Oh, Alex thought, I die like this.
The man’s head twitched forward in a curt nod and he crumpled. Then it was Bobbie standing before him, a six-kilo free weight curled in one hand. The chrome had blood on it and what looked like hair. No one was shooting guns anymore.
“Hey,” Alex said.
“You all right?” Bobbie asked, sitting next to him. One of the gunmen staggered past her, cradling his forearm, and bolted out the door. She didn’t go after him.
“Little achy,” Alex said, then rolled to his side and retched.
“It’s okay,” Bobbie said. “You did really well.”
“Been a long time since hand-to-hand. I probably could have done better if I’d had some practice.”
“Yeah, well. There were four of them with guns and two of us without. All things considered, we did okay.”
She blew out a long breath, her head sinking low. Alex tried to sit up.
“You all right?”
“Got shot a couple times,” she said. “Smarts.”
“Shit. You’re hurt?”
“Yeah. I’m going to get over to the console there in a minute. Call emergency services before blood loss makes me woozy.”
“I already did that,” Alex said. “Before I came in.”
“Good planning.”
“Not sure planning had much to do with it,” Alex said. And then, “Bobbie? Stay with me here.”
“I’m here,” she said, her voice sleepy. “I’m all right.”
In the distance, Alex heard the rising tritone of sirens. Breath by breath, they grew closer. For a long moment, he thought the deck was being shaken, then realized it was just his body, trembling. At the side of the room, one of the gunmen lay slumped against the wall. His neck was at a strange angle, and blood was drying on his chest. He wasn’t bleeding though. Dead, then. The man in the suit coughed and gagged, choking. The sirens got louder. There were voices now too. A woman identifying herself as police and warning them that people were coming in.
“I was coming to tell you,” Alex said. “I’ll stay. I’ll help.”
“Thanks.”
“This was about the black market stuff, wasn’t it?” Alex said. “I guess you’ve been asking the right questions.”
Bobbie managed a smile. Looking at her now, there was a lot of blood on her shirt.
“Don’t know,” she said. “All they asked me about was you.”
Chapter Twelve: Amos
“Want some coke?” Erich asked. “Not synth. Real stuff that came from a plant.”
“Nope. But I’d take a drink if one is handy,” Amos replied. The pleasantries were just ritual, but ritual was important. In Amos’ experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be. The loud, blustering ones were trying to get the other guy to back down. They wanted to stay out of a fight. The quiet ones were figuring out how to win it.
“Tatu, bring the El Charros,” Erich said, and one of the two guards slipped out the door. To Amos he added, “Been on a tequila kick lately.”
“I haven’t,” Amos said. “Earth is still the only place you can get good tequila. The Belter stuff is undrinkable.”
“Not a lot of blue agave up there, I guess.”
Amos shrugged and waited. Tatu returned with a tall skinny bottle and two narrow shot glasses. Erich filled both then lifted one in salute.
“To old friends.”
“Old friends,” Amos repeated and tossed back his shot.
“Another?” Erich asked, pointing at the bottle.
“Sure.”
“Seen much of the neighborhood?”
“Just what was between here and the train station.”
“Hasn’t changed much,” Erich said, then paused while they both drank off their shots. He refilled their glasses. “Faces change, but the corners stay the same.”
“Funny, I was just thinking that same thing on my way in. Things have changed for you though.”
“Not the important ones,” Erich said with a grin and wiggled his small, withered left arm.
Amos gestured at the room, the guards, the renovated building around them. “When I left, you were running for your life. So, at least one thing’s different.”
“You guys can go,” Erich said to Tatu and his partner. They slipped out quietly and shut the door behind them. That seemed like a good sign. Either it meant that Erich was sure Amos wasn’t there to kill him, or Erich had a way of protecting himself that didn’t require other people. It wouldn’t be a gun under the desk. That was too direct for Erich. Amos started casually scanning for wires or suspicious lumps on his chair or the floor beneath it.
Erich poured two more shots of tequila then said, “I learned something important from you, when you left.”
“Do tell.”
“I’ll never be the toughest guy in any room, unless I’m by myself,” Erich said, waving his small arm again. “But I’m usually the smartest. Executing a plan can be subcontracted out. Making the plan in the first place, not as much.”
“True enough,” Amos agreed. “It’s why I’ll never be the captain of a ship.”
Erich reacted to that. He didn’t change his expression or flinch, but Amos could see the words getting taken in and filed as important.
“But always useful, you,” Erich said. “You were always useful. You on a crew now?”
“You haven’t seen me in the news?”
“I have. You look different. Shaved your head, got your nose broke a few more times. But I’ll never forget a name.”
“Well, not this one anyway,” Amos said, and then tossed his shot back in a toast to Erich. “Gracias for that, by the way.”
“So, you still with that crew?” Erich said.
“I am. Why?”
“Because you’re sitting in my office right now drinking my tequila. Still playing that out in my head. Useful guy like you can always get work. If that’s what you want, I’ve got it. But if you’re not here looking for work, what are you looking for?”
Amos grabbed the bottle and poured himself another drink. Erich tried very hard not to look nervous. He’d had a lot of practice, because he almost pulled it off. Time can change a lot. Erich had gone from twitchy little hacker with a price on his head to the boss of a respectable chunk of Baltimore’s harbor-front property. But some things don’t change. Some tells never go away. While Erich sat very still and looked him in the eye without blinking, the tiny hand on his deformed left arm opened and closed like a baby grabbing at a toy just out of reach.
“Went to Lydia’s house,” Amos said, sipping slowly at the tequila.
“Not Lydia’s house anymore. She’s dead,” Erich said. “That what this is about? I treated her like you would have after you left.”
“Yeah?” Amos asked, eyebrows going up.
“Well,” Erich admitted with an embarrassed look to the side. “Not exactly like you would have.”
“Thank you for that too,” Amos said.
“You didn’t kill me once when you had every reason to, and after that, you couldn’t have stayed,” Erich said, leaning forward. His left hand had stopped clenching. “Walking away from her was part of the favor you did for me. I never forgot that. And she helped me, at first. Helped me build what I have now. Taught me to use brains to beat brawn. She never lacked for a thing it was in my power to give.”
“And I appreciate that,” Amos repeated. Erich’s eyes narrowed and his right hand came up from under the desk with a short-barreled automatic in it. Amos found himself surprised and a little proud of his friend. Erich rested his hand on the desk, the gun pointed away from Amos, more a warning than a threat.
“If you’ve got some beef you came here to settle,” Erich said, “you won’t be the first guy to leave this office in a bag.”