The Dog From Hell: Book Four of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  He watched closely the second man, whose face stayed blank, and the man simply called.

  That was potentially not good. He might be sandbagging.

  Von Baldur raised, was raised back by the first player. The second player just called. Again, an unknown.

  Friedrich tried to avoid looking at his increasingly slender stake. If this went on, they could buy him out of competition.

  He called, as, to his great relief, did the others.

  The last card was dealt, down and dirty.

  Von Baldur casually lifted its corner, and, he hoped still calmly, set it back down.

  It was the fourth jack.

  The first player checked, as did Friedrich. The second bet heavily. It took almost all of von Baldur’s pile to stay in the game. The first player, suddenly seeming unsure, merely called.

  Friedrich did the same.

  He felt sweat trickle down his sides.

  The first player forced a smile, shrugged, and turned over his three hole cards.

  Junk.

  The second man looked smug, and showed what von Baldur thought he might have held — a full house, kings and sevens.

  Friedrich flipped over his four jacks, and raked in the pot.

  That gave him his strength, and, a dozen hands later, the first player was out, and a few hands later, so was the second.

  There was applause, and Freddie bowed.

  Friedrich von Baldur had a very large pot in front of him.

  A chip girl, smiling her availability, asked if she could cash him in.

  Von Baldur waited until three holo photographers got their pictures, then told her to go ahead.

  He’d be in the bar.

  By the time his drink, a very expensive vintage Earth cognac with a water back had materialized, so had the rather large check, and a scattering of cash.

  The chip girl smiled invitingly.

  Von Baldur smiled back, and tipped her a one hundred credit note.

  She looked disappointed, moved away.

  There would have been a time when von Baldur would have followed up on the invite, but he was feeling a bit of his years, and all of the thirty-five hours.

  Von Baldur hated to make promises he might not be able to keep.

  Friedrich drained about half of his drink — this was the first alcohol he’d allowed himself beyond the single drink every eight hours when he was playing — and relaxed.

  He wanted to finish the brandy and order another, but didn’t want to suddenly pass out in the middle of his triumph. He would wait for a minute.

  This was one step, the third successful one he’d made.

  If he could keep up the winning, his goal — setting up another Star Risk, this one keeping well away from anything resembling Cerberus Systems — was getting closer.

  He wondered, if he was successful, if he could track down his former partners and see if they were interested in trying again.

  Probably not, he thought, a bit sadly.

  Things never went that smoothly.

  A waitress, unbidden, set another snifter down in front of him.

  He was about to ask, when a man his age settled down in the next chair.

  “It is good, Mital,” the man said, startling von Baldur by use of his real name, “to see you being a success.”

  It took a moment to recognize the man. He, like Freddie, had aged.

  His real name was Laurence Chambers, von Baldur remembered, and he hadn’t seen him for ten, no fifteen years. The last time had been in the middle of a disastrous retreat, all screaming, blood, and crashing starships.

  Chambers had been in charge of an elite reconnaissance team, detailed, quite out of its specialty but typical for the military, to help von Baldur evacuate the supply depot he’d been in charge of.

  It had been a very long and defeated week.

  “I thought you were dead, or at least disassembled a bit,” Friedrich said.

  “It was all smoke and flame,” Chambers said. “They got me out and patched me up.

  “I remember you and I’d been talking about — ” Chambers looked around to see if there was anyone in earshot. “Decent and civilized ways to make money, and you’d convinced me that being in the middle of shooting, shitting, and shouting was a mug’s game.

  “When I got out of the hospital and was waiting for my retirement papers to go through, I started looking for you.

  “Without luck.”

  “I got off that hellworld … I don’t even remember its name,” von Baldur said, “as quickly as I could, and found a nice, safe job, way behind the lines. And then I found it … expedient to leave the military.”

  “So I discovered,” Chambers said. “I did, as well. Running security for a gaming world.

  “As sort of a hobby, I kept trying to find you.”

  “At the time,” von Baldur said, “I was distinctly interested in not being found. More so, later.”

  “I learned that, too,” Chambers said.

  Neither man mentioned the reason — that Mital Rafinger, now Friedrich von Baldur, had resigned from the Alliance shortly before an investigating commission arrived at the quartermaster regiment of which he was in charge.

  “Finally, I tracked you down. Running that Star Risk, which sounded like fun until the shit came down.” Again, Chambers looked around, but there were still no eavesdroppers. “I heard about the raw deal Cerberus gave you people. I’d heard from other sources what shitheels they were, and didn’t have any trouble believing you’d run afoul of them.”

  “But you kept on looking,” von Baldur said, trying to keep suspicion from his voice.

  “I did,” Chambers said. “Not just out of curiosity anymore. Especially after I heard what you were doing now. I came here, and saw that you were lucky — if a little underfunded.”

  “This is true,” von Baldur admitted.

  “I’m now running my little world after a certain high-stakes game,” Chambers went on. “But I’ve got a problem. Goddamned bust-out artists have been moving in on me. I don’t know if it’s a conspiracy, but I’ve got ‘em thicker than flies.”

  “That is not good.”

