“I think he means he was lifelike-looking,” I said from my seat.
“You are not giving testimony now, Supreme Kommilaire, please be silent.”
“Yeah,” the judge echoed.
“How do you know he was alive?” the prosecutor drooled.
“He spoke.”
No! No! No! Shut up, Rendrae!
“And what did he say?”
“He said the same assassin that killed Su Dival was hired to kill Hank. And he was paid for it by the ruling class of Belvaille, which doesn’t want the Supreme Kommilaire around anymore: Garm.”
A million jaws hit the floor, including mine.
CHAPTER 35
Next time a leader gets assassinated I was just going to tell the truth. It was becoming difficult to keep track of my lies.
I had hunkered down in the Athletic Gentleman’s Club trying to avoid people. I received a lot of free drinks and free food from people who felt like I was sticking it to The Man. Though which man, I wasn’t certain.
There were other people in the club who gave me dirty looks because they felt I was the man and I had killed Judge Naeb, which I had, and Su Dival, which I hadn’t, because of some sinister master plan.
I sensed myself growing less and less popular as the city roiled.
I mean yeah, I killed a judge. And maybe MTB and Rendrae were right and that’s something I shouldn’t have done. But it’s not like he had been a saint. I killed criminals all the time—or at least part of the time. Did he get a free pass because he had been crooked for longer? Because he wasn’t sticking up people with a knife, he was extorting them from the bench?
I needed to retire. Get this election over with and hire some other fool to try and clean up this mess.
“Tough week,” Jorn-dole said.
It was that good-looking blond guy who seemed to be here a lot. The guy must have a bunk upstairs. Though I could understand spending time here, I was doing it myself, and it was a good place to get business done.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Pull up a chair if you want,” I said, suddenly feeling like talking, or at least talking to someone who didn’t know anything about Belvaille.
Jorn-dole sat on the other side of my hard booth.
“Cozy,” he said, fidgeting on the rough surface.
“So what’s your deal?” I asked him.
“Same as anyone else’s, I guess. Trying to live my life and not crap on anyone else’s.”
“Yeah,” I pounced. “That’s it exactly! I mean if everyone did that, I could retire tomorrow.”
“You want to retire?” he asked, surprised.
“I’m old. All this,” and I waved my hand in the general direction of everything everywhere, “is too hard for me now. I don’t think I can hack it much longer. It wears you down.”
“What would you do if you retired?”
I sat there and poked at my food.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I could open a bar. Not here, someplace quiet.”
“You’re going to tend bar? Stand around all night listening to drunks and pouring drinks?”
“I guess that does sound kind of bad. I don’t know. Paint pictures?”
Jorn-dole didn’t say anything. He just looked at my ham fists.
Belvaille had kept me on my toes for two centuries and now I didn’t know how to slow down. I mean I couldn’t hang out in a casino or bar every day all day. What did people do when they stopped doing stuff? I honestly had no idea.
What was Garm doing?
And more importantly, did she really hire 19-10 to come kill me like Zadeck and Judge Naeb had said—and Rendrae had unfortunately repeated.
Garm was not a name spoken often. In fact, very young people had likely never even heard of the owner of Belvaille let alone seen her.
But here she was, giving me lists of dead candidates, appointing me Secretary of City, and possibly trying to kill me. But those events seemed mutually exclusive.
Jorn-dole had taken his leave and I was still eating when three bosses approached me.
They were in some kind of trade alliance together and wore rich clothes and jewels. Wiessstauch was their bearded leader and did all the talking.
“Hank, you have a moment?” he said, taking a seat at my booth without me answering.
“I’m not in the mood—” I started.
“We had hundreds of thousands of thumbs invested in Judge Naeb and he suddenly kills himself? This puts us in space without a rocket.”
“Buy another judge, there’s plenty.”
“And is that one going to kill himself too? What’s going on here? You’re a member of this club. You’re one of us more than you are one of them,” he said.
“Who’s them?” I asked.
“Anyone outside this club,” he said.
“That’s like millions of people. You saying they don’t matter?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, they matter. But we make this city. We make it run. Some feral kids digging through your trash don’t contribute. When your Kommilaire need new equipment do you go to the millions or do you come to us? We can’t be blindsided like this.”
“I don’t have nearly as much control over this city as you might think,” I said.
“Granted, and I understand you got things to do and work at a different level than we do. But gang wars are one thing, killing judges are another. And fighting Garm? What will that do to those millions you were talking about?”
“I’m not fighting anyone.”
If Judge Naeb had been on the payroll to the tune of hundreds of thousands, Wiessstauch probably knew him pretty well. Wiessstauch had made it clear that he didn’t believe the suicide story because he said “killing judges.”
I wondered how many other people didn’t believe it.
Wiessstauch ordered me some more drinks and rose from my booth with a smile.
“Stability is what this city needs. We’ve had enough murders don’t you think?”
CHAPTER 36
I was out on a patrol doing patrolly stuff when I got a radio call from Delovoa. He had his own radio of course and his own interrupt frequency for emergencies.
“Hank, come over,” he said without urgency.
“I’m working. What’s up?”
“I have that visitor you said I should warn you about.”
“19-10?” I asked. He was awful calm.
“No, moron. Two Clem?”
“Two Clem is there?”
“What did you think I meant by visitor?”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a bit. Don’t let him leave.”
“How will I stop him?”
“Are you kidding? You have a street full of heavy machine guns and security guards.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” Delovoa said.
“He doesn’t know that. Just wait for me. I won’t be long.”
I talked to the Stair Boys I was with. MTB was still doing his Deadsouth beat so it was just Valia and a dozen people with me.
“I have to go run some errands,” I said. “Keep going to Ostliche’ Avenue.”
“Should we hit the Dog Parke, Boss?” Valia asked.
I was originally going to rough up one of the venues that wasn’t paying their Kommilaire protection fees. I didn’t want them to think that just because my name was getting dragged through the slop, we were going to back down on our usual activities.
However, with me gone, it was just them. And I didn’t want them getting shot up.
“No, just keep a presence. Hang around for a few hours. That should be enough to send a message without provoking a fight.”
“Right.”
I headed to the train. I wanted to do as little walking as possible.
In the past, I was pretty confident that if I had a heart attack and fell down somewhere in the city, I would be reasonably safe. I was a folk hero after all.