Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (22 page)

Belvaille had gotten interested like I
hoped, but not as I suspected. Everyone thought it was some great conspiracy to
remove the Totki leader. Half thought I was personally involved in the cover-up,
half thought I was merely an incompetent dupe and—

“He kill Su Dival,” Hong said, pointing
to me.

This trial was so fantastical that they
had us mic’d at all times so every bit of entertainment was squeezed out.

The trial was not especially formal. We
were yelling at each other across the street. Every once in a while someone
would take the stand just for a change of pace.

“How could I kill him? I’d never get
away.”

I wasn’t exactly a bad guy in terms of
the city. Anti-Totki sentiment was high what with them roaming around
interrogating everyone. Me framing the judge and Su Dival’s “killers” hadn’t
stopped the Totki, just changed their focus. The only questions in everyone’s
minds were how high the orders came from, how broad in scope, and to what purpose.

The Totki themselves were more irrational
than ever and considered everyone that wasn’t their clan to be enemies.

“We know you do it. You never like
Totki. You try and take our planets!” Hong yelled.

“What am I going to do with a planet? I
can barely afford my meals!” I screamed in frustration.

I had been trying to avoid telling
people that 19-10 killed Su Dival because no one would believe it. Instead I
made a botched murder-suicide-cover-up with me as a stooge. If I had told
everyone Su Dival was strangled by magical intelligent underwear it wouldn’t be
as bad as this.

“Do we refer to you as the Supreme
Kommilaire now or Secretary of City?” the prosecutor asked me.

“How about Supreme Secretary?” I joked.

No one laughed.

“Why is the Deputy Kommilaire
unavailable for questioning?” he continued.

“Objection,” the defense attorney sitting
next to me said, “irrelevant.” He was covered in one-foot spikes all over his
clothes. I think he wanted to appear warlike, but he looked like some kind of cactus.

“He’s on the witness list. How is it
irrelevant?” the judge asked.

MTB had vanished. I was a little worried
about that. He was a sadistic guy, but he was a relatively truthful sadistic
guy. And his recent doubts about the Judge Naeb incident made me wonder how he
would react on the stand.

“We know you Kommilaire kill our
leader,” Hong pressed. “We have proof.”

“What proof?” I asked, being pretty
certain 19-10 hadn’t left anything since he couldn’t carry anything when
teleporting.

Hong held up a clear plastic bag.

“Uniform!”

Gasps from the city.

I looked over at the defense and he gave
me a look like, “that’s pretty good evidence!” Sigh. Since he wasn’t going to
do anything:

“That’s idiotic! Why would an assassin
take off his jacket and then leave it behind?”

“You say,” Hong replied.

“Yeah, you tell us,” the prosecutor
translated.

“Objection!” I shouted. “You all are morons.”

“Sustained,” the judge gaveled.

The city cried out.

“I mean overruled,” the judge amended.

“Give me that coat,” I told Hong.

“No, you steal it,” he said, covering
the plastic bag as if I was going to dash the thirty feet across the street and
swipe it before he had a chance to react.

“Your honor, I can’t prove anything
about the evidence if I’m not allowed to see the evidence.”

The judge waited. I think he was
listening to the crowd. My guess was he didn’t want to be the next judge
assassinated.

“Agreed.”

Hong gave the bag to the prosecutor who
gave it to my prickly defense, who accidentally lanced the bag with his spines.
I removed the jacket from the bag.

Looking at it, I could tell it was real
Kommilaire. It wasn’t a knock-off that I could see unless it was high quality.
But that didn’t mean anything.

I put the jacket on my head, where it
was too tight to even cover my chin.

I turned around so the street could see
me.

“Maybe not you, but you people kill Su
Dival,” Hong yelled.

I kept twirling and walked back some
distance on Courtroom Six Street so people could see the tiny little jacket.

“The Kommilaire don’t have any officers
this small,” I said. “This is like children’s size.”

I took off the jacket.

“Yes…yes you do,” Hong said. He was
jumping up and down pointing at me. “That girl. Red. Uh…”

Only his lack of language skills and
hyperactivity was preventing him from getting it out. He was going to say
Valia. This thing might actually fit Valia. What if it did? What if they
brought her to the stand? Did I trust her to lie about this? Even if she did,
if this thing fit her, what would people do?

“Hong!” I interrupted. “Maybe
you
killed Su Dival.”

I was just stalling. I hadn’t thought it
would elicit any kind of response other than mild confusion.

But the city shook.

Hong erupted in rage.

“Maybe you were working with Judge Naeb
so you could run for Governor as representative of the Totki,” I continued,
just throwing stuff out there.

Hong, unable to contain himself, blasted
a torrent of what I could only assume was Totki dialect.

I thought things were going well until:

“Citizen Rendrae, please approach the
stand,” the judge said.

Rendrae waddled up and was sworn in. He
wore a bitter expression and hate burned in his eyes. I think he was madder at
me than Hong was.

“Why were you with Hank on the day of
Judge Naeb’s suicide?” the prosecutor asked.

“Because it was news. I do news,” he
answered calmly.

“Who had told you of this? Did you just
happen to be walking around? Forgive me, but you don’t seem to possess the
physique of someone who is regularly out exercising.”

“I retain the right to protect my
sources under the Freedom of Press Act of 074,” Rendrae responded coolly.

No one had any clue what that was, but
Rendrae said it with such confidence we all assumed it was actually a thing.

“What did you see in Judge Naeb’s
quarters?” the prosecutor asked.

