Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (35 page)

Another red envelope arrived for me.

Refrain from directly
buying and selling on the Boards. Your involvement makes traders believe there
is a policy shift. You should move forward on your gang confederation.

I read it numerous times even though
there wasn’t much to read.

So Garm was shadowing me perfectly. I
had only tried to buy the aluminum yesterday. Literally hours ago. And I had
proposed the Confederation to less than a dozen bosses so far.

I was straining to figure out how she
knew everything I was doing from the top floor of City Hall. She must clearly have
informants. But that also meant she was speaking to them. Regular people,
interspersed through the city were updating Garm on my activities yet I hadn’t
spoken with her in decades—other than through these damnable red envelopes.

Should I ignore her? Go to the Boards
and buy an aluminum and sell one just to spite her? I had already seen what
happened and it wasn’t pretty. Now I knew the reason why.

Had Zeti sent me to the Boards with the
purpose of upsetting the market?

It seemed too much of a coincidence. He
wanted me to go personally and didn’t care I hadn’t succeeded. And his fourth
cousin probably owned a planet-sized world-ship, so I can’t imagine a single
share of aluminum from our little space station was that important to him.

So what did Zeti get out of it?

He had told me that he hoped I wasn’t
betrayed again. And previously he said he hoped we weren’t shackled in despair
for ten thousand years.

I couldn’t do much with ten grand of
shackles but betrayal was something I could comprehend. As far as I saw it, you
couldn’t be betrayed by people you disliked. Betrayal meant they were people
you trusted. Your friends.

I didn’t have a lot of friends, really.
Not good friends. I had a lot of acquaintances and people I was friendly with,
but if it came down to it, they’d sell me out if the price was right. Maybe
they’d feel bad about it later—when the money ran out—but probably not.

MTB was a friend. Zadeck had been a
friend. Rendrae, for all my making fun of him, was a friend. About a few dozen
gang bosses and strong-arm thugs might be considered friends or close to
friends. Garm had been a friend. Delovoa was probably my best friend, which was
sad.

Of all those, only Garm really had the
power to betray me. Zadeck was dead. Rendrae had already proven he wasn’t
capable. MTB I don’t think could even spell “betrayal.” Delovoa could betray me
a thousand million ways, but just about all of them would have left me dead
decades ago. Everyone else simply didn’t know enough about my operations to
have much influence.

But maybe I was putting too much
emphasis on Zeti’s words. He was a big floating crystal. It was like trying to
guess the motivation for a sentient sugar cube.

Still, I had to get more information and
I decided to use alternate sources.

“Look who’s back,” aRj’in smiled. “I
told you he’d come around. Didn’t I tell you?”

We were in aRj’in’s club and he was
seated at a table. Four of his men were in discreet corners of the room.

His men stood there stony-faced, smart
enough to not answer rhetorical questions from their boss. I was visiting
alone, so none of my own Stair Boys would know about this operation.

“So. I want to hire some of your men—” I
started.

“You do? Well, la-la-la. The Supreme
Kommilaire and Big Secretary Guy wants to hire
my
men. From
my
gang. I should be flattered.”

If anyone was going to betray me, it
wasn’t a boss I was barely on speaking terms with. At least it wouldn’t be
called betrayal.

“You interested or not?”

“Why can’t you have your pretty boy
Kommilaire do it?” he asked.

“I thought you said you don’t ask people
what their reasons are when you lend them money.”

“Yeah, and you convinced me that that
wasn’t, uh,” and he waved his hand in the air looking for the right word. He
looked to his men, who didn’t help. Finally back at me. “Wise.”

“I need it because my men are busy.”

“Busy, he says. And my men aren’t? You
all aren’t busy?” he asked his thugs. “Should I fire you guys?”

I wasn’t going to take a lot more of
this. I think he got that vibe.

“Fine, Hank, what do you want?”

“Someone is hiring the feral kids. I
want to know who and when,” I said.

“What, are we going to go ask feral kids
their business? They don’t even speak Colmarian. They’re vermin.”

“No, just watch them. I was told they
have some…handlers who go to the same spots and farm out jobs to them.
Sometimes even knocking over gang businesses. Don’t try and attack or break it
up, just tail them.”

“Tail the ferals?”

“No, I know where they are. Tail the
buyers. The people hiring the feral kids.”

“And what do I get for this? That’s a
lot of time in a dangerous area. Ferals will tear your liver out and roast it
on a fire for supper.”

“It depends on what you can give me.”

“What is the best? Assuming we give you
gold?” he pushed.

“Your brother. He’s on the Royal Wing. I
can get him out,” I said.

aRj’in lost his smile and was stunned.

“Don’t never anyone leave Royal Wing,”
he said slowly.

“There’s always a first time.”

He thought long about that.

“What if I don’t want him to come out?
Guaranteed,” aRj’in said in a quiet voice.

Damn. I came here ready to offer this
great boon. And he wants me to do the exact opposite. To be a crooked judge. I
mean, no one had left the Royal Wing before, but I was now open to the idea.

His brother was a standard murderer who
had been caught too many times. Probably just a dumber version of aRj’in
himself. Maybe he expected a power struggle if his brother was let out.

Now that I made the leap to making Royal
Wing sentences non-permanent, I wasn’t comfortable about negotiating away the
life of someone based on the back dealing with a third party.

“No,” I said. “I don’t have any plans on
letting him out, but I don’t want to touch that.”

“What’s the difference? You were going
to let him out based on this job. I’m just saying don’t let him out based on
this job.”

