The Thirteenth Man

by J. L. Doty

  Sally threw her head back and roared, tears streaming down her face. “Hey Becky,” she shouted, and the little girl stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.

  “What you want, Sally?”

  “Frankie here thinks you thirteen years old.”

  Becky’s eyebrows shot up. She marched down the length of the bar to stand in front of Charlie. She batted little schoolgirl eyes at him. “Thirteen?” she asked, clearly pleased.

  Janice and Trina joined the other two girls. “Thirteen,” they said in unison, shrieking with laughter.

  “Frankie,” Sally said. “Becky’s almost thirty.” The girls all shrieked as they slapped Becky on the back.

  Becky put her hands on her hips, again batted those little schoolgirl eyes at him. “I got some regulars pay good money for this look.” The shrieking intensified.

  “But they mainly pay good money for what you do on your back,” Sally added.

  “And sometimes on my hands and knees too,” Becky said.

  “And sometimes up against a wall,” Janice quipped.

  The shrieking began anew. The girls walked back into the kitchen, loudly enunciating all the different positions in which they made their living.

  Charlie focused on his breakfast.

  The Aagerbanne situation was headline news almost every day, though the details were sporadic. The independent states were being drawn into the conflict. Having been through a war himself, Charlie could read between the lines, guessed that some of the information was carefully released propaganda, and some just plain inaccurate. But one thing was clear: both the guerilla tactics and Goutain’s brutal suppression were getting nastier, and the Free Aagerbanni Resistance was struggling. Still nothing about Cesare.

  On his third tenday working in Momma’s, Charlie was tending bar during the slow hours between lunch and dinner. The place was empty, and he was killing time polishing glasses and thinking he might ask Momma for a loan to get a fake identity and an off-­planet ticket. Outside it was a hot, dry, summer day, and the light that splashed through the open doorway cast long shadows the length of the bar which, by contrast, made the entire room feel dark and dim.

  Two Syndonese soldiers walked in. They marched up to Charlie; one tossed a flat, printed picture on the bar and demanded in Syndonese, “You ever seen this man?”

  Charlie spoke in standard, imitating a thick trampsie accent. “Sorry. I’m Syndonese not speaking.”

  “Ignorant wog,” one said to the other in Syndonese. He pushed the picture closer to Charlie and switched to standard. “You ever seen this man here?”

  The Syndonese didn’t run Tachaann; it was a wild, free port that was just too wide-­open. But for the past ­couple of tendays everyone had been aware of the increased Syndonese presence, with armed soldiers swaggering up and down the streets, throwing their weight around . . . and making sure those who got in their way paid for it. So while they technically had no official status here, Charlie knew that sometimes the only authority you needed was a gun in your hand. As such, he picked up the photo and pretended to examine it carefully. It was a picture of him, face-­on, but without the scars and all the damage. He turned his head slightly, giving them a view of more bad side than good. He’d learned quickly that ­people didn’t like looking at his messed-­up face, and when confronted with it they tended to look at something else. The soldiers were no exception.

  Momma Toofat suddenly appeared at his side, and he noticed that the room was slowly filling with every able-­bodied man in Momma’s clan, sitting at tables, standing at the bar or in a shadow, none of them paying any attention to Charlie and Momma and the Syndonese. Charlie shook his head and said, “No, not seen him.”

  Momma said, “Here, let me see.” She reached out and took the photo from his hands. She made a show of looking at it carefully, and as she did so Charlie caught her glancing over the top of the picture at him. Standing beside him she could only compare it to his profile, but she was on his good side, and Momma was not stupid. “No, not seen him. Him do what?” She looked inquisitively at the two Syndonese.

  “Enemy of the state,” one said. “A criminal, wanted for treason. Once we find him he’s a dead man.” The Syndonese snatched the photo out of Momma’s hands, and both abruptly left.

  Momma looked carefully into Charlie’s eyes, then her gaze turned slowly downward to the antique sawed-­off shotgun behind the bar. Charlie’s eyes followed hers. He hadn’t realized he’d picked it up, was gripping it in a white-­knuckled death grip.

