The Beam: Season Two (62 page)

“You’ll come here and meet us and get it. And while you’re here anyway, you’ll listen to what I got to say. I’m sure I can convince you.”
 

“I’m tired of your promises.”
 

“This ain’t a promise, Dom.” Charm returned to Omar’s voice. “This is you and me and Kate working together. Partners, not promises. So you’ll have your control.”
 

“Kate?” he said.
Aaaaand
there it was. He’d expressed interest. Now Omar had him.
 

“Top-notch runner,” he said. “I’ll tell you why she’s so top-notch when you get here because it’s nothing I want to say even over your line. Not on the air, man.”
 

“Okay.” Back to uninterested.
 

“I know I can trust her, too. Because she’s got a secret.” Omar laughed. “And a past.”
 

“We’ll see.”
 

“But to really
see
, Dom, you gotta come here. Okay?”
 

“Fine. I’ll bring my credit authorization.”
 

“Good, good. This is going to be pretty great, Dom. It’ll be good to be on the same team. You know, formally.”
 

“I’m not agreeing to anything,” said Dominic. “And I’m not on your fucking team.”
 

“All right, all right.” And he chuckled, like a giant asshole.
 

“You bring the dust. Have it on you.”
 

“I can’t have it on me. I gotta get it. Meet first, then we can go get it together.”
 

Dominic shook his head, as if Omar could see. “I remember what happened the last time we went somewhere together.”
 

“Man, you’re going to keep sucking that grudge like a titty?” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Fine, fine. I’ll get it myself.”
 

“Now.”
 

“After we meet. We got a clock ticking on this. My girl here, she needs to understand what’s at stake.”
 

“Now.”
 

Another dramatic sigh. “Okay. We might as well meet at Jimmy’s restaurant. I really wanted to meet you here at the mall, though. I got me an Orange Julius. I was gonna treat you.” Then, speaking to someone other than Dominic: “Hey, Katie, didn’t Jimmy get you an Orange Julius?”

There was mumbling on Omar’s end.
 

“When?” said Dominic.
 

“I need time to get your shit. And I want to keep Katie with me until I meet with the big, bad police captain, so Jimmy’s sorry ass needs to tag along. Say, seven.”
 

Dominic looked at the time displayed on his terminal screen. “Faster. I’m not kidding you about how bad I need this dust. I need to turn it around and run.”
 

“I can’t get it that soon.” Dominic heard him shuffle. “Hand to West, Dom. This isn’t me being squirrelly. This is distance and physics. Seven tonight.”

“Shit.”
 

“I can get you a smaller amount immediately. Enough to soothe your shakes.”
 

“It’s not about me, Omar!” But in truth, it was. Dominic was frightened for Leo, but he was even more frightened for himself. He only had a few tiny rocks left, and after that he’d be dry as a bone. With no small amount of shame, he realized that much of his urgency over Leo’s dust wasn’t about Leo at all. It centered on Dominic knowing he could skim enough to feel safe.
 

“Then you gotta wait. But you know what, man? I forgot, the place I need won’t be accessible after five. That means tomorrow.”
 

“Tomorrow?”
That was cutting it awfully close. He couldn’t get back up to the mountains tomorrow, no way and no how. Tomorrow, the presidents were giving their Prime Statement speeches at the White House. The Prime Statements were the final and most critical bit of pre-Shift lead-up, and given the way Shift had gone so far, disorder was a certainty. He couldn’t leave District Zero or trust anyone else to run the Lunis, so he wouldn’t be able to deliver to Leo until the day after. By then, the village might be totally dry. And maybe dead.

“I’m sorry, man,” said Omar. But he wasn’t. Dominic saw what he was doing. He’d heard the way Dominic had declared the dust issue to not be about himself and had read the truth like a master manipulator. Omar knew what Dominic truly needed versus what he merely wanted, and Dom only
needed
a bit to boost his personal supply. As terrible as Dominic felt about it, he knew Omar was right.
 

“Just get as much as you can, as fast as you can.”
 

“And we’ll meet after. Just like you wanted.”
 

But of course, Dominic
couldn’t
meet tomorrow, thanks to his prep requirements for the Prime Statements. Could Omar have figured that out? Of course he could.

“I can’t meet tomorrow.”
 

“Oh. I’m sorry. We’ll do it later. However late you need. I got all the time in the world.”
 

Dominic, of course, didn’t.

“Today. One hour from now. The smaller amount you said you have…is that on you?”
 

A smile entered Omar’s voice. “Of course, man.”

“Then I’ll come to you. At the mall. Summit?”

“Yeah, Summit.”
 

“Summit is closer for me than Jimmy’s. We make this quick. I’ll hear you out, but no promises, and you have to deliver those meterbars later no matter what I say.”
 

Delight entered Omar’s voice. “Ah, sounds like a plan, man!”
 

“Omar.”
 

“Yeah, man?”
 

“I don’t trust you. At all. You’d better impress the shit out of me. Figure out where you want to leave those meterbars tomorrow, close to me, as soon as possible. If you screw me, Omar, I swear to West I’ll…”
 

“I wouldn’t do that to a partner, Dom. You’ll see. What benefits you benefits me. Screwing you over is the worst thing I could do to myself. In fact, I’ll…”
 

“One hour,” said Dominic. “The main green on the lower level.” And then he hung up without waiting for a response.
 

He pulled the vial from his pocket, opened it, and looked at the tiny rocks inside. He thought about the little bag that Omar would give him in an hour, and how it would fill his vial without brushing Leo’s coffers.
 

Dominic looked at his handheld and the connection he’d just ended.
 

“You’d better impress me, you slippery motherfucker,” he told it.

