Screwball steeled himself. He took a couple deep breaths and balled his fists. “All right. If they’re even guarding up here, he’s right that she’s up to something. I gotta see. Then I gotta report back.”
“I dunno, that seems like a bad idea.”
“So, stay here. Be ready to run. I’ll be right back.”
Screwball crept along the wall, and it made squeaky noises where his sweaty palms dragged against the plastic. He tried to breathe deeply but not hyperventilate, but that wasn’t working so well.
It seemed like he walked the whole length of the station like that, the laughter and joking growing louder. He could make out individual voices, one guy calling the others “a bunch of assholes” and at least three others all talking at once. They sounded kinda drunk.
He finally made it to the corner and stopped, his damp palms stuck to the side of the plastic, his head and back planted. “On three,” he told himself, and on the count of four he forced his head around the corner to peer with his left eye.
Five toughs lounged around an open hatchway, one of them hopping around with his shoe off and staring daggers at the other four who grinned and leered. All five heads seemed to swivel at once in his direction, and he didn’t wait for them to move to start running.
“Shit! Run!”
Ditz stood in the middle of the corridor fiddling with his shirt buttons and looking confused. He didn’t run as Screwball barreled past him, and when he realized his pal wasn’t following, he cursed himself as a softy but skidded to a halt and turned to grab him.
Four of Angelica’s goons rounded the corner in hot pursuit, and Ditz put his head on one side like a dog. Then he reached deep into the front of his pants and pulled out an automatic pistol. They barely had time to go wide-eyed before he raised it dreamily and shot all four of them.
Screwball staggered at the eardrum blast, and Ditz winced and rubbed his ear with the palm of his left hand.
“The hell is wrong with you, Ditz? Move!”
He grabbed Ditz’s colorful shirt and dragged, almost pulling him over until his brain engaged and he started running. Screwball made the executive decision to pass the closest stairwell, which would be too obvious, and turned the next corner instead. His chest ached and his legs hurt, and he found an open hatch to duck into. He dragged Ditz in behind him and punched the door closed.
In the dim light of the abandoned barber’s shop, way away from the windows, he finally let himself collapse, heaving with his hands on both knees. He stood bent over like that while Ditz just lay on the ground, both of them panting. Ditz started to giggle.
“The fuck, Ditz! Where did you get that?”
“My mom gave it to me.”
“I mean… I mean…” He swore and caught his breath. “I thought McMasters took them all away! You’re going to get fucking spaced, Ditz!”
Ditz took a while to respond, but when he caught his breath and stopped laughing he said, “Naw, man. He only took them off everyone who came off the ships. Feeney and Angelica just promised him they’d take care of it. Feeney didn’t give a fuck, though, as long as we didn’t get him in hot water.”
Screwball stared, then pointed back the way they came. “That! That’s hot water, Ditz! That’s boiling hot fucking hot water!”
“Aw, don’t be like that. It was self-defense, they were coming right for me.”
“You think McMasters is going to give a shit?”
“No? He’s a tool, man.”
“Well, you have to get rid of it, all right?”
Ditz pouted. “Aw, come on, it was a birthday present.”
“Not for good. Just, like, hide it in here somewhere. We’ll lay low and head back. You can come get it later, OK?”
Ditz grumbled, but looked around the barber shop with a discerning eye. There were two big chairs with a bunch of what looked like brass and wood that was probably plastic and a lot of electronic arms to make them go in a bunch of different directions. The place had been ransacked, pretty much, and all the scissors and razors had been grabbed. Somebody had drawn a pretty respectable dong on the mirror in some kind of red grease; it maybe needed some more curly hairs on the balls, for balance, but was otherwise pretty good. Screwball touched the back of his own head, where he’d had to use borrowed clippers in the mirror, and it looked like ass. Everyone had kind of a shitty haircut, now he thought about it, or had just let their hair grow out. When he looked back, the gun was gone.
“Did you wipe your fingerprints off it?”
Ditz stared at him dully.