  “What I decided I needed was a Q-ship. And, maybe, somebody who’s good enough to find out who’s running the operation, since you’ve done some interesting things since the Alliance let you go.”

  “Ah?”

  “Someone,” Chambers went on, “who can show up in a game, looking fairly innocent, and go after the sharpies.”

  “What makes you think I’m a supershark?”

  “I don’t,” Chambers said. “But I want somebody on the floor who clearly isn’t part of my team. Let’s say I can generally make the cards run in your direction.”

  “How very interesting.”

  “I thought you might like it,” Chambers said, with a tight smile.

  “I’ll pay a salary, bankroll you, and let you play in any tournaments you want. That’ll attract some folks who might want to go head to head against you, which is good for my operation.”

  “Mr. Chambers,” von Baldur said carefully, “this is worth discussing, although I feel that I’ve run across a shark much bigger than I am.”

  “That,” Chambers said, “is one thing that’ll keep you honest — which, of course, means on my side.”

  FOURTEEN

  The woman was simply amazing.

  From her carefully coifed hair to her coyly painted toes, she could only be called spectacular.

  Still more impressive, she appeared rich without being a snob, exquisitely dressed and jeweled without being a clotheshorse, seductive without being whorish.

  Chas Goodnight might’ve wanted to take her to bed, were he not a man who never confused work and pleasure.

  She was costing him two hundred credits an hour, plus expenses, and Chas thought — from the adoring looks she was getting from the two clerks and the manager of the jewelry store — she was worth every bit of it.

  Her name was Marnie, and her voice w
as like pure water over stones in a purling brook.

  She turned to Chas, who was impeccably dressed as a rich man of leisure, fully suitable for Marnie’s companion, and asked if he was sure this store carried really fine rubies.

  He didn’t have to answer.

  The two clerks scurried, and the manager told her they had the finest rubies on the planet — nay, the system, no, the cluster itself — fit for a princess or a queen such as she was, and showed her to the appropriate counter.

  Marnie justified their faith in her, and asked to look at the second most expensive necklace in the case.

  She tried it on, posed in front of a mirror, frowned slightly, and asked to see another item, this one the most expensive ruby necklace in the case.

  It was reverently put before her, resting on a black velvet cloth.

  She picked it up, let out a small squeal of delight, and then, somehow, accidentally, the string of the necklace broke.

  Gems scattered across the carpet.

  Marnie squealed again, this time in pure dismay, knelt, and, apologizing, started scooping up rubies.

  The two clerks and manager were around the side of the counter, on their knees, helping.

  The tiny knife with which Marnie had cut the string vanished, unseen.

  No one seemed to notice Goodnight’s move to the rear of the counter, or his sliding the back of the counter open, a small silk bag coming out of his jacket, and gems being shoveled in.

  Then the rubies were recovered, and Marnie, blushing and in tears, couldn’t be more shamefaced, telling Goodnight she had to go back to the hotel, her amour propre was shattered, and maybe they could come back later, but she certainly couldn’t pick anything out at the moment after this embarrassment.

  Making the appropriate noises, Goodnight escorted her to the door.

  It was then things went awry.

  The guard, slightly older than God, came out of his alcove burbling something about stop thief, they wouldn’t be allowed to get away with this, and by Heaven he’d see the law put both of them away forever, and so on and so forth.

  More to the point, his hand was bringing out an elderly nickel-plated but still deadly gun.

  Goodnight had allowed for the possibility of the retiree’s rather pointless bravery when he planned the holdup, hoped he wouldn’t have to take extreme measures.

  His hand flashed across his cheek, and he went bester.

  He was inside the old man’s guard before the man could take the safety catch off his pistol, and rigid fingers seemed to merely touch a nerve ganglion in the man’s neck.

  The man gargled and his eyes rolled back. He started to fall backward.

  Goodnight came out of bester.

  Gun and guard went to the floor.

  The manager was just beginning to shout something when Marnie took a small, svelte gas grenade from her sleeve, and, thumbing the timer, flipped it toward the three employees.

  It went off, and they went down like stalled oxen.

  Goodnight, not trusting the filters in either his or Marnie’s noses, had her by the arm and spun her out the door into the street.

  A dozen steps away, a lifter sat, its engine ready.

  Goodnight unlocked the door, got the woman inside, and was behind the controls in an instant.

  Without ceremony, he lifted the car, putting a large dent in the luxury vehicle parked in front of him.

  Three blocks away, another anonymous lifter waited.

  They changed vehicles, and were off again.

  “Well?” Marnie asked.

  “Goddamn that impotent old fart playing hero,” he said, not sounding that disturbed. “He’s going to get himself killed and some poor goddamned thief up on a murder rap if he’s not careful one of these days.

  “Just because old bastards like him don’t care if they get themselves killed doesn’t mean they’re entitled to cause so much frigging trouble, damnit!”

  “Did we get what we came after?”

  Goodnight grinned.

  “We did. So you’ll get your bonus at the spaceport. Your flight’s boarding in an hour. I want you gone and away within the hour, since you’re a little on the high-profile side.”

  Marnie made a face.

  “I was afraid of that,” she said. “I would have liked to stay around and play with you.”

