Acts of Violence (10 page)

My stomach reminded
me how it had been neglected since some time yesterday. I finally got that cup
of coffee and made it a little more filling with the bottle from my bedside
cupboard. I’d need real food soon. I couldn’t think properly when I was hungry.
And I needed to think now more than ever.

Next, I had a brief
shower and changed into a clean suit. After another mug of coffee, I went back into
the bathroom. Over the sink, a mirror glittered with condensation. I was glad I
couldn’t see my reflection. I pulled it off the wall.

The cops hadn’t
done a particularly thorough job of searching the apartment. They’d pulled out
drawers and left them lying on the floor with their contents spilled out, but
they hadn’t used scanners. If they had, they’d have found my little hiding spot
in no time. This was an outside wall, so I’d been able to build a crude and not
particularly secure safe into the cavity.

I pulled out my
spare pistol. A revolver. Six bullets in the gun and more in a box. I’d never
been one for plasma or laser. Right now though, with Cole Webster after my
head, a million-shot pistol would have been my best friend. I tipped half the
contents of the box into my pocket.

Next out of the
cavity was another badge. I had about twelve of them. I figured Lawrence would be notified if I used my card, so I grabbed a handful of credit chips too. There
weren’t many in there, but I’d only need them for food. I wasn’t in the bribing
mood. More the shouting, smashing and threatening mood. That was if I could
find someone with information I needed.

I’d lost track of
my trench coat. I couldn’t remember if the cops had taken it from me, or
Webster’s goons, or if I’d even been wearing it this morning. I supposed I must
have been. In this town, you wore your coat more often than your socks. I had
an old one in the wardrobe. One arm had been slashed by some drug dealing punk a
few months ago and I’d never got it fixed. Better than nothing.

Now I was ready to
go. The only question was where. The obvious places were club Web and the
barmaid’s apartment. I didn’t know where she’d lived, so The Web was the only
real option. Little Dick had lived in his father’s mansion down at the mining
operation, so searching his place was out of the question for now.

I peered down at
the street, staying as far back from the window as I could. A patrol car sat a
little way down. I couldn’t see how many occupants it had. If I set foot
through the front door, I’d be spotted right away. I’d lose another gun and
another badge. And the only hope I had to stay out of Anshan.

There was a fire
escape, but the cops would be watching that too. I could probably think up some
distraction, but it was better the cops had no reason to come and check on me. I
doubted they’d be using technology to watch me through the walls. Harem PD
probably didn’t have such tech.

It wasn’t a
problem. I knew something about this building that the cops didn’t.

The sky was getting
darker. It was just after five, but in this weather, it wouldn’t be long before
night slithered through the city. I switched on the bedside lamp and the
standing lamp beside the couch. That would do for now, but I could be out all
night. I programmed them both to switch off at thirteen minutes and
thirty-seven seconds past eleven. More of a natural time. Not that the cops
would even notice, probably. Made me feel clever, at least.

Finally, I left my
apartment and went downstairs. Outside apartment three, I pulled the ever-present
umbrella from the stand beside the door. I’d return it to the old man later.

A glance through
the glass front doors reassured me that the cops couldn’t see me from where
they’d parked. I took the door under the stairs and went down another flight.

The air rising from
the basement was cool. Smelled musty and old. A cobweb tried to smother me. Something
was leaking somewhere down here. As soon as I took my first step off the
stairs, it made a splash. A thin layer of brown water. Or maybe the floor was
just brown. The light was too bad to tell.

About a year ago,
the apartment building beside mine had its backup generator removed. That
generator used to serve both buildings, until mine got a new one all to itself.
That meant it had been built into the wall so both sides could access it. When
it was taken out, the hole was never bricked up and the genny was never
replaced.

I hunched down and
squeezed through the gap. The next basement was dry. Had the same smell of dust
and mould though. There was another smell on top of that. A warmer smell.
Cigarette smoke.

‘Evening,’ a voice
said. An ageing man in ripped jeans and a stained T-shirt sat on a pipe in the
corner of the room, smoking.

