Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (18 page)

Now I had to go threaten Garm’s snitches.

I didn’t like messing with normals for the most
part. They did their jobs and we did ours. Sometimes our paths crossed and they
lost, that’s the nature of the business. I mean, if we try and lay down a bribe
and the guy won’t accept, what are we supposed to do? Say, “oh, well,” and move
on? Of course not.

Besides, this was for the safety of all of us.
When the troops got here, no one was going to listen to people like me. I’m a
murderer. I haven’t worked a real job in my life. But some straight-laced folks
with perfect records, they’ll listen to them. And if they start pointing
fingers it could go bad.

I had never been this close to the telescopes,
which looked like huge satellite dishes. They were aligned all across the
northern edge of the city and there were far more than I’d ever realized.

Garm had given me an electric pass that let me
into the offices.

Inside it was crammed with machinery and
workers and desks and tables. It looked pretty impressive, actually.

A mousy little man in a formal suit walked up
to me.

“Can I help you?” he asked with an air of
disdain, as if he was certain I didn’t belong there—and he was right.

“I need an office, or a room where I can speak
to some people,” I answered.

“What is this regarding?” he sniffed.

“It’s regarding you finding me a room before I
smash your face.”

I could have just said it was official Adjunct
Overwatch business or blah blah, but I didn’t feel he deserved the courtesy.
People talk about criminals being jerks, but I found it’s just the opposite. If
a thug has an attitude problem he’s going to be out of work pretty quick or
dead pretty quicker. But regular slobs have to put up with all kinds of crap
and they can’t do nothing about it.

The mouse returned with a security guard who
also moonlighted as muscle for Garm. He recognized me immediately.

“Oh,” he said to the manager. “You need to do
what he says,” indicating me.

The manager had a mini-outrage, as if the
brutes were suddenly taking over. He sputtered and gurgled and I nearly
expected his eyes to pop out from steam pressure. Regardless, the security
guard left and the manager was alone and his neck was the size of my thumb.

“I suppose you can use room 23 down that hall.”

“Thanks,” I said. I then took out my tele and
read to the room full of workers, “Is Houtin Lovecraven here? Houtin
Lovecraven?”

There was a pause and a plump, middle-aged
woman raised her hand shyly. I sighed and waved her over. The workers all
stopped as the woman nervously made her way to me. I escorted her down to the
room that had been indicated.

The room was small and cramped and didn’t have
any furniture. The door also didn’t have a lock, so I stood blocking it once we
were inside.

The woman looked up at me expectantly. You
could be certain she was someone’s grandmother and likely great-grandmother.

I held out my tele to her.

“Read this,” I said.

She began reading and I could see recognition
slowly dawning.

“You know that?” I asked.

“Yes. I wrote it,” she said quietly.

“Did you think no one would read it?”

“I was hoping someone would.”

It was at this point I realized she thought I
was some person from the military. Or government. Or wherever she’d sent her
message off to, come to heed her call.

“Your tele never cleared this station,” I said.
“It was intercepted.”

She was confused.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out my
Ontakian pistol and powered it on. In the cramped room the vibrations were
positively jaw-aching.

“You know what this is?” I asked rhetorically.

“No,” she said, staring into the light.

“Really? Uh.” I turned it off and put it back
into my jacket. I then pulled out my shotgun. “You know what this is?”

“No,” she answered with her tiny voice.

“You sure?” I held it at different angles for
her to see.

She looked at it, but I could see no
understanding in her eyes.

“No, I’m sorry. Should I?”

“Do you not get out?”

“Excuse me?”

I put my shotgun away and scratched my nose.

“What is it you do here, Houtin?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” she
replied delicately.

“That’s okay, I’m here to kill you so it
doesn’t really matter.”

She recoiled against the wall, eyes wide.
Suddenly my appearance seemed to make sense to her. Maybe even my guns. She
dropped to her knees and began sobbing uncontrollably.

A few times I tried to interject, but she was
hysterical and I could tell she was beyond processing anything I said.

I waited. I mean she had to stop at some point
or she was going to get dehydrated.

A half hour passed and she was sitting on the
floor with her knees to her chest and her head down, wailing just as loud as
when she started.

I teled a guy I knew. Asked him how he was
doing. Said we should get together later this week. He asked me what the
screaming was in the background. “Work,” I said.

My knees hurt so I sat down as well.

After ages, the crying began to slow a bit and
I stood back up to resume my position of menace.

“Houtin?” I began. “Houtin. Hello, Houtin?”

She wiped her eyes but did not look at me.

“You know, I’m not supposed to do this,” I
said, “but I just might be able to let you live.”

She finally looked up. Her face was a swollen
reddish-purple. I did feel like a heel, but what could I do?

“If you agree to not talk to any military
officials regarding what you wrote, I think I can convince my boss you’re
trustworthy. You’ll have to sign this, though.”

