Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (39 page)

BOOK: Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck
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“Can’t these things scan the whole
galaxy? How big is one city? It should be done by now.”

Delovoa stepped away from the controls.

“Do you want to do this? I’ll take over
the Militia and you fix the city’s infrastructure.”

“Fix it? Another part fell off the
latticework yesterday.”

“Yeah, but it was in Deadsouth,” Delovoa
shrugged.

We were trying to track 19-10. And for
the last five hours we were failing. Delovoa said he had been working for six
hours before that, but I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him. There were an
awful lot of empty wine containers lying about.

“There!” Delovoa pointed.

I looked at the screens. Even if my
vision wasn’t so poor, it would have been nonsense to me.

“What?” I asked.

“That signature can only be from the
decay of chrodite-399. 19-10 must have portaled.”

“Where?”

“There,” Delovoa said, pointing at the
screen again.

“Yeah, fine. But where is that?”

Delovoa sat down and began making
calculations. It took him ages.

“Huh,” he said. “That’s City Hall.”

 

CHAPTER 64

 

Now that I didn’t need money, everyone
was trying to give me some. Where were these people twenty years ago?

I was at a block party for Belvaille’s
wealthy elite. Not the gang wealthy, but the rich and snobby.

Getting money from the gangs was easy: I
simply asked them. I set up a fee structure for the Belvaille Confederation to
pay for the Kommilaire. To show you how bad at finances I was, I got more money
in a week than I did in six months last year. I was either going to have to
give some of it back or start outfitting my Kommilaire in diamond body armor.

But I needed to involve the wealthy citizens
of the city. These wealthy citizens.

I wanted them engaged in the ongoing
welfare of the city beyond who had the most extravagant parties.

I needed to tax them.

If their money was directly being
funneled into the city, they would have to become interested. But Belvaille
never had a tax before and no one wanted to give money to a government of
dubious value that didn’t exist yet. The City Council? Governor? No one knew
who they might be. I was asking these discerning citizens to give a lot of
money to potential bums and idiots.

It was a hard sell.

The Confederation was well and good, but
the city needed ongoing repairs and upgrades. Delovoa couldn’t handle it all
and at some point enough equipment was going to fall off the latticework that
we were all going to die from cosmic radiation or something.

I needed a lot of money and I couldn’t
wait for a fundraiser every time there was an emergency.

The block party had servants. Lots of
servants. People whose job it was to open doors and look severe. Well, that and
show off how much money their employer had. If you could afford to pay someone
to literally stand around, you had some serious cash.

The wealthy were not as ingratiating to
me as the gang bosses were. These people were not bred to be afraid of their
superiors—I think because they didn’t recognize the concept.

Whole gaggles of them would walk up and
touch me lightly on the arm or the shoulder or the side. They were touchers. After
a while I wondered if they were trying to leave their scent marks on me.

The turn-out had been quite a lot more
than I expected and I found myself a bit flustered at how to proceed. These
weren’t gang folks.

There were a few former thugs here and
there that they had captured and tamed into being house servants. They stood
like statues, not a trace of their former selves left. It was almost eerie. But
I’m sure they were paid well.

I had said I was going to give a speech,
but what was I going to say?

How come I had no problem talking to a
Confederation of criminals but I was tongue-tied around these posh pants?

They hadn’t even brought out any food,
or at least not in Hank-portions. I was handed a few dainty crumbs that were
about the size of my thumbnail.

“Hank, splendid, splendid work,” a man
said to me. His mustache curled and joined his eyebrows.

“Supreme Kommilaire,” his wife
corrected. Her skin was extraordinarily wrinkled. It was a chemical process I
had heard about. Instead of fighting the ravages of time they embraced and even
accelerated them. “Do you know when the election will be reinstated? We’ve so
looked forward to it.”

“Quite,” her husband added.

“Did you know who you were going to vote
for?” I asked.

“Garm’s ticket seemed excellent,” the
wife said without mockery.

“The dead people?” I tried to confirm.

“Garm’s ticket,” the husband stated.

“But it was dead people, right?”

“It was the ticket that the owner of
Belvaille had constituted,” the wife said slowly, as if she were speaking to a
child.

“I know that. But you understand they
were all dead?”

Did they not want to admit it? They
shifted uncomfortably, as if I had said something distasteful. What, did rich
people not die?

“Is there any time frame you’re looking
at, Mr. Secretary?” the wife smiled.

I threw up my hands—not my arms—which
was as much effort as they were going to get from me.

“I’m working on it. I need to put down a
few revolutions.”

“Of course you do,” the husband grinned,
like I was the most precious thing.

Ah! These people were such asses.

I gladhanded another fifty people. They
alternately felt me up and acted patronizing.

“Supreme Kommilaire, I wonder if you
might tell me some of the companies or gangs that are going to be entering the
Belvaille Confederation soon.”

It was spoken simply, with the man’s
last words nearly drowned as he took a sip from his glass.

But the entire block at once grew
silent.

It was such a noticeable change that I
looked around and expected to see we were under attack from some Servants
Liberation terrorist wing or something.

Instead, everyone was just standing
there frozen. Pretending not to be listening to me but practically taking their
ears off and putting them by my lips.

Oh.

