by Sean M Locke
“You okay?” I said, squatting so I was eye level with the girl. Buying my way into the nobility was about as damn likely as swimming in the Spray. “Should get those cuts cleaned up, before they fester.”
Her eyes were all over the place—my face, Maria, over my head, the sidewalk.
I picked up her slingshot. “You’ll want this back. This is damn fine work, by the way. Keep it up.”
The girl was looking at something over my head, fear still in her face. When I nudged her with the fork of the slingshot, her eyes snapped to mine. She mouthed a word, and I thought it might have been “thanks,” but then again it might have been “run.” The girl scampered off, a little unsteady, but fast all the same.
I straightened and turned to face Maria, but whatever I was going to say died on my lips. Maria was about to say something too, but she never got the chance.
A big sedan pulled up fast with a squeal of brakes. Its suicide doors opened, and I shouted something, but I was three days too late. Maria’s face contorted in confusion and pain for an instant. Her limbs all went stiff, and someone I couldn’t see tossed a black cloth bag over her head from behind. I had enough time to see arms wrap themselves around her body before someone jabbed blunt metal rods into my body in three different places. All of my muscles went rigid, and coppery warmth filled my mouth.
I couldn’t move anymore. And then I couldn’t see anything either, and someone moved my hands behind my back and metal cuffs pinched my wrists.
There was some jostling and quiet, insistent muttering from people all around me. I sat pressed up against something soft and yielding, and through the dry scent of the bag I could smell Maria, and my apartment. Doors slammed, an engine spun up, and we were moving.
When my limbs felt a little like working again, I surged up, meaning to smack my forehead against someone’s face or dive out the door or do anything at all. But my muscles were sloppy and I couldn’t move too good and I got jabbed by come-alongs again for my trouble. I collapsed twitching into someone’s lap, and got shoved back into the seat.
“Try that again,” someone said in my ear, “and see what you get. These things will kill you after awhile, so keep your trap shut. We’ll get where we’re going soon enough.”
I played nice, and I hoped Maria would too. Her breathing was quick but even, and she didn’t say anything.
The car rattled off to wherever it was going. I kept my ears open and tried to keep track of the turns we were taking, but lost the thread. I didn’t know how long we were driving around, but I had a good idea that we wouldn’t make our brunch date with Wolfgang and Felix.
* * *
They hauled us out of the car, and I smelled sour piss, day-old garbage, and rotting fish. It could be any one of a thousand back alleys in the Lower Terrace. It could be anywhere.
They hustled us into doorways and up staircases, and they didn’t say much. I didn’t recognize anyone’s voice; likely it wasn’t any of the Lange soldaten.
A door opened, and someone pushed me forward a few steps. The door closed again, and I heard at least three pairs of heavy feet stepping and scuffing the floor.
Someone held me by my collar, and my shoulders ached from the strain of holding them behind me so long. One of the mooks told another to bring a chair over.
“Did you geniuses check her for weapons?” Someone new said. It was a sharp voice, the kind a woman uses when she’s been kept waiting too long.
“Uh, no, Mevrouw Sforza,” the one holding me said. “I mean, we took the other one’s gun. This one ain’t got a holster or nothing, and she weren’t holding anything when we took her.”
“And what do you suppose would happen if I tell you to take those cuffs off her?”
The mooks standing around me made dull, uncertain noises, and I had a nasty grin on my face. Too bad it was wasted on the inside of a black burlap sack.
“Why don’t you tell us what you’d do, Kaeri,” the voice said.
Now I was grateful for the sack—she couldn’t see the surprise on my face. I could play it cool for a single, glorious instant.
“Well, I’d start with the big galoot who’s wrinkling my suit. Stomp his foot to distract him, and then crack his egg with the baton I’ve got hidden in my left sleeve. This other jerk on my left would make a grab for me, but he doesn’t sound too quick on his feet, so I’d break his wrist for him and take his come-along.” I shrugged. “After that I’d just zap and beat up whoever was still standing and then scoot.”
Curses and muttering burbled around me, and the big one jerked me closer to him and grabbed my arm too.
“Is that all?” the woman asked.
