Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1) (10 page)

A muscle twitched in Dom’s eye. Eddie was lying to her. There was something else he wasn’t telling her. He liked to pretend he was so cool and calm, but she could see right through him.

But fine. If he wanted his secrets, he was entitled to them. As long as they didn’t endanger her or her ship.

“All right,” she said carefully. “Fine. We’ll try this.” She looked at Knox. “If it doesn’t work, we’re handing you over to the Feds.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “We’re all agreed then? No more complaints?”

She looked to Eddie. He sniffed and took another sip of beer.

“Okay,” Knox said. “There’s a few things we have to work out if we’re going to get into the Crimson Curtain. Feleti Leone isn’t fond of stalkers. He’s not going to be too inclined to let us wander in and use his systems.”

“Naturally,” Eddie said.

“There’ll be plenty of guards and plenty of tourists in the way if bullets start flying. That’s just on the lower floors. I’ll have to get to the upper floors to access the systems. As I’m sure you can guess, I’m not exactly capable of fighting my way up there myself.”

“We can protect you,” Dom said. “How do we access the upper floors? I guess it’s not as easy as taking the stairs.”

“I’m a little hazy on that point,” he said. “I couldn’t find much about the casino in the public records. I know there are private member elevators to the high roller lounges. That might get us closer. But I don’t know how we get access.”

Eddie pulled something from his pocket. “I might be able to help with that.”

He flicked something towards her. She caught it and held it up. It looked like a silver casino chip. “What’s this?”

“Our membership card.”

9

Roy Williams loitered outside the spaceport, smoking cigarette after cigarette as he sat watching the tourists pour in and out of Temperance. He was dressed like a tourist himself, wearing a heavy jacket over a silk shirt. Victoria had told him that this outfit was in fashion on Ophelia a couple of years ago. He felt like a fool wearing clothing like this after years spent wearing prison jumpsuits. Surely the people passing by must see right through the feeble disguise, see right through to the violence underneath. But no one gave him a second glance as he sat on his bench near the outlook over the strip. They were all blind.

He’d washed Hudson’s blood off his hands before he got dressed. Leone’s man was still alive, for now at least. Roy hadn’t yet decided what to do with him. The idea of sending him back to Leone skinned and cut into chunks appealed, but that would be foolish. He didn’t think Leone knew he was on the station. He’d been careful in his approach. He had to be.

He took a long drag on his cigarette and looked out over the strip. Halfway down, a huge tower stretched up towards the night sky, nearly brushing the transparent ceiling of the station. Even though the rest of the city was a mottled collection of greys and browns lit with neon, the tower had retained its crimson colouring. A huge fabric sign lit with spotlights hung over the entrance. It bore only three words: The Crimson Curtain.

Before he was arrested, Roy had run the White Hand syndicate. The organisation had stretched over eight stations and colonies and had fingers in a dozen more. Temperance had always been a lucrative station, but never the base of operations. Roy liked to keep some separation between himself and the business.

But it appeared Leone had no such qualms. Roy’s muscles tensed at the thought of the man. His second-in-command. The man Roy had brought up from the streets and made rich and powerful. Roy had been like a father to Feleti Leone. And Leone had repaid that by betraying him to the Feds and bringing half the syndicate down with him. Just to put himself in the pilot’s seat.

Roy would kill Leone for all that. That was the way of things in this business. His crimes would justify a swift death.

But Leone wasn’t going to get a swift death. Roy savoured that thought. He’d been right. Hudson had eventually confirmed it when Roy took his eye. His wife was alive. Alive and in Leone’s hands. The things that man had done to her, the way he’d degraded her….

He stubbed his cigarette out. For all that, Leone would suffer. Roy would have to be careful. He was one man with a couple of million vin and only Victoria for an ally. One man against Leone and all that remained of the syndicate. It’d be difficult. But he’d do it. He’d get Lilian out. He’d see Leone suffer before he died.

And he wouldn’t let anyone stand in his way.

