“I can’t arrest ghosts! What do you want? Go upstairs and wait,” I yelled at him.
There was an empty apartment upstairs for Valia and MTB to hide in.
When I went back into Judge Naeb’s office, it was obvious everyone had heard the conversation in the hall.
Valia stared at her boots.
Rendrae gave me a disapproving look.
Judge Naeb looked pissed off.
“Valia, wait upstairs with MTB,” I said.
She left without a word.
Why did I suddenly feel like a jerk? I was saving lives on the station. I knew I was. But what MTB had said stung me.
I went over to Naeb and removed his gag as best I could without hurting him.
“Is there anything you want before we do this?” I asked.
“Go to hell,” he spat.
“Seriously. These are your last words, might as well make them count.”
“You don’t run the city and you never did. You have no idea what goes on here. I just got greedy and thought you were too stupid to catch me,” he roared.
“I guess,” I said, removing a pistol from my thigh.
“You allege 19-10 was the one who killed Su Dival?” he asked.
I think he was trying to buy time after he saw the gun.
“What do you know about 19-10?”
“Enough. Probably more than you,” he said.
“Who hired him?” I asked.
And, of all the weird things, Judge Naeb laughed.
“I don’t know why he killed Su Dival, but I know who hired him,” Judge Naeb taunted.
“Who?”
He licked his lips and smiled.
“Garm.”
“That’s a lie,” I said.
“19-10 was hired to kill you,” Judge Naeb said.
I pointed the gun at Judge Naeb and pulled back the hammer.
“And why would she hire him to do that?”
“Look at me! I’m tied up in my own office waiting to die. Do you think those in power want you on Belvaille? They know you can do this to any of them. You’re a cardboard cut-out that the lower classes look up to, but that’s it.”
“When did you talk to Garm?” I demanded.
He chuckled.
“Now that you’re pissed, I can’t think of a better way to end. Shoot me. I’m not so blind to see you don’t have an alternative. I rather like that I can get the last laugh.”
I pressed the gun hard to his temple.
“When did you talk to Garm?” I repeated.
He said nothing.
I looked back at Rendrae, who seemed to be soaking all this in like a sponge.
“Dammit,” I cursed, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 33
Rendrae didn’t want to report on this and was ready to renege on our deal.
I pointed out it was too late to grow a conscience. If he wanted to rat me out, he would also have to detail his own involvement and how he had agreed to fake Judge Naeb’s guilt.
People would be mad at me, but they would skin Rendrae alive.
And everything would get even worse in the city, just like I said.
Rendrae reported from the scene of the crime. He stated Judge Naeb had committed suicide when confronted by me with information that proved he was responsible for hiring Su Dival’s murderers.
I couldn’t say Judge Naeb had performed the actual murder. That was too far-fetched. It was just a matter of finding some gunmen to take the fall.
Rendrae signed off, and he didn’t say “Force for Facts.” He never said it again. Another reporter immediately claimed the title.
It was about a week later when we had an unrelated shoot-out that resulted in the deaths of two thugs. I declared the dead men Su Dival’s killers.
If they had alibis, they weren’t talking.
MTB quit!
Well, not quit, but he asked to be transferred to a different department. He wanted to work Deadsouth, one of the toughest beats.
I didn’t refuse him.
There was a huge crowd at the Royal Wing waiting for me to give my talk.
Valia stood beside me.
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” I started, “and decided you all should make your own laws.”
“We already have our own laws,” someone said.
“Yeah, but they’re lousy. You have to come up with new laws that if I show them to the citizens of Belvaille, they will be impressed enough that you might eventually be let back in. You have to be better than the subsistence living you’re doing. Even better than Belvaille. Shame them into recognizing your improvements.”
“But like what?” a scrawny man asked.
“Give me a list and I’ll approve or deny it. Think of stuff like, liberty. And equality. And friendship. Upbeat stuff.”
This mass of rapists and murderers were nonplussed. They wanted me to give them rules. Lay it down for them so they could follow it to the letter. They didn’t trust themselves and I could sense they thought it was a trap. Like I was holding out something for them to take and would snatch it away when they got close.
I wasn’t sure if it was a cop-out or I was still hurting from what MTB had said. I didn’t want to come here as a god and dictate who would live and how they would live.
I was just one person who was himself flawed, deeply flawed.
I needed to start letting go. I couldn’t hold all of Belvaille and the Royal Wing in my fists. My hands simply weren’t that big and every day they were getting weaker.
“How do you know they will make good laws?” Valia asked in the shuttle back to Belvaille.
I felt the familiar joy of zero gravity and smiled despite myself.
“Because their freedom depends on it. They are going to set the bar higher than anyone would have done for them. Just out of paranoia.”
“What if they are faking compliance and recovery, though?” she asked.
“What’s the difference? If someone lives for ten years as a perfect person but in their head wants to do bad things, are we going to find them guilty? Do their bad thoughts hurt us?”
“It just seems like you’re giving them an awful lot of leeway,” Valia pouted.
“They haven’t even submitted their laws yet. Give them a chance.”
