Killer Be Killed (The Frontier Book 1)

by Travis E. Hughes

  “It’s from a fan,” said the android. A kind faced man with ragged clothes and a hat with holes in it smiled and waved. She gave a quick grin, waved, and turned away.

  When that drink was finished, another appeared from a new admirer. Roslyn tried to pace herself. But the whiskey and waters, with a dash of sugar, went down smoothly.

  Drago joined the game, seemingly out of nowhere, and squatted into the other vacant seat.

  “Deal me in as well,” Drago said. While they should have spread out, she didn’t fully mind having him at her table. Perhaps it was the whiskey, but the tinniest of grins escaped her mouth.

  After a few rounds of small talk, and two more whiskeys, Roslyn finally broke.

  “Anybody know a pilot that can haul a truck full of diamonds up to the space port?” she asked.

  “Well, maybe not a truck full,” Drago said, holding out his hand to interrupt. This sort of pissed Roslyn off. This wasn’t even his business. This was before his time shit. And right now, she had a point to make. With a sniff she waved him away.

  “A large truck full of diamonds. I need a pilot to take us off world,” Roslyn said matter-of-factly, looking around at each of her fellow poker players’ faces. Granny Shades stared blankly at her from the end of the table, withered mouth slightly open.

  For all intents and purposes, they were the apex predators of the camp. They’d just killed the queen. Roslyn was now the new queen of the yard, she reasoned. Had she desired, she could have taken over Star’s former empire; as meager as it was. But that wasn’t her path. And now that she was offering to leave, surely someone would step forward to help them do so. She’d leave it for the next rung down to bicker over. Surely they would want Roslyn to take Dogg, Wyatt, Devil Bill and Hattie far away. Even Grace made a dangerous foe. By her estimation, there were still five other trucks full of diamonds to be contested over.

  “I know a guy,” Granny Shades said in her wet rasp.

  “Okay,” Roslyn said waiting.

  “You gonna buy me a drink or what?” Granny Shades said.

  “Oh, okay. What ever she’s having,” Roslyn told the nearest android.

  Granny Shades waited until her drink was delivered to deliver. “Go to the corn hole game over on D and twentieth.”

  “D and twentieth?” Roslyn shrugged. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Didn’t you get that notice?” Granny Shades asked curtly, making like Roslyn was an idiot for not knowing about the ordinance.

  “They’ve organized a street system?” Roslyn asked, feeling hopeful. “When did they do that?”

  “Miss Star had just implemented it, before…” said the dealer apprehensively.

  “No shit,” said Roslyn looking at the table and then down at her twin casts.

  “Ask for a man named Wells Wallace,” Granny Shades said and leaned back slightly, licking her lips and then pursing them.

  “Where is he?” Roslyn asked, stunned.

  “I just told you,” Granny Shades said.

  “How well do you know him?” asked Roslyn, internally scratching her head. “He was missing last I heard.”

  “Oh,” Granny Shades said, leaning her head back. “I haven’t spoken with that old bastard in weeks.”

  “No?” Roslyn said with a flat smile. “But maybe I’ll still check out that corn hole game, though. Do you have a copy of the ordinance or better yet a map?”

  After the hand, Roslyn and Drago cashed out and she told Talbert about her plan to question a group of corn hole players. “Did you know about the street names?”

  “Nope,” Talbert said, peering over his cards at Earless Joe, looking extra greasy in the swell of the tent. He seemed nervous and lost. Like he had no place to be, but didn’t want to be there. Talbert wondered if he had worked for Star in some capacity and was now out of a job.

  Stepping out into the street, Roslyn hovered along, when a whoosh brought Puff to her shoulder.

  They found the corn hole game in full motion. Beer bottles lined a half wall. Someone was building a proper structure, the foundation had been laid and the walls were halfway up.

  “When’s the last time you saw Wells?” asked Roslyn, hovering to a spot around the fire. The game played out beyond the flames. The four prospectors tossing bags chided each other like close friends, or men who spent a great deal of time together. They were loud and drunk. Someone handed Roslyn and Drago beers.

