The Ultra Thin Man

by Patrick Swenson

  “Give what to you?” I said, wheezing. I reached with both arms and got my hands on his legs. I let fly with my finger capacitors, sending the jolts full strength.

  The Helk tensed a bit, looking down for a second. Then he realized what I’d done and laughed. “Finger caps? Please.”

  That was depressing. But a Helk as big as this? Yeah, not likely to be much affected.

  “You know what I want,” the Helk said. “The key. I want the key.”

  “Key? What key?”

  “Oh, you prefer the pain? That’s good enough for now. I won’t kill you. Yet.”

  He raised both fists, clasped them over his head, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see that Helk sledgehammer come down on me. I expected pain, but never felt it. The air sizzled around me, and I snapped open my eyes. The Helk’s face registered both pain and surprise, and after a glance at the bedroom door, he slid off me and fell, the impact causing the floor to groan and shudder.

  I kicked his legs off me and scrambled up. Cara had my blaster, her hands holding it in the classic pose, her right hand around the grip, left palm under the butt, feet shoulder-width apart.

  After a moment, Cara lowered the blaster, her hands shaking. “My god.”

  I went to her and took the blaster. “Thanks,” I said, smiling weakly. “You saved me from a hell of a beating.” And, I added to myself, you saved me from finding out anything about whatever key he thought I had.

  The Helk lay on the floor, face up. I breathed with difficulty, my ribs aching, as I approached the downed Helk carefully. I trained the blaster on his head. I wasn’t exactly sure where Cara had hit him. For all I knew she’d just wounded him and he was playing dead. When I reached his side I prodded him with my foot. A black hole marred the left side of his chest, just under the armpit, the fabric of his shirt still smoldering. Blood, almost black, seeped from the wound. My pulse lessened as I glanced at his face, the corners of his mouth still twisted in pain—

  His eyes opened.

  I jumped back. “Son of a bitch!” I aimed my blaster, ready to fire, but waited. He could barely move, and it was obvious from the wound and the large amounts of blood that he would die soon. There was little he could do, little I could do, except take this second chance to ask him about the item in question.

  “What key?” I asked him, not sure if he could speak.

  He coughed twice, and that almost did him in, but he did manage to say something. “Terl Plenko,” he said quietly, turning his head slightly to see me better. He paused a moment, then said, “He’ll find you.”

  My eyes narrowed. Did he mean Plenko was the key? I kept my weapon leveled at him. “Plenko’s the key?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he here on Aryell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He tried a smile, but that sent him into a fit of coughing. When he recovered, he paused for breath. “I’m Tony Koch.”

  Koch? The Helk I’d thought was actually Terl Plenko? This definitely wasn’t Plenko. This Helk didn’t look anything like Plenko. If this was Tony Koch, then who the hell did I have Alan searching for on Temonus?

  “Do you work for Plenko or not? Another Helk was following me last night. Do you know him? Did you send him to spy on me?”

  No answer.

  “Where’s Plenko?” But the Helk’s eyes had closed, and the pain had vanished from his face. “Shit,” I said as I felt under Koch’s right arm. I failed to find a heartbeat. The Helk was dead.

  Cara still stood in the bedroom doorway, but I couldn’t talk to her yet. I searched the body for clues that might help me figure out what had just happened. Nothing.

  Naturally.

  “Recognize him?” I asked.

  “Should I?”

  “Just checking. It’s Koch, Plenko’s second-in-command.”

  She nodded. “I’d heard that on U-ONE. They didn’t know what he looked like, though.”

  “Koch was an alias for Plenko. Or so I thought. Koch is dead in your apartment, and he’s obviously not Plenko.” I frowned, nagged by a growing sense of apprehension. “So if he is Koch, then this whole thing stinks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why send the Movement’s point man to take me out instead of some expendable assassin?”

  Cara shrugged. “He didn’t want to take you out. He was after something.”

  “A key. Any idea what that might be?”

  “He said Terl Plenko.”