  The next morning Janice and Sally woke him from an uneasy sleep. “We gonna do you sometime,” Janice announced.

  Sally added, “So we gonna improve you appearance. Make you even prettier. Make it even more fun for us. Hey Janice, you think maybe we do him together? A threesome?”

  Janice shook her head. “No. That’d kill him. He gonna have enough trouble doin’ you and me one at a time.”

  They dyed his hair and eyebrows black, told him to let his hair grow and told him to grow a mustache, which they would also dye black. “I like a man wit a mustache,” Sally announced. “ ’Specially when he’s doin’ me the right way.” She winked at Janice, and Janice winked back.

  CHAPTER 13

  CAN’T TRUST ANYONE

  Stallas burst into Gaida’s chambers, eager to give her the wonderful news. He shooed her maids and servants out of the room and took her in his arms. “It’s done,” he said. “He died in his sleep last night.” He cupped one of her breasts in his hand and planted kisses on her neck.

  “Can it be traced back to us?”

  “No, my love, not at all. I gave him small doses over a long period of time. If someone knows what to look for, maybe, but since I’m his personal physician, it is I who will be doing the looking.”

  “Excellent!” she said, stepping away from him. A rather unpleasant smile appeared on her face.

  “Computer,” she said. “Send in my guard.”

  He frowned and felt suddenly confused. “What are you doing, my love?”

  “Just cleaning up loose ends, darling.”

  Four men opened the door to her chamber without knocking and marched into the room. They were men with a hard look about them; all were armed, and he’d never seen them in Farlight in all the years he served under Cesare. “My Lady,” their leader said.

  Gaida pointed at Stallas. “Seize him. He murdered my husband.”

  One of the men spun Stallas about, slapped him against the wall and pinned his arms behind his back. He didn’t understand what she was doing.

  “Question him thoroughly,” she said. “He conspired with Cesare’s son Arthur to murder the duke so Arthur could inherit the ducal seat. And make sure there’s something about Arthur growing impatient and tiring of waiting for his inheritance. Use whatever means necessary, but I want a confession to that effect, and don’t listen to any of the other lies he spews.”

  “But my love!” Stallas cried as they dragged him away.

  The last thing he heard her say was, “I don’t care what shape he’s in, so long as I’ve got a confession and he’s alive to stand trial.”

  The political situation in the Realm had stabilized. It appeared that most of the Nine had come to terms with Goutain’s manipulation of the throne. Martino, Delilah, and Adan were still on the loose. Lucius’s press secretary pitched the heavy Syndonese military presence on Turnlee as part of the treaty between the Republic and the Realm. The situation had become just another balance of power, though if Goutain got his hands on Martino that balance could shift dramatically. It was an uneasy peace at best.

  Desperate for information, Charlie went to a public kiosk where he could read the latest news without spending his precious dikkas, and his eyes caught and held on a piece of one headline: His Grace, Theode, Duke de Maris. . .

  Charlie gasped so noticeably that sever
al passersby looked at him oddly. He wasted some of his dikkas, bought the old-­fashioned newspaper and took it back to Momma Toofat’s. There he sat down at the bar since he didn’t have a room of his own, poured a stiff drink, and read it cover to cover several times.

  Cesare had never fully recovered from his injury, had lingered on for a time under the care of his personal physician, then died under mysterious circumstances. There were several quotes from Theode and Gaida, all filled with innuendo implicating Arthur in the mysterious circumstances. Further quotes from Lucius hinted at a conspiracy between Arthur and the physician, Stallas. But Theode, in a grand show of compassion for his dear, beloved brother, and to protect him from the headsman, had arranged to have Arthur declared mentally incompetent and committed to an institution for the criminally insane. Of course, under the circumstances, Arthur couldn’t inherit the ducal seat, and it had passed to Theode. Then the new de Maris duke had thrown his support behind Lucius’s annexation of Aagerbanne. Twerp was getting away with murder because Cesare had been a thorn in Nadama’s side, and all knew Arthur would have followed in his footsteps.

