Well, at least the kid had warned the patrons.
Frank went on. “Everybody over there has been pretty busy trying to put out that fire.” He laughed. “I still got Billy’s body in the car.”
Gruesome. He was just a kid. A murdering bastard of a kid, but…
If Newt had been planning to attack Blackjack, he must have gone apoplectic when he discovered that not only did he have no troops, he had a fire to deal with. She loved the idea of Lizzie’s fire diverting a raid, even if it was no more than possibility.
She was feeling calmer now. Less likely to burst into tears, or start trembling, or vomiting, or kill someone. Maybe it was Lizzie’s insane— brave?— act of vengeance that was settling her down. Or Drew’s message of victory on the battlefield.
“Bring Lizzie right to my apartment, Frank.”
“Will do.”
“How long do you think it will take you to investigate Samm’s murder?”
“Investigate?”
“Question Ky. Question Newt, Larry, the whole bunch. Find someone alive and present who was behind it. You don’t think those two boys and Hannah did it on their own, do you? Don’t you think Newt was planning to do something more before the casino went up in flames?”
Was she going to have to write him the whole story?
“Oh, right. Of course.”
“And then there’s that information we got for you about who killed Madera. Roll it all up into a nice ball, Frank. A plot to murder Samm and attack Blackjack. Lizzie, a hero. See what you can do.” Yes, her mind was definitely working again. She would spin this thing all the way out the door and down the street and up Newt Scorsi’s ass.
By the time they’d finished their message, he was bringing Liz in the door of Jo’s apartment. The kid looked defiant.
“Thanks, Frank, now go deliver your body. Lizzie, let’s talk.” Frank left; Lizzie sat down on the edge of the couch.
“They deserved it, Jo. I wanted them gone. No more Scorsis. Just gone!”
“You could have gotten killed. Arrested for arson.”
“Frank wouldn’t hold me. And sometimes you just don’t think about getting killed. All I could think about was Samm.”
True.
“You shouldn’t have done it, Lizzie, but the fact is, you may have kept us from more attacks, more killings.”
Lizzie’s face brightened.
“I said may.”
She smiled.
“What I’d really like you to do now is go to your mother. See how she is. Then go to your room. Some of the troops are coming back to protect Blackjack. You can join them when they get here.”
Lizzie jumped up, ran to Jo, wrapped her arms around her and squeezed so hard Jo thought her ribs would crack. Then she ran out the door.
She’d be all right. Jo walked to the living room window of her corner suite. She watched smoke drifting away from Scorsi’s Luck, looked out on the scattered lights of the strip, dimmed by the first pink light of dawn.
A dark green Electra was rolling slowly into the west driveway. Jo moved back to the bedroom to watch it pull into the parking lot.
Rica stepped out of the car. There, passing under a light. The auburn hair. She was walking so slowly, her head down. Where had she been? But she was back. Jo felt relieved and wasn’t sure why. She needed to ask her about Owen.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I think you’re not there
Well, I’d tried, but Hannah was gone and I couldn’t be sure she would die. Funny, wasn’t it, how thinking “I tried” never made anything better. Not for me, anyway. Samm dead. Was Jo broken? I didn’t think that was possible. Judith? No. They’d recover. They’d all recover and Zack would be the new general.
Lizzie would either be part of the army or running it, some day when she got things a little more under control. Or she’d be a really dangerous merc. And Drew would be running the country and worrying about his sister. A long time from now. What would I be doing then?
Drained, sick, my insides numb, I felt tears starting and stopping and drying and impossible to call up again.
There were employees watching the locked doors of the casino, several with weapons. Pistols. Knives. The janitor who’d been guarding Owen let me in.
“The army’s coming back soon,” he said. “They won. I heard they’re bringing prisoners.”
One battle down, how many to go?
“I saw smoke at Scorsi’s. Do you know what that was about?”
He laughed. “Young Lizzie. She set the place on fire.”
Scary kid. I felt myself smile. I wanted to get to know Lizzie better.
