by Chris Bunch
‘This isn’t for the drink,’ Joshua said. ‘I’d like to repay you for a few moments of your time, Mister Fitzpatrick.’
‘Ah?’ The white-haired man did not take the bill. ‘You have the advantage on me, sir.’
‘My name’s Taylor. John Taylor. I was told you’re considered the . . . mentor, I suppose might be the word, for barmen here on Garrapata.’
‘A compliment carries its own gold. Your money remains your own, Mister Taylor.’
‘A Mister Jalon Kakara drinks here when he comes down from Nepenthe.’
‘Common knowledge,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘He’s not a secretive man. Not in that respect, at any rate. That information is hardly worth the sum you’re offering.’
‘I have heard it said that he is, let’s say, not the most congenial company when he’s displeased.’
‘He would hardly be the first man of means who might be so described,’ Fitzpatrick said.
‘Let me make a couple of assumptions. Since he drinks when he’s traveling, I would assume that he drinks when he is on his home planetoid. Since he is rich, I would assume that he doesn’t mix his own drinks.’
‘Again, your money remains your own.’
‘I’d like to know whether you, perhaps, know of a fellow barman who might have been employed by him on Nepenthe. I’m sure such a man would have fascinating tales.’
‘He might,’ Fitzpatrick agreed. ‘But those tales might not reflect well on his former employer.’
‘Particularly,’ Wolfe said flatly, ‘if Kakara knocked him on his ass when he fired him, or maybe just screamed and generally treated him like a scut.’
‘Are you writing a book, Mister Taylor?’
‘I could be. But I am not.’
‘You know,’ Fitzpatrick said thoughtfully, ‘if you spoke to such a man, if I knew of such a man, you might end up with very damaging information. Someone who didn’t wish Mister Kakara well, someone who himself might have felt his wrath as an innocent, might relish such an event coming to pass.’
‘I’d say so.’
Fitzpatrick picked up a pen and notepad from under the bar, wrote swiftly, tore the piece of paper off, and handed it to Wolfe. ‘Here’s an address where you’ll find someone who’ll be helpful. Give him this note. He’ll tell you whatever you might be interested in.’
His hand picked up the bill, caressed it.
‘Yes,’ Fitzpatrick said gently. ‘Mister Kakara being a bit taken aback is something to relish, indeed. Your drink, by the way, Mister Taylor, is on the house.’
‘So Jerry sent you along, eh?’ The man yawned once again, then got up from the rumpled sheets that turned the narrow couch into a bed. ‘I need some coffee if we’re going to talk about a turd like Kakara. C’mon in the kitchenette.’
Wolfe followed the man through a doorway. There was just room for the two of them. The man filled a small coffeemaker and touched its START stud. Water hissed, and the tiny pot filled with brown liquid.
A starship lifted from the nearby field, and the tiny apartment’s walls shuddered slightly. The man turned his head.
‘Two weeks, and I’ll be off on one of those,’ he said. ‘The hell with the Federation. Things’re bound to be better out in the Outlaw Worlds. Can’t get worse, anyway.’
There was a bottle on the sideboard. The man lifted, shook it. ‘Hell. Isn’t even enough for an eye-opener.’
‘Here. Try some of mine, Mister Hollister.’ Joshua took a hammered-silver flask from an inside pocket and passed it to the man.
‘That’s civilized,’ Hollister said. He found a cup, hesitated, then rinsed it out at the sink, knocking over a couple of the unwashed dishes when he did. ‘Now, if there’s another cup around . . .’
‘Just some water,’ Wolfe said. ‘It’s a little late for coffee for me.’
‘All right.’ Hollister cleaned a glass that had A MEMORY OF SHELDON SPRINGS etched into it and gave it to Joshua. He unscrewed the cap of the flask, sniffed, looked surprised. ‘Lordamercy,’ he said. ‘It’s almost a shame to pour this on top of the crap I’ve been drinking lately.’
He looked swiftly at Joshua, as if afraid Wolfe was going to agree with him, then poured until his cup was about half full. He added coffee to the mixture, gave the flask back to Wolfe.