  Charlie decided that someday he’d make them pay for this. They’d taken Arthur and Cesare away from him, and he regretted that he hadn’t gotten off Tachaann and back to Cesare sooner, hadn’t gotten there in time to save him. And he’d let Arthur down too, left him in the clutches of Theode and Gaida. Yes, Theode, Gaida, Lucius, and Goutain; all four of them would pay, if it was the last thing he did.

  “Frankie,” Janice said softly. He looked up from the paper and found her standing next to him, though he had trouble focusing on her. “You doan look so good, Frankie. You drunk, and dinner shift about to start.” She reached out and touched a tear on his cheek, tested it sadly between thumb and forefinger. “An you crying. You doan need to cry, Frankie. You got friends here.”

  For the first time in a ­couple hours Charlie looked around. Momma Toofat stood in the doorway to the kitchen, Nano and Willie in the front doorway, Jonjon behind the bar. They all had concerned looks on their faces. Jonjon said, “Frankie, she’s right. You got problems, we can fix ’em.”

  Charlie stood, and as the floor tilted beneath him he realized he’d been slamming drinks all afternoon. “You can’t fixsh thish, Jonjon,” he said, only then realizing how much he’d drunk. “Not unlesh you can bring someone back from the dead.”

  “Oh, Frankie,” Janice said. “Um so sorry. You take du night off. Le me get you to a bed where you can sleep it off.”

  “Thank you, Janice,” he said, leaning on her and letting her lead him away. “An you goh my name wrong. Iss Charlie.”

  “Doan worry about it, Frankie. Dats okay. We know.”

  Charlie woke up in Janice’s bed badly hungover. Momma showed him no mercy, made him work through the entire day and into the evening. That night he crashed into an exhausted sleep.

  The next day the hangover was gone, but the hole Cesare’s death left in his heart remained. He worked through the day, trying to think of some way he could help Arthur, came up with absolutely nothing, and only managed to increase his frustration at his own helplessness. He had trouble falling asleep that night, had been lying on his mat in the corner of the restaurant for quite some time when a soft, curvaceous, fully naked body slipped under the blanket next to him. “Frankie,” Janice said softly. “I think it’s time I done you.”

  “Pity fuck?” Charlie asked.

  “No, Frankie. Before, I didn’t wanna do you. I didn’t wanna not do you. But still, that woulda been a pity fuck. Now, I just wanna. You and me. And not like a john. I wanna enjoy myself too.”

  She was beautiful, and sexy, and Charlie realized that he had long ago stopped thinking of Janice, Sally, Becky or Trina as anything but young women who worked hard to make a living and hoped to have families of their own someday.

  The next night, at dinner after closing the bar, she announced, “I don’t think I can work no more. Someone here . . .” She looked sidelong at Charlie, “ . . . been sampling the merchandise, and he’s so energetic I don’t got none left for no customers no more.” They all had a good laugh.

  Momma Toofat shook her head sadly. “This bad for business.”

  Everyone roared.

  Charlie was waiting tables and it was a rough night. The Syndonese were especially restless, both the soldiers patrolling the streets and the spacers drunk in the bars. “Frankie,” Momma said. “You got a new group at table five.”

  “I’ll get right to it, Momma.”

  Table five was a booth at the edge of the room. The booths were shadowy, dim places where patrons frequently conducted a lot of illegal business. He delivered a tray full of drinks to another table, then moved quickly to the new group—­tips were usually better when they got some attention right away. He was two steps away from the table when he heard her voice, and he froze. He was about to turn around and get someone else to take the table, but one of the men there had noticed him approaching. “Waiter, we’d like a round of drinks.”

  Charlie didn’t recognize the man’s voice, though the accent spoke of money and power. He took a step forward, kept his bad side angled toward them and spoke standard with a heavy street accent in imitation of the girls. “Yes, sir. Wadooyouwan?” He couldn’t see any of their faces clearly.

  “What do you have?”

  “We got everything, sir. Only du best.”