  “No, he changed the subject. He wasn’t telling me what the key was, and maybe didn’t even know himself. He was saying Plenko would find me.”

  “Could it have been a warning to help you?”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but it didn’t seem likely, not if this was the Koch we’d thought was on Plenko’s side. “I don’t think so.”

  I straightened and stared down at the body. Why had he confessed his identity to me? Could’ve been a lie to confuse me. And what about Cara? She’d taken out Koch with a blaster, and known where to shoot him. I sighed and finished dressing. I put on my coat and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Cara asked.

  “My carry-on. I left it at the Flaming Sea, remember?”

  She came to me and put a hand on my shoulder. She lifted her face and said, “Don’t leave.”

  “It’s all right now,” I said. “He’s dead. We’ll get rid of the body.”

  “I have a key to the apartment downstairs,” she said.

  I nodded. “Okay.” I thought a moment. In all our years in Seattle, Alan and I had never had to deal with a dead body. At least not one shot by someone I’d known and loved. “Okay. I’ll drag the body down there for now. You have a sheet, or blanket?”

  She went and got one.

  “I’ll drop him off if you could manage the cleanup here?”

  Only after we safely stowed the body did I head down the hill toward the Flaming Sea. A check of my code card showed Brindos still hadn’t messaged me back.

  The Helk who had been following me—or had seemed to be following me—had dropped out of sight. Tony Koch, if he was Tony Koch, had found me somehow. Had he found me because I’d been recognized in the tavern? Because of Cara? Some of the tavern’s employees knew where she lived, including her boss Kristen. Anyone working in the tavern would’ve been hard-pressed to avoid answering pointed questions. Especially when a Helk as big as Koch was the one doing the asking.

  Ten

  As a minor player helping out the NIO, Brindos was just a micro switch in the circuitry of a massive complex machine that pretended to know all, and nearly did, aspired to be God, and nearly was. High-profile agents didn’t go on suicide missions, unless they’d been tricked into doing so, but he’d been fair game. Sitting in a tavern staring at an article that connected him to a murder, he felt a little more than tricked. More like betrayed. An ink-black curtain of dread closed around him.

  “My God,” Joseph said. “Haven’t you read this?”

  Brindos shook his head.

  Since violent crime here rarely happened, murder was front-page news. It was a large article, near the bottom of the page. The victim had already been identified as Jordan Dak, a Helk newcomer to Temonus about whom little was known—in other words, the typical colonist story. Jordan Dak. Not Tom Knox.

  According to the article, Jordan had been waiting tables at the Helk establishment for less than a year. About midnight last night, some of Jordan’s tables began complaining of neglect, the cook moaning because Jordan’s orders had piled up. A waiter going out to the alley for a break discovered his body near the garbage Dumpster. While the cause of death had not been verified, the body had sustained multiple stab wounds, and the murder was under investigation.

  “When I came looking for you, that was the last thing I expected to find,” Joseph said, still standing. “You’d been in the restroom a long time, I’d had my fill of wine, and, well, my bladder isn’
t so steady these days. But you weren’t in there. I looked for you in the hallway, you weren’t there either. I had no idea where you were. Then I came to the hall that led to the door outside—”

  Brindos cut him off. “You heard something? You saw something?”

  “As I got closer to the door I heard voices. I got a bad feeling. I came up to the window and looked out.”

  “The last thing I remember,” Brindos interrupted, “was that bastard leaning over me. He might have killed me. Joe, who was it? Who was it that zipped him?”

  Joseph stared at Brindos’s face as if it were a treasure map, looking for the X. “You bastard,” he finally said, “it was you who did it, and you know it.”

  Brindos laughed, incredulous. “You could tell me I’d gone bowling last night, I’d probably believe you. Joe, I … can’t … remember … anything.”

  “You don’t remember back at the hotel last night, later? You were shaky, but sober as a man on his wedding day. Baah!” He waved him off. “I must go.” He started to roll up the newspaper.

