The loudspeakers had advertising. Buy your clothes here. Eat your breakfast there. But advertisements for people—dead people—seemed really unusual to me. But I guess this was New Belvaille.
“What are we doing, sir?” Valia asked.
“Stuff I used to do.”
We were in the storeroom of a large club.
Three gang bosses were with us. We were standing around a crate of goods that was under a tarp and that was the source of their disagreement.
“So let me get this straight,” I said, “your partner woke up today, the day this shipment came in, and decided to die?”
“He was murdered,” a woman said angrily.
She was an attractive lady whose beauty had faded a bit with age, but she could still pull off some charm. She was the wife of the deceased and her name was Lisedt.
“He’s gone is the point, Hank,” one of the other bosses, Dimi-Vim, said. He was the boss I had worked out the club music issue with some time ago. He still wore his quarter inch of brown hair all over his body.
“I’ve got this contract proving that I paid for half of this. That makes me majority holder,” aRj’in said. He was still in good physical shape and still none too friendly.
I looked at the contract.
“Get me some light, I can’t see what I’m looking at,” I complained.
“Hank, that’s an old contract,” Lisedt said, “and it doesn’t matter because he was murdered anyway. By one of these two!”
Valia hunted around for lights.
“What do I have to gain by killing him? He owed me money,” Dimi-Vim demanded.
“If the contract is old or not it doesn’t matter unless there was a new contract,” aRj’in said.
“They’re trying to take over my business and want to strong-arm me. I’ve been through more gang wars than both you pukes put together,” Lisedt fired.
“Just… all of you shut up for a second,” I said.
I looked over at Valia, who was making an awful lot of racket in the back but wasn’t shedding any light.
“Boss, you got a torch on your back,” MTB offered.
“Oh, yeah. Get it.”
He rummaged around through my various packs and containers and found a handheld flashlight.
He put it on the tarp and turned it on.
“Damn, that’s bright,” Dimi-Vim said, moving away.
It was a gang contract, but not like any I had ever seen and I had seen thousands. I couldn’t make sense of it.
“What is this?” I asked.
“I told you,” Dimi-Vim said to aRj’in.
“Look here, this part,” big aRj’in leaned in.
I read it.
“This is like, legal crap,” I said.
“That’s what I told them,” Dimi-Vim reiterated.
“Shut up,” aRj’in fired.
“It’s old, anyway,” Lisedt repeated.
“He got an adjudicator to write it,” Dimi-Vim explained.
I handed it to MTB to see if he could make sense of it.
“Adjudicators aren’t even allowed in the Athletic Gentleman’s Club,” I said, confused.
“We… made the contract somewhere else,” aRj’in said weakly.
This was just breaking so many protocols. I spoke my frustrations out loud.
“How am I supposed to settle this? This isn’t a gang contract. It’s some adjudicator thing. Adjudicators only apply to us Kommilaire and I completely ignore them at least half the time. Belvaille’s been doing gangs and gang business for over two hundred years. Why would you try and change that?”
The gang bosses looked uncomfortable.
“My husband said he didn’t want to,” Lisedt chimed.
“But he signed it. You all signed it. Besides, we’re not just ‘gangs,’” aRj’in said distastefully.
I took the contract from MTB and tore it in half and then half again.
“Split it three ways evenly,” I concluded.
They all started to protest loudly, but I was louder.
“You wanted me to settle this, I’m settling it,” I barked. “You want to go to an adjudicator and get him to throw a lot of fancy words around then do that and stop wasting my time. You guys don’t touch each other for six months after the separation. Lisedt takes on all the assets—and liabilities—of her husband.”
Everyone was a little unhappy.
Another successful negotiation.
CHAPTER 32
I heard accounts that the Totki were accelerating their “investigations.”
I wasn’t sure if Hong was doing it because he enjoyed it, he really thought he was going to randomly find Su Dival’s killer, or the Totki Clan demanded it. In any case, I had to bring those blue-toothed, yellow-skinned Totki back into the fold.
I notified Rendrae that I was going forward with Judge Naeb and to meet at Courtroom Three Street. I also tipped off some other media sources through my contacts, making sure it couldn’t be traced back to me or my Kommilaire.
I was the last one to arrive at the street.
“What’s going on, Hank?” one of the reporters asked.
“My goodness, I was about to arrest Judge Naeb for accessory to murder,” I said woodenly.
Rendrae rolled his eyes.
“Who was murdered?” another reporter asked helpfully.
“Su Dival!” I responded with flourish.
Gasps.
A few gunshots rang out from Judge Naeb’s office building and everyone crouched down.
“I had better go apprehend him,” I said. “I will take one journalist with me to record the incident. Any volunteers?”
Every reporter except Rendrae raised their hands and stood on their toes.
“Rendrae,” I said. “You’re cool under pressure. Would you like to come?”
“No,” he answered sourly.
I looked around at the other reporters.
“Um. I think you should. It will help the…” but I had nothing to add.
Rendrae reluctantly agreed and as I pretended to be entering a dangerous zone, Rendrae merely plomped along behind me, obviously irked at the charade.
In Judge Naeb’s office, MTB and Valia waited with Judge Naeb bound and gagged in the corner. They had been firing their guns now and then to keep it interesting. The story was being reported live on the loudspeakers.
“Now what?” Valia asked.
“Judge Naeb commits suicide,” I said.
“What?” MTB asked.
“Well, I mean, we help him,” I clarified.
“Boss, can I talk to you in the hall for a second?” MTB asked.
“Uh, sure.”
“What are we doing?” he asked, once we had reached the hall and closed the door.
“Taking care of the Totki situation. And the Judge Naeb situation. And the disgruntled population situation,” I said, not sure why he was bringing this up now.
“But why kill him?”
“Because if this went to a trial, he would say I told him to run for office and he didn’t kill Su Dival.”
“But that would be true.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t help anything.”
“Boss, we’re not executioners.”
“Says who?”
“You! You told me that when I joined the Kommilaire. It’s what I tell all the new recruits.”
“Oh. Well, things change.”
“You’re killing a judge,” he said.
“A sucky judge.”
“A sucky judge to placate a sucky clan, Boss. And sucky or not, this is how the government works.”
“What government? When have we had a government?” I asked, exasperated. “Do you think laws matter? Do you think trials matter? When has a trial ever saved a life?”
“Lots of times. Just because we’re hard on people who break the laws doesn’t make us kings.”
“I’m not a king. I don’t want to rule anything.”
“Yeah, you always say that, but you’re killing a judge. Who can judge you for that? Who gets you in trouble or ships you to the Royal Wing? Is this not breaking the law?”