“Owen?”
The man looked at the ground. “He brought the killers to Samm. He was a spy.”
Oh, god. Newt must have planned to use him, kept him as a deadly secret from me.
Leaving one light on like a signal to Samm ascending to a heaven I didn’t believe in, I threw myself down on my bed. Stood. Fumbled in the drawer for my sys. I needed to talk to someone. Not Gran. I wanted to talk to Sylvia.
I began the message, watching the words float in the air.
“I’m surrounded by grief tonight. A good soldier is dead. A killer got away. One of them, anyway. The grief of his family, and I grieve for him too, brings up all the loss I’ve ever had, the deaths and disappearances and the blunders and the cruelties and the defections.
“Is there really nothing missing from your life, as you once said? Such an odd, cold way to say it. As if it were some facile lesson you learned from him, from The Simpleton. The Guy of Glib and Brainless Words. The Cock of Conventional Wisdom. He said it, didn’t he? And I’ll bet he also said, ‘Don’t answer her. It’s better that way.’ Or maybe you said it all by yourself. It’s better that way. Better than what? How can there be nothing missing from your life when you’re missing from mine? Is that just my lunatic ego talking or is there some natural balance you’re defying?
“Are you lying or do you actually discard bleeding pieces of your life? Are you lying? Or are you really just not there?
“I go to you, sometimes, at night, when I look at the sky and imagine East. I can see you lying in your bed and I touch you. Do you feel it? I think you do.
“So are you lying? Or am I making it all up and you’re just not there?
“Why am I sending messages to a woman who isn’t there?
“I think you’re lying.
“I think you’re not there.”
I stopped, staring at the last words, “not there,” as they formed and hung in the air, bright against the one-lamp dimness of the room.
I opened my mouth again and said “send to…”
And stopped.
Why am I sending a message to a woman who isn’t there?
I think you’re lying.
I think you’re not there.
“Send to…
“Delete.”
I must have fallen asleep. When I looked at the clock three hours had passed. What woke me?
Sounds in the street below. I went to the window. Soldiers returning from the front. Cars dropping people off in the lot, then driving away again. I thought I saw Drew. Doc. Someone being taken out of a car on a litter, a bloody bandage wrapped around his middle. Two men in khaki being marched off with a pistol pointed at them. Prisoners. Rockies. Where were they taking them? Jo was there, talking to Drew. Andy, my piano man. Jo nodded, turned and walked back to the casino. Her body stiff, held upright by strength alone, I guessed.
I watched for a while. This wasn’t everyone, not yet. But things looked under control.
A sound behind me. The door. Someone was at the door. Did they want me to do something, help the soldiers somehow?
Irrational wisps— it was Hannah, coming back to kill me. Newt, enraged because he’d lost his Gullwing. My elbow hurt. My eyes felt crusty, the lids sore. I grabbed my pistol.
“Who’s there?”
Another knock, a light rap. Had there been an answer? I hadn’t heard on
e.
“Just a minute.”
Would the chain on the door hold? I slid it into the slot and opened the door a crack, feeling like some paranoid old woman from a Twentieth Century movie.
Jo. She stood straight, shoulders back, but the posture was strained. It was an effort for her not to slump. I unhooked the chain, opened the door wide.
She marched in, standing just inside the door, glaring at me. “Owen,” she said.
“I heard.”
“Did you know?”
I felt heat crawl up my neck, acid and ice in my stomach. “Of course I didn’t know! What the hell are you talking about? I told you Newt wasn’t telling me everything. Do you honestly think I’d— he kept the important one, the one he was using to— he kept that from me!” I began to cry. I hadn’t dried up, after all.
“You should have found out!”
“Yes, I should have.”
She watched me for a minute, then she nodded, tears in her own eyes.