Yeah, what was the difference?

“I guess…leniency can be given. A second
chance. But you can’t take it away just because we made an arrangement.”

“What the holy hell are you talking
about? He’s been in Royal Wing for seven years. The guy’s a cutthroat—and I
mean that literally. He cuts throats. He should be dead and you’re talking
about leniency?”

“If he’s as bad as you say, he won’t be
eligible for parole,” I said.

“What’s that? ‘Parole?’ Are you making
this stuff up?”

“Yeah. Who else is there to make it up?”
I said.

aRj’in was shaking his head.

“This city is a joke. Parole. Look, if
you keep my brother in for another seven years, I’ll give you a dozen of my
men. You can dress them up in frilly skirts and call them all Miss Chee-chee.”

It would be so easy. I had the power to
do all this. But those speeches I gave my Kommilaire had to mean something.

“I can’t guarantee it. I can’t make
those deals. Look, he might never get out. We haven’t made the criteria yet.”

aRj’in jumped up, slamming his fists on
the table.

“So you come here asking my help and
tell me you’re going to let out one of the craziest killers in Belvaille who
has a personal vendetta against me? Is that how you do business?”

Yeah, this wasn’t going well.

“Isn’t there anything else you want?
Besides thumbs. I’m poor,” I said. “Up until a few minutes ago, you wouldn’t
have been negotiating about your brother.”

“Up until a few minutes ago I didn’t
know he was about to get out of the Royal Wing!”

“He’s not! No one is. Put that out of
your head.”

“Easy for you to say, you didn’t help
get him shipped away.”

“Of course I did,” I said. “If he’s on the
Royal Wing I had something to do with it.”

“Yeah, but your fat neck is too thick to
cut. He won’t have a problem with mine.”

“What else do you want?”

“I want my casino on Oelisht to be able
to have fully-nude dealers and servers,” aRj’in stated quickly.

A lot of establishments had nudes. Many
more didn’t because it just became a hassle to deal with lechers and the
Kommilaire were far too short-staffed to bother. I couldn’t remember offhand
why his casino wasn’t allowed to have them. Presumably it had been restricted
for some reason.

But since I couldn’t remember, it must
not have been a huge reason.

“Fine,” I said. “But you’re going to
have to provide all the extra security when the pervs try and grope your
dealers.”

“I want it in writing,” aRj’in added.

“Sure. Standard gang protocol.”

“Hey, there’s a ship out there?” the
controller said.

“I just told you there was,” I answered,
irritated.

“It’s there,” he confirmed happily.

“Is it military or not?”

“Hey, Xoxis,” he called over his
shoulder. “Take a look at this.”

A fat man wearing a girdle walked over
to the computer station. I was at the telescopes, tapping the resources of our
questionable experts to find out if the Olmarr Republic really did have a
warship sitting near Belvaille.

The ship had contacted the city to
remind us they were still out there. They demanded the return of their crew we
had taken captive. I was now checking on how serious the claim might be.

Xoxis leaned over the screens and looked
at the data.

“Is that a warship?” the young
controller asked.

“Hasn’t been a warship around here in thirty
years at least,” he sniffed.

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t one,” I said.

“It’s…got a gun,” Xoxis said, squinting.
“At least one. I’d guess it was a light destroyer.”

“Could it blow up the city?” I asked.

“Blow up the city?” they both asked,
alarmed.

I didn’t want to cause any more panic so
I backtracked.

“I’m just curious. How powerful are
those guns? I mean, is it a cool ship?”

“Oh. It could damage a non-military
vessel for sure. Most ships nowadays are kind of a hodgepodge. The guns might
not even work. There isn’t a lot of use for them.”

“Right. I read about this,” the
controller said. “In the past they could threaten smugglers, but there’s no
such thing anymore. Since there’s no empire.”

“Could they pirate other ships?” I
asked.

“Pirate? No, those never existed. They
were just stories. That’s space out there. It takes weeks to load and unload
cargo even in a dock. Imagine trying to do that in zero gravity in a
spacesuit,” Xoxis said.

“Okay. I was just curious,” I said, my
spirits improved. “Thanks for the help, guys.”

“Uh, Hank. What’s going on with the
city? There’s a lot of…disturbances everywhere. My neighborhood doesn’t feel
safe.”

“The Kommilaire are on it,” I lied.
“Don’t you worry.”

I was being serenaded again by the Royal
Wing women from their roof.

I had gotten Valia to retrieve the men
from the Olmarr warship who we had stuck on top with the women. I had also
given them back their clothes, but not their weapons of course.

“Tell them to shut up,” I said to Valia.

“They’re just singing. I think you
should be honored. It’s their way of thanking you.”

“It’s horrible, off-key—whatever. We’daer,
I hope you’ve been treated reasonably well so far,” I said to the Systems
Configurator from the ship.

He looked rather bad since he couldn’t
shave or get his hair or nails trimmed. If Valia had been hosing them down, she
wasn’t doing it regularly.

Still, he didn’t have the arrogance of
when we first met.

“You will forgive me, sir. I did not
realize you were
the
Hank. You are listed in the Noconeir as one of the
architects of the Second Olmarr Republic,” he dropped his head slightly.

Me, an architect. Man, if you live long
enough I guess they start running out of ways to describe you.

Though it’s odd, Peush sang this same
song for years. Then he got tired of it and tried to kill me with a train. So I
wasn’t sure how much faith I put in the Noconeir and Olmarr Republic reverence.

“So, I’ve decided to let you go,” I
said.