“Hank.”

“Besides Hank.”

“A chair.”

“Besides the furniture and chairs and
carpet and paintings!” The prosecutor demanded, his feathers literally getting
ruffled.

“Judge Naeb.”

“And what was he doing?”

“Sitting on the carpet. A gun in his
hand.”

The city was sweating. It was on the
edge of its collective seat.

“Was he dead?”

“I don’t think guns are alive.”

Wow, I had to remember not to ever try
interrogating Rendrae.

“Judge Naeb! Was he alive when you
entered the chambers?”

“Yes.”

Oh, crap. He was going to bail on me.
His journalistic integrity was winning.

“I think he means he was lifelike-looking,”
I said from my seat.

“You are not giving testimony now,
Supreme Kommilaire, please be silent.”

“Yeah,” the judge echoed.

“How do you know he was alive?” the
prosecutor drooled.

“He spoke.”

No! No! No! Shut up, Rendrae!

“And what did he say?”

“He said the same assassin that killed
Su Dival was hired to kill Hank. And he was paid for it by the ruling class of
Belvaille, which doesn’t want the Supreme Kommilaire around anymore: Garm.”

A million jaws hit the floor, including
mine.

Next time a leader gets assassinated I
was just going to tell the truth. It was becoming difficult to keep track of my
lies.

I had hunkered down in the Athletic
Gentleman’s Club trying to avoid people. I received a lot of free drinks and
free food from people who felt like I was sticking it to The Man. Though which
man, I wasn’t certain.

There were other people in the club who
gave me dirty looks because they felt I
was
the man and I had killed
Judge Naeb, which I had, and Su Dival, which I hadn’t, because of some sinister
master plan.

I sensed myself growing less and less
popular as the city roiled.

I mean yeah, I killed a judge. And maybe
MTB and Rendrae were right and that’s something I shouldn’t have done. But it’s
not like he had been a saint. I killed criminals all the time—or at least part
of the time. Did he get a free pass because he had been crooked for longer?
Because he wasn’t sticking up people with a knife, he was extorting them from
the bench?

I needed to retire. Get this election
over with and hire some other fool to try and clean up this mess.

“Tough week,” Jorn-dole said.

It was that good-looking blond guy who
seemed to be here a lot. The guy must have a bunk upstairs. Though I could understand
spending time here, I was doing it myself, and it was a good place to get
business done.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Pull up a chair if
you want,” I said, suddenly feeling like talking, or at least talking to
someone who didn’t know anything about Belvaille.

Jorn-dole sat on the other side of my
hard booth.

“Cozy,” he said, fidgeting on the rough
surface.

“So what’s your deal?” I asked him.

“Same as anyone else’s, I guess. Trying
to live my life and not crap on anyone else’s.”

“Yeah,” I pounced. “That’s it exactly! I
mean if everyone did that, I could retire tomorrow.”

“You want to retire?” he asked,
surprised.

“I’m old. All this,” and I waved my hand
in the general direction of everything everywhere, “is too hard for me now. I
don’t think I can hack it much longer. It wears you down.”

“What would you do if you retired?”

I sat there and poked at my food.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I could open
a bar. Not here, someplace quiet.”

“You’re going to tend bar? Stand around
all night listening to drunks and pouring drinks?”

“I guess that does sound kind of bad. I
don’t know. Paint pictures?”

Jorn-dole didn’t say anything. He just
looked at my ham fists.

Belvaille had kept me on my toes for two
centuries and now I didn’t know how to slow down. I mean I couldn’t hang out in
a casino or bar every day all day. What did people do when they stopped doing
stuff? I honestly had no idea.

What was Garm doing?

And more importantly, did she really
hire 19-10 to come kill me like Zadeck and Judge Naeb had said—and Rendrae had
unfortunately repeated.

Garm was not a name spoken often. In
fact, very young people had likely never even heard of the owner of Belvaille
let alone seen her.

But here she was, giving me lists of
dead candidates, appointing me Secretary of City, and possibly trying to kill
me. But those events seemed mutually exclusive.

Jorn-dole had taken his leave and I was
still eating when three bosses approached me.

They were in some kind of trade alliance
together and wore rich clothes and jewels. Wiessstauch was their bearded leader
and did all the talking.

“Hank, you have a moment?” he said,
taking a seat at my booth without me answering.

“I’m not in the mood—” I started.

“We had hundreds of thousands of thumbs
invested in Judge Naeb and he suddenly kills himself? This puts us in space
without a rocket.”

“Buy another judge, there’s plenty.”

“And is that one going to kill himself
too? What’s going on here? You’re a member of this club. You’re one of us more
than you are one of them,” he said.

“Who’s them?” I asked.

“Anyone outside this club,” he said.

“That’s like millions of people. You
saying they don’t matter?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, they matter.
But we make this city. We make it run. Some feral kids digging through your
trash don’t contribute. When your Kommilaire need new equipment do you go to
the millions or do you come to us? We can’t be blindsided like this.”

“I don’t have nearly as much control
over this city as you might think,” I said.

“Granted, and I understand you got
things to do and work at a different level than we do. But gang wars are one
thing, killing judges are another. And fighting Garm? What will that do to
those millions you were talking about?”

“I’m not fighting anyone.”

If Judge Naeb had been on the payroll to
the tune of hundreds of thousands, Wiessstauch probably knew him pretty well.
Wiessstauch had made it clear that he didn’t believe the suicide story because he
said “killing judges.”