by Sean M Locke
“I remember all that stuff—especially the splinters.” The memory of Hendrik’s gun going off and blasting the gondola played in my mind. I blinked it away. “Keep talking.”
Wolfgang cleared his throat and tugged on his left earlobe. “You, uh, probably noticed you can’t hear too good out of your left ear, either.”
“I noticed.”
“That part might be kind of permanent. Just have to wait and see.”
I frowned. I didn’t much like it, but what could I do? “Fine. Anything else?”
“No, that’s all. Doctors say you should rest and all that, but I don’t suppose you will.”
“I don’t suppose I will.” I folded my arms across my chest. That didn’t feel too good, either, but it helped to keep my heart from surging out of my chest. “Can we talk about Maria now? Is she all right?”
“Yep. Shallow stab in her thigh, a graze on her triceps. Nothing hit any nerves or big veins, so she’s fine. She’s back at Bacigalupi Tower now with her pop and the house medics. He was real relieved to see her. We talked for a while.”
“Did you, now?”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “He knows the basics of what happened, and Maria got home first to give him her spin. So that’s good, I guess. You know, she really ain’t so bad. For a noble. She seems to like you.”
I sorely wanted to believe that, but I knew he was only saying it so I wouldn’t ask more about his chat with Lord Cantabile. Part of me wanted to press him on it, but most of me needed to know other things first. “You say she got home first. What about Josef and Henriette?”
“Josef Cantabile got a few bumps and bruises, and a couple cracked ribs from that nasty fall. The flight crew that snatched him said that you two had a scuffle on the Ferro wheel. He was hanging from the gondola, and you held on to him. You didn’t let him fall. That right?”
“What about it?”
“Nothing. Curious as to why you didn’t just let him go.”
I nearly shrugged but remembered my torn-up shoulder. “I’m not completely heartless, you know. Besides, Maria would never forgive me.”
“She wouldn’t have had to know,” Felix chimed in softly.
I bit the inside of my cheek and looked away from him. “I would know.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment, but I got the idea they were giving each other looks over my head. Finally my brother went on. “Anyway, he has a couple cracked ribs, some bruises. Nothing the doctors here could really do anything about.”
“Here?” I said, my head snapping up. “He’s here?”
“No. The frigate’s XO gave him the grand tour of the ship. Word is that he always wanted to join the Air Corps. They . . . entertained him for a few hours until I got back, and then we had a chat, and then I let him go.”
“You let him go.”
“Sort of. I escorted him back to Bacigalupi Tower early this morning. Papa wasn’t happy to see him, let’s just say that. I gave him some friendly advice: Stay out of the Lower Terrace. Stay home and sort out business there. You don’t need to worry about Josef right now.”
“Why on earth would you let him go?” Anger boiled in my guts, and I wanted to jump up and grab Wolfgang by his lapels. “It’s him that ran the aker business with Rademaker, him that got the stuff to them.”
“That might be. We just didn’t have enough evidence to hold him or try him on it. Unless you’re willing to testify?” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I didn’t say anything. Of course I wasn’t going to testify. “So we let him go home.”
“And before you ask,” Felix put in, “no. He wasn’t going to just disappear. His profile in society is much too high for that. People would ask questions. Not that we would just make someone disappear.”
“So he’s home,” I said, my bile rising. “But I take it you’ve got someone to keep an eye on him.”
Wolfgang shrugged, his expression bland. “Anyway. You wanted to know about Henriette. Officially she’s still at large. Unofficially, I’ve heard she’s holed up at the Exedra Arms with Kasper, nursing him back to health. It’s all very romantic, I’m sure.”
“You’ve heard, huh? So I guess Ludo survived and is still with Lange.”
Wolfgang shrugged again.
“Fine. So Lange is beat up pretty bad. Hendrik’s dead, and Kasper is hurt, and they lost a lot of guys. They’ll be licking their wounds for a while.”
“Preliminary estimates say they will not be a viable player in the Lower Terrace for years,” Felix said quietly. “Possibly a generation.”
“So thanks for that, little sister,” Wolfgang added.
I winced and looked away from him. “I know what I did. You don’t gotta crow about it.”
“I’m not. I’m being honest. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
I didn’t do it for you, I wanted to say.
“What about Rademaker?” I asked. “You got any preliminary estimates about them?”