Joshua poured two fingers into the glass, then added water from the tap.
They went back into the main room. Hollister pushed the sheets off the end of the couch, sat, and indicated a chair. Wolfe sat, putting his glass carefully on a rickety table.
‘I owe Jerry large,’ Hollister said. ‘And maybe I’d like to come back this way again if things don’t work out, out there, so I’ll give you whatever you want as a favor. What do you need?’
‘Nobody’s asking for a free ride,’ Joshua said. He took out a bill, folded it in half, and set it on the table.
‘For that,’ Hollister said, ‘you can brainscan me about Kakara and damn near anything else. What do you need?’
‘You were on Nepenthe?’
‘There, and two or three times he told me to go with him on that tub of his, the Laurel. Mister, I hope you’re planning to do some serious damage to Kakara. I’d call him a prick, but that’s the best part of a man, and he doesn’t qualify in my eyes. The only person he treats worse’n the help is that poor goddamned wife of his.
‘What’re you going to do to him?’
Wolfe shook his head. ‘I’m just interested in hearing some stories. No more, no less.’
Hollister looked disappointed; he drank about half of what was in the cup.
‘The first thing I’d like to know is how you got the job,’ Wolfe said.
‘First question you ought to ask,’ Hollister said, ‘is why I got so friggin’ dumb as to want it in the first place. But I’ll start where you told me.’
‘All right,’ the woman snapped. ‘You. Taylor. Get in here.’
Joshua obediently stood, moved out of the row he sat in, past the knees of the other waiting men and women, and followed the woman into her office.
She slammed the door hard.
‘What in the hell makes you think a good man like Mister Jalon Kakara would ever be interested in hiring you?’
‘Perhaps,’ Joshua said calmly, ‘because I’m one of the best bartenders in the Federation.’
‘You say that. But I looked at your fiche. God’s blazes, you’ve got a better record as a vagrant than a barman. Looks like you’ve worked on a dozen worlds or more. Haven’t you ever heard of job stability? That’s what employers really want.’
‘I haven’t found any problem getting work,’ Wolfe said, his tone still unruffled. ‘Perhaps my trade has different standards than what you’re accustomed to.’
‘Like hell,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve been running an employment agency for twenty years, so don’t tell me what I’m accustomed to and what I’m not. Taylor, I wouldn’t even bother calling Mister Kakara’s personnel director about someone like you. Pity’s sakes, I’m surprised I’m not thinking about calling Customs and asking why the hell you were allowed on Garrapata, anyway.’
‘I’m sorry to have taken your time,’ Joshua said, and stood.
His hand was on the sensor when the woman spoke again. ‘Mister Taylor, would you wait for a moment?’
Wolfe turned around. The woman’s entire manner had changed.
‘Would you please accept my apology for my atrocious behavior?’
Wolfe put surprise on his face. ‘Of course.’
‘Would you sit down, please, sir? And could I get you something to drink?’
‘No. No, thank you.’ Wolfe returned to his chair. ‘But could I ask what’s going on? This entire interview has been very irregular.’
‘You certainly may. And I’d appreciate it if what I say not go out of here. When you came in, saying you understood my agency hires experienced service personnel, and that you further understood Jalon Kakara was one of my clients, and you were interested in entering his employ, I, qui
te frankly, wanted to just ignore you.
‘But Mister Kakara pays me well. And often,’ the woman added, a note of bitterness in her voice, ‘as he damned well should, considering the number of people he goes through.
‘The reason I behaved like an utter bitch, Mister Taylor, is that Kakara is one of the most unpleasant beings I’ve ever had the misfortune to have as a client. I like to form a long-term relationship with my employees, since as you well know there aren’t very many good ones in the service sector. Least of all’ - and she tapped Wolfe’s carefully forged resume - ‘ones with your credentials and capabilities, which, of course, I’m actually most impressed by.
‘So I determined to test you, to see if I thought you might be able to survive working for him. If you’d shouted back at me, or told me you thought I was an evil-behaved slut, I would have apologized, explained, and then found you another place to work where you’d be far happier. But you appear to have the skin of a rhinoceros and the patience of a saint.
