Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (3 page)

“I’m not here to judge the past,” I
said. “That was between you two. I’m here to work out what the problem is now.
But seriously, if you guys don’t sit down or back away, I’m going to have to
make you wait outside.”

The two thugs took a begrudging step
back. Now it would be merely inconvenient if they wanted to kiss one another.

I sighed.

Bad blood already. This is why you leave
the crazies at home. If you got two guys a hair’s breadth away from fighting
right next to you, it’s hard to be conciliatory.

“Hank, I claim a grief. Dimi-Vim opened
a club on my street after striking he wouldn’t,” Vone said, throwing out some
gang terminology.

I knew the answer but…

“Is this true?” I asked Dimi-Vim.

“No! Lies and wrongs. I have a bigger
footprint on Knost Hill than he does. I’ve been there for years and years.”

“Abandoned buildings,” Vone declared.

“Not abandoned. But so what? I opened a
club.” Dimi-Vim shrugged.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“He’s siphoning my business. He even has
people in front of my club offering discounts into his.”

“If you can’t handle the competition,
move blocks. I’ll buy your club,” Dimi-Vim smiled.

The two thugs stepped forward again and
were about to come to blows. It’s like they were the mental puppets of their
bosses and responded to their anger.

“Buy my club?”

“Hey! Hey!” I yelled. “You two, I’ve had
it. Go outside.”

The thugs were glaring at each other,
barely hearing me.

“If you make me stand up, I’m going to
drag you outside and I promise you’ll regret it,” I warned.

The bosses each nodded and their
surrogates tromped to the door. I watched them go, and it was funny, they
reached the door at the same time and had already morphed into normal people.
They held the door for each other and walked out. They were just doing a job
and the job was over until their bosses came back out again.

“Right, so I don’t know who is lying and
who is telling the truth. You should have put something down in a real
contract,” I said.

“As if that matters,” Vone said.

“It does if you come to me. Then I got
something I can look at. It’s just you versus him right now. How do I know who
is telling the truth?”

“I am!” Vone said, as if I had simply
misheard him.

“No, he’s not,” Dimi-Vim tsked.

“How much are you down on your
business?” I asked Vone, and as soon as I said it, I knew it was a dumb
question. He would never tell me, let alone say it in front of Dimi-Vim. I
could torture him for weeks and he’d never reveal how much money he made.

He grumbled and mumbled something.

“Never mind,” I quickly said. “What kind
of clubs do you have?”

“It’s a club. Booze. Drugs. Dancing.”
Vone shrugged.

“Normal club, Hank,” Dimi-Vim confirmed.

“Come on, you know more than that,
right? What kind of music do you have?”

The two bosses looked at each other.

“I don’t know. Smash-oz.”

“Ropes.”

“Beggit-time.”

“Usual.”

I thought. Could it be that simple?

“Can you just have different music? That
will bring in different customers,” I said.

“No. Some music brings better customers
than others,” Dimi-Vim said.

“Fine, alternate,” I said. “That will
keep people on your block every day of the week and if someone doesn’t feel
like that type of music they can just hop to the other club.”

The bosses shared glances. I could tell
neither one wanted to concede anything.

“Some of those styles cross genres,”
Vone cautioned.

“Yeah,” Dimi-Vim squinted.

“Ugh. Alright. The majority of the music
has to be a certain type. You can draw lots every month on who gets what style
on what day. If you suspect any tricks, I’ll send one of my younger Kommilaire
in disguise to listen. If you’re found to be cheating, you owe the other boss
that night’s door and bar.”

A very long pause between them. My
modern art sculptures probably moved more than they did.

“Agreed,” Vone said finally.

“Agreed,” Dimi-Vim said.

“We’ll meet at the Athletic Gentleman’s
Club in a day or two and draw up a real contract,” I said.

I stood up, and the effort it took made
it clear that everyone should do likewise.

“See? That wasn’t hard,” I said.

The elevated train let me off near
Justice Lane. There was a persistent roar of noise in this part of the city. It
was hard to put your finger on the cause until you realized what it was:

People.

It was the weekend and that meant I had
to go for a trial. A real trial. Or as real as Belvaille got, anyway.

When I was working, I liked having a
heavy lifter drive me around because we moved so much, but I was capable of
walking just fine on my own. I strode up Courtroom Three Street for my
appointment. I was escorted through security checkpoints by my own Kommilaire
who did double-duty as bailiffs here.

All along the way, the block was packed.
The sidewalks had been fitted with bleachers so they could fit in more spectators.
All the apartment buildings had been equipped with terraces—box seating that
cost a fortune during popular trials.

The hottest court cases were ones with
crimes committed by the wealthy and powerful, mass murderers brought in for sentencing,
things that caught the public’s imagination.

That included any testimony I happened
to give.

Judge Naeb was the presiding judge of
Courtroom Three Street during the day. His gilded bench was twenty feet off the
ground.

There were numerous judges. I’d guess
around twenty. Some were good, some were bad, some incompetent. Naeb was the
longest-serving judge and by far the most corrupt. It was widely-known that the
outcome of any trial before him was based on how much either side paid and
whether or not he held a personal grudge.

Judge Naeb didn’t care for me, but I
didn’t mind. These trials were a farce anyway. It was just to keep the city
thinking we had a working system of government.