“What we have on them is pretty thin,” Felix replied, examining a fingernail. “Vedette Sforza’s body never turned up, so we’re presuming she survived. If she’s still in play, she’ll rally what remains of Rademaker. But the Rademaker remnant may not be enough to make an effective criminal organization. We counted the bodies, Kaeri, and identified most of them. Rademaker lost a lot more people than Lange. That may be thanks to Kasper’s repeating carbine, but a fair number of Rademaker bodies were recovered with shrapnel wounds from explosives as well.”
“Pino,” I breathed. “I wonder if he made it.”
“Who knows?” Wolfgang said. “We haven’t identified everyone. He may still turn up. But about Rademaker and Lange? My gut tells me they’re both out of the game for a while. Lange has more people, but not much in the way of leadership. Rademaker has got Vedette, and she’s damned effective, but she can only do so much with a handful of shell-shocked and injured soldiers and affiliates.”
“There’s a power vacuum now,” Felix went on. “Our next move is to capitalize on it; get some more cops on the streets. Win some hearts and minds. Clean things up.”
“You get plenty of credit for this,” Wolfgang said. “Of course, there’s no way we could recognize you for it, not officially.”
“Gods, no,” I said. “I don’t want it anyway. But since I’m suddenly a champion for law and order, did you find Piet?”
Wolfgang and Felix traded a look. “Piet Sandoval, the pawnbroker? No. We don’t have any reason to look into him.”
“He’s the whole reason things went to hell to begin with.” I looked from one man to the other, and their faces were blank masks. “He supplied the aker. He was supposed to swoop in and get the stuff when Rademaker and Lange started scrapping. You didn’t find him?”
“He wasn’t there, Kay,” Wolfgang said. “Sorry. Anyway, if Piet is supplying aker, and I’m not saying he is, he won’t find it easy to push the stuff.”
“Not with both Rademaker and Lange at their nadir. It may be bright days ahead yet for the Lower, Kaeri.” Felix smiled warmly. “And speaking of the future, what do you intend to do now?”
“Who knows?” I didn’t like him changing the subject, but it was the sensible thing to do. “I really hadn’t thought things out this far ahead.”
“Well, you can’t go back to Lange; they’d kill you, and I don’t think anyone could stop them. With Rademaker you’re in the same boat, I think. Think you might go straight? Get a job?”
I scoffed at him. “Go straight? You know I’m not cut out for that.”
“Might be we can offer you something,” he replied, scratching at the stubble on his cheek. “I’ve got a thing or two in mind.”
“You say it like I might actually have a choice.”
“You do. Won’t force you into it.” I could almost believe him.
“Maybe I say no, and then I get sent over for all the other stuff I did before.”
“Nope. Felix, what’s the dossier on Kaeri Hawen look like, do you know?”
<
br /> Felix closed his eyes, and I could see his eyeballs move like he was reading something behind his lids. “Mmm, sketchy. Not very much known about her. No extensive records about any petty offenses, and certainly no history of violence. No known associations with organized crime.”
I looked at my brother, blinking away a sting in my eyes. “What is this? You’ll wipe my record if I take the job?”
“It’s already done whether you take the job or not. I said we couldn’t recognize you officially for the good you’ve done.”
“But diddling records?” Felix opened one eye and gave me a cheeky smile. “We’re pretty good at that.”
“Well.” My next breath and the one after that felt bigger than the ones before, like a big weight wasn’t sitting on my chest anymore. “Well, then.”
“The job Wolfgang refers to is a simple one and lets you use some of the skills you already possess. We would place you with Vogelhammer, a firm that provides the bonded security staff for several of the towers in the Middle Terrace. You’ll have all the necessary credentials. They will assign you to a certain tower, and you would keep an eye on a certain family and report anything interesting back to me or Wolfgang. Easy, yes?”
“A certain tower, huh?” I asked, a lot quieter than I meant to. “Certain family?”
“Yeah. The tower assignment would be temporary,” said Wolfgang, “and it’d be up to you to endear yourself with the family, maybe get them to take you on as a household guard. I think you’re probably up to that.”
“Yeah.” I pulled at my lower lip and sorted out the puzzle pieces in my brain while trying to ignore that hollow feeling in my gut.
“You’d keep your salary from Vogelhammer, of course,” Felix went on. “Which isn’t trivial. And you’d have an expense account of sorts with us.”
I nodded and said nothing. They were trying to do a nice thing for me. They also wanted me to do something for them, and give me golden handcuffs while they were at it. Everyone always wanted me to do something for them. I always belonged to someone. Never got to do a thing just because I wanted to.
Felix levered himself out of the chair with his cane, and Wolfgang stood, too. They made to leave.