“Your fingerprints. They can get your fingerprints off the gun and match–” He stopped talking and waited for Ditz to stop laughing.
“Man. OK, man. I know I’m high, but.”
“...But?”
“Huh?”
“You know you’re high...”
“Bet your ass.”
“Fingerprints. Why are you laughing about fingerprints, Ditz?”
“I was just picturing McMasters or his idiots trying to get fingerprints.” He giggled again. “Man, he doesn’t give a shit. You know he sucks at his job, right?”
Screwball folded his arms and kicked his legs out. There were no sounds outside the barbershop still. He was pretty sure nobody was looking for them.
“Where’d you learn to shoot like that, anyway?”
He shrugged like it was no big deal, but was obviously pretty proud of himself. “I used to hang with Nuke, man. You gotta be good to hang with Nuke, he didn’t have patience for assholes and dimwits.”
“Uh. No offense, Ditz, but, uh.”
“Pssssh. None taken. I take the go-it-easy stuff now, because what the hell else is there to do. I used to be pretty badass, I have to say.”
Screwball looked at the guy, with his slumped shoulders, watery eyes, long shaggy hair, slight pot belly, and red-and-yellow shirt, but also with his muscular hands and arms and the fresh memory of him taking down four dudes with four shots. He believed it.
FEENEY AND ANGELICA DROP BY
The Miner carefully replaced the ribbon to mark her place in the book she’d borrowed from Takata, closed it with both hands, and placed it on her lap in front of her sheathed sword. She looked calmly up at the fidgeting young man and said, “Now, you were saying. Angelica del Rio would like to see me?”
“Y- Yeah.”
She tilted her head and examined him. He had a sword at his hip, slung wrong, and a knife at the other hip which looked like he could actually draw and use it. The scars on his bared forearms looked real, so he either got so many he couldn’t afford to have them all removed, or he thought they looked cool. He looked exposed and harried standing in the middle of the galleria among the sea of chintzy plastic furniture, staring her down in her chair from three meters away.
She tentatively waved a hand, and he tensed.
“Can you see me pretty well from there?”
His “yeah” was the epitome of suspicion.
“Then,” she said patiently, picking up Ethan Frome again, “if Angelica del Rio stands right where you are, she should manage it, too.”
He stood a minute, rocking up onto the balls of his feet then back onto his heels, keenly aware that everyone in and around the galleria was looking at him except the person whose attention he wanted. The Miner opened the book in her left hand, which was a bit awkward, but left her sword more usable in case he had a brilliant idea. She didn’t particularly want to cut him down in full view of half the station and all its security personnel, but advertising pays.
“I mean,” he tried valiantly in a low voice. “She wants you to go see her.”
“That so?” she replied, not bothering to keep her own voice down.
After a while, he turned and left to the sound of snickering and hooting from Feeney’s side of the galleria. The Miner ignored them, too, and continued reading.
She got to the end of the book about an hour later, and did her best to mask how stiff she felt when she stood up. She left the
chair where it was, tucked the book under her arm, and walked into Takata’s restaurant. He was waiting just inside the doorway, apparently trying his best to look disgruntled. He accepted the book gracelessly.
“Thanks,” she remarked. “Hadn’t read it before.”
“You’re messing with them,” he said. “They won’t like it.”
She nodded. “There a back door to this place?”
He frowned at her. “Service entrance onto the back hallway. Off the kitchen.” He gestured back toward the curtain, and she set off that way.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he followed her all the way to the bar. “You can’t go back there, that’s my kitchen. You’re a walking health code violation.”
She just grinned. “You can welcome the guests yourself, then, if you want.”
“What guests?”
They both heard a hatch click and slide open from behind the bar.
“That’s supposed to be locked,” Takata said darkly, but didn’t object when the Miner followed him into the back.