‘Now do you understand why I acted as I did?’
‘I do. You needn’t apologize any further. I’ve already been told Mister Kakara can be difficult.’
‘Not can be. Is. Almost all the time. Do you still wish to work for him?’
‘I do.’
‘Could I be nosy, and wonder why?’
‘Perhaps because of the challenge,’ Wolfe said.
‘I’ve heard,’ the woman said, carefully looking away from Joshua, ‘that Kakara doesn’t much care about what someone did before he arrives on Nepenthe. He feels he’s his own law and can handle anything that happens on his world. He doesn’t need to pay much attention to anyone else’s laws . . . or to their outlaws.’
‘Is that right?’ Wolfe’s voice was mildly interested.
The woman stared hard at him, and he returned her gaze, his expression bland, closed.
FOUR
Nepenthe had been built during the war, for the war, by its money, and when the war and the money ran out, it’d been abandoned as quickly as the nameless ten-mile-long chunk of igneous rock had swarmed with workers after the first Al’ar raid into the Federation.
It had been moved from its original orbit into a Lagrangian point off Garrapata and its rotation had been stilled. The planetoid was named ODS(M) (S)-386 and was ready to be fanged.
The sunward face of the moonlet was studded with solar energy cells, and the receptors were shielded. On the ‘outward’-facing surface, where a jutting crag spoiled the illusion of a beef tenderloin abandoned on a grill, the rock had been cut away and a small domed outpost built.
The top of the crag was beveled flat, and the tiny world’s single weapon installed there. It was a massive sun gun, hardly the most sophisticated of weapons but effective in defense, and was manned by hastily trained Garrapatian recruits.
Orbital Defense System (Manned) (Solar) Number 386.
Other planets in the Federation were given equivalent defense systems, while the Outlaw Worlds, officially called the Frontier Systems, were ignored, left open to not infrequent Al’ar assaults and even conquest.
With peace, no one wanted or needed ODS(M) (S)-386, but it was only abandoned for three years. Jalon Kakara needed a base for his merchant fleet, where the hastily converted transports wouldn’t be troubled with registry, safety, or crewing regulations.
The barracks area was extended and became first docks, then shipyards. On the far side of the peak the sun gun had once topped, converters churned the rock into soil, added nutrients, and a park was sculpted. Then the entire planetoid was domed and given an atmosphere.
Where the sun gun had been, Kakara built his great palace. Energy was free, and so antigrav generators held the soaring, sweeping arcs of buildings, terraces, and decks above the ground’s defiling touch, curving ramps connecting them, a dream of flight in stone and steel.
On one of those terraces Joshua Wolfe, obsequious in white coat, black trousers, and a disarming smile, polished the last glass until it gleamed, and set it with its brothers on a shelf.
He was on a verandah that opened on a swimming pool artfully made of rock so it looked like a sinuous forest pond. To his right was the lushness of Kakara’s park, to the left the black-and-gray industrial boil of Nepenthe’s heart.
Above and behind him, accessible by a seemingly unguarded ramp, were the multilevel rooms that made up Jalon Kakara and his wife’s private apartments.
He had been on Nepenthe for almost a month and had yet to meet his master.
‘Hey, friend. How’s about some service?’ The voice was, at the same time, tough and tentative.
The man it belonged to was medium size, overweight, and wore a lounging suit that had been custom-made for a bigger man, then hastily retailored.
‘Good morning, Mister Oriz.’
The man eyed him with the cold look of a toad considering a fly’s vitamin content. ‘You know me, eh?’
‘Yes, sir. The agency was kind enough to provide a description of all members of Mister Kakara’s immediate staff.’
‘First mistake, Taylor. You are Taylor, right? I ain’t staff. I’m Mister Kakara’s friend. That’s all.’ The cold eyes waited to be believed, looked away when they were satisfied, then returned to check.
Wolfe had been warned about Jack Oriz. Friend he might have been, as much as Kakara recognized the term. He also provided security for the magnate and, like many hangers-on, had a fine-honed sense of paranoia. One of the maids had said Oriz’s first name had been different, but he’d changed it to wear Kakara’s monogrammed hand-me-downs.