‘Evening,’ I said. ‘Another
nice day.’ I shrugged the umbrella.

‘Uh huh.’ He eyed the
umbrella for a second. Took a drag. Returned to the battered datapad in his
hand. I could hear the faint yelling of sports commentary coming from it. A trench-coated
man with an umbrella wandering through his basement was less interesting.

As I moved on, I
had to cough the lump of nerves out of my throat. In that second between
smelling the smoke and hearing the voice, I’d pictured Lawrence standing there
waiting for me. Now I had the luxury of hindsight, it wouldn’t have surprised
me at all. He was smart enough. Crafty enough. But the day’s stress had
probably tired him out, too, and he’d have reports to write. I’d be flattering
myself if I thought I was going to run into him.

I headed up the
creaking staircase. Out into the warmth of the small lobby. Except for the
circular-patterned, colourless mosaic floor, this was a mirror image of my own
apartment building. Through the glass doors, I could see that the rain had
eased a little. It had got considerably darker in the short minutes I was in
the basement.

I pulled my collar
up and pushed through the doors. Outside was a shallow porch area. I stood
there and opened the umbrella. With it over my head, the cops wouldn’t stand a
chance of recognising me. They had no reason to suspect anyone coming out of
the building next to mine.

They were unlikely
to spot my face if I glanced back at them, as I felt compelled to do, but it
would be unwise. I crossed the street and walked away from the patrol car to
the end of the block. The glistening streets were nearly empty. I could
probably count on my fingers the number of people in sight. But that’s how
Harem always was. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was because there wasn’t
anywhere to go.

As I pushed into
the rain, which was slowly beginning to push back, a cab pulled up at the next
corner. An elderly couple eventually manoeuvred themselves out onto the street.
I gestured to the driver to wait for me. He nodded and switched his light back
off.

‘Get my brolly,
Raymond,’ the old woman said as she tried to fend off the raindrops with her
hand.

‘You didn’t bring
the damn thing,’ the man said after a deflated look at the driver. ‘I told you
six times. “You’ll need your brolly”, I said. But you never listen.’

The old woman
rolled her eyes and shook her head at the clouds.

‘Take mine,’ I
said. Handed her the umbrella and climbed into the cab. I’d have to owe Mr.
Apartment Three a new umbrella. I had bigger things on my mind. ‘Club Web,’ I
told the driver. I wanted to add ‘And step on it’. But I wasn’t an idiot.

As we pulled away,
the old woman was still staring at the umbrella as though I’d handed her a jar
of pickles.

I thought I heard a
rumble behind the cab’s humming engine. A few seconds later, what I presumed to
be a second flash confirmed it. The weather was getting worse every day. I
leaned close to the window. The buildings blocked my view, but now and then I
caught a glimpse of black cloud pushing aside the grey.

Club Web wasn’t far
away. Through the quiet streets, we got there in just a few minutes. I told the
driver to pull up across the street. It was the diner opposite the club that I
had my sights on for the moment. Couldn’t think on an empty stomach.

As the cab pulled away,
I ignored the rain for a time while I stared at Webster’s premier club. I’d
always wondered why a man with pockets as deep as Cole Webster’s would stay in
a place like Harem. Whatever he was up to at the mine was the answer. And it
wasn’t mining. Like I’d told DeMartino and Lawrence, I suspected it was human
trafficking. We were so far away from Orion that the Terran Council was happy
to forget we existed. The UPSF would usually deal with that kind of thing, but
they didn’t care either. Out of sight, out of mind. And yet DeMartino was here.

The rain got in
through the slash in my coat and seeped through my suit. I could have ignored
that. Without the umbrella, though, it ran down my neck. I didn’t like that.
Something about the cold trickling on the back of my neck annoyed me. Like it
was intruding on my privacy. What right did it have running down my neck and
going inside my clothing?

I turned and pushed
through the grimy glass door of the diner. Some kind of infrared thing above
the entrance dried my coat as I passed under it. Left just that patch under the
slash. I was pretty sure it was infrared, anyway. I never took much notice of
these things. If it worked, it worked.

