She kicked the comm terminal, stood up, and slipped back out onto the street.
25
Silence had taken root in the Green Acres apartment building, only spoiled by the scuffling of rats in the walls. Eddie crept down the hallway as quietly and as quickly as his injuries would allow. No need to spook anyone. He wanted to do this nice and calm and quiet. Take out Williams before he had a chance to fight back, before he could run. Take him out and make him talk.
And to hell with Dom. She’d insist on handing Williams over to the Feds right away. And he’d do that. But not before he had his answers. Not before he knew where Cassandra was.
He approached the door to Victoria Palmer’s apartment, but his eyes touched on the apartment next door. He paused. If he was right about that hidden panel leading into the next apartment, this would be the one. He edged closer, staying against the wall so he wouldn’t be seen by anyone looking out the peephole. He crouched and put his ear against the door. Silence.
He licked his lips. Calm and quiet. That was the way to do this. He examined the lock. Just a cheap pin tumbler lock, the same kind they always used in these kinds of budget apartments. He fished through his pockets and finally found a small set of lock picks in his shirt pocket. He knew he had them somewhere.
With a glance up and down the hallway to ensure he was alone, Eddie inserted a pick and a torsion wrench into the keyhole and quietly began to work. He was no master lock picker, but he’d had enough practice to be able to deal with this kind of cheap lock given enough time and patience. The time wasn’t a problem, but the patience was. His heart kept up a steady rat-a-tat inside his chest as he worked. He didn’t relish the idea of getting in another fistfight with Williams. The man hit like a meteor.
The last pin clicked softly into place and he felt the lock give under the pressure he put on the torsion wrench. Here we go. He drew his pistol, stood, and pressed gently down on the door handle. The door swung open a centimetre.
A copper stench hit him, almost enough to make him gag. Dark inside. He pushed his gun through the gap and shoved the door open with his shoulder.
A shadow sat in a chair in the centre of the room. Eddie’s gun snapped towards the figure. But it wasn’t Williams, it wasn’t big enough. Something black pooled beneath the chair. Eddie’s stomach turned at the smell. The figure wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. He was dead.
Eddie forced the nausea down and swept through the small apartment to the bathroom. A bloody wrench sat in the shallow bathtub, trailing red down the drain. No one else here.
He swung around and returned to the main room, still moving as quietly as possible. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness. He wished they hadn’t.
The man in the chair was shirtless, exposing a dozen cuts across his chest. His head dangled over the back of the chair so he was staring up at the ceiling. Someone had stuffed socks into his mouth and taped them in place with duct tape. Both knees were shattered messes of bone and sinew. Eddie couldn’t see exactly which wound had killed him, and he didn’t want to look close enough to find out.
Roy Williams had left his handiwork behind, but he wasn’t here. He had to come back eventually. Eddie went back to the apartment door, closed it, and flipped the lock.
Now he was all alone in Williams’ apartment with a dead man. Great.
Keeping his pistol in his hand, Eddie started rummaging. A selection of the finest in improvised torture implements were lined up on the single bed. He supposed the fugitive must’ve had more important things to do than sleep.
Come to think of it, how long had it been since he’d slept? He’d lost all sense of time. He should’ve picked up an upper when he was at the liquor store.
Eddie pulled open the wardrobe door and found a small brown suitcase and a duffel bag. The suitcase held a handful of shirts and trousers and jackets, mostly newly acquired by the look of them. He returned the suitcase to the wardrobe and unzipped the duffel bag.
“Well, hello, big spender,” Eddie whispered to himself. He reached into the bag and pulled out a bundle of ten thousand vin notes. He flicked through them. They were real, all right. And the bag was filled with them. No wonder Knox wanted to get his hands on all this. There weren’t many kinds of happiness you couldn’t buy with this much cash. The only thing you needed was a gun to protect it. Williams must’ve had the same idea, because a pistol sat on top of the pile of cash.