  Brindos grabbed his coat again, frustration fueling his anger. “Goddammit, Joe,” he said, “tell me a lie, tell me something, but don’t leave me hanging here. For the hundreth time, I don’t know what happened. This is no joke.” Brindos stood up and forced him down into his seat, hard. “Now spill!”

  The outburst didn’t impress Joseph. He just sneered, pouring himself another drink. He downed it, placing the tumbler gently back onto the table.

  The bartender hurried over, eyeing Brindos, sizing him up. “Joseph, you need anything?”

  Joseph smiled, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “I’m good, Bill.”

  The bartender looked doubtful, but eventually he walked away.

  “Joe,” Brindos said. He had to get to the bottom of this, and he was starting to wonder what the concierge really knew about it all.

  “Very well,” Joseph said, to himself as much to Brindos, “very well.” He leaned forward, twisting the newspaper around in his hand. “It was dark of course, but I could see the Helk facedown in the street, you on top of him. You had a knife to him, here.” He thrust his hand under his armpit, a textbook Helk strike area, normally not too accessible. You usually just couldn’t get one to lie down and play possum. “I could hardly believe it myself, but later you said it was the old electric handshake, or some such crap.”

  That could explain Brindos’s advantage, but he hadn’t heard a convincing explanation as to how he had regained consciousness to apply the megavolt jolt. Plenko’s cronies knew Union agents had this capability, and that the capacitor design required feet planted on firm ground when actuating—Brindos’s toes were a good six inches off when Knox carried him into the alley. He’d never had a chance.

  “He was lying very still,” Joseph continued, “I could hear talking, but who said what?” He shrugged. “You had one knee into his back, and then for whatever reason—because the Hulk did not struggle—you stabbed the knife in hard and he fell limp. I heard footsteps in the hallway, so I ducked outside. That’s when you looked up and saw me. I thought about running, but you stood up and called me. ‘Joseph,’ you said, ‘he tried to kill me.’ Well, something like that. You walked up to me covered in blood, dark Helk blood. You said he had tried to kill you, I guess in case I hadn’t heard you the first time, that it was a dangerous Hulk, one of Plenko’s Movement, we couldn’t spend time talking about it, we had to leave right away. Whatever had happened, I agreed this was wise.” He paused a moment, staring at Brindos with eyes narrowed, as if trying to read his mind.

  Joseph had, for all intents and purposes, confirmed that Brindos had killed the waiter. Murdered him? Or had it been self-defense? How much had Joseph really seen before coming out into the alley? At this point, Brindos wasn’t sure he trusted the story. But Joseph had more to tell. “Go on.”

  “We split up and met back at the hotel. I disposed of the knife, then waited a long time for you. When you finally showed up you were a state. It was a wonder you made it. You said you had twice woken up in the street, must have passed out, but you had taken side streets and were sure no one had seen you, it being so late and all. I went up to your room and got you clothes, using the service elevator. It was late, I’m sure no one saw me. As you changed, you told me the Helk must have thought you were out cold, that he went inside, brought back a knife. When he came back you played possum and zapped him. Anyway, you went up to your room, and I burned your clothes in the hotel incinerator. Your shoes weren’t bad. I cleaned them up and threw them in your room while you took a shower.” He leaned back in his seat and set the tube on the table. “That’s it.”

  Joseph’s story seemed to cover everything, except one thing he hadn’t brought up. Brindos stared at him hard until he glanced away.

  “You took something of mine,” Brindos said.

  The code card. It had been in Brindos’s coat pocket at the Restaurant. If Knox hadn’t taken it, Joseph had to have seen it. He could’ve taken it. Joseph had helped, had gone to the trouble of getting Brindos to hoof it back to the hotel, cleaned him up, but would he come clean about the code card?

  “I found nothing unusual,” Joseph said. “Took nothing.”

  If Joseph had found it, would he think it was a comm card and not the super tool NIO agents used?

  “You’re sure? Nothing in my coat?”

  “Like what? A weapon?”