  “I’m going to call it Yellow Donkeyballs,” said a drunken, handsome man. “I’ll serve my famous blue martinis.”

  “You’re going to open a club called Yellow Donkeyballs?” said the woman next to him. “You hear that, Josefina? Jia is going to call his club Yellow Donkeyballs.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Josefina.

  Eight other people sat around the fire, waiting their turn to play in the night’s tournament. There was money at stake of course. Not a lot of money, these prospectors hadn’t been as lucky as some others in the camp.

  “Frankly, I’m kinda glad that old piece of shit isn’t here,” said Alicia wearing a man’s sports coat and a florescent flower in the rim of her top hat. “Welly’s the best player. He goes on ridiculous runs. Game over type shit. It sucks unless you draw him for your mate. Then, if you draw old Welly, shit, you know you got that kitty, B.”

  “Can you answer my question, please?” Roslyn said with authority in her tone. She sipped the luke warm beer Jia had given her.

  “Right,” said Alicia taking a drag off of a haoma joint. She held it in as she passed it to the bucktoothed kid sitting next to her. Smoke trailed her words. “He was here, three nights ago. Him and Rye-Rye won the night. Took home five hundred bytes each.”

  “Good for him,” Roslyn said, lowering her bottom lip. “Any idea where he goes? Where he might be now?”

  “What do you want with Welly?” asked Alicia, frowning with concern.

  “He’s going to fly us out of here,” Roslyn explained. “We have a contract.”

  “Wait,” Alicia sat up. “You’re leaving?”

  “That’s right,” Roslyn said. “We’re taking our find and cashing out and heading on to other things.”

  “But who’s going to run things?” she asked. “Who’s going to keep the peace?”

  “That’s up to you guys, right?” Roslyn said, scrunching up her face.

  “I mean, at least if you did right by Star, she did right by you. She didn’t let people get fucked with,” said Jia. “Someone has to be in charge.”

  “I thought taxes were for asses?” Roslyn asked.

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Jia said. “But still… There’s a vacuum going open up. I’m going to open my own business soon. We need protection.”

  “Are you seriously complaining to me about the lady who did this to me?” Roslyn pointed at her two white casts. She tried to keep her lid on, but the top shook and rattled.

  “Well, I mean… no, I guess not,” Alicia said in a downtrodden voice.

  “Do you know where he lives?” asked Roslyn finally.

  “No,” Alicia said, leaned forward, put her hands on her knees and pushed herself to stand. She smiled and headed around the corner to an outhouse.

  On the trip back to her tent, Drago and Roslyn figuratively strolled along in silence, well, Roslyn hovered three feet above the ground. The only respite from the anguish of being confined to her chair was not having to wade through the muck.

  “What are you thinking about?” Roslyn asked as they crossed the road and cut down another row of tents and hovels. “You’ve been extra quiet tonight.”

  “Oh, I’m just imagining you naked,” he said rather casually. It took her a moment to register what he’d said. They were both fairly tipsy.

  “Shut the fuck up,” she said, offended. “Really? Are you for real?”

  “I’m joking,” Drago said in a high voice. “Jeez.”

  “Well, from now on, man… I mean, we can’t be like that… that is not appropriate,” sh
e slurred. “We’re going to be co-workers, now.”

  “Co-workers?” Drago asked, tilting his head.

  “That’s right,” Roslyn said. “I’m going to offer you a job when we get to Shiva.”

  “To do what?” he asked.

  “To be a detective,” she said. He didn’t answer for several footfalls.

  “Is that what you are?” he asked in a sullen voice. Panic alarms wailed inside of Roslyn’s brain. What had she just done? Trusted him?

  “Would that make a difference?” she asked through tight lips.

  Again boots scraped and clopped, the hum of the chair, the distant calls of dragons and other reptiles, people laughed, people screamed, water and beer and wine and whiskey spilled and the wind flapped the tents and laundry all about, before another word was uttered.

  “I don’t know,” Drago said. “Matter for what?”

  “Whether or not you’d take the job,” she said.

  “Who’s your target?” Drago asked.

  “It’s not you,” she said quickly.