The kitchen was small but well-appointed. A griddle and four cold gas burners stood along the left interior wall, and a big dry sink and counter along the right wall, which had a doorway that she’d seen before into his tiny bedroom. A shining steel prep counter stood between them, surrounded by stools. Everything was immaculately clean. Steel and plastic tools hung in neat rows around the cooking area, plates were stacked neatly in various spots on the prep counter. Everything was clean, and nothing like a busy working kitchen.
Angelica del Rio stood in the open hatchway. The Miner hadn’t seen her up close before, but she was a striking woman: taller than her, and she had presence. Someone used to knocking heads and giving orders, dealing with an army of morons, somewhere between drill sergeant and kindergarten teacher.
“Hello, Mr Takata. Hello... to you as well.” Angelica’s deep voice was quiet, a nice trick for making people strain to listen. “May I come in?”
The Miner glanced in the passage behind her, but the woman seemed to be alone.
Takata waved his hands in a rudely inviting gesture and looked put upon.
“A bottle of wine, please. Red. My treat.”
She sat on a stool at the shined steel prep counter, hiking up her black dress a bit so as to physically manage it, and raising an eyebrow as if to dare anyone to say a word about it. Feeney’s former lieutenant and enforcer didn’t look particularly dangerous, but the Miner had known lots of extremely dangerous people who worked hard to look perfectly harmless. The Miner shrugged and sat at the opposite end of the counter, stretching her bare forearms out onto the cold metal.
“You look like you want to talk.”
“Then you’re wrong,” Angelica said. “I want to fight, not talk. I want to hire you.”
“That so?”
Angelica seemed to grit her teeth, then nodded once.
“Why? To do what?”
The wine came in plastic cups, and neither woman touched hers.
“They’re shooting now, four of my people dead. I can’t have that.” Her face twisted. “I won’t have it.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Feeney’s psychotic crew. Goddamned maniacs, all of them.”
“That so?”
Angelica leaned in, eyes keen. “Did you know his own grandson had a nuclear weapon implanted in his chest? It looked like a giant blinking tumor, and the crazy stupid bastard walked around with his shirt open so everyone could see it. He. Hires. Psychos.”
“He hired me.”
“And he hired me. But I quit, and you quit,” she said, leaning over the table. “Maybe you’re a psycho too, but I want you to be my psycho.”
“Listen to her! Her psycho, indeed!” Old man Feeney elbowed his way through the open hatch, and the Miner could see bodyguards getting very close to pretending to shove each other behind him. “Listen, Mick. Jane. Whatever. You did me a good turn in quitting, and I think that shows character, by God I do–”
“You!” Angelica whirled on him. “You murdering reckless son of a bitch.”
He smiled patronizingly. “Now, Angelica dear–”
The Miner was curious how he intended to end that sentence, but the cup of wine Angelica threw in his face was followed by a competent jab to the nose. The bodyguards tried to elbow their ways past each other and only succeeded in blocking the doorway. Feeney pulled a pistol, holding the sleeve of his right hand to the stream of blood and wine dripping from his face.
“McMasters would love to see that,” Angelica said in a low voice.
“And he’d love to see the one you’ve got squirreled away somewhere too, I’m quite sure,” he said in a muffled voice but not sounding too angry.
“You,” said Angelica over her shoulder. “Eight thousand credits if you take care of this stupid old man for me.”
Feeney hooted. “You always were a cheapskate. The ten thousand offer’s still good, Jane. And unlike Angelica, you know I’ve got it. That casino’s seen better days, girl. You could take tips from Mr Shine.” He gestured with the pistol, just waving the end enough to make her stand straighter. The small snub-nose palmed in her hand was a bit more obvious when she did that. She didn’t have it aimed at him, but it wouldn’t take much at that range.
“If you shoot me, you won’t leave this room alive. You’ve always been too afraid to risk your own skin, John, it hurts you.”
The Miner looked back and forth between them. All it would take was a bit of noise. She leaned forward, watching the standoff. Slowly, slowly, in the pretext of leaning in, she braced her right arm against the stack of dishes. They whispered against the steel table as she gently pushed them closer to the edge. Feeney and Angelica only had eyes for each other, full of the kind of hatred that she never really saw in war. Closer.
