Dead Dwarves Don't Dance

by Derek J. Canyon

  The three men stopped two meters from Noose. The dwarf retrieved the cashcard and stepped a pace back from the table.

  “We don’t know no Munk,” the bearded man said, looking down at the dwarf with hands on hips.

  “Someone here does. Munk likes puking in this dump. Everybody knows that.”

  “You got some nerve coming in here,” someone said.

  “Maybe he’s a cop, Cliff,” a man said to the black-bearded man.

  “You a cop?” Cliff asked.

  Noose smirked and didn’t answer.

  “Well, you can just go tell your Reggie boss that he’s not going to get a rise out of us no matter how many cops he sends in here.”

  “Too bad this stunty didn’t get torched with the rest of the runts,” someone in the crowd commented. Several heads nodded in agreement, a few people chuckled.

  “Munk did the torching of those runts,” Noose stated flatly, “and I want to talk to him about it.” The dwarf watched the looks of surprise that appeared in the crowd.

  “Says you,” said Cliff.

  “Yeah, says me. You going to tell me where I can find him?” Noose looked around at the rest of the crowd. “Any of you? Are you all going to protect a mass-murderer?”

  “Murderer? More like exterminator. Cleaning out the rodents.” Cliff laughed, but now there were fewer people laughing with him.

  Noose nodded grimly, scratching at the thick stubble on his jaw. He pulled his duster aside, revealing the grip of his heavy pistol in its shoulder holster. “I don’t think I like you laughing.”

  Cliff’s eyes narrowed, then glanced at his friends. “Gimli here has a gun. Oooh, I’m shaking. I wonder if he can pull it before I rip his stubby little legs off.”

  “No way, Cliff!” one of his friends said. “This little gimli is vatburger already.”

  “Go ahead and try,” Noose told the big man.

  Cliff laughed and turned, patting his friend on the shoulder. Without warning he spun around, lunging for dwarf. His face smashed full into the barrel of Noose’s Stormer, and the dwarf sidestepped, pushing the big man to smash through a table. Beer, pretzels, and customers scattered in all directions.

  Noose kept spinning around, ducking low to avoid a beer bottle that the second man swung at him. He struck out with the Stormer again, smashing it against the man’s knee. As that assailant fell back, holding his leg and yelping in pain, the third came at Noose with a chair. Held high above his head, the man swung down with all of his strength, only to jar his arms as the metal chair hit the floor where the dwarf had been. Before he could react, the Stormer came down on his head and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Noose stood over the unconscious man, Stormer and Wardog in his practiced hands. “Anybody else?”

  No one stepped forward, but Noose heard a groan emanate from near the jukebox. Cliff rose slowly, holding a hand to his bloody face. Noose walked toward him, motioning for the crowd to move aside.

  “I’ll probably find him soon, but the next time you see Munk you tell him he’s on borrowed time. I won’t stop until I find him.”

  Cowering under the heavy barrel of the Stormer pointed at his head, Cliff did not respond. Noose slowly backed to the door.

  “I’ll be leaving now,” Noose stated. “You may now return to your regularly scheduled bigotry.” He turned and exited the bar. Holstering his guns, he hurried down the street to the Celerity. Adjusting the rear-view mirror to give him a good look at the door to Barker’s, he settled down in the seat and waited.

  35

  Noose was finishing off his third cigar when Cliff finally emerged from the bar. He had a fresh white bandage on his face. One of his two friends limped after him. The two men walked across the parking lot and climbed into a Chevy truck. The vehicle roared to life and squealed out of the lot, turning down the street and speeding past where Noose sat parked.

  Noose tossed the spent cigar out the window and pulled into the street after the departing Chevy. He tailed it onto the 285 expressway and down to the IC-20 interchange, where it turned west and sped along through the traffic. Noose remained well back, but easily managed to follow Cliff down an off-ramp and into the modular apartment neighborhoods of Douglasville.

  Noose followed the truck through a maze of identical blocks of modular buildings stacked high on each side of the narrow streets. Skywalks, plumbing, and electrical conduits, dripping with garbage and other debris, crossed the streets, connecting the buildings at numerous levels. A body hung from a balcony, probably killed for noncompliance with gang extortion.

