Zadeck also seemed to think. But he did a poor job of acting.
“Avenue Yein is very dangerous at night. I wonder if there’s any illegal activity going on there.”
I tried to picture that block. It was packed with gambling houses and brothels. But there was one establishment that I thought was owned by someone big enough to give Zadeck competition.
“The Busher building? Do they have their papers in order?” I hazarded.
Zadeck’s eyebrows raised and he puckered his lips as if that were some unique question he had never pondered.
“I don’t know. You might check, though.”
“Alright,” I said, and picked up another sandwich.
“Nice talking with you, Hank.”
“You too. I hope your back is better.”
Thirty or so sandwiches later, I was brooding on what Zadeck said.
Assassins were odd things. Belvaille had more than its share of killing. Hell, I did more than my share. But for an assassin, it’s their business. They haggle over the price of dead husbands, slaughtered police, and killed mothers.
You got to be of a particular sensibility to wake up every day thinking of murder. Probably not the kind of person who enjoys a good fart joke.
I knew there were assassins hiding on Belvaille, but they didn’t advertise, and they kept a low profile. If I caught them, it was straight to the Royal Wing. Belvaille never really used assassins. All the gangs fought. And yes, people died. But their business wasn’t death. That’s no good for anyone.
Maybe it was a fine line, but we all understood it.
A dark man with dark hair and a big dark beard came by my table. He was muscular and wore a tight-fitting shirt to show off that fact.
“Hank,” he said. “I heard about the court ruling. Funny stuff.”
He took out a pistol and pointed it lazily at my face. He wore a sneer which showed he had discolored teeth that almost matched the color of his beard.
“What’s your name?” I asked, stuffing another sandwich in my mouth.
“Aneoan,” he answered, keeping the gun level with me. He seemed to be enjoying it.
“How do you spell that?”
“A-n-e-o-a-n,” he said.
I scratched my leg and tried to clear sandwich bits from between my cheek with my tongue.
“It’s true that it is legal to point a gun at me.”
“Ahh!” Aneoan screamed and fell to the ground, gripping his thigh.
“But I hereby sentence you to be shot in the leg for having too many vowels in your name.”
CHAPTER 5
Supreme Kommilaire wasn’t a salaried job, per se. In fact, it didn’t pay at all except for what money I could embezzle and extort. So I wasn’t above doing the odd job now and then to make ends meet.
“He has four clubs, two of which look to be profitable. He has a small warehouse he owns with a long-term tenant. He is starting to deal in metal from off the city, but he’s keeping that secret, so I assume it’s either not profitable or he’s worried about other bosses horning in. He has maybe seventy-five enforcers and fifty regular employees,” I said, reading off the list.
There were three thugs, with one serving drinks, and a boss listening to my information as he got a massage.
He was a big guy who had grown flabby with age. You could often trace the lineage of people who had made it to the gang boss level by their appearance alone. This guy had clearly been hired muscle maybe fifty years ago. His name was aRj’in.
“What do you think he’s worth in terms of a loan?” he asked.
“Depends on what he’s buying. If he wants to try and refurbish his clubs, I’d say 100,000 thumbs. He’s got an eye for it. I think his wife is helping on that end.”
“She’s a showgirl floozy,” aRj’in sneered.
“Whatever she is, she’s good at it. You can see a profit off that if the juice isn’t too high. If he wants to push his metal business or warehouses, I wouldn’t give him more than 25,000 and I’d charge higher interest. There’s more competition and he’s a small player.”
aRj’in hummed about this as his masseur pounded his thick back like a slab of meat, making his breathing come out like a machine gun.
“Why should I care what he wants the money for as long as he pays me back?”
“Do you think the Ank just give out cash? They don’t make bad investments,” I said.
He snorted and waved off his masseur, sitting up on the table.
“Do I look like an Ank? If he could get thumbs from one of them he wouldn’t need a loan shark.”
“It’s your money. Do with it what you want. I’m giving you my opinion.”
“The Supreme Kommilaire’s view on lending money.” He seemed amused by this. One of his men brought a drink over without being asked.
Now that he was sitting up, I saw aRj’in had some gunshot wounds that hadn’t healed completely. They were decades old, but abundant.
“Just Hank’s view,” I clarified.
“Why the distinction? Don’t your words have more meaning if you say Supreme Kommilaire?”
“Do you not know who I am otherwise?”
“I know you’re just a guy working for me. Like anyone else.”
“You paid for information,” I said.
“And what do you get paid?”
“5% from you and 5% from him, if you loan.”
“So it’s in your interest to tell me to make a big loan?”
“It’s not in my interest to give bad information or no one would hire me again.”
He was trying to convey something with his tone. But I wasn’t really getting it.
“So what will you buy with your fee? Some Kommilaire uniforms? Maybe some new hats for your men?” he asked.
“Yeah, probably.”
“Isn’t this illegal?”
“Illegal? Like how?” I asked.
“Breaking the law. Going against the government. Or do you always work for loan sharks?”
“I don’t always work for loan sharks. I sometimes work with pimps. And prostitutes. And armed robbers. And drug dealers. And arms manufacturers. But I don’t think of it so much as working for them as with them.”
“I’m sure you do,” he smiled.
“You see, I can radio my Stair Boys to come in here and raid this place. Take every thumb you have and every bit of property. Then sell it off and buy more hats than we have heads. And if you dare raise a stink about it, I can throw you all out the airlock so your bodies don’t clutter up my pretty space station. And you know who will say that’s ‘breaking the law’ and ‘going against the government’?” I asked, leaning in closer. “No one. Because no one is going to cross me in this city or I’ll throw them out the airlock too. I can throw out as many as I need until people realize it’s a bad idea to make smarmy remarks to my face.”
Despite his recent massage, aRj’in did not look so relaxed.
“Now where’s my 5%?” I asked.
After my visit with aRj’in, I met up with MTB and we headed east, just outside the docks.
“What did he do?” the man with no ears and one eye asked. His name was Busange.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just looking for him is all you need to know,” I answered.
I was at the headquarters of a group that called themselves The Murderers. They weren’t a traditional gang. They hired out their men to other gangs for fights or short-term contracts.
They weren’t technically assassins. I frowned on assassins. But they sure as hell weren’t stand-up comics either.
MTB was holding a drawing of someone who had attacked and wounded several Kommilaire and subsequently escaped. There wasn’t much I could do except ask around.
“What’s in it for us if we see this mystery man?”
“Anyone caught sheltering him or hiding him gets the same penalty he gets,” I said.