Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy (36 page)

He was silent. Thinking about it.

“How do I know I can trust you with their names?”

“Give them mine.”

“Why should I do any of this?”

“Because Hannah’s gone and I’m your best spy.” I didn’t even know if that was true, but it was all I had. He was silent again.

“Okay. There are only two people working at Blackjack now. Bernard disappeared. I heard he got scared when the Colemans found out about Hannah. There’s Yulie, he’s a bartender.” I knew which one he was but he always looked angry so I’d never talked to him. Great spy, that no one talks to. He was new. He’d started work a few days after I did. “And Carla. She’s a cashier. Part time.”

“What’s she look like?”

“Short, fat, green and black stripes.”

I remembered her, just. She was hardly ever around. If I were to believe him, Newt had barely a toehold at Blackjack. Well, names were names. I’d have to go with what I had.

“Thank you. I appreciate that. I’d also like to actually meet your soldiers, so maybe they won’t attack me. Do they ever do any training? War games?”

“Every morning for an hour.” They couldn’t get much done in an hour. Run around a field. Punch each other a few times. Shoot targets.

“Where will they be tomorrow?”

“Look, I don’t know if—” His protests were getting weaker and weaker. Time to attack full force.

“This is important, Newt. I can’t keep operating in a vacuum. I’ll end up being everyone’s target. I’m not willing to do that. I just got badly wounded for you. As it is, I don’t know why Hannah didn’t shoot me— you said she wanted to.”

“She had better targets.”

Right. “She went for Samm. Was that on your orders or was it her own idea?”

“I didn’t tell her not to,” he muttered. Sounded like they both thought it was a good plan.

“Will she be at that practice tomorrow and is she still gunning for me?”

“No. She won’t be there tomorrow. And I don’t know if she’s trying to kill you.”

It was all I could do not to scream at him.

He had specifically said Hannah would not be there “tomorrow.” That sounded like she was dashing in and out of town. Attack, run, hide— when would her next foray be? Where? Newt was trying to sound like he had no real control over her, like she did pretty much whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to, and kept her motives to herself. I didn’t know how true that was. He had to be paying her. When he was angry at me, she was out to kill me. Now he wasn’t so angry and she didn’t seem to be out to kill me anymore.

After a little more prodding, he told me where and when they’d be playing their stupid games the next morning. I’d do a one-hour show, get a long night’s sleep, and drive out there early.

One more short call and I could finally nap.

“Yes, Rica?”

“Jo, I’m going to observe Newt’s war games tomorrow.”

“Good! Report to me the minute you get back.”

“I will.” I didn’t have any choice. Medicine show indeed, and I was the juggler. For the next part, I had to clamp a hard hand down on my conscience. “I’ve got a couple more names for you. This may be all there is, but maybe not. Yulie. And Carla.”

“Good thing you came through for us, Rica. Yulie’s scheduled to help Samm tonight. I’ll pull him off duty, keep him in the bar. Thanks.”

Right before I went out on stage that night at nine, I noticed Drew arriving for the show, and Emmy was with him. They were holding hands. He had a girlfriend, or at least a date! That would take some of his attention off me. I was getting enough scrutiny from Colemans as it was. I waved to them, they waved back. What a cute pair they were. I hoped it would work out for them. It sometimes did, I thought with a pang.

The last time I’d seen Emmy she was searching my room. Had Drew told her I was really okay? They might be among the privileged few who knew I was now being given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a Coleman. Either that or they didn’t know where else to go on a first date.

I’d gotten up from my last nap feeling stronger, but by the end of the hour, I was ready to drop from my stool. The crowd wanted an encore, so I gave them one. When they called out for yet one more, I pointed sadly to my sling and begged off. They seemed to understand. No one threw a drink at me.

After the show, Andy mentioned he had to relieve Quinn at Samm duty for a couple of hours. Despite my exhaustion, I stopped by with him. There was so much I needed to know about Samm and about his army if I was going to figure out how much of a threat they represented to Redwood. Was there more to it than I knew? I needed answers for Gran’s friends in Redwood, once I got them asking questions. Blackjack could be on the verge of recruiting hundreds of soldiers. They could be sending spies and maybe even recruiters into Redwood. Jo could be planning to send invaders into Rocky in a pre-emptive strike.

Andy checked to see if Samm was awake. He was; I could go in. His color was better. He gave me a sweet smile.

“How are you doing, Samm?”

“Good. How’s your arm?”

“Still attached.” We smiled at each other. I sat down. How to approach it? “I’ve been thinking a lot about that attack, Samm.”

