Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (6 page)

“Do you think the Ank just give out cash?
They don’t make bad investments,” I said.

He snorted and waved off his masseur,
sitting up on the table.

“Do I look like an Ank? If he could get
thumbs from one of them he wouldn’t need a loan shark.”

“It’s your money. Do with it what you
want. I’m giving you my opinion.”

“The Supreme Kommilaire’s view on
lending money.” He seemed amused by this. One of his men brought a drink over
without being asked.

Now that he was sitting up, I saw aRj’in
had some gunshot wounds that hadn’t healed completely. They were decades old,
but abundant.

“Just Hank’s view,” I clarified.

“Why the distinction? Don’t your words
have more meaning if you say
Supreme Kommilaire
?”

“Do you not know who I am otherwise?”

“I know you’re just a guy working for
me. Like anyone else.”

“You paid for information,” I said.

“And what do you get paid?”

“5% from you and 5% from him, if you
loan.”

“So it’s in your interest to tell me to
make a big loan?”

“It’s not in my interest to give bad
information or no one would hire me again.”

He was trying to convey something with
his tone. But I wasn’t really getting it.

“So what will you buy with your fee?
Some Kommilaire uniforms? Maybe some new hats for your men?” he asked.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Isn’t this illegal?”

“Illegal? Like how?” I asked.

“Breaking the law. Going against the
government. Or do you always work for loan sharks?”

“I don’t always work for loan sharks. I
sometimes work with pimps. And prostitutes. And armed robbers. And drug
dealers. And arms manufacturers. But I don’t think of it so much as working for
them as with them.”

“I’m sure you do,” he smiled.

“You see, I can radio my Stair Boys to
come in here and raid this place. Take every thumb you have and every bit of
property. Then sell it off and buy more hats than we have heads. And if you
dare raise a stink about it, I can throw you all out the airlock so your bodies
don’t clutter up my pretty space station. And you know who will say that’s
‘breaking the law’ and ‘going against the government’?” I asked, leaning in
closer. “No one. Because no one is going to cross me in this city or I’ll throw
them out the airlock too. I can throw out as many as I need until people
realize it’s a bad idea to make smarmy remarks to my face.”

Despite his recent massage, aRj’in did
not look so relaxed.

“Now where’s my 5%?” I asked.

After my visit with aRj’in, I met up
with MTB and we headed east, just outside the docks.

“What did he do?” the man with no ears
and one eye asked. His name was Busange.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just looking
for him is all you need to know,” I answered.

I was at the headquarters of a group
that called themselves The Murderers. They weren’t a traditional gang. They
hired out their men to other gangs for fights or short-term contracts.

They weren’t technically assassins. I
frowned on assassins. But they sure as hell weren’t stand-up comics either.

MTB was holding a drawing of someone who
had attacked and wounded several Kommilaire and subsequently escaped. There
wasn’t much I could do except ask around.

“What’s in it for us if we see this
mystery man?”

“Anyone caught sheltering him or hiding
him gets the same penalty he gets,” I said.

“You haven’t even said what he done. For
all I know you could be giving him a reward.”

“Funny guy. He’s going to the Royal
Wing.”

“You got anything to sweeten the deal?”
he muttered.

I looked at MTB, but he was not a fan of
compromise.

“Sure. If you turn him over, you get one
free…pass,” I said.

“Pass? Pass what?”

“Like a pass. If you get caught you can
use your pass.”

“Yeah, but pass what?”

“Pass out of trouble. I’ve arrested some
of you guys, right?” I asked.

“Gave us fines,” he replied.

“Broken some bones,” another said. He
was sitting so far in the shadows I hadn’t even seen him there.

“Fine, so next time an arrest or fine
comes up, you can use your pass.”

“And we won’t get arrested?”

“Right.”

“Huh. So what if we like, just for
instance, killed a Kommilaire?”

“No. No. It won’t work then. Come on,
man, think.”

“How should I know? I never heard of no
pass!”

“I just came up with it now,” I said.

“Maybe we could list the crimes it’s
good against?” MTB said uneasily.

“Crimes?” I asked, annoyed. We didn’t
even have a list of crimes, how would we have a list of crimes to invalidate?
“If you see him, we’ll make it worth your while,” I clarified.

“Can’t you just offer a reward?” Busange
asked.

“If I had money to throw around on
rewards I wouldn’t have to threaten people.”

Blackheart Alley was, as always, black.

Belvaille got all its lighting from the
latticework superstructure that surrounded the city. But it had seen better
decades and many of the lights were now permanently damaged, which left areas
of the city in perpetual darkness.

With our backs pressed against the walls,
I waited until the voices grew louder and louder and then I stepped out into
the middle of the street.

“Hong. Are you just out for a stroll
this fine evening?” I said.

About a dozen men armed with pikes and spears
and other long hand-to-hand weapons stood in front of me bathed in the
flashlight glow from my Stair Boys.

I had gotten a tip that the Totki Clan
was going to make a serious attack tonight. Apparently the information was
correct, as this was far from their home turf. It had been a quiet week since
my court trial and I wanted to keep things quiet.

However, as I stood there feeling pleased
with myself, more and more Totki stepped into the light. They had been walking
a staggered distance apart.

There must have been a hundred of them.
What, did they have some kind of breeding program?

Hmm.