I handed her my tele, where I had whipped up a
couple-sentence agreement while I was waiting for her to finish weeping.

She hesitated.

Great, was she going to start crying again?

“It…,” she said weakly.

“Yes?”

“It…has misspelled words.”

“Oh. Well, it’s not really a legal thing. It’s
more you just saying, ‘hey guys, don’t sweat it.’”

She signed it and handed it back.

“So you’re okay with this? You’ll keep your
mouth shut?”

She nodded emphatically.

“Great. Um, but you do know what will happen if
you don’t, right?” I asked threateningly.

“You’ll…kill me?”

“No. We’ll torture you,” I said, flaring my
nostrils. “Have you ever been tortured before?”

She shook her head quickly.

I didn’t know the first thing about torture but
I wanted to leave her with an image that stuck, and more importantly, kept her
silent.

“First we strap you down with restraints. We
have billhooks clasping your ankles and wrists so you’ll cut yourself if you
even twist. A cable is attached to a crossbar between your knees and connected
to a ceiling pulley where it loops back down to a metal bit between your teeth.
A winch…A winch…”

She was terrified, but her eyes blinked
rapidly. I could tell she had no idea what I was talking about.

“But it won’t come to that, so don’t worry
about it,” I said with a smile.

I walked over and helped her to her feet. She
very reluctantly took my hand. I opened the door to leave, but she remained
inside, collecting herself.

“I, uh, need to use this room,” I told her.

As we walked back, our footsteps echoed more
than I remembered. The woman was behind me somewhat, blowing her nose as
quietly as possible.

I came back to the main work area and it was
obvious the entire staff had been panicked into submission from Houtin’s
bawling. The manager was as far away across the office as possible.

“I need to speak to JonakathR…,” I yelled to
the group, who were all staring at me in fear.

It figures. Right by the door.

He took off outside before I could even finish
his name.

That was enough nonsense for today. He had to
come back to work sometime or go home. But there was no way I was going to
catch him at the moment.

Fortunately, time is on your side when you’re
hunting someone on a space station.

I got a tele from Leeny, a boss I liked working
with because he represented the fleshy business side of Belvaille. He asked me
to come over as he wanted to talk in person.

I supposed he wanted to thank me for taking out
Ddewn as the two hadn’t gotten along—not that Ddewn had gotten along with
anyone.

None of Ddewn’s former rivals had talked to me
as of yet. They probably had their hands full dealing with Garm’s new cleaning
policies. Either that or they weren’t comfortable with me killing a crime boss.
It was not how things were usually handled.

No, usually it was the foot soldiers who got
killed until a boss was so weak he had to acquiesce to some buyout or other,
and then he would reluctantly leave the station or be absorbed into someone
else’s operation. It was rare for bosses to be killed, which usually only
happened when they were so intransigent there was no other choice.

I had upset the precious balance, the decorum
of criminality, by popping Ddewn. But you know, I was tired of apologizing for
it.

Leeny was located centrally in the station,
just outside of Garm’s offices. He owned a lot of the hotels and represented
nearly all the men and women who worked as prostitutes. It was said Leeny had
the most valuable database on Belvaille, as it had every citizen and their
sexual proclivities and experiences.

Not all Colmarian Confederation mutations
worked out so well. Most were fairly benign, but Leeny looked like someone took
two ugly people, threw them in a blender, picked out the most hideous bits, and
stitched up a new person. It was almost amazing he could speak out of the
mismatched jigsaw puzzle that was his face.

But he had a great personality. I suppose you
had to, looking like that. And from what I heard he treated his workers well.
You’d think with access to all those girls he might be a real Lothario, but if
he was, he never played it up.

Leeny’s office was sparse except for quite a
few chairs and abstract sculptures. The room was modern and artsy. The chairs
were curved and uncomfortable and didn’t seem designed for sitting in. His desk
was slanted and stylish and completely unusable as a desk. Leeny nonetheless
sat behind it, his knees probably squished. He had a horn of graying hair
sitting lopsided atop his head and an electronic suit with geometric patterns.
You couldn’t tell if he had wrinkles or that was just how his face creased.

Also inside the room, sitting down and not
facing me, was what looked like a ball of fur inside an oversized suit that fit
like a tent. His eyes were only barely visible past facial hair that merged
with his eyebrows and fluffy mane. He had so many layers of clothing it would
probably take hours to frisk him.

I knew him by appearance to be a bookkeeper.

I don’t know much about finances, but the
various bosses all employed bookkeepers. Just like family members, they were
considered off-limits when it came to conflict. I think simply because no one
knew what they did and they were too valuable to lose. They all basically
looked like this furry man.

