Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (15 page)

“Put him in a car,” I said.

Hobardi was off checking on his injured
Order members.

“What do we do with the kid, Boss?” MTB
asked.

“Starve him for a day then Valia comes
at him all nice and motherly, and gives him some food. This,” I said, pointing
to the ruined festival, “wasn’t feral kid behavior.”

“She’s not very motherly,” MTB stated.

“I think I should be the cool older
sister,” Valia volunteered.

“When I ask for your opinion it will
sound like this: ‘hey new guy, what is your opinion?’ But I didn’t say that. Better
make it two days.”

“Boss, you really want us to starve that
child for two days?” Valia questioned.

I snickered.

“Tell you what, why don’t you give him a
knife, we can all turn our backs, and we’ll see how childlike he is. But I’ll
bet you five boogleberries you’ll be missing your nose and ears before you get
a chance to tell him about all the great opportunities he has in life.”

http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/feralkids.gif

As I stood outside of the ritzy building
watching valets parking cars, I really didn’t feel like being here.

Not just for the event, which I was sure
would be teeth-achingly dull, but because I felt another heart attack coming
and I didn’t want to die surrounded by the pompous privileged.

“Supreme Kommilaire, so glad you could
come!” A bejeweled woman cooed to me.

I was being presented with an award. I
didn’t know for what and I didn’t know from whom.

They paraded me around at gala parties
like this between three and six times a year. I was invited to more, but I
attended as few as possible.

They were all the same, a lot of
unbelievably wealthy people showing off to each other. While they did that, I
begged for money.

The Kommilaire were not funded by the
city government since there wasn’t much of a city government. We relied on
these wealthy patrons for all our expenses. I also shook down crime bosses for
money, offering them some protection or reduced sentences or something.

The crime bosses were a lot easier to
deal with. You gave this, you got that. Here, no one said anything so bluntly.
They were buying prestige and recognition.

Believe it or not, these people looked
up to me.

“Hank, may I call you ‘Hank,’ you are
from one of the first families, right?” a man wearing a three-foot-tall hat
asked me.

His wife, wearing an inverted, cone-shaped
dress
tsked
him.

“Don’t be stupid, Uor, he
is
the
first family. Please forgive his ignorance. It runs on his father’s side,” she
said.

These people, for whatever silly reason,
placed huge importance on how long ago you came to Belvaille or how far back
you could trace your lineage. That was of course moronic, since all those
original settlers were criminals—or at least all the ones who stayed and had
offspring.

So yeah, I was not only one of the first
members of Belvaille still alive, but I was the Supreme Kommilaire, who had a
lot of folk tales said about him across the galaxy.

Getting me to attend your party was a
big deal in some social circles.

As I stood there in my red Kommilaire’s
uniform, my tiny cap on my huge skull, I couldn’t wait for this to be over.

“Quite a turnout,” Jorn-dole said.

It was the handsome man I had met at the
Athletic Gentleman’s club.

“Sure is.”

“Is this your kind of event now? It
seems a bit…dull for you.”

I looked around to see if anyone would
overhear.

“It makes dull look like a heart
attack,” I said from experience. “But I have to do it now and then.”

“Could you imagine your life ever coming
to this—excuse me if I’m being too familiar.”

“It’s fine. No, I never would have guessed
all this. But even if I had guessed it, I’d still have to do it.”

“That’s a point.”

I saw a discreet queue forming at the
periphery of our conversation.

“Sorry, I’ve got paying customers.”

“Of course. Hope you’re feeling better.”

He walked off and I sucked in some air
and tried to relax. If it was obvious from looking at me that I didn’t feel
well then that couldn’t be good.

“Supreme Kommilaire, I heard there was a
disturbance in the western part of the city a few days ago, something with the
feral kids,” an elderly man said.

“Those poor, poor children. They need a
good home is all,” his elderly wife added.

“They’re not all children. But the
Kommilaire Ministry of Information has all the details if you wish to inquire,”
I said, referencing the make-believe department.

“Oh, thank you. We all believe you’re
doing a wonderful job!”

After some time I was given a statuette
from the League of Something Blah of Greater Blah Blah.

The statue was fine crystal with dainty
little points and etchings and in my concern not to crush it, I immediately
dropped it and it shattered.

No one blamed me of course. But
recriminations blew through the crowd like a bitchy little wildfire.

The guests blamed the host who blamed
the sculptor who blamed another member for providing substandard materials. It
was pointed out the previous award I had been given was made out of iron so as
to avoid this same problem.

It was just another chance for them to
piss on each other. These people were so catty.

I helped myself to some fancy appetizers.

Part of the entertainment value I
provided these people was to show off my eating habits. They got a perverse
sense of wonder or shock watching me consume a hundred pounds of
extraordinarily expensive food which I couldn’t taste.

Half the party was literally standing on
the opposite side of the refreshments table gawking at me as I shoveled food.

Whatever. I’d gotten enough funding for
the Kommilaire, and some extra, so we could hopefully hire more people.

As I was eating, the host and hostess
approached.

“We wanted to thank you again for coming
to our home, Hank, and hope you enjoyed yourself,” the host said.

I smiled and kept eating.

