by Mike Resnick
Dante stared at him for a moment, then turned back to Matilda. "If he lays a hand on you, tell me."
"I'm not the complaining type," she said. "Anything either of you try to do with me, you do at your own risk."
"Fair enough," said Dante.
Virgil vanished into the hallway.
"He seems to work for you."
Dante shrugged. "He attached himself to me the moment he heard my name. He insists that Dante needs a Virgil to get through the hell of the Inner Frontier." He smiled wryly. "So far he's been right."
"Does he do anything you ask, or is it limited to killing and disposing of bodies?"
"I don't know. I suppose I'll find out someday."
An uneasy silence followed, broken at last by Matilda.
"I'm sure you have things to do," she said. "You'd better be going."
"I will be. We can cover twice as much territory and consider twice as many candidates if we split up. I'll be in touch every week or two until we've finally found our Santiago." He paused. "I'm just giving the Injun a couple of minutes to get the body safely away. Don't let me keep you from doing whatever it is you have to do."
"You're not."
"Of course not." He smiled, walked over to the window, opened it, and pulled up the bag containing the currency. Matilda surreptitiously picked up a nail file from her vanity and held it behind her back as she watched the poet. He hefted the bag without opening it, then tossed it on her dressing table. "You can drop the knife," he said. "We're partners now—and partners don't rob each other."
She placed the file back on the vanity, opened the bag, pulled out the money, checked to see that it was all there, then turned to him.
"How did you . . . ?" she began—but Dante Alighieri was already gone.
10.
He has no future, he has no past,
His eye is sharp, his gun is fast,
He lives for the moment, he lives for the kill,
He's Dimitrios, and he's angry still.
Men aren't all cut from the same mold. Many bounty hunters started out as lawmen, and when they decided they were good enough, they went out to Rim or one of the Frontiers to ply their trade for far more money than a lawman makes.
Some were outlaws, who decided that killing other outlaws was far more profitable than killing the agents of the law who pursued them.
And then there were men like Dimitrios of the Three Burners. No one knew his last name. No one knew where he came from. Some said he grew up on a small world in the Spiral Arm, others say he spent his youth on the Outer Frontier. There was one point where the speculation ended, and that was the day Johnny the Wolf shot his wife and infant daughter. He wasn't aiming for them. In fact, he probably never even knew they were there. He had just finished robbing the bank of Marcellus III, and they blundered between him and the law.
Dimitrios had never fired a hand weapon in his life, but he bought a matched set that afternoon, and spent the next hundred days working from sunrise to sunset at becoming proficient with them. When he felt he was ready, he went out hunting for the Wolf, and finally caught up with him in a casino on Banjo, an obscure little world in the Albion Cluster.
That fight was the stuff of legends. Dimitrios walked right up to Johnny the Wolf as he sat at a table playing cards, placed the muzzle of his burner in Johnny's ear, and fired. Johnny never knew what hit him—but six of his hired killers did, and Dimitrios shot four of them down before one of his burners shorted out and the other was blown out of his hand. He began throwing whiskey bottles, chairs, spittoons, anything he could get his hands on. The two men were no cowards. They fought back gamely, but they were no match for the vengeful Dimitrios, and within a few minutes of Dimitrios entering the casino the Wolf and all six of his men were dead.
Most men would have considered themselves lucky to have survived and returned to their normal lives, but Dimitrios had nothing to return to. He also had the feeling that for the first time in his life, something he'd done had made a difference, that given the geometrical permutations involved, he may have saved as many as a hundred lives by killing those seven murderers, and he decided then and there to go into the bounty hunting business. The first thing he did was buy an extra burner to stuff in his boot, just in case one of the two he wore in holsters should ever short out again, and since he never offered his last name to anyone, before long he was known simply as Dimitrios of the Three Burners.
He didn't talk much, socialized even less, rarely drank, never drugged. If he ever felt like hanging it up and going back to his former life, he just forced himself to remember how it felt when he learned his wife and child had been killed, and he re-dedicated himself to preventing others from sharing that terrible, aching emptiness, that undirected hatred at the universe.
He wasn't interested in bringing anyone back alive. If the rewards didn't specify Dead or Alive, he ignored them. He was even particular about the types of killers he went after. He much preferred to go after those who had killed unarmed women and defenseless children, and he frequently passed up closer, easier, and far more lucrative prey to go after the ones who fit his criteria.
He lived very simply. His clothes were commonplace, even his weapons were not of the best manufacture. His ship was old and unimpressive. Most people felt he was hoarding his rewards. They would have been surprised to know that he kept only enough to live and travel on, and sent the rest to hand-picked charities that gave help and comfort to women who had survived violent attacks and children whose parents had been murdered.
He was on Prateep because he'd been given a tip that Hootowl Jacobs was there, but he hadn't seen any sign on him. He'd heard about this new character called the Rhymer, but when he looked into it, he found it far more likely that the Democracy had killed the Duchess than that the young poet had.
