Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy
Page 34
First the chief and her bill.
“How are you doing, Rica?”
“Just great.” Alive, no thanks to her. I told her everything I knew, everything I’d seen. I said nothing about her failure to pass on the information that Jo knew all about me. What good would that have done? She knew that I knew. Maybe she’d decide she owed me for it. “Is there anything you’d still like me to do here?” Like finish investigating the Colemans? “I never did find out if they were skimming.” I couldn’t help it. There was a sarcastic edge to my voice. We both knew she didn’t care.
“No. Never mind.”
“Okay. Well, you owe me a balance of 850 reals.”
“Let’s make it a thousand reals.”
I’d earned it. “Send it to the Redwood address. That’s where I’m heading soon.”
The conversation with Gran took a little longer. She wanted Macris and Petra to hook into it. I left out the part about Hannah escaping; it was too depressing.
Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Gran chirped, “Oh! By the way, something really strange happened, don’t know if it has any connection to what’s been going on in Sierra.”
“Something strange?” What else could happen?
“A plane went down in the Pacific, a white Gullwing. Just offshore at Stinson Beach. Splashed down, they say, and floated for a little while. The pilot swam ashore with help from some residents. A woman. Skinny, tall. Said her landing gear was broken and her plane-chute gone.”
“Long scar on her face?”
“Nobody mentioned that.”
Chapter Forty
A way to go home
The Sierra Star did something the next day I suspected it had never done before: published a one-page extra. Samm’s death and Newt’s arrest was the main story, the border war victory number two, and the burning of Scorsi’s Luck and Newt’s squeals of innocence, a pathetic bottom-of-the-page third.
Iggy Santos couldn’t have done better for the Colemans if they paid in advance for ten years of full-page ads. He didn’t exactly say the fire was an accident, but he put it this way:
“Soldiers celebrating the victory over Rocky invaders merged yesterday at Scorsi’s Luck with an angry crowd protesting the murder of popular Blackjack dealer Samm Bakar. The demonstrators, demanding the arrest of Newt Scorsi, attacked the casino and somehow, in the melee, a fire started at the back of the building. Firefighters were unable to save it.”
That was it, the whole story in a dice cup. Somehow. Demonstrators.
What I’d seen was a defensive army turned into a mob of aggressors. Zack had given his soldiers leave to “celebrate” without the tedious restrictions of law. And Sheriff Frank had done his job.
When the cars had come back with the prisoners, Frank and the army had set up a kind of camp at the Lucky Buck. Tents in the courtyard. I wondered how long they’d be able to keep the Rockies there without some kind of riot erupting. But that wasn’t going to be my problem.
Sitting in my room, I shot the screen on my sys and opened the line to channel 1. A male face resolved shakily. Fading in and out. He was playing a flute. I muted the sound and sat thinking about my options. Was I compromised as a merc? Probably, at least here on the western end of the continent. I hadn’t exactly kept a low profile in Tahoe. Things were happening, armies were moving. People would talk, and talk from Tahoe would spread. Too many people knew too much about me now.
Even I knew more about me than I wanted to.
I could still work the back roads of Middle or shadow-of-the dunes villages in Desert, or goad Electra through the snowdrifts in New England. I could take the job in New Orleans.
All so far away. Endless miles away.
Webber Doe’s pretty face showed. I punched sound.
“…turned the invaders back at the border.” Fade out. “…got a little out of hand in Tahoe when the returning army burned down a casino belonging to a man they said had murdered their general. He’s been arrested. Some people think maybe the troops went overboard. Here at home, a sheriff’s meeting…” Dead air. “…long way from the Rocky border, but we’ll convene the Redwood council and see if there’s anything we think we need to do. Next Data from Webber Doe—” I lost it entirely.
A long way from Rocky indeed. What a gang of fools. But at least “some people” back there, whatever that meant, thought the mob action wasn’t just a fun party for the troops. Even if Redwood did agree to some kind of alliance with Sierra, eventually, they might remember that and be wary.
