Gatz started to glance back, and my heart skipped a beat, but Orel gave me a shove.
“Eyes forward, Mr. Gatz. I’d hate to have to kill you, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it either.”
Orel knew more about us than I liked. At the factory, I tried my last play to save Ty as much grief as possible. The place looked sewed up and deserted as we approached. Feeling the familiar buzz of adrenaline and terror, my back to the man I was pretty sure would be my executioner, I pounded on the front door and shouted. “Kieth! Hey, Kieth, let me in!”
Orel was in motion before I could knock a second time, slamming my head into the door hard enough to knock me on my ass for a few seconds and slipping silently into the building. I spent a few moments profitably staring up into the light rain, until Gatz’s sallow face filled my vision.
“Well, you sure handled that like a superhero, Avery,” Gatz said in a strained monotone, most of his attention bent on keeping Harper under control. A light film of sweat covered his waxy skin.
“Fuck you,” I moaned, sitting up and rubbing my head. “It’s Canny Orel. The man was murdering people when I was nursing. He was an assassin for Saoirse, just before Unification. Trained by the Irish government before it Unified. So cut me a break.”
“If that’s Canny Orel,” Gatz said, helping me to my feet, “I’ll eat your shoes.” The front door of the factory suddenly popped open, and Kieth was pushed roughly out. Orel grinned right behind him.
“Come on in, Cates. I am not without honor. Let’s discuss terms.”
I glared at Kieth, who stared at me with wide, terrified eyes. “Fleeing the SSF, my fucking ass. I should let him kill you for not warning me about this.”
Kieth didn’t say anything. Behind him, Orel held a shining, silver-plated gun in each hand. “Don’t worry, Mr. Cates,” he said. “Kill him I shall. But as I said, we can discuss compensation. Step inside, please.”
I felt feverish. Gatz and I sat with Marilyn Harper on the floor. Milton and Tanner-who had allowed Canny Orel to walk in unopposed-sat near Kieth’s equipment, which hummed and beeped randomly, unsupervised. The Droids, after swarming around in a tizzy of excitement giving Kieth endless reports of intruders in the building, had finally been silenced by the Techie. Orel studied the Monk with obvious perplexity, holding Kieth by the scruff of his neck.
Gatz leaned toward me slightly, his face waxy and yellow. “I can’t hold on to her much longer, Ave.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You’ve got something big cooking here, don’t you?” Orel said cheerfully.
I kept my face blank. “I do. I need Mr. Kieth to do it, too. Maybe we can strike a deal.”
Orel looked at me without moving his head, his eyes just sliding in their sockets. I imagined I could hear his eyes moving-sudden metallic scrapings.
“Mr. Cates, I can’t imagine what deal we could strike. I hired this cocksucker seven months ago on a project of my own. I paid him a significant amount of money. This same cocksucker then bought himself every little toy he’d ever wanted off the black market-most of which I see here-and ran out on me. Me! I can still hardly believe it.”
“Let me make you an offer, Mr. Orel,” I said carefully. “If you don’t care for it, well, you put one in Ty’s ear and I start looking for another Techie. But I think I can get back your lost investment, which must have been considerable to inspire such passion.”
Orel turned away from the Monk to face me, pushing Kieth around like a rag doll. The Gunner smiled, his eyes moving easily from person to person without appearing in any way worried. He opened his mouth to reply, but Kieth suddenly spoke up.
“He’s not Canny Orel,” he said.
The hand on Kieth shot to the Techie’s throat and pinched, cutting off Kieth’s voice and breath. I stared at the old man and the old man stared back at me, a slight smile twitching on his face.
“Care to test me?” he said conversationally, sounding bored.
“Care to test all of us?” I said, trying to emulate the smooth, steady disdain of his voice. I failed miserably. Whoever this guy was, he certainly scared the shit out of me, Canny Orel or not. “Let’s hear what he has to say.” I gestured at Kieth.
The old man scanned the room, did some math in his head, and then shrugged, releasing Kieth, who immediately began to gasp and cough.
“Kieth?” I prompted.
He looked up at me with damp, red eyes, rubbing his throat. “Come on, Cates,” he choked out. “There are like fifteen Canny Orels Ty’s seen personally. It’s good marketing, using that name.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, rubbing his head. “He’s possibly Dъnmharъ, but he is not the Canny Orel.”
For a moment I was unable to decide if this was an improvement on my situation. If he wasn’t the greatest Gunner who ever lived, that was good for me. But being faced with, say, the third-best gunner that ever lived… well, it didn’t make me want to do cartwheels.
“It doesn’t matter, does it, Mr. Cates? The fact remains that we have business together. The fact remains that you could not, were you to try, get the drop on me. The fact remains that I can and will kill all of you without breaking a sweat if forced to. However, Mr. Cates, as I said, I’ve heard of you. I’ve heard you play by old rules. I’ll listen.”
Amazingly, he sat down on the floor in one smooth motion, yanking Kieth down next to him. I looked around at my team-all of them useless, it seemed. I wasn’t going to be deterred now. I didn’t think I could outgun Cainnic Orel, or even an Orel-trained former member of the Dъnmharъ. He was right-it didn’t really matter who he really was. I was going to have to make him a partner.
I looked at him as steadily as I could. “I’ve been hired to assassinate Dennis Squalor. The payout is huge. We’ve got a plan to get close to Squalor. I can offer you your money back in a few weeks.”
“Double,” he said immediately.
“Excuse me?”
“Double my investment.”
What the fuck. It was more money than I could ever spend anyway, and the idea of this whole thing falling apart made me sick, my stomach contracting to a spiky ball inside me. I nodded. “Done.”
“Okay,” he said, casually producing one of his shining guns and clearing the chamber, a gleaming bullet springing into the air and hitting the floor with a metallic clink. “Okay, Triple.” He glanced up and grinned at me again.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“If you can double, you can triple. If you can triple, you can quadruple. Let’s say quadruple.”
Swallowing burning anger, I forced myself to nod against every instinct I had and every lesson I’d learned-I was getting assfucked on this deal, and instead of beating the bastard silly, I was just looking for something to lean against. “Done,” I growled through clenched teeth.
He winked. “Well, Jesus, if you can quadruple, maybe we should leave the issue open and negotiate later.” His broad smile threatened to turn into laughter. “No? Okay, Cates. Quadruple it is. Give me the details.”
I studied him. He grinned easily, hair perfect, the clothes on his back worth more than me. I shook my head and forced myself to smile back.
“No.”
He raised a thin white eyebrow. “No?”
I couldn’t afford to show any nervousness. The only card I held was the fact that the money moved through me. If Marin found out Cainnic Orel-or one of his infamous protйgйs-was on the scene, I would be out. If the old man found out Marin was the bank on this job, I would be out. No matter what else happened, I couldn’t give this guy any details. Even if it meant Kieth got capped.
“That’s the deal. Four times your initial investment and Kieth gets a pass. You don’t get anything else.” I swallowed. “This is my job. You don’t want to back off, go take the motherfucking Techie out back and get the fuck out of my life.”