  With no other traffic, Noose cut his lights and dropped back. His gengineered night vision enabled him to wend his way along the filthy streets, following the taillights of the truck a few blocks ahead of him.

  A bottle shattered against the Celerity’s windshield. A bullet punctured the roof and disappeared into the passenger seat. Someone sprinted across a skywalk. The inhabitants of this neighborhood were poor drudges, gangers, bums, and other riffraff. Noose didn’t want a confrontation with punks, so he increased speed, gaining on the truck while warily watching the skywalks and side streets.

  After several more blocks, Cliff stopped the truck and jumped out.

  Here, the buildings soared ten stories and the ground floors were exclusively garages, nearly all of them open and empty, their doors ripped off by thieves and vandals. Stairs led up the outside to elevated walkways on each level, leading to the apartment doors.

  Noose pulled onto the sidewalk a block back, behind a jumble of discarded furniture. He watched Cliff cross the street and hurry up an exposed stairway. His companion stepped out of the truck with a shotgun and glanced around nervously.

  Cliff climbed to the fourth floor and crossed the street on a skywalk. He turned into an entryway and seconds later came rushing back out, sprinting toward the stairs. Leaping down five or six steps at a time, he yelled at his friend: “Get the truck started! We’re outta here!”

  The other man jumped into the driver’s seat. Cliff hit the street as the truck revved; he dove into the bed and slapped his hand on the roof. “Move it! Move it!”

  The truck squealed and sped away, careening around the next corner.

  Noose did not follow. He sat silent in the car, gazing up at the entryway Cliff had used. Minutes passed. A few bums wandered aimlessly along the street. Gunshots rattled in the distance. Noose started on a new cigar, and still nothing happened. Finally, he glanced around, started the car, and backed it into one of the open garages. He stepped out, squishing sewage underfoot. A vagrant with glazed eyes, dressed in torn and filthy rags, stood in front of the garage.

  “Hey!” the man slurred, “this is my place.”

  Noose shoved a cashcard into the vagrant’s grimy hand. “Not for the next thirty minutes, buddy. Make sure nobody touches the car and you’ll get another card just like that when I get back.”

  The man gaped at the fifty-cred card, showing toothless gums, and nodded vigorously. He shuffled to the nearby pile of furniture, pulled a wobbly plastic chair from the mess, and sat down. He giggled a bit as he lifted a bottle to his lips and chugged away.

  Noose, meanwhile, affixed an egg-sized mini-charge to the garage wall. Anyone walking into the garage would suffer the full effects of the anti-personnel explosive.

  Noose walked down the street and up the stairs of a building two blocks away from the one Cliff had entered. He climbed to the sixth floor, and from this vantage point could see the dim outlines of curtained windows. Barrel fires burned in the streets. Vid noises, arguments, groans, and shouting drifted out of the apartments he passed. He stomped along the walkway for a full four blocks, carefully eyeing the one apartment of interest as he passed by. From across the street and two floors up, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to warrant Cliff’s madcap flight. He shrugged and continued another block before turning left to cross the street on a skywalk.

  Something small and black dropped from above a
nd landed directly in his path. Noose looked down at the throttled remains of a crow, neck twisted, feathers viciously plucked.

  Several raucous cries accompanied loud clangs and thumps of movement. Noose glanced up to see a dozen shapes climbing, swinging, and dropping through the conduits and walkways above him. Within seconds, the dark shapes had blocked both ends of the skywalk, stranding Noose six floors above the pavement.

  The dwarf grimaced. Seven gutterpunks crowded the path in front of him, and at least that many behind. Several more remained on the conduits above him. Clad in worn black leather, most of the punks looked no older than fourteen. Their hair, long and unkempt, was festooned with black feathers.

  “Halferboy trapped!” cawed one of the punks, apparently the leader of this gang. He wore a black leather jacket decorated with feathers. A faint shadow on his cheeks pegged him as the oldest of the gang. Maybe seventeen. “Peck eyes out!”

  He hefted a shotgun and shook it above his head. The gang cawed like a bunch of blackbirds. A few of the others also displayed firearms, mostly ancient revolvers. The rest struck menacing poses with pipes, chains, axes, and even a sword or two.

  “Yo, halfer! Our flight zone! Wing it!”