  “I know it’s not me. But it is someone I know, and perhaps call a friend?” Drago asked, cocking his head and almost sneering. “Or was it Star?”

  “Until you’ve been sworn in as a detective with our organization, then you don’t get to ask those kinds of questions.”

  “You a Fink?” he asked. But a scream interrupted her reply.

  “Get back here you bitch!” yelled a man’s heavy voice.

  From out of the darkness ran a woman. Her top had been ripped open, her breasts flung about from side to side as she ran. Her skirt had been ripped and eyeliner ran down her face.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Roslyn’s pistol jabbed into the rapist’s forehead, digging a red ring almost as a third eye. Her eyes were feral and trembling. Her chair hung five feet off the ground to give her leverage. Drago drew and stepped back to get a better overview.

  “Get on your knees,” Roslyn instructed the man in a loud commanding holler. Like the coward he was, he dropped to his knees and held his hands over his head. She lowered her chair down to him, gun raised. For a moment she couldn’t remember if she had her gun on kill or stun. The simple act of looking could cost her that split second to react.

  “Drago, cover him,” Roslyn said. Drago stepped forward with his gun to the back of Rapist’s head. She glanced. Stun. She’d put it back. Good. With a shrug, she hovered back and shot him out cold.

  “What happened?” asked Roslyn, turning to the victim. She was busy pulling her blouse back together, trying to cover herself.

  “He bought me a drink. I said thank you… He-he tried to chat me up. I left. He followed me out. I tried to run, but he caught me,” Victim sobbed.

  “It’s okay,” Roslyn said, putting both hands on her shoulders. “We’re going to need a jail. A large one, I suspect.”

  When she returned to their tent, Roslyn recorded a holo-vid and sent copies out on drones. It was a personal request to Bat Matters. Please return to New Vegas at once.

  They tore open a large safe in Star’s office. It was full of diamonds, gold, silver, and stacks of plastic chips, most of them white and green but there were a sizable stack blue and red. In the back there was a tall stack of silver chips. Those were worth a hundred thousand bytes each. Adding it all up would send the numbers into the tens of millions, she realized. Dipping deeply into Star’s booty, Roslyn paid for a sheriff’s station along with a large jail. They went to work on it the following day. Roslyn hovered about, overseeing construction.

  Meanwhile, no one had a clue about Wells Wallace. A rumor floated around that he’d been killed by Star. Star it would seem suspected, correctly, that he was helping Roslyn get the diamonds off world. No one could verify that. So they put up fliers looking for pilots.

  Then Wells Wallace came walking into camp. He was sunburned and dehydrated. His boots had worn down to almost non-existent.

  “Someone nabbed me, god dammit,” Wells said after he’d taken a long bath and rehydrated. “I kept waiting for them to torture me. But they didn’t. I ended up becoming buddies with the one feller who was there the most. Chip. He made a mean cheese sandwich. Boy, I tell ya.” He held up his current cheese sandwich for being subpar in comparison.

  “Yeah?” Drago said. They were at the Greasy Pete’s lunch counter.

  “But that was only an act,” Wells’ eyes grew dark. “I lulled him into a false trust. It was just like back in the war. I turned cold and dark. It felt like I was watching Devil Bill skin people alive.”

  Roslyn’s heart stopped. Then it picked back up and grew like a freight train’s engine. It hammered upward into her throat, making the release of breath erratic. If she were back on Earth she’d simply do a quick search and find all the articles that had been written on Devil Bill. But the war destroyed communications and in doing so, destroyed the web; all the data was lost.

  “You saw him do this?” she asked through crackling lips.

  “Wasn’t no reason for it,” Wells’ voice quivered.

  “Like, you were there?” Roslyn pressed.

  “Yes!” shouted Wells. He quickly caught himself and straightened. “I only saw him the one time. He was up on a ridge overseeing the battle. He didn’t do it himself. The skinnin’. But he ordered it done.”