He knew all about Matilda, too, but he had no interest in bringing her down. In fact, he admired her. He liked the way she drove the Democracy and the Frontier's authorities crazy. He knew that she plundered every world she visited; what impressed him the most was that everyone else knew it too, and no one had been able to prove a thing. He'd stopped by the Diamond Emporium to watch her dance—he'd seen her before, and was intrigued by her combination of grace and athleticism—and to see if there was anyone in the crowd who might point him in the direction of Hootowl Jacobs. As usual, he didn't socialize; there was no one there that he either trusted or respected—there were mighty few of either in the galaxy—and so he simply relaxed and enjoyed his drink.
When the show was over, he got to his feet. He'd seen the Rhymer sneak into Matilda's dressing room, but that was no concern of his. He walked two blocks to his hotel, stopped at the bar for a nightcap, and went up to his room.
A few minutes later he heard a single knock at the door. He was still dressed, but his weapons, all three of them, were on the dresser. He quickly walked over, grabbed one, and trained it on the door.
"Come in," he said, uttering the code words that unlocked it.
"Thank you," said Matilda, entering the room. "I think it's time we met."
He shrugged. "I know who you are—and I know what you're supposed to have done. Makes no difference to me. As far as I'm concerned, you're free to keep on doing it."
She smiled. "That's very comforting."
"Is that what you came to find out?" asked Dimitrios.
"No."
"Then have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?"
"No, thanks."
"I don't do drugs, and I don't let anyone around me do them," he said.
"That's all right. I don't drug."
"You're a cheap date," he said, finally lowering the burner and stuffing it in a boot.
"I believe in making every credit count."
"Really? I've heard that you've got money you haven't even counted yet."
"Oh, no—I always count it. How else would I know that I'm not being ripped off?"
"I like you, Waltzin' Matilda," said Dimitrios. "I lik
e the way you dance. I like the fact that you drive the Democracy crazy. And now I find that I like your wit." He paused. "But I still don't know what the hell you're doing here."
"I want to get to know you."
"That's a line I usually hear from some floozy the hotel manager sends up to make sure I don't shoot up the place," he said.
"I'm sure it is," she replied. "But I really do want to get to know you."
"Why?"
"Because from everything I hear you're an honorable man, and they're pretty rare."
"All right, I'm an honorable man. Now what?"
"Now I want you to tell me about the other honorable men you know: who they are, what they do, what they believe in?"
"You want to talk to a minister, not a bounty hunter."
"I know what I want to talk to," said Matilda. She sighed. "Okay, forget honorable. Who's the most formidable man on the Inner Frontier?"
"I am," he said, and when she made no comment, he continued: "I know it sounds egomaniacal, but if I didn't think so, if I didn't truly believe it, then I'd never be willing to go up against some of the men I have to face."
"Who else?"
"There are a lot of formidable men out here," answered Dimitrios. "Hootowl Jacobs, for one. I've heard about a character called Silvermane, out in the Quinellus Cluster. There's the Plymouth Rocker, there's Mongaso Taylor, there's the Black Death, there's a woman they call the Terminal Bitch who's supposed to be as deadly as any of them." He lit a thin smokeless cigar. "And there are some mighty formidable aliens too. From what I hear, there's a pair named Tweedledee and Tweedledum that might be deadlier than any of them."
"Well, that's a start," said Matilda. "How many of them are honorable?"
"Maybe one, maybe none, who knows? Mind if I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
"Why is the most accomplished thief on the Inner Frontier looking for an honorable man? That's kind of like mixing oil and water, isn't it?"
She laughed. "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."
"Probably not, but why don't you tell me and I'll decide for myself."
"Fair enough. I'm looking for an honorable man to train and finance."
"What will you train him to be?"
"A dishonorable man."
He stared at her for a long minute. "That's an interesting notion. What are you looking for—a bodyguard or a partner?"
"Something much more than that," said Matilda. "I'm looking for a leader."
"Leaders are in short supply these days," replied Dimitrios.
"That's why we need one so badly."
"We?" he repeated. "As in you and me?"
"As in the whole Inner Frontier."
"We've never had one."
"Yes we have," said Matilda.
He stared at her curiously. "You're getting at something. I wish you'd come right out and say it."
"It's time for Santiago to return."
He chuckled. "You wouldn't like it much. He's been a rotting corpse for over a century."
"Maybe not," she said.
"Oh?"
"Maybe I'm looking at him right now."
"You've got me all wrong, Waltzin' Matilda," said Dimitrios. "Santiago was the King of the Outlaws. That's just the kind of person that I'm in business to hunt down and kill."
"What if I told you he wasn't what you think?"
"I'd ask what special insight you had into him."
"I'm his granddaughter."
He stared at her, then shook his head. "The numbers are wrong."
"All right," she said with a shrug. "His great-great- granddaughter."
"And you want me to go out and pillage and steal and kill for you?"
"No, I want you to do it for us."
"You and me?"
"The entire Inner Frontier."
"You keep saying that, but it doesn't make any sense."
"Have you got any coffee?" she asked. "Because what I have to tell you is going to take awhile."