“We were wondering what you thought of
the election,” the hostess added.

I grumbled but said nothing.

“We’re thinking of voting Garm’s
ticket,” the host stated calmly.

I stopped.

“What?” I asked. About two pounds of
food falling from my mouth.

“Yes. Her ticket. What is your opinion?”
the hostess asked.

“What’s a ticket?”

“Oh.” The host and hostess shared
concerned looks as if they might have said too much. As if they should be privy
to something the Supreme Kommilaire wasn’t.

“Well…” the hostess said, looking at her
husband.

“I don’t suppose it matters,” and he
magnanimously handed me a slip of paper from his jacket.

My hands were covered in food and the
paper was folded like a billion times.

“Unfold it.”

He did so and handed it to me again.

It was hard to read because of my poor
eyes and all the creases, but it was a list of candidates for Governor and City
Council.

I read it. Read it again. Read it again.

I didn’t understand.

“All these people are dead,” I said.

“Yes,” the hostess confirmed without any
irony.

“I don’t get it. How does a dead person
serve?”

“Well, I assume they don’t,” the host
said, also without irony.

“Then…what…is this how elections work?
I’ve never been through one. Do people usually vote for dead candidates?”

“We think it’s more of the status quo,”
the hostess said.

“For things to remain as they are. With
you as Supreme Kommilaire, the judges making their rulings, adjudicators in the
streets,” the host added.

And Garm still in charge behind the
scenes? This was pretty shocking in a lot of ways. I really thought Garm had
checked out for the most part. Mostly she just appointed judges.

“How’d you get this?” I asked.

“Oh. Well. I don’t want to go into those
details,” the host said, taking the paper from me.

The host and hostess were sharing looks
again as if they regretted telling me. Not because they were ashamed or thought
I was going to get them in trouble, but that pompous look of, “he shouldn’t
know.”

I reached out, took hold of the host by
the shoulder, and lifted him off the ground. I did my best not to break any
bones.

“Where did you get that?”

The hostess covered her mouth with her
hands.

“Garm stays in contact now and then,”
the host cried.

I dropped him.

“Garm?” I asked, dumbfounded. Garm had completely
cut me off, and she’s communicating with these people?

“How do you know it’s her?”

“We’ve been talking for years,” the
hostess said. “But we only ever see her at City Hall.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“Well, yes,” the host looked around and
quite a number of people were watching our interaction. He leaned in to whisper
to me.

“We weren’t supposed to tell you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, and then grabbed his sore
shoulder where I had held him.

“Ow. It’s just what she said. She only
works through some families now. She said she leaves the running of the city to
you.”

I was confused. Especially since I
didn’t in any way “run” the city. I just put bandages on the biggest cuts.

“We guessed that her ticket was a kind
of alternative to the extreme candidates who are running,” the hostess added.

“Dead is pretty extreme,” I countered.
“How do you even vote for a dead person?”

“How do you vote for a live person?” the
host asked.

I was about to grab him again when I
realized he wasn’t being sarcastic. I had no concept of the mechanics of
voting. How would you select anyone? Who gets to vote? How do they only vote
once?

Ugh.

“Is everything fine, Supreme
Kommilaire?” the hostess asked timidly.

I could see they were quite frightened.
I looked around and saw the party had basically stopped and everyone was observing
us.

I walked in between the couple and put
my arms around them jovially. I then turned to the crowd.

“I’d like everyone to give a big round
of applause for this most excellent night! This is the best party I’ve been to
in maybe fifty years! Reminds me of Old Belvaille,” I said with gusto.

The aristocracy dutifully applauded. They
were so good at faking praise you couldn’t even tell they were insincere.

http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/hankeating.gif

“Can you resurrect dead people?” I asked
Delovoa at his place.

“Yes,” he said, while drinking his third
glass of wine.

“You can? How?”

“Huh? Oh, I wasn’t listening. What did
you say?”

I gave him a scowl.

“What?” he said. “Every time you come
here you complain. Who do I get to complain to? You? I need a crapload of
sulfur hexafluoride to fix our air scrubbers. If I can’t find it we’ll have to
rotate them every few days or we’ll all pass out walking for five minutes.
That’s me complaining. So what’s your advice on that?”

I sat there thumbing my sandwich.

“Exactly,” he said, slamming the rest of
his drink.

“Have you talked to Garm?” I asked him.

“Garm? No. When would I ever talk to
her?”

“She vanished, right?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“But what if she’s still neck deep in
things? Running it all from behind the scenes?”

“Then she’s doing a terrible job.”

“She makes the laws, though, and
appoints judges.”

“That’s rare. How many laws do we have,
really? Like ten?”

“I think about thirty.”

“You’re the Supreme Kommilaire and you
don’t even know. That’s how important our laws are.”

I ate a few sandwiches as Delovoa rang
for more alcohol and food. It was a different twink who delivered them. Where
did he get them all?

Delovoa sighed.

“Garm took her money and retired. She
always wanted the good life. And remember, her mutation was she didn’t sleep.
That has to wreak havoc on a body after a while. Seventy years without
sleep…not sure how healthy she is. I say just let her alone, if she wanted to
talk she would.”