I sighed. “Reckon so. Now, you kinda have me at a disadvantage and this bag is starting to stink. Who’m I talking to?”
“Uncuff her and let her sit down,” the woman said.
“But mevrouw,” said a voice to my right. “Her, uh . . . weapons?”
“Do it. It would serve all of you right if she knocked some sense into your heads. But I don’t think she will. I think she’ll play nice, if she wants to keep her little friend in one piece.”
I had something smart to say, but it died in my mouth when she mentioned Maria. Someone took the handcuffs off me and someone else put a chair behind my knees and gave it a push. I sat, pulled the sack off my head, ruffled my hair, and got a good look at the lady in charge.
The woman stood up from behind a desk and came around to stand in front of it. She wore a suit with a long pencil skirt that could have bought and sold my own rag-bag five times over. A black rose blended with the lapel of her jacket—an odd affectation if I ever saw one.
Not quite thirty and not much taller than me, but a good deal slimmer. Sharp green eyes and cheekbones, pursed lips. She kept her wheat-yellow hair short, framing her face neatly, and she moved the way I’ve seen a pack of kama-foot lizards move stalking a wounded biceratops. If I didn’t know who she was, I would have thought she was very pretty.
“Vedette Sforza, yeah?”
“Yes. And you’re Kaeri Hawen.”
“Yeah. Thanks, by the way,” I said, playing for time. I looked around: just a little office like any clerk might have, though no one had dusted the filing cabinets in awhile. A modest credenza off to one side had a sweating pitcher of ice water and a couple of glasses. I had two mooks bracing me from behind, blocking the only exit. Pretty damned hopeless, but not impossible.
“For what?”
“For the compliment,” I said, rubbing the sore spots on my wrists. “It’s real flattering that you sent four Rademaker soldaten to snatch me.”
“It was six.” She shrugged and took out a slim chromed metal box from her jacket.
“I sure hope you’re going to offer me a cigarette.”
“I’m afraid not.” The box flipped open on delicate hinges like a compact. She picked out a piece of candied lemon peel and popped it in her mouth. “I don’t smoke. Filthy habit.”
“Tell me about it.” I waited a beat as she rolled the candy around her mouth. “How’s little Tommy?”
She froze, her face contorted in mid-roll. Vedette struck me as the kind of person who couldn’t ever stand to look stupid. A flush crept up her neck and dotted her pale cheeks as she composed her face back into cool disdain. I’d gambled right—she was pissed off, and maybe off-balance now, too.
“My brother showed up yesterday morning with a bruised pride and a bloody stump. My doc had a run at him, and she says whoever tied off his bleed probably saved his life. Who do I have to thank for that?”
“Friend of mine. I’ll send your regards.” I tilted my head, made my voice syrupy and sympathetic. “Will he ever play the violin again?”
“He’ll be all right. He says he can’t wait to see you.”
“My calendar’s pretty open right now.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know,” she said, her lip curling. “But he’s a little busy. He’s entertaining your friend, not too far away from here.”
We didn’t say anything for a moment, and I strained to hear anything at all. Nothing but the blood pounding in my ears, and one of the mooks breathing through his mouth.
“You know,” she went on, “he has this notion that it was your friend who took his hand.”
“He got it wrong,” I lied. “I did that for him.”
“Yeah? Looked like a damn clean cut with a real sharp blade. You don’t have a rep for carrying knives around. Or swords.” Vedette absently ran a thumb along her wrist, right where Maria had cut Tommy. “You sure you’re not exaggerating?”
I pursed my lips and took a couple breaths. “So he just showed up, huh? The cops just let him go, just like that?”
“Something like that.” Vedette examined her fingernails. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about Tommy.”
“That’s fair enough. What did you bring me here for?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I’m annoyed, Kaeri. Downright vexed.” She leaned against the edge of the desk, crossed her ankles, and folded her hands in front of her. “Do you know why?”
“You got jerks like these guys working for you,” I said, leaning one elbow against a knee and pointing with my thumb behind me. “Imagine not even frisking me for a weapon.”