He tossed the bundle of cash back into the bag and zipped it up. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the cash with him. Williams wouldn’t need it where he was going.
But before he could grab the bag, he sensed movement behind him. Eddie spun, raising his gun.
The man in the chair was staring at him.
Eddie bit back a cry and took a step away from the man before he caught himself. The tortured man let out a low groan. One of his eyes was glazed, the other…the other wasn’t there. How the hell could this guy still be alive? His lips moved, only air escaping. Help me.
“Jesus,” Eddie said.
The man was dead, he just hadn’t realised it yet. His face was grey, blood still leaked from his chest.
A scuffling sound came from the wall. Eddie tore his eyes from the bound man and looked towards the wall. His gaze fell on the seam that revealed the panel connecting this apartment to Victoria Palmer’s.
“Roy?” Her voice was muffled through the wall. “Are you back?”
Eddie stood for a moment, gaze swinging between the bound man and the hidden panel. The tortured man let out another rattling groan.
The panel began to creak. She was sliding it open.
He moved quickly and quietly, pressing himself against the wall alongside the widening hole. Light spilled through from Victoria’s apartment, casting the grizzly scene into stark detail.
“Roy?” Victoria said again. Her head poked through the gap between the apartments.
Eddie pressed his gun against her temple. She froze, her voice catching.
“Looks like Roy’s out at the moment,” Eddie said cheerily. “But you and me are going to sit nice and tight and have a little chat while we wait for him to return. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
26
Dom pushed open the door to St Reynold’s Church. The scent of death still lingered. Christ the Luminary extended his hand to her as she entered the gloom. He’d taken a bullet through the chest during the gunfight, but he didn’t seem concerned about it. She ignored him and made her way down the centre aisle.
No one had come to clear away the bodies. Benjamin Bollard lay at the front of the church, still wearing the preacher’s outfit he hadn’t earned. She wondered how he’d come across it. Had he just found it when the fugitives took over this chapel, perhaps abandoned when the original Reverend fled the city? Or was the Reverend’s blood staining that black cloak? Was his body lying in a dumpster a couple of blocks away? Or hidden above the ceiling tiles?
She stopped alongside a pool of drying blood on the floor. Bones was gone. A smeared blood trail led down the aisle towards the pulpit. She rested her hand on her revolver and followed the blood.
At the end of the aisle, the trail turned aside and went around the pulpit to a curtain to the left of the room. She pulled the curtain aside and found an open door leading up a set of narrow stairs. This was where she’d heard Knox come down after the fight. The trail of blood continued up the stairs. She stood silently for a moment, listening to the sounds of the building. No creaks, no footsteps, no click of a gun’s slide being pulled back. She continued up the stairs.
The staircase bent back on itself and came out on a hallway lined with three doors. These would’ve been offices back when the building was a pachinko joint. At the end of the hallway was a fourth door, one that looked thicker than the rest. A heavy electronic lock had been half-ripped from the wall alongside, several wires cut. The door was open a crack. The blood trail led inside. Dom quietly drew her revolver, thumbed back the hammer, and pushed open the
door.
On the right side of the room was a low table, and next to that a bookshelf. The contents of both had been swept to the floor to make room for the small assortment of guns and ammunition piled there. A painting of a planet—old Earth?—hung above the guns, alongside a simple metal cross. On the opposite wall, another painting—this one of the Luminary leading a long line of people through the black of space, none of them wearing helmets or voidsuits—was being used to hide a long crack running diagonally along the wall surface.
In the centre of the room sat a synth-wood desk holding a lamp, a copy of The Word of the Luminary, and a pistol. The pistol’s grip was streaked with blood. And behind the desk, the fugitive Bones sat slumped, clothes soaked with blood and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
Bones’ eyes drifted half-open and stared at her. The web of criss-cross scars on his face tightened as he saw her.