As we angled slowly to Belvaille I heard on the radio that there was a technical issue with the docking mechanisms and we would have to wait.
That was fine, I liked feeling light.
The shuttle eventually began to dock and we got banged around like a can kicked down the street. The shuttle’s lights and sirens went haywire and the pilots were cursing and yelling at each other.
I realized: this was it.
They could kill me out here.
Garm could deactivate the port with a flip of a switch, or have the loading arms rip this tiny shuttle in half.
I felt my heart going nuts.
Oh no, not now.
I vaguely heard Valia talking to me urgently, but couldn’t understand her.
At least I couldn’t fall, because I was buckled down in zero gravity.
My eyes went blurry and I couldn’t hear the sirens. Everything just faded away to a pleasant hum of unimportance.
Then I saw the co-pilot turn around and talk sweetly to us.
“—for some reason. We told them they need to fix number eight, but you know how it is on Belvaille,” he said smiling.
I tried to return the grin because I got the idea that was an appropriate response.
He went back to his controls and the shuttle docked as usual.
I turned languidly to Valia and saw she was staring at me and looked quite alarmed.
CHAPTER 34
“Where were you on the night of Goldor the 14th?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
I heard groans and cries reverberate through the city.
The trial on Courtroom Six Street was of course being broadcast via loudspeaker. I had been sticking my foot in it e
ver since I framed Judge Naeb a month ago.
“That was the night Su Dival was murdered and you’re saying you ‘don’t know’ where you were at?” the prosecutor mocked. He wore a feather headdress to stand out.
Belvaille had gotten interested like I hoped, but not as I suspected. Everyone thought it was some great conspiracy to remove the Totki leader. Half thought I was personally involved in the cover-up, half thought I was merely an incompetent dupe and—
“He kill Su Dival,” Hong said, pointing to me.
This trial was so fantastical that they had us mic’d at all times so every bit of entertainment was squeezed out.
The trial was not especially formal. We were yelling at each other across the street. Every once in a while someone would take the stand just for a change of pace.
“How could I kill him? I’d never get away.”
I wasn’t exactly a bad guy in terms of the city. Anti-Totki sentiment was high what with them roaming around interrogating everyone. Me framing the judge and Su Dival’s “killers” hadn’t stopped the Totki, just changed their focus. The only questions in everyone’s minds were how high the orders came from, how broad in scope, and to what purpose.
The Totki themselves were more irrational than ever and considered everyone that wasn’t their clan to be enemies.
“We know you do it. You never like Totki. You try and take our planets!” Hong yelled.
“What am I going to do with a planet? I can barely afford my meals!” I screamed in frustration.
I had been trying to avoid telling people that 19-10 killed Su Dival because no one would believe it. Instead I made a botched murder-suicide-cover-up with me as a stooge. If I had told everyone Su Dival was strangled by magical intelligent underwear it wouldn’t be as bad as this.
“Do we refer to you as the Supreme Kommilaire now or Secretary of City?” the prosecutor asked me.
“How about Supreme Secretary?” I joked.
No one laughed.
“Why is the Deputy Kommilaire unavailable for questioning?” he continued.
“Objection,” the defense attorney sitting next to me said, “irrelevant.” He was covered in one-foot spikes all over his clothes. I think he wanted to appear warlike, but he looked like some kind of cactus.
“He’s on the witness list. How is it irrelevant?” the judge asked.
MTB had vanished. I was a little worried about that. He was a sadistic guy, but he was a relatively truthful sadistic guy. And his recent doubts about the Judge Naeb incident made me wonder how he would react on the stand.
“We know you Kommilaire kill our leader,” Hong pressed. “We have proof.”
“What proof?” I asked, being pretty certain 19-10 hadn’t left anything since he couldn’t carry anything when teleporting.
Hong held up a clear plastic bag.
“Uniform!”
Gasps from the city.
I looked over at the defense and he gave me a look like, “that’s pretty good evidence!” Sigh. Since he wasn’t going to do anything:
“That’s idiotic! Why would an assassin take off his jacket and then leave it behind?”
“You say,” Hong replied.
“Yeah, you tell us,” the prosecutor translated.
“Objection!” I shouted. “You all are morons.”
“Sustained,” the judge gaveled.
The city cried out.
“I mean overruled,” the judge amended.
“Give me that coat,” I told Hong.
“No, you steal it,” he said, covering the plastic bag as if I was going to dash the thirty feet across the street and swipe it before he had a chance to react.
“Your honor, I can’t prove anything about the evidence if I’m not allowed to see the evidence.”
The judge waited. I think he was listening to the crowd. My guess was he didn’t want to be the next judge assassinated.
“Agreed.”
Hong gave the bag to the prosecutor who gave it to my prickly defense, who accidentally lanced the bag with his spines. I removed the jacket from the bag.
Looking at it, I could tell it was real Kommilaire. It wasn’t a knock-off that I could see unless it was high quality. But that didn’t mean anything.
I put the jacket on my head, where it was too tight to even cover my chin.