“I’m vexed because I have a damn lot fewer of those guys than I did last week,” she said, cool anger in her voice. The goons behind me positively radiated with restrained rage. “Eight of my soldaten and affiliats missing since night before last, and even some of their hangers-on. Tommy, missing a hand yesterday morning, and a bunch of his little buddies roughed up pretty good. Then last night, someone gets the drop on five of mine while they’re doing a job. Four of them got cashiered, and one of them is in lockup somehow.”
“I’m sure you’ll get that one back soon enough.” I leaned back in my chair and grinned, lacing my fingers behind my head. The front feet of the chair hovered above the ground. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”
Vedette smiled blandly at me, tilting her head like she was deciding between two pastries. She tapped her thumbs together a couple of times, and then came up off the desk, a damn sight faster than I expected. Her lean, wiry body crossed the space between us in a blink, and she shoved the arc of her hand into my throat. Surprised, I spluttered and choked and fell backward, and my chair came with me.
The back of my head bounced off the floor once. My hands went protectively to my throat. She didn’t quite collapse my windpipe, but it was a near thing. Involuntary gasping brought just enough air to keep me on the edge of panic.
Vedette appeared at my side, the ends of her neat blond bob dangling toward my face. One of her hands moved, fast as a viper, grasped my jaw. A long finger found the soft spot behind my jaw and under my ear, and she pressed hard. That got my attention—my eyes snapped open and locked onto hers. Tears blurred my vision, smearing Vedette’s face into obscurity.
“I don’t give a shit about him,” she said through clenched teeth, her face just a few centimeters from mine. “I do give a shit about what got taken from my guys. I give a shit about Lange starting a war with me. We’re going to talk about what you know, and then we’re going to talk about where my stuff is.”
Her mouth hung open, her predator teeth glittering through my mess of tears. A hilariously suicidal thought crossed my mind in that moment—the kind you get when part of your brain wonders what would happen if you jumped in front of a passing car, or threw yourself off the moving Cirkel. You wouldn’t really do something like that, but you get a little thrill out of the wondering. In that moment, I wondered what Vedette would do if I spat into her open mouth. I wondered what she’d do if I surged up and bit off her nose, or kissed her on the lips.
A giggle escaped my lips, bubbling and wet. Vedette snarled, and her fingers pressed deeper into my jaw and cheeks. Nails dug into soft flesh.
“Okay, okay,” I said, my voice sounding distorted in my ears. Thoughts and half-formed plans came fast and loose through my brain; one of them would have to work, and the rest would get me killed. “You’ve got me, all right? I’ll behave. I’ll talk.”
Vedette released my face and disappeared. I groaned, letting my head loll to one side. Breath came a little easier now.
“Karl, help her sit up,” Vedette said. “Nik, pour a glass of water for our guest, and one for me too.”
Heavy shoes and bad suits moved around me. Karl got me situated, and Nik pressed a cool glass into my hand. I gulped at the cold water, not caring now if Vedette saw me weak, vulnerable. She’d come damn close to killing me just then, and had Maria in hand as well. She already knew I was weak. She cut through all my posturing with a swift chop to the throat.
“When you feel ready,” she said, collected and calm now, a thin smile on her face, “talk.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, and watched pieces of truth and fiction fall into place in my mind. I opened them again, and gave Vedette every ounce of honesty I could muster.
“Kasper’s in love.”
“The fuck?” one of the mooks said, and Vedette silenced him with a lightning-fast glare.
“I think you’d better explain,” she said, still patient, but not for long.
“There’s this girl. Noble girl, called Henriette something.” I sighed, making myself sound defeated, resigned. “Her and Kasper, they’re crazy for each other. Hendrik, he likes the match, wants an alliance between Lange and her family. That score last night, that’s Kasper’s doing. Raising funds, see? To impress her, impress her parents, show ‘em all he’s serious about a merger.”
“He killed four of my guys for earnest money on a wedding?” Blood dotted Vedette’s pale cheeks.