* * *
Jo told me that once, when they were kids, Samm had told her that he planned to die as a warrior, and when that happened he wanted a Viking funeral. So that was what she would give him. Lake Tahoe was hardly a sea, and a raft carrying Samm’s floater was hardly a dragon-headed Viking ship, but it would have to do.
It was dusk, the light waning, pink touching the sky. I watched while Zack drove the floater onto the raft of bound fir logs and set it down on its park pads. Drew said they were afraid the floater, on its own, would sink into the water too fast once the fire hit the hover-set. They wanted it to burn completely.
I watched while Jo, Lizzie, Drew, Zack, and Emmy packed the kindling around Samm’s shrouded body. Drew had begged for the honor of lighting the pyre. He towed the raft out to the middle of the lake, driving Judith’s floater. He was to fire the pitch on a flaming arrow and shoot it back into Samm’s car where the windshield had been broken away, make sure the flames were well started, cut his line, and come back to shore where a crowd had gathered, family at the water’s edge, friends at their sides, several hundred citizens behind us. The spectacle was too far away to follow easily, but we saw the arrow arc, saw the kindling catch, saw Drew hover for a moment before he cut back toward shore.
The flames rose to three times the height of the floater. A few of the people cried out, wailed, wept; one woman screamed and fell to the ground. But most of us stood there silent in the dimming daylight, staring at the fire on the water. It took nearly an hour for the raft, the floater and Samm to sink to the deepest part of the lake.
* * *
My sys buzzed. Jo.
“Rica, could you come to my office, please?”
We hadn’t talked since earlier that evening, and then only a few words at the funeral. I wondered what she wanted. If she’d simply wanted me, I thought she’d come to my room, or she would have asked me to go to her apartment. I wondered why she hadn’t. I wondered why I hadn’t made it happen. Her voice stirred me, but from a distance, like a memory. Murder and fire and grief sat between us like a black moat. And lawlessness. I didn’t want that kind of lawlessness used against Redwood. I needed to go home.
On the way to her office I passed the poker tables. Emmy was dealing at Samm’s table. We nodded at each other.
Jo was sitting behind her desk. She rose when I walked in, circled it, and gave me a tender kiss on the cheek. I kissed her on the mouth and won a tiny smile.
“Sit down, Rica.”
“This sounds serious.” We both sat on the couch, a yard apart, facing each other.
She laughed softly. “Everything seems serious. Let me get right to it. I don’t think I’ll really have time to take a council seat. Zack’s going to need help, now that Samm’s gone.” Her voice broke. “The casino needs running. The campaigns and the policies need work. That’s really where I belong. I want you to be the candidate.”
That was the last thing I wanted.
“I’m sorry, Jo. I can’t do that. I need to go home and see to things there.”
Her eyes flickered. “You’re leaving?”
“At least for a while.” I thought it would be longer than a while. What was that noise out in the parking lot? Sounded like a lot of cars. Again.
“I don’t want to lose you, Rica.” Her eyes dropped to her folded hands. “I mean I don’t want Sierra to lose you. Either.” I laughed; she smiled back at me. “So I have another proposal. We need to negotiate an alliance wi
th Redwood. You’re the perfect person to serve as our ambassador to San Francisco. Work with us, and with your own people. Make it good for everyone.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was she really offering me a job in Redwood? How much would I have to say about the relationship between Redwood and Sierra? Could I work for her and still keep the Colemans from setting themselves up as our royal family? A dozen clichés ran through my head. A light at the end of the tunnel. Beware of Colemans bearing gifts. For just a moment, I felt ambivalent about giving up the merc life, the merc freedom. But that feeling passed very quickly.
“I won’t just take orders, you know.” Even working independently, could I really affect what the Colemans ultimately decided— and were able— to do?
She laughed again. “Would it help if I told you another raiding party came across from Rocky this morning?”
