Bard Constantine
The Troubleshooter
After the Cataclysm nearly wiped out humanity, the remnants of mankind survived in Havens: city-sized constructs built to reboot society and usher in a new age of mankind.
However the new age was not the type that the architects had envisioned. The same greed and lust for power that existed before the Cataclysm had resurfaced, and the Havens quickly became quagmires of political and economic conflict that threatened to destroy the future envisioned by the Haven’s founders.
This is the world of Mick Trubble, a man without a past. A man with nothing to lose. But when your luck is down and no one else can help you, he can. He takes the cases that no one else will touch. The type of trouble that no one else can handle.
Mick Trubble is…
The Troubleshooter.
The Wise Man Says
It’s not the way you start that counts — its how you finish, so the wise man says. Perfect advice if you were a man without a past, like me.
It only made sense to take note of the counsel of mugs that have seen and done things. You know, been around the block long enough to know a thing or two. So I listened to what the wise man said.
Theodore Wiseman, that is.
Ol’ Wiseman was in the crowd that had gathered around when I was fished outta the river the night I lost most of my memory. He let me crash in his basement while I ‘got myself together,’ as he put it. Wiseman was a pretty decent mug. He knew that I wouldn’t have lasted long on the streets of New Haven without a helping hand. And in turn I was more than happy to lend him a hand with whatever it was he needed.
Turned out he needed a partner.
Although he didn’t want to admit it, Wiseman was an old codger who had lost the spring in his step. He was a tough old fossil, though. Most mugs would’ve sat back and retired, but Wiseman scoffed at that.
“Listen, Mick. A man retires when he’s ready to die. I may have lost a step or two, but what I lost I gained back in wit and cunning. Figure it evens out. I’d like to take you on the beat. It’s been real dead lately, but we’re about to change that. If you wanna wake something dead, then you gotta make a lot of noise. So we’re gonna pound the streets and scare up some work. See if you can get a handle on my kind of gig.”
We played poker like we did most nights when the rain poured down and still didn’t cool anything off. We didn’t sleep much. I had trouble with nightmares, and Wiseman just didn’t seem to need it. Said that he’d sleep when he died.
I laid my cards down. Pair of aces. “Sure thing, Mr. Wiseman. What is it that you do?”
“I’m a Troubleshooter.” He slapped a full house on the table.
I looked at him and shrugged. “What does that mean?”
He tapped the cards with a pleased grin. “Means that I win again.”
“No, I mean what does a Troubleshooter do?”
His yellowed teeth flashed in a lopsided smile. “Means that I shoot trouble, son. It’s an occupation that never goes out of style in a town like this. When business is trouble, then business is good. You’ll see. Might be right up your alley. You get some sleep. We’ll pull stakes in the morning and beat the streets.”
I poured a shot of Jack. “You go ahead, Wiseman. I don’t much feel like sleeping.”
He eyed the bottle and frowned. “Lean on something too long and it becomes a crutch, my boy. Better ease off the hard juice a bit.”
I knocked the shot back and enjoyed the burn. “Only way I can snooze.”
He nodded. “Nightmares still got you?”
“Yeah. Every time I fall asleep, I dream of drowning.”
He patted my shoulder. “It’ll pass, Mick.”
I stared into the contents of the bottle. “What if it doesn’t? What if I never get my memory back?”
Wiseman flipped a playing card in the air and caught it. “It’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts. You got a new beginning the moment you washed up outta that river. A lot of folk would kill for a chance to hit the reset button. So the question is: are you gonna fret about what you don’t know, or get to doing what you do know?”
I sighed. “Yeah, but what do I know, Wiseman?”
He chuckled. “Keep an eye on me and you’ll know a lot, son. I’ll see you in the morning.”
It turned out that I took to troubleshooting like a dog to chasing cats. I may have had holes in my memory, but I knew a lot about guns and self-defense. Just the set of skills that kept a Troubleshooter in business.
I learned a lot about Wiseman in the next couple of weeks. It turned out that being a Troubleshooter meant spending a lot of time hiking cabs from one part of town to the next, and visiting nightclubs and bars. Just the kind of gig for a mug like me.
At the same time, Wiseman tipped his mitts on the business of troubleshooting. How to check the zones before you waltzed in and out of a building. What to look for when a mug tried to grift you. Twelve different ways to clock a mug with one punch. How favors were more valuable than cabbage a lot of times. And above all, when to pull your iron out.
“You gotta know when to throw lead and when to keep cool. Gunplay is like playing cards. You gotta know when to hold and when to fold. A lot of mugs are fertilizing New Haven right now because they thought a piece of iron made them invincible. Lemme get that straight right off the back — a heater is no substitute for quick thinking. You get into a jam with your lead. You get out of it with your mind.” He tapped his temple.
Wiseman knew a lot of folks, and ended up chinning it up about old times when he was really supposed to be spotting up for a case. While we beat the streets, Wiseman gabbed nonstop to me as well.
He waxed on about his past, how he was born and raised in New Haven. He’d seen its glory days, and its downfall once the mob syndicates muscled in and infected the city with corruption.
“It was only a matter of time. Mankind ain’t got it in ourselves to do much else except cut each other’s backs out. That’s what got us all caged up in these Havens. We survived the Cataclysm but we still haven’t learned a thing. Look at this city. It breeds strangers like the night sky breeds stars. Everyone isolated and on edge. Makes you wonder how we managed to last this long.”
We were in a dive called Moontide in the Flats. Not as bad a neighborhood as the West Docks, but worn and battered just the same. I didn’t mind. I felt comfortable with the folks there. Rough around the edges, but they were some pretty decent chums to burn time with on a hazy night. Always a game of eight ball to be played if you wanted to lose a few dibs.
There were some decent lookers that hung out at Moontide, too. Tough dames, but you could always find one that didn’t mind a little company, especially if a mug covered her tab. Good thing the booze was cheap. I had a sweet dish named Sal on my arm that night. Blond hair, blue eyes, and just the right sway in her hips to cloud a man’s mind like moonshine. I was just about to let her sweet talk me to her pad when Wiseman interrupted.
“Heads up, here comes pay dirt.” He walked past and sat at the bar. I sighed and excused myself from Sal. She didn’t take that too well, and huffed off to carouse with a big mug on the other side of the joint.
I shrugged. Like they say: easy come, easy go.
As I worked my way to the bar, a rotund dame in a sequined dress sidled over and sat beside Wiseman.
“Buy a girl a drink?”
Her voice was a thing to hear. Every honey-dipped word exhaled like opium, the perfect blend of whispery shivers down your spine. She was a big girclass="underline" big brown eyes, and big everywhere else. But she stepped with the dancing grace of a dame half her size, and her voice belonged on a siren out at sea. Many a mug would jump into the fathomless depths at the sound of her tone, and I was no exception.