“Ah, fucking hell. You just fuck right off. Fuck off or kill me if you’re gonna.”
She just stared at him, letting her revolver hang at her side. He didn’t look like he had enough strength left to even pick up his pistol, let alone aim it.
He raised his trembling, bloodstained hand. A silver lighter was grasped in his remaining fingers. He tried to spark it, but he couldn’t work the contraption. He snarled and limply tossed the lighter onto the desk in front of him.
She holstered her gun, crossed the room, and came around the side of the desk. He flinched as she approached.
She picked up the lighter, flicked the flame to life, and held it out. He eyed her warily for a moment, then leaned forward with the cigarette between his lips. The tip glowed orange as the flame caught it. She snapped the lighter closed.
Bones sucked in the smoke, eyes closed. For a few moments, the lines on his face seemed not so deep.
“I need guns and ammunition,” Dom said.
“Yeah?” Bones took another drag of the cigarette and pointed with his eyes at the table to the right. “Those ones over there, I guess?”
“That’s right.”
“You took my people, you took my fingers, and now you’re going to take my guns.”
She leaned against the desk. “You tried to kill me. I wasn’t going to hurt any of you. I had no contract on your heads. Yet you tried to kill me. What did you expect to happen?”
“I expected you to die, stalker.”
“And how did that turn out?”
He made a noise, his eyes drifting closed. He puffed on the cigarette, then opened his eyes. “There’s some stims in the bottom drawer. Whole bunch of shit, Daz’s mostly.”
“You want me to get it for you?”
“It’s the least you could do.”
She picked up his pistol from the desk and tossed it over by the other guns before she crouched down to open the drawer. As he’d said, there were a few foil packs of pills and a handful of liquid vials. She wasn’t going to inject him, so she grabbed a foil pack and popped two pills out into her hand.
“Fuckin’ hell, gimme more than a couple,” he said. “I want to at least feel it.”
“You’ve lost a lot of blood. Too many and your body won’t be able to deal with it.”
“Listen to this. You some kind of nurse as well, stalker? Want to wipe my arse for me? Gimme the goddamn pills.”
She sighed and popped four more pills out. His eyes followed them greedily as she held them towards him. He raised his remaining hand, reaching for the pills.
She closed her hand into a fist and pulled the pills out of his reach. “First, we make a deal.”
“Christ in the void! You really are a sadistic bitch, ain’t you?”
Her hand came to rest on her revolver. She watched his eyes linger on her gun. “Should I put you out of your misery? You’ll recall I don’t have a contract on you. That means I’m not going to apprehend you. It also means I don’t need you alive.”
His tongue snaked out, licking his lips. “What the hell kind of deal are you talking about, anyway? You’ve got what you want.” He waved his hands at the pile of guns and ammo. “Go on, take them. I can’t stop you.”
“They’re not my guns. I’m not a thief, sir. When I take them away with me, I want you to feel compensated.”
He stared at her, eyes narrowed like he couldn’t understand what she was saying. “Look at me, stalker. I’m dead.”
“I could find you a doctor.”
“You think there’s any doctors left on Temperance? They all pissed off long ago. The Federation always makes sure the high-value citizens get their travel passes.”
“I could turn you over to the Feds. They’d treat you.”
“And send me back to the Bolt. Fuck that. Do you know what that place is like, stalker? It’s a place for people like me. That should give you a clue.”
“If you’re asking me to feel sorry for you, you’re out of luck,” she said. “Now, do you want these stims or not?”
He scowled. “Do you want me to beg, stalker? Is that it?”
“I want you to make a deal with me.”
“Christ. All right. All right. You want to know what you can do for me? You’re looking for Roy Williams, right? I’m guessing you ain’t found him yet if you’re here.”
“I haven’t caught him, that’s correct. But I won’t kill him for you. He’s too valuable to me. And his money’s already accounted for.”
