Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (13 page)

“Su Dival has died. The Totki say he was
murdered,” Rendrae stated.

My arms were heavy and I did not
normally lift them above my waist unless I had to. So most of the time I stood
around with my arms straight down at my sides. But I reached up and put my hand
to my face. Even though I couldn’t feel my face and couldn’t feel my hand.

It was just bad, bad news.

Su Dival had been the absolute leader of
the Totki. I had rarely spoken with him, but he was basically an older, meaner
version of Hong: militant, jingoistic, unreasonable, with an even thicker
accent. Now, presumably, Hong was the leader of the Totki. And there were hundreds
of them wielding spears on the streets of Belvaille.

This could be it. This could be the catalyst
that destroyed the city for good.

I could see them all. They were a few
blocks away waiting for my response. I had thirty Stair Boys at my side who
couldn’t dream of stopping that many people.

I needed to find a scapegoat and I
needed to find one fast.

“I swear as Supreme Kommilaire the
responsible parties will be found and executed,” I said as harshly as possible.

About half the Totki cheered that, but I
could see the rest weren’t satisfied. They weren’t marching with spears to
improve their cardiovascular fitness. They didn’t pour out onto the street for
words.

But maybe some words would help. I took
the microphone from Rendrae.

“The last time I spoke to Su Dival, I
was struck by his commitment to peace. His compassion. The Onyeu people had a
symbol called zshu-maen which embodied truth and love and wisdom. Su Dival was
those things, he was a zshu-maen,” I said. Just blurting out whatever nonsense
I could think of and hoping no one took offense that I basically called him a
duck.

I was hoping my fear came across as
sorrow and earnestness.

The mob didn’t cheer, but I could see
the direct effect of my words. It was tough to be bloodthirsty in the memory of
a purported man of peace.

Rendrae’s eyes were twinkling. He loved
news. Any news. He would take notes and print an editorial on doomsday.

“What do you think this means for the
Totki’s chance in the election, since Su Dival was their choice for Governor?”
he asked.

I cursed by accident and heard my cusswords
reverberate on the loudspeakers.

“I am certain he would have made an
excellent Governor with his qualities.”

“Did that mean you endorsed him?”
Rendrae prodded.

I did my best to control my temper. I
couldn’t believe Rendrae was trying to cook up a juicy story when we were
across the street from a mob that was a shade away from violence.

There was a long-ass pause as I stood in
front of those thousands of “mourners.” My breathing could be heard over the
loudspeakers.

“Yes. I endorsed him. Though I had not
come out officially yet.”

If a city could gasp, Belvaille gasped.

Even the unflappable Rendrae was
startled.

“Then does that mean you endorse the
Totki alternate?” he asked.

“I don’t know who that is. I endorsed a
person, not an ethnicity. I will have to see who they put forward as a
candidate and learn his position on issues. But my first priority is to find
those responsible for this heinous crime.”

The spears were lowered.

The mob was now just a big crowd.

I had successfully neutered the riot and
all it took was endorsing a dead jerk.

We were in a large room, packed with
Totki, who weren’t even pretending to hide the fact they were carrying
firearms.

In the center of the room was an open
coffin in which the remains of Su Dival were placed.

Belvaille didn’t have a coroner. If
someone was dead, they were dead. You generally didn’t need anyone to tell you
they were dead.

We had a difficult enough time taking
care of our living people, so anyone with even a shred of medical training got
work as a doctor.

But I had my Stair Boys drag a surgeon down
from the main hospital and I immediately appointed him High Investigative
Coroner of Belvaille.

He did not want the job.

He was a young lad with a bright future
who was examining the corpse from the most notorious murder in decades while
surrounded by hundreds of armed men.

All of it was unnecessary of course.

I knew who had killed the Totki leader.

Su Dival had eight puncture wounds on
his chest, right above his heart. The punctures were small and perfectly
symmetrical. They formed two intersecting plusses.

Even if the punctures didn’t exactly
match the ones on the legs of some Ank I knew, I couldn’t think of many people
who could fire eight projectiles with such accuracy other than a four-armed
combat battlesuit.

The Coroner looked at me beseechingly.
It was clear he didn’t want to make a misstep and was hoping for guidance. It
seemed I had appointed the right man.

“So, doctor, what was the cause of
death?” I asked loudly.

He reached out to the body.

“Numerous—”

“Do not touch!” Hong yelled, and guns
were pointed at the poor Coroner, who almost died himself.

“Sorry. Numerous perforations in the
chest resulted in severe heart trauma,” he said.

“Hmm,” I said, putting my hand to my
lips and furrowing my brow for theatrics, “so you’re saying he was shot in the
heart?”

“Well, I can’t confirm that. I don’t
know what caused the perforations. This isn’t my area of specialty.”

“But probably shot,” I nudged.

“He may have been…”

“If you had to say whether he was shot
or not shot, what would you say?” I coaxed.

The Coroner blinked at me a while.

“Shot.”

A great murmur went up from the gathered
Totki.

“It is confirmed by our Coroner that the
esteemed Su Dival has been murdered,” I said.

The Coroner clearly wanted nothing to do
with that diagnosis or anything here.

“We know that. We can see,” Hong said.
“Who do it? It Olmarr!”

I spun on him.

“How do you know?”

“They always do—”

“How do you
know
?” I repeated. “A
great man was murdered and you want to go out and murder on his behalf without
proof? Would he have wanted that?”

