me to join Samm’s army now that Hannah was gone. Crap. How was I supposed to conceal my merc-level skills with weapons and hand-to-hand if I was playing soldier for the Colemans? Even more important, how was I supposed to admit I even knew there was an army?

  I handed him a menu and he smiled up at me. Dazzling. You just didn’t see perfect teeth like that every day. His family might have died in a hostel, but their genes didn’t seem to be at fault. He took the menu and grabbed my hand, kissing it. I must have looked stupidly startled because he laughed.

  “Sorry, Rica. But it was irresistible.” Like his charm. I smiled back at him. What a mixture this man was. Strength and beauty. Brains and spirit. I wondered about his love life. He was alone so much. He flirted with me, but he never followed through. It had occurred to me early on that he might be in love with Jo, but I was beginning to think he simply wasn’t interested in romance. What about sex? I’d noticed him with a woman or two, walking, sitting next to him when he was dealing. But no one consistently. I guessed he just took it as he found it.

  He glanced at the menu. “What’s good today?”

  * * *

  Jo was sitting at her desk stewing about her candidates list. She’d left a message for Emmy but hadn’t gotten an answer back yet.

  More and more she was wondering about Rica as a candidate. But she hadn’t been around very long and Jo still didn’t know if she could trust her. The spies she’d asked to check on her hadn’t reported back yet.

  And what about the other side? What were the Scorsis doing? She had messages out to her sagging network at Scorsi’s Luck, telling them to find out what they could right damned now. Surely Newt had plans for more than just the one council candidate he’d put up posters for. With Hannah gone, he wouldn’t let the Colemans walk off with the mayor’s office. He’d run someone. He’d be lining up people for the cabinet, and trying to find someone to send to Hangtown.

  This was more than an election, it was a war. How safe would her candidates be? Would she have to kill off some of his? She’d rather defeat them with bribes and miscounts and stolen ballots and double and triple and dead-guy voting. She wasn’t above any of that, certainly, if it looked like one of her own might lose. And she thought that she could get money to the right people when it came to counting the votes, if she had to.

  Her head hurt. She rubbed her temples. Closed her eyes.

  She had only a small army training and a few people working as spies at Scorsi’s Luck, and it wasn’t enough. She should have known, long ago, that it was the Scorsi boys who killed Madera. She should have known that Hannah was a spy. She wasn’t getting enough intelligence, didn’t feel they were building enough strength.

  How could she light a fire under her people? Her thoughts flickered toward Rica again. Judith had been right to prod her early on, see if she had interest in real work. But she hadn’t gotten any kind of answer. She might be a good candidate. But she might also be useful as a spy. Scorsi had a small stage in his bar that was used from time to time by unfunny comedians and untalented musicians. Maybe Rica could interest him in having a singer on her nights off.

  Fantasy. She hardly knew the woman. It took real talent to be a good spy. Good enough to do the job and stay alive. Newt was a fool but not an idiot. He’d be suspicious of anyone coming to him from Blackjack. Her sys buzzed.

  Amazing. It was one of her people at Scorsi’s.

  “I found something out.”

  Good for you. “What is it?”

  “Well, it won’t be a secret much longer, but I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”
>
  Oh for god’s sake. “Yes. Tell me what it is.”

  “Newt’s going to run for mayor. And his brother Larry?” Billy’s arrogant, overdressed father. “He’s going to run for the council.” Two council candidates, then. Larry and the merc.

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Good work.” She clicked off. She couldn’t help thinking it: killing Newt’s candidates was looking more attractive. The world would not miss either Larry or the merc.

  There was a knock on the door. For just a second, she considered telling whoever it was to go away. But she needed a break.

  “Come in.”

  The door swung open and the big black poodle hopped in on three legs, grinning a dog grin. Followed by Liz, who wore a proud mama smile.

  “Look how great she’s doing, Jo!”

  Jo reached down to pat the dog’s head, gently. “Very good, Liz. Just don’t let her overdo it, okay?”

  “Okay. What are you doing?”

  “Wondering why only one of our spies at Blackjack came up with the information that Newt’s going to run for mayor and his brother Larry’s running for council.” Lizzie raised her eyebrows but didn’t interrupt. “Wondering— what do you think of Rica Marin, Lizzie? Do you think she can be trusted?”

  Lizzie sat down on the easy chair next to the desk. The dog lowered herself to the floor with a grunt and a little squeaking cry of pain.

  “I never thought about it, I guess. How could we find out?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.” Did she really want both kids watching Rica’s every move, tripping over her in the lounge? Probably not a good idea. She should try to keep Lizzie out of that for now.

  “Drew’s watching her, right?” Lizzie asked.

  Jo hadn’t gotten any feedback from Drew.

  “Yes. And I’ve got someone trying to check on her. Never mind, I’m just thinking.”

  “Okay.” Liz got up again. “Well, I’ve got some homework. Come on, Soldier.”