‘My apologies, sir.’
‘Too early to drink?’
‘The sun’s up, sir. And I’m on duty. What can I bring you?’
‘You know how to do a Frost Giant?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Wolfe took five bottles from a freeze cabinet, poured measured amounts into a double-walled glass, then unlocked another cabinet. He pulled on insulated gloves, took out a flask, opened it, and with tongs dropped a purple-streaked, hissing bit of nastiness into the mixture. What appeared to be flame shot up, then swirling mists rose around it.
He set it in front of Oriz with a flourish.
‘Not bad,’ the man said without the slightest note of approval. ‘Mix yourself whatever you’re having.’ It wasn’t a suggestion.
Wolfe refilled his coffee mug.
‘Don’t drink on the job, eh?’
‘I don’t drink at all, sir.’
‘Another one of the reformed ones.’
‘No, sir. Never started.’
‘Then how’d you end up doing what you’re doing?’ Oriz asked.
‘My mother owned five bars, so I grew up in the business. ’
‘What happened?’
‘The war.’
Oriz grunted, lost interest. ‘What do you think of working here?’
‘So far, it’s a good job, sir. I’m looking forward to meeting Mister Kakara.’
‘Yeah, well, our business took a little longer than we thought. Jalon’ll throw himself a welcome-home party tonight. You’ll meet him then. It’ll probably get wild.’
Wolfe shrugged. ‘It’s his world, and I’m drawing his silver. Why not?’
‘Maybe you haven’t seen real wild. You ever heard the joke about Jalon, the two whores, and the Chitet?’
He told it. The story was improbable, obscene, and made Kakara out as a sex-happy fool. Wolfe had heard it three times before on other worlds, each time with a different rich man as the center. The first version had involved the Earth-King Henry VIII and a pope.
When Oriz had finished, he laughed loudly, his eyes never leaving Joshua’s face. Wolfe permitted himself a polite chuckle.
Oriz finished the last of his drink, stood.
‘Another, sir?’
‘More than one of those every couple hours and the party’ll have to start without me. Besides, I got work to do.’ He turned and waddled away. He veered slightly to the side once, almost slipping into t
he pool, corrected his course, and vanished down one of the ramps.
Wolfe looked thoughtfully after him, then knelt and began checking the underside of the bar’s shelves. He found what he was looking for under the bottom one. It was a gray-green ovoid, a phrase-activated surveillance bug.
‘Very cute,’ he said below a whisper. ‘Say the secret word or retell Oriz’s little story, and win a thumping.
‘I am looking forward to meeting you, Mister Kakara.’
It was late.
The series of rooms set aside for the party were packed. Joshua wondered where all the people had come from. Not even a yacht as big as the Laurel could have held them all. He’d seen a few of them in Kakara’s absence, wandering around the sprawling mansion, planets without a system.
Now the sun had returned, and the magnate’s well-paid friends swirled about him. The music that boomed around Wolfe as he made his way through the crowd, balancing a tray of champagne flutes, came from a quartet on a platform halfway up one wall. It was supposed to be Indian skitch, he guessed, its edges rounded by the distance from New Calcutta, the mediocrity of the musicians, and the tastes of the audience. Joshua thought wryly that the two or three dozen people present who might’ve been young enough to like the real stuff were more likely to bat their eyes and prefer the tastes - in everything - of their older and richer ‘friends.’
He moved around a woman who was leaning against a replica of Michelangelo’s Victory and staring contemptuously at a man sprawled on the floor at her feet. Someone had scrawled KAKARA RULES on the conqueror’s knee.
Two women in old-fashioned tuxedos were dancing skillfully with each other.
An old man sat backward in a Chippendale chair, maneuvering a model of a de Ruyter-class monitor around as if he were ten years old.
A man Wolfe noted for his classically handsome features was holding an intense conversation with the dancer in a Degas painting Joshua was fairly sure was real.
A troupe of ignored acrobats arced back and forth near the ceiling like playful swallows.