I pointed to the coffin, knowing Su
Dival probably
would
have wanted that, but that Hong wouldn’t slander
him so.

Of course, I couldn’t tell them it was
19-10 because it sounded like crap. I mean, there’s nothing I would like more
than for the Totki to be hunting a dimension-walking assassin they couldn’t
see. Maybe I wouldn’t have to do it then. No, they wouldn’t believe me. I certainly
wouldn’t believe me if I hadn’t seen him already.

“They kill us! We kill more!” Hong
yelled.

“Listen to me. Listen carefully. You
have lost your leader. You are angry. But you have an election coming. Whoever
did this wants you to go wild and attack. That’s their plan. You won’t win
anything. Do you think you’re going to shoot and stab everyone on this station?
There are five million people on Belvaille! How many Totki are there?”

They were listening. Hong scowled.

“You have sympathy now. He can still win
you the election,” I said, motioning to Su Dival. “He can still achieve your Totki
independence. Don’t throw away what he worked for.”

I really hoped most of them didn’t know
Su Dival very well. Then again, it was a lot easier to attribute good deeds to
a person when he wasn’t sitting up and contradicting you.

If I got the Totki interested in the
election that was great. I didn’t rate their chances very high of getting
anyone elected. They looked weird, they talked weird, they were xenophobic, and
they tended to stab everything. But giving them a hobby other than going on an
ethnic rampage was a noble cause.

“You find them. We kill them,” Hong
said, angling his bladed spear at me.

I let him get the last word because I
knew he would get it no matter what. He wasn’t going to let me end on a big
uplifting speech.

I pulled the Coroner out and back to my
waiting Stair Boys.

“How’s recruiting coming along?” I
asked.

MTB, Valia, and a few of my sergeants
were sitting in my living room.

“Not so good, Boss. We’ve lost about
twenty-three Kommilaire since last week,” MTB answered.

“Lost them? Where’d they go?”

“I figure half joined the Olmarr
Republic and half joined the Order. And half probably just got scared,” he
said, showing off his math skills.

“So we’re actually losing men?”

“Yeah. We’re not going to get anyone
unless you lower the requirements.”

“Are you joking? Now is the worst time
for that. I’m not personally worried about getting shot, but with the way
things are, do you really want to be questioning the loyalty of the guy
standing behind you?”

“At least someone would be there,” he
said.

“Fine, lower the requirements. But tell
them we do drug testing and have a lie detector built by Delovoa.”

“Do we have those?” Valia asked,
surprised.

“Don’t be silly. Who would need a drug
test? And someone would have killed Delovoa if he ever designed a lie detector on
Belvaille,” I answered.

“Do you know who murdered Su Dival?”
Valia asked.

“Same guy that shot the Ank, 19-10,” I
said.

“Do you know why he or she did it?” she
asked.

“I’m guessing it has to do with the
election. Maybe kill the big candidates. Or the undesirable candidates. Hell,
maybe they are all taking turns hiring him to kill each other.”

“What about the Ank, though? They
weren’t killed,” she said.

“No one gets any value killing Ank.
Unless they’re anarchists. And anarchists can’t afford quality assassins. I’m
guessing it was a warning. The Ank were making noise about the election right
before they got attacked. And they would probably have sponsored some
candidates—maybe all of them. This might make them sit out the election for
fear of a return visit.”

“What do we do about this 19-10 guy?”
MTB asked.

“Not much. I’ll tell all the major pols
to ramp up their security and take some precautions to prevent him from
portaling in,” I said.

“How would they do that?” Valia asked.

MTB gave her a dirty look.

“Sir,” she amended.

“Just surround themselves with people or
things and keep moving. From what Delovoa told me, if you just walked around,
19-10 would never be able to portal near you because you move faster than he
does.”

“People can’t walk forever,” MTB said.

“No, but they could sleep on the train
or in their cars. I’m writing down some ideas and I’ll give it to all the major
candidates at the same time so no one feels left out.”

“Are we going to post more guards on
them, sir?” Valia asked.

“We can’t spare any,” MTB said.

“I agree. The city is still the city and
it comes first. I don’t even know what a Governor is. So far, the people I’ve
seen running for the job aren’t worth saving.”

“We should have guards on you, Boss. In
case this 19-10 guy comes for you” MTB said.

“Unless he has something a whole lot
bigger than those pellet guns, I’m not concerned. And I don’t want anyone hanging
around my apartment while I’m sleeping. I see enough of you bums.”

“What’s with all this weird furniture?”
Valia asked about my heart attack-helping sculptures.

“Shut up, new guy,” I said.

The doorbell rang and MTB got up to
answer it for me.

“Hello,” I heard a chipper, unfamiliar
male voice say. “Are you the man of the house?”

MTB looked back over his shoulder at me
and opened the door wide.

Standing there was a strange, tall man
in an ugly blue-green suit. He had the hugest teeth and smile you’d ever seen.
Not mutant-big. It was just a big, phony smile.

As he looked into my apartment and saw a
bunch of uniformed Kommilaire sitting around me, he wasn’t fazed. In fact he
was encouraged.

“Ah, I hope I’m not interrupting.” He
took off his hat and gave an extravagant bow, sweeping his arm to the side as
if we, or he, or my apartment was royalty. “Could I have a moment of your
time?”

“Are you selling something?” I squinted.

“Oh, no,” he protested. “The only thing
I’m selling is good government.”