“Why are you suddenly sticking up for the Totki and the worst judge on Belvaille?”
“Boss, I just feel like we’ve lost sight of what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Why didn’t you bring this up earlier?”
“Because I didn’t know you were going to kill him!”
“But he’s a crook. He’s been taking bribes for decades. He lets criminals free. He makes it legal to point guns at me. And the Totki are going to start killing people soon. If we give them Naeb, it’s done.”
“If you gave them 19-10 it would be done, too.”
“I can’t arrest ghosts! What do you want? Go upstairs and wait,” I yelled at him.
There was an empty apartment upstairs for Valia and MTB to hide in.
When I went back into Judge Naeb’s office, it was obvious everyone had heard the conversation in the hall.
Valia stared at her boots.
Rendrae gave me a disapproving look.
Judge Naeb looked pissed off.
“Valia, wait upstairs with MTB,” I said.
She left without a word.
Why did I suddenly feel like a jerk? I was saving lives on the station. I knew I was. But what MTB had said stung me.
I went over to Naeb and removed his gag as best I could without hurting him.
“Is there anything you want before we do this?” I asked.
“Go to hell,” he spat.
“Seriously. These are your last words, might as well make them count.”
“You don’t run the city and you never did. You have no idea what goes on here. I just got greedy and thought you were too stupid to catch me,” he roared.
“I guess,” I said, removing a pistol from my thigh.
“You allege 19-10 was the one who killed Su Dival?” he asked.
I think he was trying to buy time after he saw the gun.
“What do you know about 19-10?”
“Enough. Probably more than you,” he said.
“Who hired him?” I asked.
And, of all the weird things, Judge Naeb laughed.
“I don’t know why he killed Su Dival, but I know who hired him,” Judge Naeb taunted.
“Who?”
He licked his lips and smiled.
“Garm.”
“That’s a lie,” I said.
“19-10 was hired to kill you,” Judge Naeb said.
I pointed the gun at Judge Naeb and pulled back the hammer.
“And why would she hire him to do that?”
“Look at me! I’m tied up in my own office waiting to die. Do you think those in power want you on Belvaille? They know you can do this to any of them. You’re a cardboard cut-out that the lower classes look up to, but that’s it.”
“When did you talk to Garm?” I demanded.
He chuckled.
“Now that you’re pissed, I can’t think of a better way to end. Shoot me. I’m not so blind to see you don’t have an alternative. I rather like that I can get the last laugh.”
I pressed the gun hard to his temple.
“When did you talk to Garm?” I repeated.
He said nothing.
I looked back at Rendrae, who seemed to be soaking all this in like a sponge.
“Dammit,” I cursed, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 33
Rendrae didn’t want to report on this and was ready to renege on our deal.
I pointed out it was too late to grow a conscience. If he wanted to rat me out, he would also have to detail his own involvement and how he had agreed to fake Judge Naeb’s guilt.
People would be mad at me, but they would skin Rendrae alive.
And everything would get even worse in the city, just like I said.
Rendrae reported from the scene of the crime. He stated Judge Naeb had committed suicide when confronted by me with information that proved he was responsible for hiring Su Dival’s murderers.
I couldn’t say Judge Naeb had performed the actual murder. That was too far-fetched. It was just a matter of finding some gunmen to take the fall.
Rendrae signed off, and he didn’t say “Force for Facts.” He never said it again. Another reporter immediately claimed the title.
It was about a week later when we had an unrelated shoot-out that resulted in the deaths of two thugs. I declared the dead men Su Dival’s killers.
If they had alibis, they weren’t talking.
MTB quit!
Well, not quit, but he asked to be transferred to a different department. He wanted to work Deadsouth, one of the toughest beats.
I didn’t refuse him.
There was a huge crowd at the Royal Wing waiting for me to give my talk.
Valia stood beside me.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” I started, “and decided you all should make your own laws.”
“We already have our own laws,” someone said.
“Yeah, but they’re lousy. You have to come up with new laws that if I show them to the citizens of Belvaille, they will be impressed enough that you might eventually be let back in. You have to be better than the subsistence living you’re doing. Even better than Belvaille. Shame them into recognizing your improvements.”
“But like what?” a scrawny man asked.
“Give me a list and I’ll approve or deny it. Think of stuff like, liberty. And equality. And friendship. Upbeat stuff.”
This mass of rapists and murderers were nonplussed. They wanted me to give them rules. Lay it down for them so they could follow it to the letter. They didn’t trust themselves and I could sense they thought it was a trap. Like I was holding out something for them to take and would snatch it away when they got close.
I wasn’t sure if it was a cop-out or I was still hurting from what MTB had said. I didn’t want to come here as a god and dictate who would live and how they would live.
I was just one person who was himself flawed, deeply flawed.
I needed to start letting go. I couldn’t hold all of Belvaille and the Royal Wing in my fists. My hands simply weren’t that big and every day they were getting weaker.
“How do you know they will make good laws?” Valia asked in the shuttle back to Belvaille.
I felt the familiar joy of zero gravity and smiled despite myself.
“Because their freedom depends on it. They are going to set the bar higher than anyone would have done for them. Just out of paranoia.”
“What if they are faking compliance and recovery, though?” she asked.
“What’s the difference? If someone lives for ten years as a perfect person but in their head wants to do bad things, are we going to find them guilty? Do their bad thoughts hurt us?”
“It just seems like you’re giving them an awful lot of leeway,” Valia pouted.
“They haven’t even submitted their laws yet. Give them a chance.”
As we angled slowly to Belvaille I heard on the radio that there was a technical issue with the docking mechanisms and we would have to wait.
That was fine, I liked feeling light.
The shuttle eventually began to dock and we got banged around like a can kicked down the street. The shuttle’s lights and sirens went haywire and the pilots were cursing and yelling at each other.
I realized: this was it.
They could kill me out here.
Garm could deactivate the port with a flip of a switch, or have the loading arms rip this tiny shuttle in half.
I felt my heart going nuts.
Oh no, not now.
I vaguely heard Valia talking to me urgently, but couldn’t understand her.
At least I couldn’t fall, because I was buckled down in zero gravity.
My eyes went blurry and I couldn’t hear the sirens. Everything just faded away to a pleasant hum of unimportance.
Then I saw the co-pilot turn around and talk sweetly to us.