I turned around so the street could see me.
“Maybe not you, but you people kill Su Dival,” Hong yelled.
I kept twirling and walked back some distance on Courtroom Six Street so people could see the tiny little jacket.
“The Kommilaire don’t have any officers this small,” I said. “This is like children’s size.”
I took off the jacket.
“Yes…yes you do,” Hong said. He was jumping up and down pointing at me. “That girl. Red. Uh…”
Only his lack of language skills and hyperactivity was preventing him from getting it out. He was going to say Valia. This thing might actually fit Valia. What if it did? What if they brought her to the stand? Did I trust her to lie about this? Even if she did, if this thing fit her, what would people do?
“Hong!” I interrupted. “Maybe you killed Su Dival.”
I was just stalling. I hadn’t thought it would elicit any kind of response other than mild confusion.
But the city shook.
Hong erupted in rage.
“Maybe you were working with Judge Naeb so you could run for Governor as representative of the Totki,” I continued, just throwing stuff out there.
Hong, unable to contain himself, blasted a torrent of what I could only assume was Totki dialect.
I thought things were going well until:
“Citizen Rendrae, please approach the stand,” the judge said.
Rendrae waddled up and was sworn in. He wore a bitter expression and hate burned in his eyes. I think he was madder at me than Hong was.
“Why were you with Hank on the day of Judge Naeb’s suicide?” the prosecutor asked.
“Because it was news. I do news,” he answered calmly.
“Who had told you of this? Did you just happen to be walking around? Forgive me, but you don’t seem to possess the physique of someone who is regularly out exercising.”
“I retain the right to protect my sources under the Freedom of Press Act of 074,” Rendrae responded coolly.
No one had any clue what that was, but Rendrae said it with such confidence we all assumed it was actually a thing.
“What did you see in Judge Naeb’s quarters?” the prosecutor asked.
“Hank.”
“Besides Hank.”
“A chair.”
“Besides the furniture and chairs and carpet and paintings!” The prosecutor demanded, his feathers literally getting ruffled.
“Judge Naeb.”
“And what was he doing?”
“Sitting on the carpet. A gun in his hand.”
The city was sweating. It was on the edge of its collective seat.
“Was he dead?”
“I don’t think guns are alive.”
Wow, I had to remember not to ever try interrogating Rendrae.
“Judge Naeb! Was he alive when you entered the chambers?”
“Yes.”
Oh, crap. He was going to bail on me. His journalistic integrity was winning.
“I think he means he was lifelike-looking,” I said from my seat.
“You are not giving testimony now, Supreme Kommilaire, please be silent.”
“Yeah,” the judge echoed.
“How do you know he was alive?” the prosecutor drooled.
“He spoke.”
No! No! No! Shut up, Rendrae!
“And what did he say?”
“He said the same assassin that killed Su Dival was hired to kill Hank. And he was paid for it by the ruling class of Belvaille, which doesn’t want the Supreme Kommilaire around anymore: Garm.”
A million jaws hit the floor, including mine.
CHAPTER 35
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Next time a leader gets assassinated I was just going to tell the truth. It was becoming difficult to keep track of my lies.
I had hunkered down in the Athletic Gentleman’s Club trying to avoid people. I received a lot of free drinks and free food from people who felt like I was sticking it to The Man. Though which man, I wasn’t certain.
There were other people in the club who gave me dirty looks because they felt I was the man and I had killed Judge Naeb, which I had, and Su Dival, which I hadn’t, because of some sinister master plan.
I sensed myself growing less and less popular as the city roiled.
I mean yeah, I killed a judge. And maybe MTB and Rendrae were right and that’s something I shouldn’t have done. But it’s not like he had been a saint. I killed criminals all the time—or at least part of the time. Did he get a free pass because he had been crooked for longer? Because he wasn’t sticking up people with a knife, he was extorting them from the bench?
I needed to retire. Get this election over with and hire some other fool to try and clean up this mess.
“Tough week,” Jorn-dole said.
It was that good-looking blond guy who seemed to be here a lot. The guy must have a bunk upstairs. Though I could understand spending time here, I was doing it myself, and it was a good place to get business done.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Pull up a chair if you want,” I said, suddenly feeling like talking, or at least talking to someone who didn’t know anything about Belvaille.
Jorn-dole sat on the other side of my hard booth.
“Cozy,” he said, fidgeting on the rough surface.
“So what’s your deal?” I asked him.
“Same as anyone else’s, I guess. Trying to live my life and not crap on anyone else’s.”
“Yeah,” I pounced. “That’s it exactly! I mean if everyone did that, I could retire tomorrow.”
“You want to retire?” he asked, surprised.
“I’m old. All this,” and I waved my hand in the general direction of everything everywhere, “is too hard for me now. I don’t think I can hack it much longer. It wears you down.”
“What would you do if you retired?”
I sat there and poked at my food.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I could open a bar. Not here, someplace quiet.”
“You’re going to tend bar? Stand around all night listening to drunks and pouring drinks?”
Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck Page 15