“I needed to— I don’t know.” She didn’t hate me, didn’t blame me. I felt the ice in my gut melt. She walked the rest of the way in, her body still rigid. I raised my good arm, touching her shoulder. There was no give to it. I stroked it, ran my fingers down her arm. She leaned forward and touched my lips with a tentative kiss. I pulled her closer, she rested her forehead on my shoulder. I rubbed her back for a second and kissed the top of her head. I think I moved toward the bed first.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Splashed down, they say, and floated for a little while
The sys on the nightstand next to my head was buzzing. How? I hadn’t left mine out. It was still in the pocket of my pants. On the floor. Bright sunlight was coming in the window. Something else was buzzing, too, humming really. Outside somewhere far away.
Next to me, Jo shot upright and reached across me.
The voice coming from her sys was Zack’s. The static behind his voice was a much louder and more distinct version of the muffled hum I was hearing through my window. Angry voices. Shouts.
“…They want more blood.” Now I could make out a word, a chant, really, loud and close to Zack.
“Samm! Samm! Samm!”
“I’m going to give the order. I might as well. They’ll do it without one…”
His voice stopped.
Jo was out of bed, searching for her clothes.
“I have to go, Rica.”
We took Jo’s floater for the sake of speed, even though Newt’s casino was no more than half a mile away. The closer we got the more the sounds took shape: “Samm! Samm! Samm!” We were two blocks away when we saw the smoke. Again?
“Is Lizzie…?”
“I’m sure she’s there. But it seems a few other people thought it was a good idea, too.”
The crowd was huge, biggest I’d ever seen. There must have been a couple hundred people cheering on the fifty or so who were actively and methodically destroying Scorsi’s Luck, fighting their way through a few of Newt’s people to do it. Mercs and employees. I didn’t see any of the good-for-nothing bandits he thought he was turning into soldiers. I did see Waldo and his girl friend. Watching the fire, smiling, holding hands. Ugh.
A fire was blazing at the back again. Men and women were hacking away at the windows and doors with clubs and pieces of debris, shooting ancient bullets into the walls and lasering the carpets and machines and tables.
I spotted Drew, Emmy, and Liz together, and Zack, at his sys, standing next to Frank’s sheriff car. Frank wasn’t in it. Deputy Marty was sitting in the passenger seat. Just sitting. Drew was helping his sister break the casino’s big front window. Stupid kids, they could slice an artery that way. A merc was heading their way; I pulled my laser, stuck it through the open car window and winged him. He wheeled around and ran down the street, screaming. It was like a signal. The mercs still standing took off, too. I didn’t think I deserved all the credit for that; they were badly outnumbered.
“Nice shot, Rica!” Jo was grinning at me. It was, too. We jumped out of the car. I didn’t know what to do; I wasn’t sure what the plan was or if there was a plan at all. I followed Jo, who ran to Zack.
“Frank’s on his way out with Newt,” he shouted. We were right next to him, but I could hardly hear him even so over the sound of crashing glass and crumbling walls and a crowd both gleeful and enraged. “He’s the last one in there. Larry and Carl ran fifteen minutes ago. The fire finally did it. Newt’s not willing to burn for his casino.”
“Where’s the rest of his army?” I asked.
Jo answered. “They decided to go to war. Some are dead. Some are prisoners.”
I could just see that bunch “going to war.” I could only hope they hadn’t had a chance to do too much damage. Even more, I hoped none of them were still loose in the countryside.
The fire was moving fast. People were stepping back from the building, watching it burn. I was amazed at how many were just standing there in total silence, staring at it. Shocked by their own success? Stunned by their own violence and craziness?
And there was Frank, pushing a handcuffed Newt ahead of him to the car. The close-in crowd cheered and pressed in even closer.
“I didn’t do it, you fucking idiot!” Newt was purple in the face, drooling with rage and panic.
“Sure you did,” Frank chortled.
“Did what?” I asked.
“Quite a lot of things,” Frank answered. “He’s being charged with the murder of Mayor Madera and conspiracy to kill Samm and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
“Kill the bastard!” someone yelled. “He killed Samm!” The crowd surged toward the car. Frank pulled the back door open and shoved Newt in. He didn’t have to shove very hard, it was Newt’s only haven.