  “I’m just visiting some friends,” Noose said. “No need to ruffle your feathers.”

  “Grinboy! Funnybeak. No friends. Fly!” The kid pointed toward the street far below.

  “Halfer not fly!” shouted a punk perched on a conduit two stories up. He swung a homemade flail. “Halfer splat!”

  “Not likely, featherhead,” Noose scowled. “Look. I don’t have time for this. How much to get by?”

  “Eh?” asked the leader.

  “Creds!” a punk shouted. “Creds, Nightwing!”

  “Creds? Creds we got. Creds we get! We Crows. Fight rippers. Grounders pay creds.”

  “That’s real nice,” Noose grunted, “but I don’t need protection from rippers. Now, how many creds will it take for you Crows to let me take care of biz?”

  “No creds, Nightwing!” shouted the ganger on the conduit. “Halfer splat!”

  “Halfer splat,” Nightwing crowed, swinging the shotgun around to aim at Noose.

  Noose drew his Stormer and fired twice. The first shot winged the leader in the right bicep, a clean flesh wound. He screamed and dropped the shotgun, stumbling sideways against the railing. The second shot ruptured a pipe near the flail-waving ganger, releasing a blast of steam. The ganger slipped off the conduit and crashed through a tangle of wires, struts, and conduits before grabbing hold of a cable. His flail clanged on the street far below.

  As the leader bled and the loud ganger swung from the cable, Noose waved his Stormer at the rest of the kids. “Okay, you gutterpunks, shoo!”

  “Not gutterpunks!” Nightwing growled. “Crows! Flyboys!”

  “Whatever,” Noose said, pulling another cashcard from his pocket. “I’m going to be here for half an hour. Here’s three hundred creds. You punks stay out of my way and I won’t kill any of you. Got it?”

  Nightwing glanced around at his fellow gang members. “Flock?”

  A few silent seconds passed, but then, one by one, each nodded and cawed. Except one. The loud ganger, struggling to a skywalk, did not respond.

  “Puckle!” Nightwing called. “Puckle vote! Flock vote!”

  The ganger glared at Nightwing, and shook his head.

  “So sad, too bad,” Nightwing said. “Puckle outvoted. Halfer not splat.”

  Puckle ran away into the maze of struts and piping.

  “Flock votes,” Nightwing said to Noose. “Flock agrees. Creds.” He held out a bloody hand.

  Noose strode forward and gave the card to Nightwing. “Now, get the flock out of here.”

  Nightwing pocketed the cash, retrieved his shotgun, and signaled the others. As quickly as they had appeared, the Crows vaulted away on the skywalks and pipes, and Noose stood alone. He did not holster the Stormer.

  He went to the entryway Cliff had used. Three meters inside, a pair of doors led to adjacent apartments. One of the doors stood open, damaged by a shotgun blast. A single ceiling light shone down on a short hall. A pool of blood had dried on the floor near the door. Noose noted a loose wire on the floor. He picked it up and followed its course with his eyes. The wire ran from a small hook on the door, through several eyelets screwed into the plastic walls, to the trigger of a shotgun clamped to the ceiling at the end of the hall.

  The dwarf grinned, kicking the door shut behind him. The blood was many hours old, but it had been enough to spook Cliff.

  Whoever tripped the shotgun trap had been dragged off by a companion, as evidenced by scrape marks in the blood.

  Stormer still in hand, Noose walked down the hall and turned into the living room. He saw only furniture and plastic dishes encrusted with the remains of various meals. He scared a rare normal rat in the kitchen, but after a quick scan found nothing out of place there or in the other rooms.

  “Vid on,” he said, and the vidwall in the living room blinked on, showing the ubiquitous Minisoft logo before switching to Munk’s default background image: superstar Anastasia Carpone in one of her more famous pornographic poses.

  “Report last access date and time,” Noose commanded.

  “Last access 1407 hours, March 13, 2134, baby,” the computer responded in Carpone’s sultry voice. Yesterday.

  “Report last unauthorized memory access attempt.”

  “Oh, I was violated at 1407 hours, March 13, 2134. It was so bad.”

  “Display security recordings, 1350 through 1415, March 13, 2134.”

