Dark Deeds

by Mike Brooks

  Li frowned. “I’ll need a contact address before I can even let you out of this building.” She looked at him expectantly.

  Drift swore inwardly. They didn’t have any lodgings booked in a hotel, and he had the nasty feeling that Li would check any details he might give her to determine whether they were genuine. That left him with an honest disclosure about being based out of the Jonah, but that would draw its own questions of why a no-name fighter and his agent had their own shuttle. Not to mention the fact that if Li checked it out and found Alim Muradov there . . .

  “Ma’am!”

  The shout came from the uniformed officer Drift had spoken to earlier, who was now running towards them. Li looked around irritably.

  “I’m in the middle of—”

  The officer clattered to a halt and began speaking urgently, fast and quiet enough that Drift’s translation program couldn’t pick up more than the occasional word here and there. What he did manage to make out didn’t make a great deal of sense to him, so he sat quietly and tried to look as though he wasn’t listening at all. He did keep an eye on what he could see of Li’s face, though, and watched as the detective’s expression changed from impatient to shocked, and then to uncertain.

  “And you’re quite sure of where this came from?” she demanded.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the officer said, apparently too surprised by the question to keep her voice down anymore, “straight down the wire.”

  Li’s jaw worked for a moment, then set pugnaciously. “Right, then.” She raised her head and her voice, shouting out to the rest of the arena. “Fang! Yun! Your teams take details and follow on as soon as you can. All other officers, with me! Everyone else . . .” She looked around the hall at the various civilians still gathered there, and finished with her eyes on Drift and Apirana. “None of you here are under arrest, but don’t leave town until cleared to do so by someone from my department!”

  Drift gave her what he hoped was a firm nod and tried not to look too relieved as Li swept away, black-uniformed officers conglomerating around and behind her like the tail of some sort of inversely coloured comet. One of the few remaining ones sauntered over, pad in hand.

  “Names and contact details.”

  “Rodrigo Pérez,” Drift said smoothly. He had a feeling this officer wasn’t going to bother double-checking his story here and now, so he took a gamble and named a hotel he’d seen on his way to and from the Jonah. “Room 214, Cho Palace.”

  “Apirana Wahawaha,” Apirana added, “room 220, same place.”

  The officer looked up at him. “How do you spell that?”

  Apirana gave him a level look, but spelled his name out. The officer dutifully tapped it in, then grunted. “Huh. Cho Palace is on the other side of the spaceport, isn’t it?”

  “Uh . . .” Drift racked his brain for a moment, hoping he wasn’t going to be asked further questions about the place. “Yeah, I think so. Haven’t been there long.”

  “Word of advice,” the officer said, turning away, “give it a while before heading back.” He walked off to where the timekeeper and ring announcer were sitting, and left the pair of them alone.

  “What do you suppose that meant?” Apirana asked, his tone decidedly uncertain.

  “I don’t know,” Drift admitted, getting to his feet and trying to fight down the wave of apprehension about Jenna, the Jonah, and the entire viability of their scheme. “But I think we should get outside and find out as soon as we can.”

  TOUGH CHOICES

  “. . . so I’m up in that crawlspace, trying not to put too much weight on the panels and thinking I shouldn’t have had such a big dinner, when I hear the other two shouting,” Larysa was saying, drawing a card and making a face. They were sitting in three nonmatching chairs around the coffee table in Larysa’s apartment, and the night was wearing on. “Now, bear in mind that I couldn’t see down into the corridor at all. Then I just hear their feet go clattering off the other way, and I’m left up there with no idea what’s going on or why they’ve run off.”

  “I take it they weren’t just playing a prank on you?” Roman asked, putting down the two of spades. “Pick up two, Tamara.”

  “Huh.” Tamara Rourke frowned at him, then placed the three of spades on it. “I don’t think so. Pick up five, Larysa.”

  “No, it wasn’t just a prank.” Larysa chuckled, laying the three of diamonds. “Eight, Roman, and last card.”

  “Son of a . . . !” Roman glared at her, then grudgingly drew eight cards from the deck. “I swear you’re some sort of card witch.”

  “And yet you keep playing with me.”

  “Chance would be a fine thing,” Roman commented mildly. Larysa made a comical gagging sound in response.

  “So what was it, then?” Rourke asked. She didn’t have a diamond or a three, so she picked up what turned out to be the jack of hearts.

  “It was the security guard, of course,” Larysa snorted. “The other two saw him coming through the door and ran off. They claimed afterwards that they’d shouted up to me, but I didn’t hear a single word clearly. So I’m left up there waiting, no idea he’s right below me, and then I think that I might as well do what I came here to do. So like a fool I lift up one of the panels and drop through on the other side of the door they sent me up there to unlock, and damn me if the bastard isn’t there waiting for me! Nearly twists my arm off, then calls the police. And that,” she finished triumphantly, “was how I got kicked out of my second school.”

  “Are you playing, or reminiscing?” Rourke asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah.” Larysa casually dropped the five of diamonds onto the discard pile. “Out.”

  Roman groaned and laid his cards down, revealing more than enough points to eliminate him. “I’m out. And I need a drink. I’ll see you two in the morning.”

  “I have drink!” Larysa protested, pulling a bottle out from underneath the table.

  “I said a drink, not to drown in drink,” Roman replied, getting to his feet and pulling his jacket on. “I’ve drunk with you too many times before. It never ends well.” He nodded at Rourke. “Tamara.”

  Rourke sighed and laid her cards down as well. “Wait up. Larysa wins again.”

  “You just don’t want to drink with me either,” Larysa said, pulling a face that Rourke guessed was supposed to indicate hurt feelings.

  “Guilty,” she admitted. “But I also need to get to bed. I don’t think Mr. Orlov will be very impressed if I’m hungover.”

  “You’re assuming that he’ll notice,” Larysa said with a snort. “I still have a job, don’t I?”

  “Well, I don’t actually have a job yet,” Rourke reminded her, “so I don’t intend to risk it.”

  “Spoilsport,” Larysa sighed good-naturedly. “Fine, you two run off and have fun without me.”

  “I had fun once,” Rourke deadpanned. “I hated it. See you in the morning, Larysa.”

  “And don’t drink all of that,” Roman told his colleague sternly. Larysa stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Hey, pull the door shut properly this time!” she called after them as they navigated past a small but genuine wooden sideboard—an heirloom from her grandmother, apparently—and an airer loaded with washing. “The damn thing sticks.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Roman grunted. He ushered Rourke through ahead of him, then stepped out into the corridor beside her and tugged the front door shut. It did indeed take a fair bit of effort from him to get it to close fully. “Damn, that’s stiff! Why hasn’t she got that fixed?”

  “You know how strong she is.” Rourke shrugged. “She probably only thinks of it as a minor annoyance.”

  “You could be right,” Roman said. He turned and headed for the elevator, and Rourke fell in beside him. “You dodged a bullet by leaving when you did, by the way.”

  “I can imagine,” Rourke replied, nodding. “Larysa doesn’t strike me as the type to go half-speed at drinking. Or anything, really.”

  “She
needs to watch it,” Roman said bluntly. “It’s not like she’s got a problem, or anything like that, but Mr. Orlov isn’t as oblivious as she thinks. You probably did her a favour by leaving too.”

  “You think so?”

  “Almost certainly,” Roman said. “I’m sure she’ll have one or two, but not as much as if she were trying to impress you.”

  Rourke couldn’t help but chuckle. “Impress me?”

  Roman’s eyebrows raised as he looked sideways and down at her. “You hadn’t noticed? She tries to hide it behind . . .” He waved one hand vaguely. “Well, being Larysa, basically. But behind the bravado and the jokes, I think she’s on the verge of hero worship. Mr. Orlov doesn’t employ many women.”

  “I’d noticed that,” Rourke remarked. In truth, aside from her and Larysa, there were only a couple of women in all of the security staff that ever had personal contact with the mob boss.

  “So you can imagine Larysa’s face when she hears that this smuggler woman comes out of a crate after however many hours and manages to pull a gun on the boss. And then, after being shut up in a grotty hotel for a couple of weeks, that same woman hands Sacha his own ass when he’s armed and she’s not, disappears, then waltzes into the boss’s apartment and pulls a gun on him again.” They’d reached the elevators, and Roman pressed the button to call one. “And then the boss employs her simply because she’s that damn good.”

  “It’s not a career choice I would recommend,” Rourke said as the doors hissed open and she and Roman stepped inside. “If Mr. Orlov had been a little less rational and a bit more emotional, I could have quite easily died twice. But my hand was somewhat forced.”

  “I have to admit, I couldn’t work out if I was more angry or impressed by what you did,” Roman said as the doors shut again and the maglev plate began gliding upwards. “Larysa just went for impressed. You certainly have an admirer there.”

  Rourke nodded thoughtfully, then narrowed her eyes at him. Russian might not have been one of her birth languages, but she’d been speaking it long enough for something in Roman’s voice to tip her off. “Admirer?”

  Roman shrugged noncommittally. “Larysa’s had relationships with, if you’ll excuse me, older women before. She hasn’t said anything to me about you, but that’s the history. She’s not secretive about her past, so I don’t think it’s unfair to tell you.” He shrugged again. “Do with that information what you will.”

  “That’s an odd thing to say,” Rourke said as the elevator’s doors opened again and they stepped out into the tiled lobby of the apartment block. It stretched up for many floors above them, but those more spacious homes belonged to richer, more influential people. Folk like Larysa tended to live belowground, in a windowless world of artificial light.

  “I like my life to be kept as simple as possible,” Roman replied, nodding a greeting to the night porter sitting behind her desk. “If Larysa’s opinion of you is more than just professional admiration, then that could complicate our work, but there’s no help for the heart. So if you’re prepared, at least you can have an answer ready if she asks a question. That seems better than her possibly taking you by surprise, and you maybe hurting her feelings if she’s not your type and you haven’t had time to consider a response, and then . . .” He waved both hands vaguely this time. Rourke was coming to the realisation that this was the man’s default gesture to replace the verbalisation of emotions that he found confusing.

  “You seem to have considered this in some detail,” she pointed out as they passed through the block’s entrance door and into the cool night outside.

  “Experience,” Roman grunted. “There was a kid a year or so ago who turned out to have some interest in Larysa: young guy called Dimi. So he would strike up a conversation with her, and you know what Larysa’s like; she’ll tell her life story to most people and drink with anyone. Then he started wanting to spar with her.”

  Rourke winced. “I can see where this is going.”

  “Huh? Oh, no, nothing like that,” Roman assured her with a grin. “The young fool knew better than to cop a feel on the mats; he’d have left minus an arm. I’m quite sure she thought there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, but then he blurts something out one day. And she just stares at him for a couple of seconds, like she’s been smacked between the eyes with a saucepan, then starts laughing.”

  Rourke winced again. “Ow. I’m not sure that’s better.”

  “I think he’d have preferred to lose the arm,” Roman agreed. “I’m certain she wasn’t laughing at him as such, more at both of them each getting the wrong end of the stick, but that’s the sort of reaction you can’t really explain away after the event.”

  “And I’m sure that everyone else was sympathetic and understanding, and didn’t mock him in any way,” Rourke said dryly.

  “However did you guess?” Roman snorted. “No, he got no end of grief about it. Sacha ended up taking it a bit far, as Sacha usually did, and then Larysa threw him through a table.”

  “That must have helped wonderfully,” Rourke commented.

  “Oddly enough, no.” Roman sighed. “In the end I persuaded the boss to send Dimi off somewhere else without telling him that it was all because the idiot had got lovestruck over the wrong girl and then everyone else had behaved like imbeciles.” He shook his head. “Humans are so stupid, I sometimes wonder how we managed to ever leave Old Earth in the first place.”

  “You might have a point,” Rourke conceded. They’d reached a junction, and she nodded towards where the dark-green bulk of the Grand House and its attached hotel tower could be seen in the distance. “This is my turning. I’ll see you tomorrow . . . and thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Roman said, turning his jacket’s collar up against the cool breeze. “Like I said, I just want things to stay as simple as possible.”

  “Well, it’s appreciated anyway,” Rourke told him honestly. “Night.”

  “Night.” Roman turned and walked away, his hands buried in his pockets and shoulders hunched to tuck as much of his bald scalp as possible into shelter behind his collar. Rourke looked around for traffic and, seeing none, hurried across the road to the opposite sidewalk and set off for the Grand House.

  It was strange how easily she’d settled into a new routine, she reflected. During the day she trained Orlov’s security guards, trying to make them more alert to threats and better at neutralising them. In the evenings she tended to spend time with Roman and Larysa and found that she actually enjoyed their company. Neither of them had pasts that were squeaky-clean, of course, but the full details of hers would almost far outweigh both of theirs put together. Even leaving aside the things she’d done personally, once you started to take into consideration the turmoil, strife, and death toll involved in the revolutions she’d been involved in at the behest of the GIA . . . Well, it didn’t really bear thinking about.

  In fact, Rourke realised, she was almost feeling relaxed. She was about as certain as she could be that Orlov honestly intended to employ her, and if he planned to double-cross her at some point, then there was very little she could do about it anyway. She might be able to turn the tables on whoever he sent, maybe even kill Orlov himself, but his instructions would live on and she’d have his entire outfit searching for her. Leaving the planet would be out of the question, going to ground in New Samara was equally unfeasible, and fleeing to one of the small farming communities elsewhere would hardly provide her with any shelter. Barring her former crew showing up with a miracle in the form of half a million stars in the next four days, she was pretty much stuck here. Perhaps it was simply time to come to terms with it and accept Orlov’s offer?

  The thing was, that didn’t sound like such a bad deal these days. She had respect from her employer and her colleagues, she would have steady pay instead of a cut from whatever latest shenanigans the Keiko’s crew had turned a profit from, and she’d be able to get somewhere to live that might even be larger than either of her c
abins on the Jonah or its mothership. She’d miss Ichabod, of course: They’d been business partners for a decade now, and although he could be positively infuriating at times, he had a certain vitality to him that in some way also defined her. She was sensible, reserved, and cautious by nature, but part of that was because she was always measured against his flamboyance. She’d gotten so used to being the yin to his yang that it was strange to think of just being Tamara Rourke without setting that against Ichabod Drift. She’d miss Jenna too, and Apirana—the Changs not so much—but Drift might actually leave a hole in her life.

  Still, she wasn’t too old to find herself a new place in the world. She’d worried about that after she’d left the GIA, and she’d proved herself wrong then, so there was no reason she couldn’t reinvent herself once more. Yes, she’d be working for a gangster, but one whose primary focus seemed to be on mainstream business interests. Orlov was certainly ruthless—the fates of the three of his men she’d embarrassed testified to that, not to mention the threats he’d made to her and Ichabod—but she’d already got the impression from Roman that the direction of his boss’s operation had been changing. Orlov had enough money that he could leave his criminal empire further and further behind, or at least bring it into legitimacy with him. In ten years’ time, perhaps the man would be no more of a criminal than any other captain of industry.

  Of course, there was still the issue of leaving the crew to cope without her. But she was sure that they’d be fine.

  DESPERATE TIMES

  The walk through the Two Trees Arena seemed achingly long to Drift, but they were very nearly on the heels of the departing security forces, and to run headlong would surely invite comment and attention. As a result, he and Apirana kept to a brisk walk and tried to look like they wanted nothing more than a breath of fresh air.