The Erkennen Job Read online

  Minnie sipped her fourth dose of medicine and said, “The marshals were prepping for a raid on the down-below when someone called off the dogs. Though I hear all the hounds haven’t stopped baying yet.”

  That woke me out of my pre-loathing about having to tromp through the Sewer. “What do you mean?”

  She set the glass down. Her eyes lost focus for a tick, then set hard again. “I mean that sometimes a badger remembers why they’re supposed to be wearing the star. Not everyone clocks in and out when the Company tells them to.”

  “A true-bluer?”

  Minnie nodded, her eyes blurring again.

  Nine out of ten marshals were just deputized muscle for the Company. Petty crime and enforcement of SynCorp law fell to them. And, most of the time, they did their job like you’d expect. Seeing that five-pointed star on a uniformed chest comforted the citizens of Sol, made them feel like some part of their old life on Earth really had made it to the stars with them. In reality, most marshals were on the take—either looking the other way during business hours or moonlighting as hired help for one faction or another.

  But every once in a while, someone wore the star who actually did care. About their job. About justice.

  I hate those guys. They make my work more complicated. SynCorp and even the Marshals Service itself didn’t suffer them lightly. Being a straight shooter in a crooked game is the fastest way to feel the final embrace of Mother Universe.

  “You’re telling me some true-bluer is still bird-dogging Blalock? Even after Tony passed the word…”

  I shut my mouth and glanced down at my empty glass. Goddamn it, Minnie’s good. Good at getting information out of shmucks like me, information that can get her killed.

  Minnie was smiling with her perfect mouth. “Now, Stacks, you used to be smarter’n that.” She gave a lazy wink that, had she been less drunk and twenty years younger…

  “And you’re too damned smart for your own good,” I growled. “That’s all you’re getting out of me tonight, Minerva. Got a name on the marshal?”

  Her smile faded at my use of her given name. “Just a last one,” she said, rising slowly from the chair. She was irritated. The bourbon had made her playful, and I wouldn’t play. “Darrow.”

  “Darrow, got it. Any idea where—?”

  Minnie had walked around the desk and now she leaned into me. She placed one hand on my shoulder to hold herself up. The other found my inseam. “Why not stay a while?” she asked.

  “I told you,” I said, the blood rushing south, out of my resolve. “I’ve got business.”

  “I can feel that.”

  “Minnie—where can I.…” I cleared my throat. “Where can I find this Marshal Darrow?”

  Her fingers stopped measuring me for a new pair of trousers. “You’re no fun, you know that?”

  I stood up abruptly, so fast it set her back on her wobbly heels. I grabbed her with a soft hand to keep her on her feet.

  “Not tonight I’m not. Can you clue me in or not?”

  “Sure, Einstein. I’d start with the marshal’s outpost in the Sewer,” she said, petulant and pouting. Minnie always seemed less the hardboiled madam and more the mean little girl when she was drunk. “Like I said—they were ready to raid when Tony Taulke called ’em off.”

  “Thanks.” Rising, I headed for the door.

  “Hey, Stacks?” she said behind me.

  Turning, I watched her pick up the decanter of bourbon again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Stop back on your way out of Darkside?”

  I paused. Doubtful. Tony would want a firsthand report tout de suite, and in person. No way for the communication to be tapped, if I reported in person. The decanter clinked and clanked against the rim of her glass. I watched bourbon slop onto the desk.

  “I’ve been getting stiffed by customers lately, and I don’t mean in a good way,” she said, adding a leer like drinkers do when they think the person they’re talking to is as dull as they are drunk. “Now, when you stiff me—”

  “I’ll try to stop by,” I said to stop her talking. I like Minnie; I like her a lot. We’re two peas in a pathetic pod. Only I kill people for a living. She just screws them. “Thanks for the info, Minnie.”

  I beat feet before my sympathy for an old, drunk whore made me decide to stay.