“I’m not asking you to kill him and I don’t give a shit about the money. Not anymore. I been thinking. I got something I want you to tell him. He’s looking for this woman, right? Lilian Mayweather. I saw a picture of her once. He thinks Leone snitched to the Feds and then when he got sent away, Leone snatched the woman to spite him. But that ain’t true. See, I know about this girl.” He cracked a grin. “I was cell mates with a guy who had her picture, years ago. Only her name wasn’t Lilian. It was Cassandra something. This woman ain’t who he thinks she is.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, that’s so. My buddy, he ran a small syndicate on Fractured Jaw. They were getting pestered by this gang of youths, having their hauls stolen, all that. The syndicate was wild, but they could never get their hands on the kids. Then one day they got their hands on this girl. She was one of them, you see, their leader, so my buddy says. And the girl offers to sell her friends out for some cash and passage off the station. Just like that.”
“Sounds suspicious,” Dom said.
“That’s what my buddy thought, but they eventually went along with it. And it turns out she was telling the truth. My buddy’s people found those kids. And you know what they did then? They dressed up like the law and went in pretending to raid the place. And once all those kiddies were lined up against the wall, the syndicate boys pulled out their guns and wasted them. Every last one of them.”
The story tugged at her memories. Something similar had happened…where? She couldn’t remember. She shook her head.
“So what? This girl is the woman he’s looking for?”
“Yeah. And that’s just the thing. That wasn’t the only time she did it. She got in bed with my buddy pretty quick after that while she was waiting to get a ship off-station. Only guess what she did then? She betrayed him too! That’s how he ended up in the clink.”
He laughed and it turned into a hacking cough. When it subsided, he continued.
“I bet that little whore’s done the same thing half a dozen times in the last few years. And I bet even more that Leone wasn’t acting alone when he got Williams sent away. I bet that woman was in on it too. And that’s what I want you to tell him. When you catch him, I want you to break that fucker’s precious little heart. I want you to bring him down into the mud with the rest of us fugitives. The son of a bitch always thought he was so much bigger than us. Make him realise what a pathetic excuse for a human being he is. You do that, and you can take as many guns as you want, stalker.”
“I suspected you were many things, but never a gossipy teenage girl.”
“That’s t
he deal. Can I have my stims now?”
She narrowed her eyes, then held out her hand and deposited the pills into his palm. “Enjoy the rest of your life.”
“I intend to.” He waved her away. “Now take your guns and get the fuck out and leave me in peace.” He tilted his head back and dropped all the pills into his mouth.
Without another word, she went over to the table and gathered up four handguns, a shotgun, and an assault rifle. She filled her pockets with empty magazines and as much ammunition as she could carry, then slung the longer weapons over her shoulder.
When she looked back at Bones, his eyes were closed and his lips were spread in a blissful smile. His cheeks twitched several times a second. He didn’t look at her again as she left the room and pulled the door closed behind her.
As she descended the stairs and left the chapel, Bones’ story continued to play at the edges of her consciousness. This woman had nothing to do with her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something she was missing.
She checked the street for Leone’s thugs—no one in sight—and crossed a couple of blocks to find a ransacked department store. She stepped through a broken window and went up and down the aisles until she found what she was looking for: a duffel bag long enough to carry the guns. She dumped the guns into the bag, zipped it up, and headed back to the street. All the while Bones’ words rolled around in her brain.
Maybe she heard the story somewhere. Maybe it was in the news, or someone told her in a bar once, or she read it—
She stopped. She had read that story before. But not in the news. In a book. Fractured Jaw. She should’ve recognised the station’s name right away. It was right there in the title. Massacre at Fractured Jaw. Eddie’s first book.
She’d always known the character in Eddie’s first book was himself, if a highly fictionalised version of him. She didn’t know how much of the story was true and how much Eddie had embellished. But the titular massacre, the novel’s turning point, matched Bones’ description. That was Eddie’s gang who’d been massacred.
Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1) Page 17