“It might help if it was true.”
She had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “It’s true. Zack’s on his way to the border in about an hour.” So that was what was going on outside. The army was gathering again.
“You’re going to have to keep troops closer to Rocky.”
She nodded. “We’re interrogating the prisoners to see if we can find out about crossing points, plans. So far, half of them are singing religious songs and the other half are trying to beat each other up.”
“What are you going to do with them when you’ve finished asking them questions?”
She shrugged. “Try to absorb the ones who are willing to be absorbed. The others?” She shrugged again.
“You didn’t address my last point— I won’t just take orders.”
“I’m hoping you’ll find my orders reasonable. If not, we’ll talk about it.”
“Or maybe you’ll just arrest me?”
“Rica, Rica, Rica.” She shook her head.
“Are you going to execute Newt?”
“I doubt it. Maybe we should just send him to Rocky and let him mess things up for them.”
She was incorrigible. Adorable. I didn’t really care about Newt.
“I’ll have to think about it, Jo. And I want to see your proposals for the alliance. You screw with Redwood, I’ll make sure they get off their butts and organize to defend themselves.”
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble supporting us.”
I was not at all sure of that. But it was a way to go home, get off the road, do what I could for my country, and earn a living too. Although we hadn’t yet talked about how much the job would pay.
“What if I decide to work against you?”
“You won’t.”
“I’m not sure I want to give up being a merc, you know.”
She laughed. “I think you wouldn’t mind. A merc, a spy— you’re just a hired gun. You can do more. You can do a lot for Redwood. You can be a hero in Redwood’s history.”
I shot her a sardonic look. “There are no heroes.”
She shrugged. “Spoken like a merc.”
Restless, unable to sit still on that couch, too close to Jo, I stood and walked to the window. Andy. Zack. Drew. Emmy. As I was watching, Lizzie marched up to stand beside her brother. She had a pistol strapped to her hip. I was glad she wasn’t taking Soldier, despite the dog’s name.
I turned back around. “You’re letting Lizzie fight?”
Jo sighed. “There’s no stopping her. She said she’d follow the troops on her own if we didn’t let her go with them. Judith’s upset, I’m not happy. But I guess she’s safer this way.”
I leaned back against the sill, arms folded across my chest. I knew I looked defensive but I didn’t care.
“I’ll visit you, Rica. In Redwood.”
“I doubt that. You’re going to be pretty busy.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I hope you do. I expect I’ll be coming here from time to time, as well.” I’d certainly keep in touch with Tim and Fredo.
We looked at each other. We had a long way to go before we even thought about any alliances other than the one between our countries, and we both knew that.
“You still haven’t given me your answer, Rica.”
I turned back and looked out the window again. Some of the cars were pulling out of the lot.
“How big is this new raiding party?”
“About the same as the last one. Maybe a little bigger. They seem to be making a slow start. But I’ve heard fairly reliably that there’s organizing going on and these little forays are just diversions to keep us busy while they build for a real invasion.”
“Fairly reliably.”
“Fairly. But I don’t doubt it.”
Neither did I.
I faced her. She stood, walked to her desk, sat down.
“I need your answer, Rica.”
She was a busy woman. So was Judith and I was betting she was waiting for my answer, too.
I sat in the guest chair, across the desk, and laid my hands on the polished wooden surface.
“Okay, Jo. How much does the job pay?”
THE END
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About the Author
SHELLEY SINGER has had 13 novels, including a Shamus Award nominee, and several short stories published. Most are mysteries, including the six books in the Jake Samson series. Her most recent novel is Torch Song, a near-future thriller. She teaches writing online and does manuscript consulting. She has served as a judge in a number of fiction writing contests, including the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction writing competition. She lives in Petaluma, CA with two dogs and the love of her life.
Full Table of Contents
Chapter One
Map
; Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Guarantee
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A Respectful Request
About the Author
Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve