Reciprocity

by Sean M Locke

  She waved her spent gun at the cars and shouted orders even as her men tried to keep her down and safe. I saw her face change from determined anger to a puzzled frown, and then horror as she looked at something behind me.

  I turned. Prospera stood between me and those cars, her skirt and cloak belling out in a sudden gust of wind. Brave Prospera, protecting me from bullets and bombs with only her winter-weight school uniform and her slim, pale arms. I held out my hand to her but knew I could never reach her.

  I said something, but all sound was lost in the roar of gunfire and men dying.

  She looked over her shoulder, and she was shouting something back at me, fear making her eyes big. Her upper torso jerked once, twice, and fist-sized claret clovers bloomed from her back. She stood for a moment, wavering in place while someone screamed. She fell, boneless, her cloak fluttering like broken wings.

  Donatella appeared next to me and yelled a dirty word, and there were four more little firecracker pops. I heard the clang of iron on concrete, and a sizzling hand-bomb spun at my feet, spinning and hissing in front of Prospera’s face. She stared at the thing but she didn’t see it, would never see it, and she was beautiful, and no filthy bomb was going to wreck that.

  Someone shouted no, no, no, and then I was running with the bomb in my hand. It was an awkward bowl, running down stairs and throwing something so much heavier than a proper cricket ball. But my arms pinwheeled perfectly, and the slope of stairs only gave me speed, speed to get the damned dirty thing away from my Prospera. The bomb sailed and sputtered and bounced off the corner of the bottom stair. It took an ungainly hop and sailed a little farther. I had time to see a man’s eyes go wide before he ducked back into the cab of his car.

  Neat as an apple tossed into a basket, the bomb fell through the canvas roof. Gunfire from that car stopped, and there was a flurry of thrashing limbs and frantic yelling. The car rocked on its suspension as men scrambled inside to find the doors or climb out the windows, but the bomb exploded and stopped all of that.

  Fragments of iron and fragments of men erupted from every window in a billowing cloud of dirty smoke. I stopped my run and stared at the ruined car; another explosion blew open every door. Something invisible tugged at my shoulder and spun me around, and then I was on my knees, looking at Prospera.

  I crawled to her, lay atop her, and cradled her head in my arms. The car was still exploding, and the other car was still shooting, and I would not, would not let them destroy her. Someone’s tears made my cheek slick on hers, her cheek that was still warm, and it was so cold out there on that winter day.

  * * *

  Another spray of atomized medicine hissed over Donatella’s face, and her respirator thumped and whirred. I swallowed hard and welcomed the shift back to the present.

  “You took me in. You remade me in your image. Maybe someone else would be sore about that, but I can only thank you for it. The girl I was before . . . I wasn’t really going anywhere, and I was stuck in a place that wasn’t any good for me. You gave me the tools that let me put myself in a better place.”

  I stopped and looked at Donatella as if she could say anything, as if she could call me out for lying to her. She only breathed, rhythmic and even, like the ticking of a clock.

  “You want me to get to the point already, so here it is. I’m worried. Hendrik is getting into something bad. You remember what I told you about aker dust, about how Hendrik wanted to break Rademaker’s hold on the market. You’ll also remember I told you about our new visitors, the noble Cantabile siblings. The girl Henriette is in deep with gambling debts, and she gave up what I thought was a family trinket to pay it off. I thought she’d attached herself to Kasper because she was just a stupid kid wanting a taste of danger. I thought that her brother Josef came swooping in to get the thing back and to get her sister away from a bad influence. Like any big brother would want to do. I figured he would be successful or he wouldn’t, and that it wasn’t worth it for me to worry about it too much.

  “But Donatella, the thing Henriette gave to Kasper was a weapon. A bad one, too—they call it a reciprocating repeater carbine.” The thing’s name felt like a rancid lump of cold meat on my tongue. “You know I don’t like guns, but I don’t think I’m blowing it out of proportion when I say that this thing is worth a dozen guys with revolvers. Kasper, he killed some Rademaker guys with it this morning. He sent me to Lewis to see about duplicating this carbine, making more of its ammunition, and sweet absent gods, Donatella, this thing goes through a lot of bullets.”

  I took Donatella’s hand in both of mine and stroked her thin, papery skin. Maybe she could feel the warmth of my hands.

  “The brother, Josef? He’s a cool cucumber, and too smart by half. I thought maybe he was just trying to get Hendrik to forgive Henriette’s debts. He got in the habit of collecting the straight dope on Rademaker aker shipments, and Hendrik likes that a lot, because it meant a lot of aker and cash for our side. But Josef and Hendrik were both working angles that I couldn’t see before. Now I think I do.

  “Josef wants to get Henriette away from Kasper, sure; he couldn’t have his family associate with Lange. He also wants to keep Cantabile hands clean. Usually a swell like that would buy his way clear with money, but Josef is doing it with information. Donatella, I got to wondering why he was doing that, and how he knew about the Rademaker shipments. I got my suspicions that he’s playing us and Rademaker against each other for some reason, like the lone gunman does in dime novels, but I haven’t figured out why yet.”

  I knew I was talking to myself as much as I was talking to her. I’d already made my decisions. I didn’t need to make any tearful confessions to Donatella. If she thought anything about what I was telling her, she kept it to herself.

  “I’m afraid that Hendrik is buying into what Josef is selling without looking at it too close. He wants some kind of blue-sky legacy for Kasper, and he’s ready to jump at any chance to pull Lange up out of the Lower Terrace. Way I figure it, if he could seal an alliance with Cantabile, maybe he could pull the whole works up and settle in the Towers, rather than down here in the slums. I think he thinks it’s what you’d want.

  “Hendrik has never liked me. I think he only keeps me around because I know too much of the family’s business, and he doesn’t kill me because I’m still useful. He’s never trusted me, so he wouldn’t believe a word of what I’m telling you. I’m worried about this angle Josef is running, the angle Hendrik doesn’t see and that I don’t completely understand.

  “I’m worried about this weapon. Maybe Lewis can duplicate this repeater carbine, and maybe we find a way to crank out a bunch of them, and maybe we shoot the hell out of Rademaker and the cops and anyone else that stands in our way.

  “But then what? Once that djinn is out of the jar, there’s no putting it back in. Rademaker will get hold of one, and they’ll figure out how to mass-produce it, too. And if we have ‘em and Rademaker has ‘em, the cops will have to figure a way to fight us both. Maybe they bring in the Army, or whole battalions of trade regulators, and then everyone’s got the damned things. It’ll be war, bloody war in the streets. I know we ain’t saints or anything, but I don’t think this sort of slaughter was what you had in mind for the family business.”

  I stopped and pulled the flask I kept in my jacket pocket. I toasted to her health and drained half the thing and put it back. It put a little fire in my belly and gave me the guts to finish saying what needed saying.

  “I can’t let this happen. I think you would tell me that this was exactly the kind of job you’d trained me for. I won’t heap all the details on you, but it’s enough to say that I’m going to cross up your son and your grandson. I’m going to get this weapon away from them. I’m going to get it back to the Cantabile family and send them packing to the Middle.

  “I don’t think Hendrik is going to want me around after that. I’ll have to leave the Exedra Arms, and maybe even leave town for good.

  “Either way this pla
ys out, I get this feeling that this is the last time we’ll get to talk. Maybe for a long time.” I paused, and I saw Donatella’s breath quicken again—something involuntary. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. “Please don’t be like that. If I could really talk to you and get your advice, I would. But if it was you running the family like you did before, things would have never gotten like this. I think I’m doing the right thing here, if there’s a right thing to do at all. It’s for the good of the family. De familie volhardt.”

  I kissed the dry skin on the back of her hand and looked into those watery brown eyes for the last time. Her breath began to slow to its normal pace, but as I watched her, I saw a tear bead up and leak from the corner of her eye. I bent down and pressed my lips to the tear, and the salt was bitter on my tongue. “Good-bye, Donatella. I hope I’ll do right by you. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Before I left, I turned Donatella’s head to the west. I heard she liked watching the sun set.

  Chapter 9

  Ludo Verboom waited in the anteroom. He held the pale pink petal of a Constantia orchid with a surprisingly delicate touch. Ludo’s big, scarred hands could have crushed the translucent porcelain vase into a fine powder. I cursed and turned away.

  “All right, Kaeri?” he rumbled at me while studying the orchid.

  “Yeah. Must be getting allergies from all the flowers.” I scrubbed the back of my hand across my face and rubbed at my eyes. “So. You here to visit The Old Lady?”

  Ludo let the flower go and tugged at his earlobe. “Well, sure. A visit. But you’re here, so I might as well tell you now. There’s a thing happening tonight, and the guys could use you.”

  “That so?” I said. I wanted desperately to splash some water on my face, a drink, a smoke. Any two of the three would do.

  “Yeah. Our pal Josef has got the straight dope on an aker shipment Rademaker is moving. He gave us the time and place, and the Boss gave the nod to Kasper to set up a little raid. Supposed to be a decent haul.” He was studying me close. “You want in?”

  “Does Kasper want me in on it?”

  “I didn’t hear specifically. But I thought you might like the opportunity.”

  “Kasper has got a meeting with Lewis at the club tonight,” I didn’t say Kasper wanted me at that meeting, but I didn’t not say it, either. “Say, you ever wonder where Josef gets his science about the aker shipments?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Ludo grimaced. “The Boss likes the aker and the money too much to ask Josef hard questions about his information. But that’s my job, right? To worry about stuff like that when he won’t.”

  It meant something for Ludo to say that to me, and that only made me feel filthier for lying to him. A raadsman was supposed to back up the Boss’s play, and among the rank-and-file soldaten, the two men were always of the same mind. But I wasn’t a soldat. I was the old Boss’s particular friend, confidante, protégée, whatever I was. And on top of all that, the old bear wanted to groom me to be the next raadsman. He was trusting me with things he probably shouldn’t.

  I cleared my throat, and the lump there disappeared. I had a job to do. “Have you found out anything interesting about that?”

  “Not much, and I don’t like it. That man is oily, Kaeri. There’s no getting a grip on him, not with booze nor cooze, and he has slipped every tail I’ve put on him.”

  I nodded. “What’s stopping you from putting a wrecking crew on him and making him tell you? I know it’s not elegant.”

  Ludo tugged at his ear some more. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of doing that. But this Josef isn’t like a Rademaker errand boy or some schmoe who won too many hands of blackjack. The Boss aims to have an alliance with this Cantabile family, and it won’t do to bruise the guy. Besides, Josef has been dropping hints that he’s getting close to finding the source of aker production.”

  I whistled. “That so? I take it he wants to trade that little morsel for settling his sister’s debts and getting her away from Kasper.”

  “Yeah, but it won’t go down like that if Hendrik gets his way. More like we’ll get the aker source, we’ll forgive the debts, and Lange merges with Cantabile in joyous marriage. Kasper and little Henriette are sweet on each other anyway, which is nice, too.”

  “How do you reckon Josef will take the news?”

  “Poorly, but it don’t matter much. If he doesn’t like it, he can be put out of the way.”

  “Just so long as we cut the cake first.”

  “Right.”

  I grimaced and decided to take a gamble. “And how’s that reciprocating repeater carbine figure into all of it?”

  Ludo’s face got cold and hard. “What do you know about that?”

  “What anyone knows, I guess.” I hoped my poker face was as good as I thought. “Something like that is bound to make a lot of racket.”

  He sucked his teeth. “Damn that boy anyway for popping the thing off.”

  “So Kasper is trying to get Lewis to figure the thing out. Make more of ‘em, and bullets too. What do you think of that?”

  “Is that the little errand he sent you on this morning?” Ludo asked, his face gone ashen.

  I nodded. “This little game we play with the Rademakers and the cops is bloody enough already. There’s no way we can keep that gun a secret for long. How bad do you think it’ll get if everyone got their hands on one of these repeaters?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “Ludo, you’ve known Donatella a lot longer than I have, but in some ways I think I know her a little better than you. You think this is what she would want for her family?”

  Ludo sighed. “No, it isn’t.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I repeated, and stepped into the elevator.

  “You sound like you’ve got something in the works, pompoentje.”

  I closed the door and did my best to not smile at the pet name. Little pumpkin, on account of my shape and hair. It had been a while since he called me that. The flower allergies threatened my already shaky composure again.

  “I might.”

  Ludo wrapped his thick fingers around the outer accordion door. “I might not be able to protect you.”

  “I know. I can look after myself.”

  “What I mean to say is, don’t put me in a bad position.” He worked his lips around his teeth, thinking of the right thing to say. Finally, he let go of the accordion door. “I won’t like it, but I’ll pull the trigger myself if I have to.”

  I nodded and murmured, “De familie volhardt.”

  The car descended.

  * * *

  Ever since that stroke took down Donatella, I’d got in the habit of keeping just a few things in my room at the Exedra Arms. Maybe at the back of my mind I knew I’d find a way to leave once I got sick of Hendrik and Kasper yanking my chain. Now that the day was here, I discovered I didn’t even want what little I had. My best and third-best suit, what was left of my courier getup, a framed photo of Donatella and me, and a little decorative glass box all stayed in their places in my room.

  That box held the mushroomed and fragmented remains of two lead bullets, ones I collected in a very personal way the afternoon I first met Donatella. It also held the joined halves of a heart-shaped silver necklace that glittered in a stray sunbeam. Nobody had worn either half of that necklace in over ten years. Not since Donatella’s surgeon took one half off my neck and Donatella herself took the other off a dead girl. If I had my way, nobody would ever wear it again. If I had my way, I’d toss the whole box into Sofie’s gold smelter before I let anyone get their hands on it. But I had to leave it, leave everything. If my only keepsakes were missing from this spare little room, Kasper would get suspicious of me sooner than I wanted him to.

  I grabbed my slingrod and some cash and left the rest.

  I stopped by Club Madill well before opening time to have a few quiet words with the staff. A cheeky bribe here, a called-in favor there set the stage for the night, and then I hooked a cab over to the Hotel Mercur
e. The lobby was all gaudy davenports and gilded plaster, made up to look fancier than it was. I spotted the house detective right away, an iron-haired man with the steely glare and widening paunch of a retired cop, and gave him a friendly nod. No sense trying to be cagey around here—Maria would draw more than enough attention to me anyway.

  Up to room 413. I raised my hand to knock at the door and stopped when I saw it was already cracked open. Inside I could hear light stepping and a rhythmic shuffling of fabric. I let my slingrod drop from my sleeve into my right hand but didn’t touch either stud. Extending either the slinging end or the beating end would make more noise than I wanted.

  My shoulder pressed into the door, and I eased in slow, the better to catch it if it squeaked. I couldn’t do a damn thing about how loud my heart sounded in my chest. Was I going to find Maria sprawled on the floor, a knife in her back? Was I going to find her standing over a body, her sword dripping red for the second time that day? Holding my breath didn’t help, but I did it anyway.

  Her room was a nicer version of my old place at the Exedra Arms—nicer wallpaper, cleaner carpets, gauzier curtains, and a canopy over the bed. All the other furniture—a writing desk, a love seat, an armchair—had been pushed to the corners, leaving some space in the middle. What stood there stole my breath, but I wasn’t complaining.

  Maria moved in that small, tacky space—a whirlwind of violence, effortlessly contained. She was a jar of lightning, a djinn with a sword, a ballerina with blood on her hands. I watched her dance, and I watched how she led her steel partner with practiced ease. That heavy cavalry saber spun and thrust and slashed in her hand like it was a part of her, an extension of her arm. Her free hand either touched the pistol’s grip at the small of her back, or shot skyward like a rocket, or sailed behind her to balance a sword-hand thrust. She utterly controlled that small space around her body, easier than breathing.