  Roslyn sniffed violently. The reaction startled her. She shook her head, stunned. The urge to be alone overwhelmed her. She needed quiet to think this out. What did it mean? Devil Bill seemed like a completely different person than Bill Talbert. Or was he? Had she gotten to know Bill Brown? Who was the real Bill Talbert? He was undercover. Always working the job. Even with his own team? A sour, acrid taste formed in her mouth now, when envisioning Talbert. She flashed to their many battles together. Had he enjoyed killing? Stunning people was his way of playing along, staying in character.

  Doctor Gonzo grounded Wells for two days in order to get his strength back enough to make the trip into space. Roslyn suggested they wait until the morning of departure to fetch their diamonds. Roslyn put Earl Wyatt in charge of camp security in the interim. His shoulder was bandaged and healing well. He stoically took the post.

  The two days proved beneficial in another aspect as well. Bat Matters arrived the morning of day two. Roslyn took him and Wyatt immediately to Star’s main safe; a large metal storage facility in a secret basement beneath the hotel. It was heaping full of booty; wealth beyond comfort and security, reaching toward stupidity. It was another cache of tens of millions. Enough to begin building some form of local infrastructure. Roslyn pocketed a cool ten million for her firm and left the rest to the town’s people.

  “I know there are employees of Star’s that go back to before she arrived out here,” Roslyn said. “But technically this is criminal money and could be seized by your new principality. To go into the camp’s infrastructure, I would suggest. But we won’t be around to oversee shit, so… You do what your conscience tells you to do, how about?”

  “Gee, thanks,” Bat said, shaking his head at the glimmering rainbows. “Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. I’ll need a freaking army around me to run this shit show.”

  “Well, you can certainly afford one. Mr. Earl Wyatt would be a nice second, I’d suspect. Hire men like him. And try to do better than those Red Scarves, please,” Roslyn said.

  Wyatt nodded his head toward her, touching the brim of his hat as way of gratitude for the compliment.

  “Those were some fierce, grizzled ass mercenaries. You guys are just that dangerous,” Bat said.

  She instantly thought of Devil Bill. He was a serial killer. The profile fit. She hadn’t been able to look directly at him since Wells told his story. She contemplated what to do about it. What she imagined and planned for, the business model she’d studied so diligently back on Earth and then on the ride out from Earth, had all turned to shit. She was basically a criminal all over again. They murdered people. Sometimes that’s the job.

  The right thing to do, for
the sake of her future, and considering the image of the firm, would be to fire Devil Bill. That could be a hurdle with her father still technically in charge, and Devil Bill his best friend. Not best friend. More like the son he never had. The person he’d wished she’d been.

  Leaving Bat to look over Star’s office for evidence, Roslyn went about gathering her team. Her stomach tumbled when she thought about how close she was to capturing Dogg Holly. It was only business, she reasoned. But she wanted to warn him; to tell him to stay behind with Bat. That she’d send him the money. He’d earned it. She wondered what Talbert felt about it now. But then she remembered she couldn’t trust Devil Bill. The mole had her by the ear and was leading her all over the place.

  She found Hattie and Devil Talbert in the tent. They had finished packing and presently turned their energy toward disassembling the shelter.

  “Just leave it up,” Roslyn said. “We’ll leave it abandoned. I’ll put up a sign that says, ‘First Come, First Serve.’”

  “Fine by me,” Talbert grunted and pushed a pole back in place.

  “Let’s go get Drago first, before we grab Dogg. The less time…” Roslyn trailed off. She hated even thinking about it.

  “You really think you can go through with this?” asked Hattie, looking at Talbert. But it had been the question on Roslyn’s mind at that exact moment.

  “Let’s just see how it plays out,” Roslyn said, followed by a palpitation. “We won’t arrest him. We’ll just bring him to Shiva and if the Birds want him, they’ll grab him. If not, then we hire him. I’ll hire Grace too. That girl is a big picture thinker. And crazy as sin.”

  This pleased them all.

  “Why are we fetching Drago, again?” Talbert asked, ending the unity.

  “I think he’ll make a decent agent,” Roslyn said in a voice slightly higher than natural. “We have the investment needed to expand our agency here.”

  “A decent agent?” Talbert grumbled. “Is that what you want to be, a decent agency?”

  “No. But I think he’d make a very good agent,” Roslyn corrected.