  Brindos nodded.

  “No, nothing.”

  Brindos looked down at the Tribune again, gathering his thoughts. “Joseph,” he said, tapping the roll with his finger, “did you notice anything strange about the article?”

  “Other than the obvious?”

  “The time. They say the body was found around midnight. I remember the time clearly. It was eleven. I saw a clock on the Restaurant wall as I headed for the bathroom.”

  “It was eleven fifteen when I found you,” Joseph said.

  “Which means they didn’t miss the body of a waiter in a busy restaurant for almost an hour.”

  Joseph nodded. “Seems odd, I agree. I didn’t stick around to tell anyone. It seemed right to get you out of there.”

  Joseph’s story stunk like week-old fish. Brindos wondered if the whole story was made up. Was Joseph an agent? Did he zap the Helk? Zap him, kill him, then drag Brindos to the hotel? Even though he couldn’t get his head around it, Brindos said what he thought at this point Joseph would want to hear. “I guess a thank-you is in order.”

  He shrugged, letting that slide. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m no cold-blooded killer,” Brindos said. “You’ve got to believe that.”

  “All I know is what I saw and that it is likely I will be questioned. We were seen together. Look. I’m a pretty astute old bean. You obviously knew something about this Helk. You mentioned he might belong to Plenko’s Movement. You’ve been snooping around the Conduit story, you went to East City about it. You seem to have lost a weapon. Maybe something else.”

  “What about it?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re NIO.”

  Brindos stared at Joseph without saying a word, but his throat dried up.

  “You are, aren’t you?” Joseph asked.

  Brindos stared at him some more.

  “Come on, Dexter. I’m the concierge for the goddamn Orion Hotel. I poke around a little about you, I’ll find out, won’t I?”

  No, he wouldn’t. Unless he was an agent.

  “Maybe you’re here on low-level ops,” Joseph said. “Dexter is an alias, didn’t figure to come up with anything. Things heated up a little, and now you’re vulnerable. Can your agency protect you here?”

  Concierge or not, Joseph knew more than expected. Brindos picked his words carefully, holding back to see how Joseph would react. Technically, Brindos was not NIO. Not before as a contractor, and not now, on the run. “I know that the laws agreed upon by the Union of Worlds and your colonial government are strict concerning such secrecy as
the NIO engages in,” Brindos admitted. “If I did work for the NIO, I’d be an illegal monitor, and I imagine the NIO would disavow my activities.”

  Joseph leaned back and smiled. “Of course.”

  “Still,” Brindos said, searching Joseph’s face, “that Helk is dead, and I can’t remember a thing about it.”

  “Well,” he said, wrapping his hands around his drink. “Murder on Temonus is punishable by death. Even if it is a Helk.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “If I can,” Joseph said, “I will say nothing to incriminate you. You should consider checking out of Midwest City. At the very least, we should not be seen with each other. I am an old man, and living is enough of an adventure for me.”

  “You saved me the speech,” Brindos muttered, but he now suspected Joseph had more than just living to keep him busy, that he had his fingers on the pulse of something big.

  “Mr. Roberts,” he said with a smile. And with that, he rose, and this time Brindos let him leave.

  After downing one last drink, Brindos left the bar, stepping out into the cold night air. He felt pretty sober, considering the double punch of the blue devil liquid and the news Joseph had landed on him. Parked directly in front of the Blue Rocket was a land vehicle with police insignia. Two Helks unfolded themselves from the car and headed his way. One was female, and iron circlets adorned both arms, running up and down from wrists to elbows. A necklace, also of iron, was cinched so tight around her neck that she held her head at an odd angle, chin unnaturally forward. She had on a gold shift that didn’t cover much, even if Brindos knew what it was supposed to cover. It didn’t make her any less menacing. The male Helk wore traditional black leathers. Brindos couldn’t imagine many Helks working for Midwest City Authority. They weren’t in uniform, and that made him give them a wide berth as they continued on toward the tavern, talking their Helk gibberish.