  The woman lifted her head slowly and peered at him through narrowed eyes. She had gone to some trouble to disguise her appearance, wearing faded spacer’s fatigues with a floppy hat that shaded the upper part of her face, but Charlie knew Delilah all too well. “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” Charlie said. “Maybe you done me one night. I ain’t real expensive, not with this face.”

  One of the men started to rise, but another put a hand on his arm and spoke with a heavy Syndonese accent. “Let it go. Remember where you are.”

  “But he implied—­”

  Delilah leaned into the light. “Charlie? It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout.”

  The man with the moneyed accent asked, “Who’s this Charlie?”

  “Bastard son of Cesare,” Delilah said.

  The Syndonese fellow leaned forward into the light, though his face was still partially obscured by shadows. He asked, “He’s the de Maris bastard?”

  Delilah said, “Yes.”

  Charlie had to get out of this quickly. “Look. I got tables to wait. When you wanna order something, you give me a shout.”

  He turned and marched away, but Delilah called after him, “Charlie, wait. We need to talk.”

  Charlie kept on walking, headed for the kitchen and passed Sally on the way. “Don’t let any customers follow me,” he whispered quickly. He went through the swinging doors into the kitchen and behind him he heard Sally say loudly, “Hey. You can’t go in there.”

  “But I want to talk with him. Tell Charlie I want to talk with him.”

  “Ain’t no Charlie here.”

  Charlie went through the kitchen and into the alley behind the saloon. If Delilah and the Syndonese managed to push past Sally, Nano and the bouncers would be all over them in the kitchen and they wouldn’t get much farther than that. Charlie pressed his back to the alley wall and waited. After about five minutes Nano joined him. “They’re gone, Frankie. It’s safe.”

  It wasn’t safe, not anymore. He’d never been certain he could trust Delilah; after all, she was Lucius’s daughter, and Lucius had become his enemy, and blood ties were always strong, and she’d been working some deal with the Syndonese. “I have to leave here. Tonight. If she just fingered me to the Syndonese I’m a danger to everyone.”

  Charlie bundled up his few possessions: a change of clothes, his knife, his modest accumulation of dikkas, some ration packs he still had from the lifeboat.
He was going to leave by the back alley door, but Momma, Nano, Sally, and Janice cornered him on his way through the kitchen. “You can’t leave without saying goodbye,” Janice announced and threw her arms around his neck.

  Momma gave him a big hug too, and said, “You one of us. We take care of you.”

  Nano told him, “You go cross town, Frankie, to Delago Street. Find Bennie Freehand’s place. Tell him Momma wants him to give you a place to sleep and a job where you ain’t too visible. Tell him I’ll talk to him personal tomorrow.”

  It might have been a good plan, but a dozen Syndonese were waiting in the shadows as he emerged from the alley. He gutted one of them with his knife, but the odds were overwhelming, and in short order they had him neatly bundled up in plast manacles. They tossed him into the back of a police van and sped away.

  Delilah had betrayed him.

  He had a hazy recollection of a beating, not a bad one, because a Syndonese officer intervened and said they were supposed to keep him alive and healthy. Then they drugged him, and kept him drugged, and that made it difficult to keep all the memories straight and in the proper order, and impossible to count the days as they passed. He was almost certain he’d spent some time on a ship, seemed to remember feeling transition a ­couple of times, maybe more. For a while they kept him in a brightly lit cell, then a dark one, then a bright one again, and finally a dark one. He’d been in a car, in a police van, a shuttle of some kind, and a gunboat, always drugged heavily and just at the edge of consciousness.

  There was one strange memory, perhaps just a dream. It had happened recently, maybe, but it kept returning to the forefront of his thoughts. Paul came to mind, and Winston, and Add and Ell, in a dark room, a cell, he was certain of that. A dark cell, possibly even the one he was in now.

  “Charles, you have to pay attention.” That had been Winston. “We’ve had to spread around some liberal bribes to get in to see you, and we don’t have much time.”

  “Try to stay alert, little brother.” It was the only time in Charlie’s memory that he couldn’t distinguish Add from Ell.