“He anticipates some kind of positive ROI, I guess. Like if he can pull up stakes and resettle in the Middle, he won’t have to worry about whether you’re pissed, and anyway he’d put himself out of the way, right? Rademaker would be the only family left to run the Lower if Lange bootstrapped up to the Middle. You’d find a way to forgive and forget, what with all the old Lange territory you’d need to soak up.” I took a sip of the water, grateful for its coolness in my abused throat. Lies always came easier when you weaved some truth in them, and the lies were spooling out fast and easy now. “Or he’s just mad in love.”
“You and him have got something in common, then,” she said, glancing past me toward the door, her eyes glittering with intelligence and meanness. “Seems like you also found yourself a noble girl.”
“To be fair, I’m not the heir apparent to a major crime family.” I gave a dismissive wave even as my heart hammered inside my chest. I did not want Vedette thinking about Maria and Henriette in the same breath. “I’m just telling you what motivated Kasper to steal a quarter-mill in cash and ten kilos of aker.”
“I’ll want that back,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.
“I’d want it back, too. But getting it won’t be easy. I doubt you could just ask him for it.” I propped my ankle up on my knee, rolled the glass around my hands. I hoped it looked amiable. “You’d have to have some kind of serious leverage on him to make him give that stuff back to you.”
Vedette leaned back against the desk once more, studying me with a predator’s eyes. She swirled the water around her glass, and let me stew for a minute.
“I’ll be honest with you, Kaeri, I’d intended to have you get it. I thought I’d count on your attachment to this girl Maria, and ask you to use all your wits and skills to get that stuff back for me.”
“Your faith in my wits and skills is really encouraging, mevrouw,” I said, casting my eyes downward, “but I don’t think I could manage it. He’d be watching it too close. I’m not as good as all that.”
“I think you are, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a risky play, letting you loose to do that. I don’t really know how attached you are to Maria, and I don’t really know if you’d be successful in stealing back my stuff.” Vedette set her glass down, examined her fingernails. She paused, just long enoug
h to make me sweat. “Worst case scenario: you get clipped, and I don’t get my stuff back. Or you try some other shenanigans, and force me to tell Tommy to work Maria over with a rusty fillet knife.”
I tensed; my body rose halfway out of my chair before I could check myself. Vedette’s eyebrow lifted, and a small smile touched her lip. She knew what she needed to about my attachment to Maria.
I relaxed back into my chair, forcing myself to calm down. “I’d like it a great deal if you didn’t do that. If you’re not going to ask me to get the drugs and cash back for you, what are you going to do?”
“Well, you’re still going to get something for me,” Vedette said, rolling the candy around her mouth thoughtfully. “What you said about leverage has me thinking. Why don’t you get Henriette for me?”
“Hen— Henriette?” I said, sounding shocked. I blinked, made a thoughtful face, and waited. Just long enough for her to maybe feel flattered by my attention, maybe. “You want to … hold her hostage. For the drugs and money.”
“Clever girl,” she said, laying her finger alongside her nose. “Bring me Henriette, and I’ll let Maria go.”
“Just that easy?” I said, truly hoping so. “You’ll just let her go?”
“Sure.” Vedette smiled at me, sharp and predatory. “I’m not a cruel person, Kaeri. I won’t hurt her unless you make me.”
Blood roared in my ears, and I had to tell myself about five times that this was what I wanted. I wanted her to ask for Henriette, and I wanted her to think it was her idea. I covered my face with both hands, massaging my cheeks like I could mold myself into something tougher than I felt. Big inhale, big exhale.
“Okay, I’m in,” I said, meeting her eyes. “I’ll get her for you.”
“Good.” Vedette leaned forward, her snake smile looming a little closer. “I thought you’d see things my way. Here’s how we’ll do it.”
* * *
I took another ride, and got the same view of the inside of a black burlap sack. The goons hemming me in to the back seat weren’t too talkative, nor the driver either. They left me my baton, but it was in my forearm holster, and they had my wrists in bracelets behind me. If I was playing this smarter, I’d pump them for information—about Maria, about aker, whether they knew Josef, whether they knew about the repeater carbine. Instead, I stewed on the lies I told Vedette, and worked the problem over in my brain. What I had planned required so many things going right. If the soreness in my throat and the back of my head told me anything, it was that very little was going right.