Chapter 8

Kate watched Omar as he spoke to the holo rectangle he’d opened in front of him. The mall’s canvas had top-end projectors, but the tasked hologram was less than impressive. It was flat black, read
Call in progress
through the center, and had a timer below ticking off the call’s duration. Kate wondered why he didn’t close it and talk into his mobile, but Omar was a very specific kind of optimist — the kind who planned on getting what he wanted because he was usually able to talk his way into anything. He seemed to be hoping to wear the man down, and move to visual.

Feeling a mixture of nerves and irritation, Kate watched the black rectangle, smirking. Apparently, the other end of Omar’s call wasn’t quite as pliable as he was hoping.

“This is you and me and Kate working together,” said Omar. “Partners, not promises. So you’ll have your control.”
 

Kate’s ears perked up. Across from her, Jimmy was still idly sipping his Orange Julius. As she watched, he reached the bottom of the cup, and his sipping turned to a noisy slurping. Omar looked at him with irritation.
 

Partners, not promises.

If she wanted, Kate could probably take heart from that. She could decide that Omar really did see how keeping her alive was better than killing her, and how working with her was better than finding someone new. She could choose to believe that Jimmy wouldn’t end up slipping a blade between her ribs the minute they were in private. She could believe that she might already be moving up within Omar’s organization despite her fuckup on the moon and despite the fact that Omar had to know who she was — or, perhaps more accurately, who she’d once been.
 

But this was
Omar
, and a promise of partnership was only a promise, made to be broken.
 

Omar smiled. “Top-notch runner. I’ll tell you why she’s so top-notch when you get here, because it’s nothing I want to say even over your line.” He paused to wink at Kate then to slide his eyes up and down her body, seeming to indicate how “top-notch” she really was.
 

But Omar
had
to know about Doc, right?
 

Kate had looked down at her nonexistent tattoo watch to check the time, and Omar had given her that big smile when he’d seen her do it. Except that he hadn’t just
seen
it; he’d
anticipated
it. The glance hadn’t given Kate away; it was just the coffin’s nail, confirming what Omar already somehow knew. The answer was so obvious, and yet the big reveal had died immediately and hadn’t been so much as mentioned after it had occurred. But that was Omar for you — always playing games.

Kate tried to read Omar. She’d been a salesperson all her (his?) life, even before she’d (he’d?) ever sold anything. The most important weapon in a salesperson’s arsenal was the ability to see who their prospect truly was, what he wanted, and what his mood was at any given moment. But Omar was a salesman too, and Omar had far fewer morals than even Kate’s meager handful of scruples. Omar was a big bag of tricks, as adept at hiding as she was at seeking.
 

Instead of calling Kate on who she’d once been — and all the history between them, both good and bad — he’d simply announced that he had an idea. A really, really,
really
good idea. And that was one thing that Kate
could
read on Omar. He was genuinely enthusiastic about the idea, the way he got when he’d solved a problem that had been dogging him for ages. But he didn’t say what the idea was. He’d just called this person, this “Dominic,” and had started talking to him about moondust. About the moondust that Kate, sitting beside Omar and wondering if she was soon to be summarily executed, had failed to deliver.
 

She listened as Omar told the man that he trusted Kate because she had a secret and a past. She listened as Omar tried to convince the man to join them for some undisclosed business. As nervous as she felt, Kate was amused by Omar’s gall. He’d laid out a grand plan, surely constructing a hard-working partnership in his mind, without so much as checking in with two-thirds of the proposed troika. Omar was the kind of man who would draw celebrities to an event by bragging of other celebrities he’d wrangled then go out later and gather his already-promised celebrities by promising those he’d just convinced.
 

“Hey, Katie,” said Omar, looking over, “didn’t Jimmy get you an Orange Julius?”

Kate turned. Omar was looking right at her.
 

“Are you talking to me?”
 

Omar held up a finger and turned away, touching his ear.

“I need time to get your shit. And I want to keep Katie with me until I meet with the big, bad police captain, so Jimmy’s sorry ass needs to tag along.”
 

Shit
.
 

Well, that was classic Omar, too. Kate couldn’t believe she’d doubted him. Control of the situation slid smoothly back into his court as Kate realized who he was talking to. The name “Dominic Long” had sounded familiar when Omar had asked the secured canvas for a call; now Kate realized why. She’d seen the name on DZ sector Beam Headlines, heading stories about busts. He was a captain in the DZPD. The kind of person who, moondust sideline aside, might be very interested in a smuggler and a killer. The kind of person who might be interested in Doc Stahl’s past transgressions. A cop crooked enough to work with Omar, apparently, with few boundaries. The kind of a man, maybe, who could take a woman’s dead body and ensure that her murder never surfaced in any official reports.
 

Be cool,
Kate told herself.
He’s trying to get the cop to come here, not reading the cop your stats.
 

That was true. And, she realized, so was something else. Kate recognized the way Omar was talking to Dominic because it was how he talked to everyone. He was twirling Captain Long around his finger, driving him into something, manipulating Long just as he was manipulating Kate by making this call in front of her. Omar wanted something from them both, and
that
meant it had to be a plan complicated enough to keep Kate alive. Why would he go to all this trouble if he was just planning to kill her? Why draw Long to meet if he merely wanted to fink on Kate and tell him her secrets? He could have done that over the voice call already.

Omar was midsentence when the call went dead, the floating black screen flashing the now-stopped call time and the message
CALL ENDED.

He blinked, laughed, and swiped the screen away. He crossed his legs, made himself comfortable, and leaned back in his chair. Kate had gotten the gist of the conversation and knew the captain was coming. They had time to kill while they waited.