  • • •

  If the up-top of Darkside smells like humanity overripe and underfed, the Sewer smells worse. SynCorp doesn’t much care whether the artificial gravity works reliably on the moon, and that plays havoc with the waste reclamation located in the down-below. The corridors of Lower London, more narrow than up top, slosh now and then with gray filth when you walk. Lower London is like its namesake in older times, I guess. Minus the frilly Shakespeare clothes.

  More like a toll booth than an outpost, the marshal’s station was easy to find. It has a sign over the door. It’s the brightest thing in the Sewer as you come off the ramp, so you can’t miss it. I hiked my collar and lowered my hat when I got close.

  “I’m looking for the deputy in charge,” I said to the grizzled twenty-something on duty. Dark figures passed within the alcoves along the main corridor leading deeper into Lower London. Their feet stirred up the smell of the sludge around me. If I weren’t armed to the teeth, I’d be concerned about the element I was stepping into. And I don’t just mean the shit slurry on the ground.

  “That’d be me,” the grizzled twenty-something said.

  He didn’t bother to look up from his padd. The way his thumb was moving, I figured he must be either about to win the game he was playing or about to lose it.

  “No, I mean, really in charge. Someone in command down here.”

  The sad sound effects of defeat spun out from his padd. Losing, then. Cursing, the unshaven whelp of a lawman looked up. “Name’s Mustafar. And like I said, if you need a marshal, I’m the guy. You think they’d put a veteran with reputation down this shithole?”

  Fair point. “Deputy Mustafar, then.” I looked around. “Is there someplace we can have a private conversation?”

  Mustafar gestured at the barely man-sized booth around him. “I’d offer you my office, but it’s a little cramped. Now, what do you want? I’m busy.”

  I glanced at his padd but held my tongue. “I was just wondering if Deputy Darrow was around?”

  His expression flattened. He wasn’t much interested in playing games anymore, that’s for sure.

  “What do you want with Darrow?” He gave me a curious eye. “Do I know you?”

  “Don’t think so. Darrow and I? Old friends. Mutual acquaintance told me he was assigned down here. Thought I’d—”

  “Old friends, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well she—Deputy Darrow—is unavailable.”

  Shit. And I’d had a fifty-fifty chance of getting that right, too. Ah, well. Sometimes the best thing to do when caught in a lie is to own it with a smile.

  I crossed my arms—an old trick, just in case I needed to draw—and smiled. “Hey, friend, you got me. I was just—”

  “What do you want with Darrow?” he asked again. I watched him shift his weight to the right. I imagined him pressing a button under the lip of the counter in front of him. Seemed like his suspicion had touched on a memory. “Do I know you?”

  My options were suddenly very limited. But killing a marshal, even in the Sewer, might blow back on Tony in the court of public opinion. Could even help Ra’uf Erkennen with his plan to take over.

  “You know what?” I said, backing away. “I think I’ll look for ole Darrow myself. Sorry to have interrupted your game.”

  “Hey! I do know you! Stop right there!”

  Double shit. Out of options.

  “You’re Fischer! Taulke’s assassin!” Mustafar fumbled beneath the counter.

  I pulled my stunner. My eyes were on him, but at the same moment, I felt a shadow moving with purpose behind me. I hesitated on the trigger—and everything went real dark real fast.
/>   The Twist

  Waking up after being clocked from behind is a tricky thing. If you’ve got your wits, you do it slowly to get the lay of the land before whoever put your lights out realizes you’re awake.

  “You can open your eyes.” A woman’s voice. “Go on, Fischer, I know you’re awake.”

  Well, no need to play possum then. I raised my head off my chest and felt a spider’s web of pain shoot across the back of my skull. She’d cold-cocked me good, all right.

  “Deputy Marshal True-Blue Darrow, I assume.” I blinked away the blackout and took her in through the orange spots. She was slight for a marshal, almost comically so, though her size emphasized a kind of fierce beauty. The badge over her left breast hung like an oversized star on the too-small canvas of her uniform.

  “And you’re Stacks Fischer. Tony Taulke’s assassin to the stars.”