“We’ll give you some time to think about it,” Felix said.
“Just don’t take too long, Kay,” Wolfgang rumbled. “We need you there sooner rather than later.”
The door clicked closed behind them, leaving me alone in the stark, clean hospital room. I studied my hands, bandaged and curled in my lap, my fingers clinging to the sunlight that streamed in. A choice sat in front of me, and a thousand outcomes stretched behind it.
I soaked in the power of that decision for a long time, like a cat lying in a sunbeam, but I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. Not choosing was also a choice, and the world would turn, and the sunbeam would move. I would either become a tool for someone else’s hands again, or I wouldn’t. But I had time, just a little time, before I had to choose.
And so I took it.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Your mental picture of a writer is probably somebody hunched over their keyboard in a quiet place, beverage close at hand, occasionally snarling at humans who dare to come by. That’s about 80% true.
I don’t know how many percent “other people” is in this equation, because I’m not great with math. I do know that without those other people, the writing and the publishing would never happen.
My most profound thanks and gratitude go out to:
My wife Meredith and my son Ciaran, who always encourage me to write, and give me space to do it.
My daughter Eva, who writes like a demon and can’t be stopped. Whether she knows it or not, she inspires me every day to get back in front of the keyboard.
My dad Sam, who was so excited to see my work in print that he fronted a good chunk of change for the editing and cover art. This book couldn’t have come out when it did without his help.
My mom Tina and stepdad Mike, who raised me into the kind of person who can see a passion through to completion. You guys are the best. <3
Vivian Caethe and J Koyanagi, whose writing chops and work ethic I aspire to. They are stellar role models, and even better friends.
Jean Bauhaus, Sophia Moskalenko, B.R. Sanders, and Shveta Thakrar, who all graciously read this book at various points in its incubation and gave me perspectives I couldn’t have had on my own. They also caught literally so many typos, inconsistencies, and various other jetsam. If there are any textual errors in this book, they’re entirely my fault.
Shveta Thakrar and Ali Winters, who gave me some much-needed insight into the business of independent publishing. I’m proud of this first effort; if it’s gone smoothly at all, I have them to thank for it.
So many writing podcasters, including but not limited to Sarah Werner (Write Now), Joanna Penn (How Do You Write), Paul E. Cooley and Terry Mixon (The Dead Robots Society), and Rachael Herron and J. Thorn (The Writer’s Well). They’ve all been such an inspiration, and have changed my way of thinking re: that formerly filthy word “marketing.”
Rebekah Haskell and her team at Vivid Covers (vividcovers.com), for the gorgeous illustration on the front of this book. If the cover on this novel caught your eye at all, you have her to thank for it.
And last but not least, reader; you. If it wasn’t for you, whoever you are, this book would still be sitting on a hard drive somewhere, instead of in your hands. Thank you for reading this story.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is my debut novel. Did you like it? I hope so!
Like a lot of authors, I read a lot. And like a lot of authors, I got a little frustrated because I wanted to read a very specific thing, and it didn’t exist, therefore I had to write it myself.
I wanted to read a story that had a gangster-noir feel, but had a woman as the primary mover.
I wanted to read a story with queer people in it, but the story wasn’t about the struggle of being queer. Just queers having adventures and pulling off heists and maybe falling in love.
I wanted to read a story about someone asserting their autonomy, and maybe it doesn’t end Happily Ever After, and maybe they make a lot of mistakes.
Finding all those things in the same place is kinda hard, and I wasn’t finding it, so I wrote it myself.
Like most first novels, this one took forever to write. The next one—maybe a murder mystery that Kaeri and Maria have to solve?—will hopefully take a lot less time. Stay tuned!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Why hello! I see you’ve stumbled on the About The Author page in the novel’s back matter. If you’re here, then you’d like to know at least a little about me, so here are a few words, shamelessly stolen from my own website copy:
I love good stories. Frequently I read something that’s very good, but some small part of my brain says, “Oh, why aren’t there stories that do this, or a story with that kind of character.” Like most writers, I listened to that little part of my brain and decided that if I wanted to read stories that do this, or had that kind of character, I’d have to write them my damn self. So there we are.
I’m also a family man and a salary man. I try to be a good husband, I rai
se teenagers, and I work in a cubicle with my fellow corporate stooges. Since you have to feed children every day, and the bank wants their mortgage check every month, I stay in the day job. Someday I’ll make this fiction writing thing a full-time gig, but until then I write in whatever interstitial slices of time I can.
Find me on the internet:
WEBSITE: seanmlocke.com
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