Her arm slipped when the resistance went away. Takata didn’t look her in the eye as he swept the stack of dishes up and put them next to the sink. He took her wine, too, and drained half of it in one go.
With that, the spell broke. Feeney shrugged and took a half step back. The Miner hadn’t seen Angelica do anything that might have been communications, and her rangy bodyguard didn’t look up to the task of avenging her, but apparently the old man either wasn’t sure he could pull it off, or just didn’t have the appetite for a gunfight. “I think we’ve both overstayed our welcome, don’t you?”
They faced each other down, and Angelica looked like she’d love for him to let down his guard just a little. The Miner sat and watched with a blank face from across the prep table. The two eyed each other and her to see if she’d intervene, and when she didn’t, they managed to stand down enough to extract themselves from Takata’s kitchen.
“Thanks for the drink,” Feeney said as the door slid shut.
“You’re too much trouble, goddamn you,” Takata grumbled. “They’ll be back. They won’t take no for an answer.”
The Miner didn’t respond that that was the idea, and instead asked, “What’s the deal with the firearm ban, anyway?”
“Are you kidding me? You want to add guns to all this bullshit?”
“Not especially. But it’s not that common.”
Takata grunted and got to work mopping up wine and blood. The Miner, reminded, sipped the remaining wine in front of her and wondered if it was fruit juice gone bad. The stuff they used to call “hobo wine” in the service when they made it from ration pack juice powder. Until the brass caught on and started adding nitrates or something.
“Three months or so back they had an explosive decompression. Some kids in a firefight in the other port. Still busted so nobody can use it. Herrera almost got Anaconda kicked out over that, but the Company Rep and McMasters smoothed it over. They were serious for once; they made it plain that if either side didn’t cooperate, they were getting taken down, bribes or no bribes. Maybe bigger bribes, I don’t know. I hate that guy.”
“Confiscated, or just put away?”
He hesitated. “I thought confisc
ated. Probably they’ve got little stashes, though. Stuff like Feeney’s pea shooter.”
That “pea shooter” had been a military-issue Colt that could fire explosive, incendiary, or guided rounds. The Miner didn’t trust her diamond-thread suit against it. Nor, for that matter, space station hull sections manufactured by the lowest bidder.
“So,” she said. “Both sides probably have halfway decent armories, but they’re worried that if bodies start showing up with gunshot wounds, then McMasters will throw in with the other side and crush them. That about the whole of it?”
He stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I don’t like it.”
“I’m thinking that Angelica said that Feeney’s crew was shooting, and I’m thinking that if that’s true, then it makes no damn sense that she’d come to me instead of McMasters. Isn’t a bunch of bullet-filled corpses game over for Feeney?”
“They’re gangsters! They don’t use logic!”
She didn’t answer, just finished off the lousy wine. Out from the restaurant they heard Herrera bellow for whiskey. “He’s awake,” she said.
Takata just muttered under his breath, and in the process of unnecessarily tidying he tripped over the foam mattress. He swore at it in a language she didn’t know, then turned on her. “Why are you still here, leading them on like this? Why don’t you just leave us to our crapfest?”
She leveled her gaze at him, but he didn’t meet it. “Do you want me to go?”
He grunted and set himself to wrestling with the mattress, trying in vain to roll it up and stick it under the counter again. He burst out suddenly, like finishing a sentence that started in his head, “Or you could go work for McMasters, if you really want to clean this place up. Do it legit.”
She shook her head slowly. “He doesn’t want to clean up, at least not that way. Anyway, I burned that bridge to cinders.”
“Go to the Company Rep. She could make him take you. Herrera could get her to make him take you.”
“An arrangement like that’s a good way to get a bullet in the back.”
“Ah, to hell with you.” He stormed out to go get Herrera drunk, and didn’t speak to her again that night. But he laid out the foam mattress again before he went to bed.
Red Noise Page 17