  The orange spots had finally cleared out. “Since you know who I am, you know this little tussle can permanently direct the course of your career. Cut me loose and let me walk out of here, and I’ll forget it ever happened.”

  Darrow thrust her hips to one side and crossed her arms. “Do I look stupid to you?”

  “I try never to judge on first appearances.”

  “Funny.”

  I sat up … slowly … and rested against the wall. The room we were in had a film of something slimy on the floor. The seat of my pants felt soaked. Darrow had bound my feet, but that was all. I must’ve woken up too fast for her to finish tying me up.

  “Maybe we should just space him, Glau.”

  I turned my head and found Mustafar standing there. He looked every bit the ten years younger than Darrow he was. Seeing them together, I sized up the situation real quick. Deputy Marshal Mustafar was into older women.

  “Quiet, Amin,” Darrow said. Then, looking at me, “Never tell the criminal element your plans.”

  I laughed, but the mirth was short-lived. The lump on the back of my head reminded me I wasn’t in a laughing mood. “You’re not going to kill me,” I said.

  Darrow cocked an eyebrow. She was good at the body language thing. Being short had helped her develop other necessary survival skills. “Don’t be so sure,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m one-hundred percent sure.” I stared at her straight. “For one thing, I woke up. If you wanted me dead, I’d be that way by now. Second, you’re smart enough to know you can’t kill me and get away with it. Tony would put you in a decompression chamber and reduce the PSI for a week until your eyeballs finally exploded. Third—you’re not a killer,” I said, with a knowing look at her boyfriend, Deputy Big Mouth.

  Damn. Darrow’s ears had been distracted by my little speech, but her eyes had noticed my right hand flexing.

  “Looking for the knife?” She moved aside and there, lined up on a table behind her, were my three insurance policies: my stunner, my .38, and my spring-blade.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Let’s just space him! No one will—”

  “Shut up, Amin!” Darrow’s voice was short and spoke of a growing irritation with her puppy-dog lover. At the look Mustafar gave her, Darrow’s face melted into quick regret. She was in new territory having me as a prisoner. Life was getting more stressful by the minute. “Look, just go back out to the booth and keep watch, okay? Before Central notices you’re gone.”

  “Fine,” he said. Then, “I’ve put everything on the line for you, Glau.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t fuck this up.”

  “I know.”

  Mustafar threw a last leer my way, to which I puckered up and blew him a kiss. His look of disgust made its exit with the rest of him.

  “I guess I wasn’t out that long, then,” I said. Even in the Sewer, an empty marshal’s station would get noticed.

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me? Roles reversed, I would have done for you.”

  The look she gave me was pure hatred. Like I was a cockroach that had just crawled into her dead mother’s mouth as she lay in the coffin.

  “I’m sure you would. Maybe I’ll kill you anyway.”

  I laughed again. “A true-bluer like you? There’s no justice in cold-blooded murder.”

  “You should know.”

  I let her have her moment of smug satisfaction. “But anyway—let me go and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

  “So you can kill me? Fat chance.”

  “Kill you? I have no intention of killing you. I’m here to fix a problem. That’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I took a moment to collect my thoughts. Darrow’s perspective on the puzzle fell into place fast. The top assassin in SynCorp steps into the Sewer asking after Deputy Marshal Glau Darrow, who’s bucked the Company’s directive to back off Blalock. In her mind, I was here to fix a problem all right: her.

  “You think I’m here for you.”

  “I don’t think anything,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m here for Blalock.” I could have played coy, but Darrow struck me as too sharp to buy whatever I’d come up with. “We’re here for the same reason, really.”

  She paused to consider. “If you’re here, it’s because Tony Taulke wants Blalock dead. I’m here to take him in for corporate espionage. Those aren’t the same reason.”

  “You were told to stand down.”

  That made her eyes drop for half a heartbeat. They came back up with flames in them.

  “I’m so tired of that crap,” she said. “We’re sworn to uphold the law—”

  “Corporate law.” Watch it, Fischer. Stay out of the pulpit.