I only had fifteen Stair Boys with me. A
small riot had broken out and the rest of my men were trying to put it down.

My original plan had been to arrest all
the Totki, let them cool off a bit, and then turn them loose, confiscating any
weapons. But we couldn’t do that to a hundred.

Hong was the second-in-command of the
Totki Clan on Belvaille. He was a small man and to assume the traditional Totki
ethnic appearance he had dyed his skin a bland yellow, had stretched his ears,
put a plate in the bridge of his nose to elongate it, shaved all his head
except for the very top in a circle, and wore blue caps on his teeth.

Hong carried a long, metal, bladed
weapon, and I knew from reputation he was skilled with it.

“Are you carrying any illegal guns?” I
asked him, assuming an official tone.

Firearms were technically banned on the
city, though they were still common. Because of this, most gangs carried hand
weapons and trained with them. I suppose it was a bit safer that you had to get
murdered with a sword instead of a pistol, but it was a lot messier.

“Why you always bother us? Why you
always say we break law? Why every time Totki move in our own system, we get
trouble?” he spat.

Hong was a firebrand. Maybe not a great
orator, but he was energetic. And right now he severely outnumbered us.

“You’ll shut your hole and answer the
Supreme Kommilaire when he asks you a question,” I heard Valia shout from next
to me.

There was a pause as this surprised just
about everyone. Valia was unarmed. She was about the size of a baby’s eyelash
and twice as cute. And the Totki did not have an over-appreciation for women in
non-domestic roles.

“This your new bodyguard?” Hong teased.
“Kommilaire grow smaller and smaller.”

MTB was helping quell the riot. I hadn’t
thought this was going to be a difficult task.

I had to handle this with tact. I was
not concerned for my safety. I was concerned for the safety of my men. We had
guns, but likely some Totki did as well. And they could just hack my Stair Boys
to pieces and scatter. Then I’d have to hunt them down for the next six months
and I just couldn’t do that.

“You have no firearms?” I asked again.

“No, these legal,” Hong said at the
wicked array of spears, the Totki’s favorite weapon.

“Do you have a Type-B carry license for
them?”

“What that? No such thing!”

He was right. But I wasn’t sure how to
defuse this situation. Not only that, but I had to make it so we didn’t look
bad or they would take it as a victory and it would make dealing with them in
the future more difficult.

The only reason anyone listens to our
orders is because they listen to our orders. If they simply stopped, we
wouldn’t be Kommilaire any longer.

“Let me see that,” I said.

Hong reluctantly let me take his pike.
It had some kind of triggering mechanism on it.

“That pneumatic. Not gunpowder.”

I activated it and the blade shot out
like a rocket-propelled cleaver. It clanged off the ground and people jumped
out of the way.

Hong saw my expression.

“What? That legal. You only bother
Totki.”

“I search everyone. I was just in a
trial earlier, prosecuting your friends the Olmarr.”

The Totki nearby who heard, spat and
cursed at mention of the name of their rivals.

“And he get off! No punishment. See?”
Hong argued.

“You tell me where their weapons are and
I’ll go take them,” I said.

Hong looked away.

“I’m here to protect everyone,” I
continued.

“We don’t need protect. Everyone say
they protect the Totki Clan. These our solar systems! These our planets for ten
thousand years until you come and take our resource.”

“Well, it wasn’t me, I wasn’t alive ten
thousand years ago.”

“Boss,” I heard Valia say to me.

I looked at her curiously. It was like
she was oblivious to the danger she was in.

“Yeah?”

“Can I talk to you a moment over here?”

It was such an odd request, I handed
Hong back his pike and walked with her. I had to lean down because she
whispered.

“If you want to get out of this while
still saving face, there is one guy carrying a Boli .44 on the inside of his
jacket.”

“Who?” I asked.

“He’s four to the right of Hong and one
back. Has a white scarf.”

I looked, couldn’t see him in the dark,
then turned back to Valia.

“How do you know?”

“I saw it. Not everyone is as blind as
you.”

I stood up and returned to Hong, taking
my precious time.

Hong was about to launch into another
rant, but I walked past him without making eye contact. I approached the one
Valia had fingered, the crowd having no choice but to part for me and my girth.

The man seemed unsure what to do.

I put my left hand on his shoulder,
firmly anchoring him to the spot, and then opened his jacket.

I turned around to Hong holding up the
.44 pistol.

“What’s this?” I demanded. “You just
told me, told the Supreme Kommilaire, that there were no guns here.”

“Probably don’t work,” Hong said weakly.

“You sure?”

I pointed it at Hong. It was far too
small for my hand, I couldn’t begin to fit my finger on the trigger, let alone
cock it. But it made a good impression.

Twenty spears tips were pointed at me.

I laughed.

“You going to poke me with your sticks?
Where you getting these guys, Hong?”

Hong made some quick motions to his men
and said something in Totki and they lowered their weapons.

“Take him,” I said to my Stair Boys,
indicating the guy I had just searched.

Three of the Kommilaire moved forward to
secure him. I noticed Valia had enough wisdom and restraint not to take part in
the arrest.

“I’ll be letting him out in…a week,” I
said. “Unless you want me to search the rest of you.”

They were silent.

“You are all going home, now, right?” I
asked the Totki.

“Now? Yes. We go home. But only for
now,” Hong said.