As Frank moved around to the driver’s seat, Newt noticed me standing there next to Jo. His mouth dropped open.
I gave him a shrug. What else could I do? Even if I wanted him to think I was still on his side, there wasn’t much I could do to help him. He glared back at me.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” he yelled through the closed window. “I didn’t kill Madera. I didn’t kill Samm! It was those boys! And Hannah!”
I shrugged again. So much for that new float-car he’d promised me.
“Did Ky implicate Newt?” I asked Frank.
Frank sneered. “Ky can’t talk yet. His mouth’s all mashed up.”
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like Newt would ever have discouraged anyone from killing Samm. Even if Newt hadn’t ordered the killings, the boys had murdered Madera because they knew damned well that Newt wanted him gone. All Hannah’d had to do was look like she was working with the Colemans and the Scorsi boys started to go after her. And Samm.
And then there was Owen. The one Newt hadn’t told me was a spy. No question, Newt was behind the deaths one way or another, as surely as if he’d done it himself. And the chief— for just a second I wondered if I should message her about any of this. A ridiculous thought. Old habit and nothing more. She was no longer involved. She was just sitting in Hangtown and, well, hanging onto her job until the Colemans decided to take it away from her.
I looked at Jo’s profile. She was glaring at Newt; the softness of the night before was gone. I wanted to bring it back. I was afraid of how much I wanted that. There was too much power in it— her power. Power that might make me— do what? Not do what?
Newt wasn’t the only killer in Tahoe. I liked Zack. I more than liked Jo and her family. But it seemed to me they were getting increasingly casual about the deaths of their enemies, not to mention the niceties of truth and justice. They didn’t hesitate to lie or at least push the truth to get support for their growing power. They didn’t hesitate to kill if they decided someone deserved it or had to be killed. Sure, this was war. And that was what was bothering me. This was war. Kill or be killed. Just as I’d had to kill the sheriff back in Iowa— and he wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last— before he killed me. Sometimes it’s not so easy to
see the difference between really having to do it or doing it because it’s a safer bet. Fine lines. Everywhere.
Did I want to be swept up in this? Was any of it right? Was Newt really enough of a threat to the Colemans to justify his destruction and the death of Billy Scorsi? Was Rocky really enough of a threat to justify an alliance that could make something of Redwood I didn’t want it to be?
Did I want to even be worrying about fine moral distinctions and wondering where I belonged and who I belonged with? Did I want to be feeling anything for anyone but Gran and the ghost of Sylvia?
No, I did not. Was that my spine stiffening, along with my upper lip, or was I just going rigid with fear at the thought of how much I could get hurt?
At some point, as I’d watched Newt get driven away and worn myself out struggling with issues of right and wrong and lust and power, Judith had arrived and Drew and Lizzie had moved in close, Emmy still with them. Drew looked worn, dirty, and angry. Emmy looked distressed. Lizzie looked peaceful, for some reason. Sad. Spent. Maybe the ugly complexity of it all was finally registering. Tim and Fredo arrived. They looked stunned. They nodded to me, I nodded back.
Judith stood gazing at the ruined Scorsi’s Luck. Somehow, she managed, on that ash and debris-strewn street, in a royal purple dress, blue shawl drawn against the light breeze, to look like a monarch. And Jo, she had no trouble looking like Judith’s in-charge minister of everything.
I didn’t want to look at any of it any more. I sketched a little wave toward Jo, got a puzzled glance in response, and turned in the direction of Blackjack. I wanted to walk. Then I wanted to sleep for another hour or two.
It was mid-afternoon when I woke again. My chest felt heavy; guess I’d breathed in too much casino-smoke. Jo had not come knocking on my door again.
Gran and her friends in Redwood needed to know what had been going on. The raid by Rocky, and the possibility that some of them had slipped through. The destruction of the Scorsis and what that meant about Coleman power. I had second thoughts about the chief. I decided to give her a quick last report, along with a bill for the time she hadn’t paid for yet.
Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy Page 33