What can I say? The convicts and lowlifes I deal with are hardly an imaginative lot when it comes to street monikers.
Her indigo eyes have gone black, but when she grins, her teeth are so white I can read the menu by them. “I have a car outside. We’re going for a ride.”
I spear a shrimp with my fork and wave it at her. “Can I finish my dinner first?”
“Don’t be a smart ass. And don’t try anything funny either. I got guys at the front and back. All I gotta do is…”
Her voice trails off because I’m shaking my head, sad little smile on my face. Apparently Dahlia believed me when I told her I work alone.
“Your old man’s soldiers are going to have a hard time doing your bidding from the back of a patrol car.” I reach up to my ear and pull out the ear piece receiver, show it to her. “Weapons charge at the least, since we both know they got no permits for those ice cold gats they’re packing.” I inhale a noodle. “Other charges too, once we get to digging.”
Dahlia is looking at me like I’m a dingleberry hanging off her tampon. I guess I can’t blame her. “Who the hell are you?” she says.
“You said you know who I am. Stilt, remember? Though I’d rather you call me Sheriff Popper.”
She sags back in her chair. “You’re law.”
“Royal Witness Protectorate, temporarily seconded undercover to the Crabs to help clean up the Dale Dingus fiasco. But after tonight, with your help, that’ll be done.” And not a minute too soon. Crabs were born with a rod up their ass. But considering the way Dingus burned them I guess I can understand why they’re tetchy.
She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “So what’s in the back of my truck?”
It’s sinking in. “A little meth, actually. Same as the first batch, cooked up in the Crab lab. I didn’t want to confuse your alchemist.” I smirk, head canted to the side. “But mostly what you got is powdered laxative cut with kosher salt. You know, for body.”
She’s not amused.
“Now that I got your attention, Dahl, what say you and me have us a little chat?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
They never do. Not at first. Not until I play my hole card, which I don’t waste time doing with Dahlia. I’m tired and I want this finished.
“You’re not pregnant.”
That throws her. I can see the confusion in her big blues. “But the doctor said-”
“What we told him to say, after he spilled Frank’s juice down the lab sink. Ciconi has been ours ever since he got busted trading his script pad for blow jobs. When you go in each week for those vitamin shots he’s pumping you fulla hormones and other crap to make you bloat up. It wouldn’t fool you for too much longer, but it was enough to keep you puking in the morning and regretting your lax enforcement of no glove, no love.”
The news has the effect I expect. The air goes out of her. Hell, it almost looks like her silicone boobs deflate along with her imperious demeanor.
After a long moment, she says, “You never actually shivved Frank, did you?”
“Not me. We got the Bandito that did on ice out in the forest. He’ll be available when the time comes, same as I expect you to be.”
“You’re a bastard.”
I can’t argue with that. It’s part of my job description. “Here are your options, Dahl. You help us, we’ll take care of you. Relocation, protection, the works. All you hafta do is roll on Frank, your dad, and your crystal buyer, help us tie them all to the Sufa-Dream boost and the meth traffic round about Newcastle. And not just them. I expect you to name names up and down the organization.” We had the shattered remains of a banditry case to clean up, after all. Plus my own broken meth sting, the one I pretended I went to Little Liver for.
“And if I say no?”
I shrug and signal the waiter for a to go bucket. “Your choice, Dahl.” I’m not worried. Between the kingpin, the old man, and the scheming dwarf, we both know which one offers the shot at happily ever after.
BILL CAMERON is the critically acclaimed author of the dark, gritty Portland-based mysteries Lost Dog, Chasing Smoke, and Day One. His stories have appeared in Spinetingler, Killer Year, and Portland Noir.
Savage Planet by Stephen Coonts
Adam Solo wedged himself into the chair at the navigator’s table in the small shack behind the bridge and braced himself against the motion of the ship. Rain beat a tattoo on the roof over his head and wind moaned around the portholes. Although the seas weren’t heavy, the ship rolled, pitched, and corkscrewed viciously because she was not under way; she was riding sea anchors, being held in one place, at the mercy of the swells.
Through the rain-smeared porthole windows Solo could see the flood and spotlights of another ship several hundred feet to port. She was also small, only two hundred forty feet long, roughly the size of the ship Solo was aboard. Carrying massive cranes fore and aft, she was festooned with flood lights that lit the deck and the water between the ships, and was also bobbing like a cork in a maelstrom.
Through the open door to the bridge Solo occasionally heard the ringing of the telegraph as the captain signaled the engine room for power to help hold the little ship where he wanted her.
Johnson was the captain, an overweight, overbearing slob with a sneer engraved on his face and a curse on his lips. Solo ignored the burst of mindless obscenities that reached him during lulls in the wind’s song and concentrated on the newspaper before him.
Possible alien spaceship found in Atlantic Ocean, the headline screamed. Beneath that headline, in slightly smaller type, the subhead read, Famous Evangelist Funds Salvage.
Solo was a trim man with short black hair, even features, and skin that appeared deeply tanned. He was below average in height, just five-and-a-half feet tall, and weighed about 140 pounds. Tonight he was dressed in jeans, work boots, and a dark green Gortex jacket. Looking at him, one would not have guessed that he was a very successful engineer, and the owner of twenty patents.
He read the newspaper story carefully, and was relieved to see that his name wasn’t mentioned. The story told how Jim Bob Bryant, the preachin’ pride of Mud Lick, Arkansas, had raised millions to fund the salvage from the sea floor of the flying saucer discovered six months ago by a oil exploration ship taking core samples. Bryant was quoted extensively. His thesis seemed to be that the flying saucer would lead to a new spiritual renewal worldwide.
On the editorial page Solo saw a column that denounced Bryant as a charlatan promoting a religious hoax. The writer stated that only the ignorant and gullible believed in flying saucers.
Solo had just finished the pundit’s column when the door opened and a heavyset man wearing a suit and tie came in. He tossed a coat on the desk.
“Reverend,” Solo said, in greeting.
The Right Reverend Jim Bob Bryant was so nervous he couldn’t hold still. “This is it, Solo,” he said as he smacked one fist into a palm. “This saucer is the key to wealth and power beyond the wildest dreams of anyone alive.”
“You think?”
“Gettin’ into heaven has always been expensive, and the cost is gonna keep risin’. People who get somethin’ for free don’t value it-that’s human nature. Only value what they pay for, and I’m gonna make ’em pay a lot.”
Bryant braced himself against the roll of the ship and glanced out the porthole at the heaving sea between the ships. “You still think you can make the computers talk to you?”
Solo nodded. “Yes, but you’ve never told me what you want from them.”
“Miracles, man-that’s what I want. I want to learn to do miracles.”