He glanced back towards the spaceport as a gangway door slid open. There were a hundred doors along this section of the platform, but he only cared about this one. A moment later, out stepped the stalker with the sunken eyes. The one who’d come to Victoria’s. Eddie Gould.

Roy watched the man strut out of the gangway, hands in his pockets as he casually surveyed the crowd. Roy turned his head away to light another cigarette. But the stalker didn’t look in his direction.

Gould had changed his outfit. He now wore a suit jacket over his waistcoat and a shoestring tie around his neck. He’d slicked his hair back with some sort of oil. The gun was missing from his hip, probably concealed beneath his jacket. He’d be slower to draw it. He was less than twenty metres away. How easily Roy could cross the distance, draw his own gun, put a bullet through the stalker’s skull. His fingers itched.

Why is he looking for Lilian? What could a stalker want with her?

He could feel the cold metal of his gun beneath his coat. But he just brought the cigarette to his lips again. Not here. He couldn’t afford the attention. Not until Lilian was safe.

Besides, the stalker wasn’t alone.

Another figure emerged from the gangway. A woman, tall and broad. Long strides carried her across the platform after the thin man. She wore a handsome dinner suit, an older style than the thin man’s. She wore it like it somehow offended her. A grey hat with a narrow brim sat on her head. Where the thin man wore leather shoes, she wore boots. Boots made for fighting in. He couldn’t see a gun on her either, but he had no doubt she was armed.

Two stalkers, then. Their ship’s records were correct. Victoria had done well, buying the information from one of the Port Authority officials.

He stood, put his cigarette between his lips, and thrust his hands into his pockets as he followed them. But as he turned away from the spaceport, movement from the gangway caught his eye.

Knox. What the hell was the augment doing with them? Were the other convicts working with the stalkers as well? No, Bones wouldn’t let the augment go off with the stalkers by himself. Too dangerous. The augment was their most valuable asset, their best chance of getting off the station.
And finding me
, he reminded himself. He’d needed the convicts’ assistance to make the escape from the Bolt. But he had never planned to stick around and put his trust in men like that. Men who would cut their own goddamn hand off just to carve a set of dice. He was safer on his own.

No, if Knox was working with the stalkers, that could only mean that Bones and the others had already encountered the stalkers and come out on the wrong side of the fight. That was one less thing for him to worry about. But perhaps he should have strangled the augment before he left with the money.

Too late to worry about that now. This settled it. The stalkers were after him. They thought they could get to him through Lilian. They’d see how well that turned out.

Knox fell in beside the female stalker, scurrying on his little legs to keep up with her long strides. The thin man ranged ahead of them at his own pace. They made their way down the stairs from the platform towards the strip. Roy tossed his cigarette and tailed them from a distance.

If he was careful and quiet, perhaps he could take them all out. But it would be a distraction he couldn’t afford. The crowd of tourists and locals celebrating their last weeks on earth in drunken abandon swirled around him as he followed the stalkers. The woman’s height made her easy enough to follow. The thin man would blend in almost anywhere, but the woman and the augment stood out, no matter how they dressed.

The grav train slid past overhead. From the side of the street, a deranged follower of the House of Man screamed about the coming doom. The religious nut waddled after Roy as he passed.

“Embrace it!” the man shouted at him. “Embrace your death and accept the Gospel of Dust.”

Roy ignored him but the man lurched closer.

“Why do you fight? Why do you pretend to live? You were born dead, made animate by sin and the cursed machines that destroyed our ancestors. Surrender to the void. Surrender!”

“Be quiet, old man!” Roy growled, shoving the man away. The doomsayer tumbled to the ground and lay there, staring at the dark sky.

“The void comes! It comes to claim Man! Surrender!”

Roy pushed his hands back into his pockets and returned his attention to the street. For a moment he thought he’d lost the stalkers in the swirling crowd. Then he spotted the woman. He headed towards them. They’d stopped near a looted stim store opposite the Crimson Curtain. The thin man was peering through the broken window of the store, picking through the remains of the display stand. But the other two were casting glances towards the Curtain.

Did they know Lilian was being held by Leone here? An idea took form in his mind. A way to take care of one problem and possibly draw Leone out into the open.