 “Hank,” Leeny said, smiling his twisted smile.
“Glad you could come. Not too busy fighting aliens, I see.” He didn’t stand up,
probably because he was wedged under his silly desk.

“No, I thought I’d go back to harassing little
old ladies,” I said truthfully. “Much safer.”

“You haven’t tangled with my mother, then,” he
warned. “Have a seat, please. Care for a drink?”

I sat down and the chair tilted dangerously.
The bookkeeper kept his eyes staring at nothing. His legs were together and his
hands folded in his lap.

“Sure, whatever you got.”

Leeny clicked a button on his desk.

“Three drinks,” he said into a microphone.

He caught me looking at some of his statues,
which were spirally and odd.

“I like those because they look like me,” he
said with a booming laugh.

I smiled.

“So, Hank, Belvaille’s going crazy. Garm wants
me to purge all my records and we got the military getting ready to set up
shop. I had to turn over a hotel for ‘official use.’”

“We’re all scrambling. I hope it works out.”

“Me too. Me too,” Leeny said thoughtfully.

Just then his secretary entered carrying a tray
of drinks. She was nearly naked, with an incredible body, and had such an
exaggerated walk it hurt my groin to watch. She handed us all our drinks and
left.

“Sweet girl,” Leeny said after she exited. “She
was actually born on Belvaille. A rare native. Mother died in the line of
business, you know.”

“Hmm,” I said, sipping my drink.

“Right. To the point. Hank, I want to thank you
for taking care of Ddewn. I know it’s not proper to speak ill of the dead, but
the guy was psychotic.”

“No problem. Like you said, we’re cleaning
house.”

“Exactly. And, do you know my bookkeeper?” He
indicated the hair bush, who was holding his glass of alcohol disdainfully.

“I think we’ve met briefly,” I hazarded.

“You were covered in blood,” the bookkeeper
said with a thick accent.

“Sounds like Hank,” Leeny joked. “The point is,
when the military gets here, they aren’t just going to be checking for drugs
and whatever. They’re going to be checking us out as individuals. Is your money
in order?”

“My what?” I asked.

“Your books. You presumably have some wealth,
right?”

“Sure,” I said uneasily.

“Well, I’m lending you my bookkeeper. He can
help you stash your money, clean it up, sift it out, so that when he’s done,
you’ll look like the most respectable person on Belvaille.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really know what to think or
where to begin. I had never really thought about people looking at my bank
statements.

Leeny stood up, pleased with himself.

“Well, I’ll let you two get at it. Take as long
as you want. I need to work with our esteemed Adjunct Overwatch, anyhow. See
you.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said.

Leeny left the office, closing the door behind
him.

The bookkeeper took out some devices, ledgers,
and things I didn’t know, which had been secreted about his person. He balanced
them on his lap, the crook of his arm, his forearm, and a bulge in his jacket.
He looked very prepared.

“First, can I ask if you have any investments?”
he asked.

“Like, what do you mean?”

“Shares in corporations or municipals or
derivatives. That sort of thing.”

“I-I’m not sure. How would I know, exactly?”

The bookkeeper looked at me a moment. The hair
made it impossible to tell what his expression was. He made some notations in
his various devices.

“Where do you store your funds?” he asked.

“My credits?”

“Yes. Your credits.”

“The bank. I guess,” I said. I was feeling
unintelligent and didn’t know why.

“Ah, good. Do you have multiple accounts and
what types? And which banks do you utilize?”

“I’ve just got the one. Just the bank. Am I
supposed to use more?”

“Yes. You see, splitting your money among
different banks makes it harder to track your activities. You could have some
pay from one employer, use accounts for certain types of purchases, utilize
different banks in different states and take advantage of the local
regulations.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I don’t do that.”

“May I see your account, then? All this
information is confidential.”

I punched in some codes to my tele and showed
it to the bookkeeper. He leaned forward and stared at it for what seemed like
an incredibly long time considering there wasn’t all that much to read. Finally
he sat back and looked at me.

“Don’t you ever purchase anything?”

I looked at my tele.

“What?”

He closed up all his ledgers and instruments
and stood up.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” he said.

“Why?”

“I was under the impression you had less. Or at
least had it more diversified. You would need to split that up among dozens of
accounts to try and hide it and at this point there isn’t enough time. They
will notice you moving around that much money even more than if you left it
alone. I suggest you start coming up with alibis for your sources of income.”

I stood up. I had come in here fine, now I was
worried about my money.

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“That money,” he said, pointing at my tele,
“had to come from somewhere.”

“Working,” I replied, indignant.

“The government does not consider killing
people working,” he said, moving to the door with his things.

“I do more than that.”

“You don’t have to convince me. You have to
convince the auditors.”

He had his hand on the doorknob.

“Well, what are some good stories to tell
them?” I asked desperately.

“I don’t do stories, sir. I manage funds.” And
he strode out of the room.