  “This apartment does not provide that service, handsome. Please call your GrünHaus Modular Apartment representative to upgrade your security service. You can also upgrade me to a holographic interface. Wouldn’t you love to interface with me holographically? I could do so much more for you.”

  “Access personal records.”

  “Unauthorized request. Password required for that, baby.”

  “Cancel. Report last outgoing communications.”

  “1132 hours, March 13, 2134.”

  “Redial.”

  The computer beeped several times, and a telephone number appeared on the screen. After a few seconds, an inset screen appeared, revealing a man in a rumpled red suit and tie.

  “Howdy! You’ve reached Century Used Recreational Vehicles.” He reached up and ran a hand along slicked black hair. “I’m Wade Winthrop-Worrelly. There’s no one here to answer your call. But you must need one of my used vehicles pretty darn bad. And, hey! I’ll be happy to let you have one. Just come in tomorrow and we’ll wheel and deal. Century opens at ten a.m. If you know what you’re looking for, just leave a message when I say so. Otherwise, see you in a few hours. Please record your–”

  “Disconnect. Vid off.”

  Noose returned to the bedrooms at the end of the hall. He searched more thoroughly this time but found nothing but clothes and shoes, and some audio and video chips. After a last glance around the living room, he turned back down the entry hall and left the apartment.

  Back on the walkway, Noose bee-lined for the nearest stairwell. He had no desire to encounter any more Crows. Once on the street, he made for the garage where he had left the Celerity. As he neared, he could see and smell smoke emanating from within. Two bodies lay in front. Blood covered the prone form of the bum, his head battered by some heavy blunt object. Noose bent down and felt for a pulse, finding none.

  The other body still held a bloody metal flail. Shrapnel from the anti-personnel charge had ripped through Puckle’s head and chest. No need to check for a pulse.

  “Puckle dead!”

  Noose spun around, Stormer in hand. Nightwing stared at Puckle’s shredded body. “Puckle dead!”

  “Yeah,” Noose nodded. “Puckle not smart. But you didn’t like him anyway.”

  Nightwing stared at the dwarf, his face darkening. “Halfer deaded Puckle! Crows dead halfer!”

  Noose raised his gun. “
No. Not likely. Instead, why don’t we make another deal?”

  “Deal?”

  “This block is your territory, right?”

  The ganger nodded, then turned his head to look at Noose sideways.

  “Did you see anyone drag a body out of that apartment I just came out of?”

  The ganger nodded again.

  “What did they look like? What were they driving?”

  “Deal?”

  “Five hundred creds.”

  “Fancy car. Lots of guns. Clean suits. Chrome-dome.”

  Noose smiled. “One of them had a skull-plate?”

  “Stayed with car.”

  “That’s good info,” Noose said, tossing the ganger the payment. “Thanks.”

  Nightwing caught the card and ran for the nearest stairwell, shouting and crowing. “Kill halfer! Halfer deaded Puckle! Flock! Kill!”

  “Marvelous.” Noose frowned, scanning the street and buildings. No sign of the rest of the Crows yet, but hoots and calls sounded high above him. Noose jumped into the Celerity, threw the car in gear, and squealed onto the street. Pipes, rocks, and furniture dropped from above.

  Noose floored the accelerator and sped away, doing his best to avoid falling debris, and left the angry Crows far behind.

  36

  Cori, wearing purple pajamas, took another gulp of kaf as Noose shed his overcoat and sat down opposite her at the kitchen table. She smoothed back her disheveled hair, sleepy eyes slowly focusing on the dwarf.

  “So how bad is my car?”

  Noose sighed. “Windshield’s cracked, fender’s busted. There’s a bullet-hole in the roof and passenger seat. It’s got a lot of dents and scratches. Oh, yeah, the left front tire is leaking air.”

  “You could’ve told me you were going into a danger zone. I would’ve rented you a car.”

  “Sorry, Cori. I had no idea I’d be attacked by a flock of kids throwing furniture.”

  Cori laughed, a sound like sweet music to Noose’s ears. “So, besides smashing up my Celerity, what else did you do?”

  “I couldn’t get a line on Grue or Earless,” Noose said, “but everyone who knew them said they hadn’t been seen since the day of the Stiltzkin’s hit.”