He backed up down the street, keeping the stalkers in his sight, until he came across a public comm terminal with an intact screen. He fed a couple of notes into the machine. It binged happily. Among the many bits of information Hudson had spilled to try to stop the pain, there had been a particular comm number Roy had made sure to take note of. Roy fished the number out of his memory and punched it into the terminal. He brought the handset to his ear.

There was a moment of crackle as a tab picked up, but no one spoke. Light breathing whispered in his ear. He rubbed his palm against his cheek, feeling the scratch of stubble.

“Mr Leone,” Roy said through a closed fist, trying to disguise his voice.

“Who is this?” The voice on the other end was smooth. It reminded him of an oil slick. Just like he’d remembered it.

“A friend with sources inside the Federation. I have some information for you. For your safety.”

For ten seconds there was only the sound of Leone’s breathing. But when he spoke, his voice was as calm and smooth as ever. “And why would I need information like that?”

“I know that some inside the Federation consider you a protected individual. But that protection is not absolute. The Federation is a large organisation. You can always use more sources. I wish to prove my usefulness to you.”

“Do you, now? How did you get this number?”

“A mutual acquaintance,” Roy said. He watched the street as Knox and the female stalker split away from Gould, crossing the street and heading for the Curtain’s main entrance. “I hope that in future we can do business together. But to do that, I need to ensure you remain free. Two stalkers are about to enter the Crimson Curtain. They have a contract on your head.”

More silence. “I know of no such contract. What would the Federation want with an honest businessman like me?”

Roy smiled. The man said it like he almost believed it.

“Your friends in the Federation may not care about you as much as you believe. The stalkers will be entering the Curtain any moment. Perhaps they are only scouting the casino. But make no mistake. Before Temperance falls, they will attempt to apprehend you.”

“You must be mistaken. No one has mentioned this to me.”

“If the Federation was sending stalkers after you, they wouldn’t warn you first. Find them. Watch them. See what they do. If I’m lying, you only have to deal with a little unneeded stress. If I’m telling you the truth, I’m saving you from a lifetime in a supermax prison station. I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait—”

Roy cut the link and Leone’s voice disappeared. He glanced around, drew a knife from beneath his coat, and prised open a panel on the side of the comm terminal to sever a handful of wires. The screen died.

He slid his knife back into its sheath and strode casually away from the terminal, rejoining the crowd. Across the street, Knox and the woman walked past the bouncers at the entrance to the Curtain and disappeared inside. A few moments later, he caught a glimpse of Gould slipping quietly after them.

He’d shaken the tree. Now to see what fell out.

Roy followed.

10

Dom stepped through the grand entranceway of the Crimson Curtain, the sea of revellers breaking around her. Crimson carpet underfoot led the way through the entrance lobby and trailed down wide halls. Ahead, a short set of stairs led to a gaming floor. The walls were white plaster hung with red curtains. Staff in red uniforms smiled through red lips at the waves of oncoming gamblers. She walked past red leather couches and tables covered with red laminate.

Whoever designed this place really knew how to follow through with a theme.

Dom resisted the urge to tug at the suit she’d stuffed herself into as she passed security officers who didn’t even try to pretend they weren’t gangsters. She’d left her Marauder on the
Solitude
, but she had her revolver strapped directly to her thigh. A hole in her trouser pocket was her only access to it. But it was better than nothing.

Knox buzzed at her side like an insect. “This place is a goddamn eyesore,” he said.

“Good thing you’ve only got one eye then,” she said as she scanned the crowd.

“Oh, you’re a funny one now, are you? I can see why all the boys can’t keep their hands off you.”

Dom ignored the augment. They came around the side of a stained glass dividing wall—red glass, naturally—and the main casino floor opened up. The place was gigantic. Row upon row of slot machines and gaming tables stretched out into infinity. There was a slight curve to all the red-carpeted pathways that ran between tables, so once you were inside the exit was never in sight. She could see three bars from where she stood, each crowded with young men and women mostly dressed in the sleek, pointed fashions of Babel and Ophelia.