  “Another time, princess,” he said.

  She pouted, and rolled between her fingers two of the rubies she’d palmed.

  “Why is it the people you want to stay around never can?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”

  Goodnight, for a change, told part of the truth.

  “I’ve an idea for another job on another world, darling, that I thought of while we were hauling ass. Something that’ll be well worth risking my handsome young person for, not like this small-time action.”

  “Can I help?” Marnie asked. “You’re fun to work for.”

  “Afraid not,” Chas said. “This one’ll call for just plain ordinary thugs and smash-and-grab goons, no one of your talents.”

  FIFTEEN

  By the seventh concert, M’chel Riss knew that the assassin-wannabe was one of them and not an outsider.

  There’d been another attempt — this one with a conventional bomb in one of Lollypop’s semiportable costume trunks — and Riss refused to believe the handful of gape-jawed fans who followed the tour had brains enough to plan a murder, let alone the desire.

  She also was developing a healthy respect for any touring musician. She and her trio of bodyguards had already fallen into the eons-old “If this is Tuesday, this must be Belgium” thinking — whatever a Belgium was.

  And the tour had barely begun.

  All that existed for them now was the tour, and the people on it. Everyone else was either a help, a hindrance, a citizen in the audience, or a blur, and each world consisted of the road to the chosen hotel, perhaps a glimpse from a lim window of a local landmark pointed out by a promoter, the stadium, and a larger blur that was the planet.

  Space was a doldrum of stupid games, hearing jokes and stories that’d been told a thousand times before, and practice, at least for everyone but Lollypop.

  It might have been tough on the musicians — they set up, played, and then wanted to collapse when the fans wanted to throw a party afterward, but it was harder on the crew. They had to set up, make all the equipment checks and deal with the venue problems and vagaries, keep the show running, and then, when the musicians could collapse in sweaty relief, tear the set down, load it in the liner, and get ready for the next jump, with seldom an overly concupiscent fan for a hasty intermission.

  There was, Riss realized, a quantum difference between the classic idea of a musician — one woman with a guitar and synthesizer, making her own way from job to job, frequently playing the same place for a week or a month — and these dinosaur monolithic one-night stands.

  At least, Riss thought, she and her people weren’t constantly facing attempts at various seductions from their assigned job of keeping Lollypop carnate.

  Not that the singer became any more civilized or easy to handle. Now she was noted for snarling, at regular intervals, how anyone and everyone within range could and would be replaced by someone more efficient, “like, say, a rock.”

  But none of the four trying to keep her alive had, as yet, reset her clock for her.

  But while Lollypop was still alive, Riss hadn’t gotten anywhere finding the would-be murderer.

  She wished that she had either King or Grok with her. They weren’t formally trained detectives either, but at least they had analytical minds, which Riss couldn’t seem to find in her bag of issued gear.

  She couldn’t go out and hire a real cop in midtour, and anyway she didn’t know the difference between a doorknob rattler and a holmes; a padded porker and a detective.

  She thought of bouncing her ideas off the group’s own security man, Folger, but didn’t want to involve anyone within Music Associates.

&n
bsp; She felt she was falling down on the job, although Arn seemed pleased with her efficiency.

  M’chel Riss knew better.

  She thought maybe it would be helpful if she sat and made a list of everything she knew about people on the tour, particularly their relationship with Lollypop.

  She already knew everyone’s resume inside out.

  She was surprised, and pleased, to find she knew quite a bit more than she thought she did.

  Unfortunately, none of it seemed to lead to a homicidal sort.

  She was glooming in a ship corridor one day and heard Lollypop savaging someone. It was Dimet, the fat, somewhat mustached head of the fan club.

  “No, you dumb bitch!” Lollypop shrilled. “You never, ever let those dumb little shitsuckers know when I’m going to be anywhere or what I’m doing. You think I want to be buried in their pimply little dreams and get shrilled to death?”

  “But Lollypop, it was just to present you with a plaque,” Dimet whined. “I thought — ”

  “Thought! Thought! Goddamnit, lardass, don’t go doing things you don’t know how to! I told you once, you’re prunes when this tour is over! Just prunes!”

  Bootheels slammed away.

  M’chel waited a sufficiency, then went around the corner.

  Dimet was still snuffling, leaning against the bulkhead, and Riss was amazed at the somewhat less than adulatory look she was throwing in the direction Little Miki had taken.

  She paid no heed to Riss, who hurried past, embarrassed.

  Lordy, lordy, M’chel thought. If looks could kill …

  That stopped her cold.

  No. Not only no, but goodness gracious no.

  Dimet couldn’t be the plotter. She would cheerfully have died to save Lollypop’s ingrown toenail.

  Which, of course, was why she was treated the way she was.

  Lollypop, like any self-respecting sadist, loved a target that volunteered.

  Poor Dimet.

  To have her lips torn off by that bitch, and, like most fan-club types, to not have a friend in the world. Or, at least, on the tour. Except maybe for Folger, who treated her with amused politeness.

  Dimet wasn’t even vaguely on the suspect list. For openers, she didn’t have the skills to be able to pull off the kind of killer devices the murderer had progressed to.