He ordered the kitchenette to prepare it, then handed her a cup and finally sat down on a chair that hovered a few inches above the ground, and changed its shape to accommodate his long, lean body.
"All right," he said. "I'm listening."
She proceeded to tell him about Santiago—everything she knew about him, everything her family had said when no one was around to overhear, everything Dante Alighieri had found hidden in the pages of Black Orpheus' poem. It took her close to two hours. When she was done she stared at him, waiting for a reaction.
"I believe you," he said at last.
"Good. That means I haven't wasted either of our time."
"Let me finish," he said. "I believe what you said. I believe Santiago was a secret revolutionary. I'm even willing to believe there was more than one Santiago." He paused, considering his words. "I believe that the time is right for another Santiago. But I'm not your man."
"Why not?"
"I'll help you look for him," continued Dimitrios. "I'll work for him and I'l fight for him." He stared unblinking into her eyes. "But I won't become him."
"Think of the difference you could make."
"Someone else can make it. Not me."
"But why?" she insisted.
"Because I'm not willing to do the things Santiago has to do if he's to be Santiago. I won't give orders to kill innocent men and women. I won't be the one who sends out men to kill young soldiers who are only trying to protect the Navy's payrolls or weapons. I understand why it has to be done, but it's contrary to everything I believe in, everything I am. I'll help you as far as I can, I'll protect you while you and the Rhymer are searching for the next Santiago, I'll never betray you—but I won't be Santiago, not now, not ever."
"You're sure?"
He smiled again. "Santiago is capable of lying. I'm not."
"But you will help us?"
"I said I would."
"Have you any suggestions where we should go next?"
"It'll take some thought," answered Dimitrios. "Santiago has to be able to lie, as I said. He has to send men to their deaths. He has to commit enough crimes to convince the Democracy that he's a criminal and not a revolutionary, and he has to be brutal and efficient enough to discourage any criminals on the Frontier from trying to take over his operation." He shook his head and added wryly, "He could be every scumbag I've ever hunted down."
"But he's not," she pointed out. "With him, it's a facade."
"I know. But they're not traits you're likely to find in a minister."
"That's why we decided to start with lawmen or bounty hunters," said Matilda.
"Maybe," said Dimitrios dubiously. "The question is who you trust more: a man who's been an outlaw all his life, or a man who's willing to become an outlaw on five minutes' notice."
"I see your point."
"Tell me about the one they call the Rhymer," he said. "I know he spent some time in your dressing room on Prateep. What's his interest in all this?"
"He's the one who sought me out in the first place."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "He wants to write poems about Santiago."
Dimitrios considered her answer for a moment, then nodded his head. "I suppose Orpheus needs a Santiago as much as Santiago needs an Orpheus."
"And what do you need?"
"I need men who deserve to die for what they've done. Right now I need one named Hootowl Jacobs. I heard a rumor tonight that he might have gone to Innesfree II. That's where I'll be heading tomorrow."
"If he's the one we're looking for, you won't kill him, right?"
"If he's the one you're looking for, I'll have to reevaluate my pledge to you," said Dimitrios.
"What has he done?"
"You don't want to know."
"Whatever it was, he did it to a woman," she said. "I know that much about you. That's why I was willing to come alone to your room."
"I saw you take that drunk out with a spinning kick," said Dimitrios. "You handle yourself just fi
ne."
She got to her feet. "Tell me where your ship is and I'll meet you there in the morning."
"You're coming along?" he said. "Don't you have any professional engagements?"
"I'll cancel them and pick up work wherever you're going."
"We might to better going in three directions—you, me, and the poet."
"I'm coming with you," she said adamantly.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
"So where's your ship?"
"There's only one spaceport. Be there an hour after sunrise."
She got to her feet and walked to the door, then turned back to him. "I can't help thinking it should be you. You're such a goddamned moral man."
"You don't want such a goddamned moral man," he assured her. "You want a man who understands his purpose and will do whatever he has to do to succeed. I'm not that man."
"Well, you might at least look a little sad about it."
"Why?" he said. "Whoever he is, he is—or soon will be—the most important man on the Inner Frontier. We both know he's out there somewhere. What could be more challenging that finding him?"
"Convincing him that he's Santiago?" she suggested.
"When we find him, he'll know," said Dimitrios with certainty. "Hell, he's probably busy being Santiago right now. All we have to do is find him and tell him what his true name is."
"You really believe that, don't you?"
"If he's Santiago, the one thing he's not is a fool. If he's got the abilities we're looking for, he's been honing them, getting ready to meet his destiny. Our job is to point it out to him and convince him we're right."
"Do you really think we will?" asked Matilda.
"As sure as my name is Dimitrios of the Three Burners."
11.
Hootowl Jacobs loves his life.
Hootowl Jacobs takes to wife
A woman here, a woman there—
A bigamist, but one with flair.
Dante wrote that verse about Hootowl Jacobs, but he was still new at the job, and he made a major mistake, one Black Orpheus never made: he relied upon other people's descriptions and recollections. He never met Hootowl Jacobs himself, and that was the real reason the verse was so flawed.