Two of the diner’s
three occupants glanced at me as I crossed to the counter. Two older men
discussing the weather. One girl in her twenties, staring out the window. She
didn’t look. Probably whiling away the time until The Web opened again.

The waitress slowly
made her way from the end of the counter towards me. I’d watched an old film a
few weeks ago. Really old. In it, the hero walked into a diner like this. I’d
swear this was the same waitress. After all these hundreds of years, didn’t
diner waitresses feel the need for a change of appearance? Too much makeup;
especially the blusher. Chewing gum with her mouth wide open for me to see the
mangled bit of pink rubber. And to match the gum, a pale pink frock with a big
white pocket at the front for her notepad.

‘Yeah?’ It wasn’t
the same waitress. In the film, she’d looked unfriendly, but when she opened
her mouth what came out was something like “what can I get ya, hun?” She’d had
the air of being easy and sweet on just about every man who came in the place.
Probably why it had been full. Probably why this one was nearly empty.

‘Coffee and
breakfast. Please.’ I’d weighed up the choices. Decided matching her attitude
and getting her spit in my food wasn’t worth it.

She called into the
back. Then filled a mug from the synthesiser behind her. I didn’t know what
breakfast was in this place, but it was unlikely to be much different to anywhere
else. As long as it was still being served this near to dinnertime and I could
eat it, minus the tomato, then it was good enough.

I told the woman
I’d be at a table. She informed me that it was a pretty small diner. She’d
probably find me easy enough. I opened my mouth. Thought about seeing that pale
pink rubber under my bacon. Closed it.

I took the booth between
the two men and the girl. The green plastic cover on the bench squeaked as I
slid over to the window. The rain was driving so hard and fast against the glass
that it didn’t have time to sit in drops and obscure my view. I could see
almost perfectly across the street.

The front of the
club was mirror glass. Above the concave doors, the shiny black sign bore the
name ‘The Web’ in searing blue lettering. At night, when the club was open,
there was a forcefield just above that sign to keep the waiting line dry. Except
Fridays. Friday was wet T-shirt night anyway, so what was the point?

I wondered what
black secrets hid in the depths of that bright, shiny place. Perhaps none. I
didn’t know if Webster even had an office there, or if he’d be stupid enough to
leave anything incriminating in it if he did.

The coffee was
awful. The breakfast, when it eventually came, was mostly burnt and entirely
cold. But it did have bacon. Who knew if it was real bacon? It could be
synthesised. It could be imported from somewhere. It could be the ass of some
alien horse. But it tasted good. I stared at the club for a few minutes while I
wondered if I’d ever actually tasted real bacon in my life. If this pinky brown
stuff I was shovelling into my mouth wasn’t real bacon, did it taste like it?
Perhaps what I thought was bacon really tasted like beef. Maybe beef tasted like
bacon. Maybe I should think about something more important.

I avoided the eggs,
which looked like a mix of snot and vomit. I nearly left then. But even with
such pressing issues on my mind as my imminent execution if I didn’t get to
work and find something soon, I decided I needed more coffee. Even if it was
awful. I gestured to the waitress. She rolled her eyes.

I searched my
pockets. Thought for a second I’d left the bouncer’s cigarettes behind. I found
the crumpled packet eventually. It had shifted in my coat pocket underneath an
old, musty smelling handkerchief. I pulled out an equally crumpled cigarette
and stuck it between my lips. I still had no lighter.

‘No.’ The waitress
said as she arrived at my table.

‘No what?’ She
filled my mug back up.

‘No I don’t got a
light, and no you can’t smoke in here.’

I rolled the paper
stick around my mouth while I listened to her saunter away. At least I could
taste some of the tobacco. Or could I? Maybe the stuff in my cigarette tasted
like bacon.

‘Are you gonna
order somethin’?’

I thought the
pink-encased witch was talking to me again. I pulled the cigarette out of my
mouth and turned to charm her with my winning personality. But she wasn’t
talking to me.

‘I don’t—’ the girl
behind me started.

‘You can’t sit here
all day and not order nothin’.’ This woman had something against Gs. And
manners.