I made my way to the witness box as the
lawyers and defendant waited in front. The crowd grew hushed. This trial, like
many others, was broadcast live across the city via loudspeaker. It was
Belvaille’s most popular form of free entertainment.

Work, and even crime, across the city
came to a virtual stop during a big case, as people huddled around the speakers
to listen to the progress.

When I finally stood in the witness box
I tried to see who the defendant was, but I didn’t recognize him.

All the judges were appointed by the
owner of Belvaille: Garm. She literally had the deed to the city. Though it was
of questionable value since the empire that had signed it no longer existed.
She also wrote most of the laws that Belvaille possessed, though we didn’t have
many.

They said Garm stayed at the top of her
impregnable City Hall. I wouldn’t know since I hadn’t seen her in forty or more
years. There was a time, long ago, when we had been good friends. We had even
dated for a spell.

I could see why she didn’t come out. I
personally knew of at least five outstanding contracts to have her
assassinated. And she wasn’t bulletproof like I was.

Garm was a member of the Quadrad. It was
a planet-wide society of assassins and criminals. In her prime, Garm had been
incredibly skilled, but that was half a century ago.

“Please state your name,” the bailiff said.

“Hank.”

Cheers rose up across the city. Those
who couldn’t see the trial knew I was finally there and things were about to
begin in earnest.

“What is your occupation?”

“Civil servant.”

More cheers.

“Do you promise not to lie or half-lie
or twist the truth?”

“I suppose.”

The bailiff walked away and the defense attorney
approached. He wore a suit made out of an incredibly fluffy blue animal. He
looked like a creature from a very cold planet.

The lawyers knew they were arguing not
just to the judge, but to everyone. The people in the stands and poised on
balconies. So they had to have good voices and be appealing to look at. Or at
least distinctive.

This lawyer’s name was Mylan.

“Do you recognize that man?” he said,
flinging out his fluffy arm behind him.

I looked again.

“I can’t see him well. You sat him clear
across the street.”

A pattering of laughter rose up from the
block.

“Mr. Imdi-ho, would you please approach
the witness stand. I wouldn’t want to make our illustrious civil servant have
to walk to you. The trial could take weeks.”

He said it as a joke, but he could see
it fell flat so he quickly filled the silence.

“Come. Come.”

I knew the man once he said the name of
course. He had loose manacles on his hands and feet.

“Yeah, I know him. He pulled a weapon on
me a few weeks ago when we were patrolling,” I said.

“Thank you. You can be seated, Mr.
Imdi-ho. Can I ask you if this,” he went to his table and returned, “was the
weapon he threatened you with?”

He held up a submachine gun to me.

“I don’t remember,” I said honestly.

“Really?” he asked in mock-amazement.
“If someone pointed this at me, it would forever be ingrained in my
consciousness. Do you want to look again?”

He held it up, but it meant nothing. I
vaguely knew what type of firearm it was, but that’s about it.

“I don’t recognize it. But you could
have changed guns for all I know.”

“True. Though I didn’t. That is Exhibit
A, as both the prosecution and I agree. Is that correct?”

“I concur. That weapon was submitted
with the defendant,” the prosecutor stated. The prosecutor wore flashing lights
all over his clothes. But they were subdued colors and to me it looked more
respectable than the blue monster hide the defense was wearing.

Mylan, the defense attorney, put the gun
back on his table and returned to me.

“I would like to step back a moment and
examine our witness,” Mylan said.

“What for?” the judge asked, in a
lilting, feigned voice. And his tone made me look back. He was feeding a
question to the defense.

“To establish the validity of this
charge at all.”

There were murmurs from the crowd and I
pondered what Mylan meant.

“Proceed,” Judge Naeb stated at once.

“Hank,” Mylan began smoothly, “not
everyone knows of all your exploits. I, myself, have only been on this esteemed
city for the past twenty and four years. How long have you been here?”

“Uh. I don’t know. Maybe two hundred.
Less? I’m not sure.”

“And you are the same person that
destroyed the Colmarian Confederation seventy-eight years ago.”

Ugh.

“Fifty. And it wasn’t just me.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t just me that done it. A lot
of things happened. I was just nearby. And, yeah, I kind of helped I guess.”

“It was seventy-eight years ago that
Belvaille was transported from the state of Ginland to Ceredus,” Mylan said,
confused. He thought I was trying to trick him somehow. But I was just dumb.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes…”

Man, was it that long ago?

The defense tried to recover, as the audience
was growing restless.

“And are you the one who fought hundreds
of Therezians on this very station?”

The audience was dead silent. This was
like hearing the history of creation from the mouth of the guy standing next to
the Creator when it happened.

“I didn’t fight fight them. There were
hundreds, sure. Kicking buildings to pieces and stepping on people.”

“But you survived and they all fled?”
Mylan confirmed.

“It’s not as simple as that, but yeah.”

“And you negotiated our species’
survival with a prince of the Boranjame on his…
shuttle
?”

I could see he accented that last word
to force me to correct him for dramatic effect.

“It was on his world-ship, yes.”

Some stunned murmurs from the crowd.

“And you single-handedly repelled a full
Dredel Led robot invasion of this station, saving millions of lives—back when
we were at war with the Dredel Led.”

“I don’t know how many people I saved. I
fought some Dredel Led—”