  “Yes, corporate law!” Darrow started pacing. “And half the time, just like with Blalock, we’re denied our duty because Tony Taulke or some other faction leader decides they’re above the law!”

  “Look, kid,” I said, “you know how this plays out. You’re already in seven kinds of trouble, but the situation’s still salvageable. I might even be able to help you out of the jam you’re in.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you help me?”

  Good question. Darrow was nothing to me except a potential headache with Tony. But, cold-cocking notwithstanding, I liked her grit. She was bucking her orders to bring in a criminal just for the sake of serving the law. We might walk opposite sides of that legal street, but I could admire her dedication to duty. We were more alike than she’d cop to. No pun intended.

  “Young love sets my heart aflutter,” I said by way of explanation.

  Her forehead wrinkled as she translated. “Amin? You think I’m in love with Amin?”

  “I think he’s in love with you. Your little crusade is gonna get him killed. You too.”

  “Crusade? I’m doing my job!”

  I was tempted to shout. Tempted to rail at the stupidity of Darrow’s idealism. But I really was starting to like her, maybe because she was such an idealist. Quietly, without venom, I said, “Your job is what the Company tells you it is.”

  “My job is to enforce the law.”

  “SynCorp is the law!”

  Darrow’s eyes flared again, but her mouth shut up.

  “There’s more going on here than you know,” I continued. “Blalock will never be taken alive. Whether it’s me or someone else that does him, he’ll get done. That’s why Tony sent the marshals home—to make sure Blalock is taken care of permanently.”

  “What is it?” She sounded almost desperate to know. “What is going on?” Like knowing might somehow justify—literally—why she couldn’t do her job. Like knowing would give her permission to let Blalock get spaced, to turn a blind eye.

  “Can’t tell you that,” I said. “It’d only make you more of a target than you already are.”

  Darrow advanced, ready to get the story out of me one way or the other. Then, angry voices filtered in from outside. One of them was Mustafar’s. He was doing his I’m-the-marshal-you’re-looking-for bit.

  I could t
ell in an instant it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Cut my feet free,” I growled. “Now.”

  She looked from me to my weapons on the table behind her, then toward the doorway and the ruckus outside. Mustafar’s defiance had begun to lose its authority. And from the sound of it, he was outnumbered.

  “Darrow!”

  But she was already moving for the door, drawing her stunner. With her off-hand, without looking back, she snagged my knife from the table and shot it in my direction. I ducked as it thunked into the wall behind me.

  Before her shadow left the room I could hear the sharp, potent punk! punk! punk! of stunner fire outside. Those marshals were both as good as dead. I didn’t know who the loudmouths were, but Mustafar must’ve drawn on them like he drew on me, and they’d responded in kind.

  I yanked the knife from the wall and cut the rope binding my feet. As I levered myself up, my ankles screamed in protest. I’d been sitting too long. Fuck being over fifty.

  I flicked the knife back under my wrist, spring loaded. Blood began to fill my feet again, and I loped to the table. I filled both hands, one with my stunner and the other with the .38. I had no intention of getting involved, not really, and maybe I could just sit here and wait it out and steal away after the marshals were dead.

  Punk! punk! punk!

  Punk! punk!

  But if I waited and the new players weren’t friends, they’d be after me next. With all that shooting outside, I figured there must be at least a handful of them. Not good odds when you’re cornered in a bare room with no cover. If I joined Darrow and Mustafar, I’d at least have them on my side. The enemy of my enemy and all that. Better odds.

  Killing the lights inside the little room, I knelt beside the doorway and darted my eyes around the corner to get my bearings. I was across the dark alleyway from Mustafar’s outpost in the same alcove Darrow must have jumped me from earlier. I spotted her behind a long, thin dumpster farther up the narrow alley. She was pinned down by fire coming from the near side. There was no sign of Mustafar.

  Two of the shooters advancing on Darrow were crouched and moving from trash can to doorway. A third semi-strode down the middle of the alleyway like an Old West gunslinger.