If they knew which companies were going to
join the Confederation, they would be able to invest in them early and make a
killing. I hadn’t thought of that. I needed to monitor what I said from now on.

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to
divulge that information at this point,” I stated woodenly. “However, efforts
are well underway to make as smooth a transition to a city that is—”

And I ran out of bubbly stuff to say.
Everyone was standing there listening, their wallets burning in their pockets
as I spewed gibberish.

“Independent and…vital…and stable…”

I was waving my hands now, hoping I might
be able to fly away or at least cause some distraction.

“To gather the full…strength of the
city…into one undivided…union.”

Pause.

And then everyone applauded!

They practically got in fistfights over
who could shake my hand first and touch my shoulders.

Did these people simply not listen to
anything? They were all tickled about electing a bunch of dead candidates to
office, so maybe my fumbling speech was spectacular by comparison.

 

Bolstered by my success saying absolutely
nothing, I seized the moment and took my place at the front of the block.

I would have liked to be on a raised
platform so I could be seen easier but I would have also liked to not weigh nine
tons.

Everyone stood at attention and seemed
quite interested.

“Right,” I began. “As some of you may
know, we have created a Belvaille Confederation—”

Applause.

“I’d just…I’ll just ask you to hold your
applause until the end. I still need to go do Kommilaire stuff after this.”

Some small applause and shushes.

“So the city, Belvaille is
your
city. You are its key citizens. Its parents, if you will. Your good judgment,
wisdom, and generosity are paramount to keeping the city operational for
generations to come.”

Applause. And shushes. And angry
back-talking to the shushers.

“Because you have the means to support
yourselves that is in far excess of the normal, lowly citizens of Belvaille,
your broad shoulders are capable of bearing a larger burden.”

I was hoping for some applause but it
was silent.

“Um. So I’m proposing a…” I stared out
at them and knew I couldn’t use the word tax. “A
contribution
,” I said.
“To the City Fund. It shall be used to repair, replace, and renovate the city.
Such as the docks, port, the telescopes, and the latticework. We need to build
schools and hospitals and shelters in the west if we ever want to permanently
remove the feral blight. In short, we need capital to not only live, but to
live well.”

It was very quiet for a long while.

“Look, we’re on a space station. A pile
of money won’t do you any good if we’re all floating dead in the void.”

The silence was replaced with murmuring.
My years of experience with court trials would say it was generally negative,
but not outright hostile.

Fine, let them bellyache for a while. It
still had to be done.

 

“An
interesting
speech, Supreme
Kommilaire,” a gorgeous older woman said.

She had several male servants behind her
and it looked like she shopped at the same twink emporium that Delovoa used.

“Thanks,” I said, hoping to stay for as
little time as possible.

“It’s no wonder Garm places such
confidence in you,” she said offhandedly.

“What?”

“I’m rather surprised you aren’t part of
her ticket, but maybe you have something already arranged?” she hinted. “Though
she didn’t mention anything.”

“When did you speak with Garm?” I asked,
trying to remain calm.

“I suppose…Clorish, when did I last
visit City Hall?” she said, addressing one of her servants.

The handsome man bowed.

“I would have to check, M’lady, but I
believe it was three weeks ago,” he answered stiffly.

“And how often do you visit her?” I
asked.

“I wouldn’t say more than once every
three months. She’s very busy. But of course you know that. She entertains only
the most important families. The most parental, to use your own wording.”

“Of course,” I said. “And what did you
all talk about? I just want to make sure she’s not giving away any of my
secrets.”

“Oh,” the woman said, alarmed. “She did mention
you were working on solving the feral child, feral people issue.”

“That I was?” I asked.

“She didn’t say you, personally. She
said your Kommilaire were.”

 

CHAPTER 65

 

After a month of trying to pin down the
Totki I finally got a tipoff where they would be: from the Totki who came to my
front door.

“We fight you!” The rat-faced little
twerp said. Actually, that was racist. But he was very small and his face
shared the characteristics of a rodent.

He was flanked by MTB and Valia and a
dozen other Kommilaire to ensure he wasn’t up to any trouble. Or, any more
trouble than threatening my life.

“Where and when?” I asked.

“Three day. Avenue With No Name. We give
it name: ‘Hank Dead and Su Dival Avenge name’!” He said.

“Well, that will be a cumbersome street
name. But fine,” I said.

There was a long road in the west that
had once been Lin-Ling Avenue named for a powerful gang boss. But he had gotten
into a war with another boss, whose name I forget, and he lost. The winner, in
retribution, cut the first part off all the street names, with the goal of
renaming them after himself. But he was killed shortly after and the avenue
remained with half a sign ever since.

When the Totki left, MTB and Valia
shared their concerns.

“You know they’re going to be prepared,
Boss,” MTB said.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t go,” Valia added.

“Or at least let the Kommilaire join
you. You can’t trust your Militia,” MTB said. He had not approved of me
releasing everyone we worked so hard to capture.

“The Militia will never work with the
Kommilaire, you know that. And this is my chance to get the Totki. I’m sure
they have something planned, but I’ll just have to be careful. I’ll tell you
what, get some Kommilaire and put them in plainclothes and do reconnaissance of
the Avenue. Look for anything out of the ordinary, like a giant ladle suspended
above the street that pours molten steel.”

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