“Me too. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know what the point was. Do you think there was one?” I hoped that question would lead directly to his “educating” me. I thought he might enjoy doing that. “Were they just out to kill people? Especially you?”

“Could be. But I don’t delude myself that I’m indispensable, or that they think I am.” I wasn’t so sure. I thought he might be. “It’s possible that they were trying to take the army down completely. Kill enough of us, enough of the top people, the loyal people, the strong fighters, and we’d be crippled. That would give Newt time to build himself up.”

“A massacre?” Newt might think that way. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind— that persistent vision of Hannah taking deliberate aim at Samm.

“Sure. Why not? We don’t exactly have a reserve force.” He grinned ruefully. A perfect opening.

“Well, what about that, Samm?” I stopped right there, open-ended. It wasn’t hard to act like I was puzzled, at a loss, needing explanation. I was all of those things.

“What about what?” A little smile. He was pushing me to be more direct. Okay.

“How do we get bigger? Big enough to get rid of the threat?”

“We’re working on that, Rica. All our people are recruiting, all the time. I figure this time next year, we’ll have hundreds.” Hundreds? There probably weren’t that many able-bodies in Tahoe. Which meant that they were going to go outside the town.

“And then what?”

“Then we protect ourselves. From Scorsi. From Rocky. If we’re strong enough they won’t attack at all.”

I thought about it. I supposed there must have been more than one time in history when a country built a big military just to protect itself. In the Twentieth Century, there was a Cold War, everybody posturing. But my knowledge of it was fuzzy. My memory was that one of the sides just collapsed after a while.

I thought Samm’s story was unlikely. You spend that much time, effort, money building an army, you’re going to use it for more than parading back and forth at the border.

“Why not just get bigger, attack, and end the thing— why sit around waiting to be attacked so you can defend yourself?” I wasn’t having any trouble asking that question as if I meant it. If I’d been able to kill the merc before he had a chance to get close enough to me to bash my arm as he fell… the damned thing throbbed harder at the thought.

Samm shrugged. “Military aggression isn’t always the most effective way.” I wondered if he believed that. I thought the Colemans might.

“But Newt’s building an army. And Rocky, what do they have? Do we know enough about them?”

“We always need to know more.” An edge to his tone. He was looking tired, pale.

“I’ve talked Newt into letting me take a look at his training tomorrow morning.”

His eyes got sharper again. “Good! We’ve had some intelligence, of course, but it’s erratic, not sure how much we can trust—” He stopped and gave me a quick slider of a glance. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust me, either. “Let me know what you see.”

“I will. I’ve promised to report to Jo, too.” I wanted everything to be open, straightforward, so I could look and maybe even feel somewhat honest.

Samm closed his eyes and sighed. He was worn out or trying to get rid of me. Either way, staying was not the best idea. I was pretty much done in, myself, and I had a date to visit the other side’s war games the next morning.

The day was already warm, threatening to be hot and windy. The dust was blowing across the parking lot, swirling around the trees at the far end of the paving. I was stronger and in less pain than I’d been the night before but my body still had a few things to say about getting up so early.

There were new flyers on the fence this morning. Something about a political rally the next day.

I followed Newt’s directions north and east until I came to a ruined log cabin flanked by tall firs, both of them blazed with an “S” about six feet up the trunk. For Scorsi, I guessed. Pulling behind the house, I parked near half a dozen other cars, none of them floaters, none of them Newt’s, tarped and covered with branches.

No more than a couple of yards through the trees, I heard crashing, and a shout, and found myself wrapped in the painful hug of a huge merc. He was squeezing my wounded arm.

“Caught’cha, bitch! Hey, got a fucking spy!” He started dragging me through the trees toward a large clearing where a few other men stood peering at us.

“No! Newt knows I’m here. I work for him. Where is he?”

The grip on my elbow didn’t loosen. It was all I could do to keep the tears back. He stank of stale sweat.

“On his way, Coleman bitch. But let’s have some fun now.” He was pressed against my back, rubbing himself on my rump. I could only be glad he didn’t have a free hand.

The others were laughing, hard barking sounds, an excited giggle or two. One of them yelled, “Go, Ham!” I couldn’t see the one who was holding me, but a few of the men looked familiar, faces I recalled from the raid on Blackjack and the attack on the Coleman training. Some mercs, some clearly bandits.

Ham was rubbing faster and beginning to grunt when Newt swaggered into the clearing. He stopped, stared, and grinned at me.

“Would you tell this toxbag to let go of me?” I screamed at him.

“Let her go, Ham.” He sounded regretful.

Ham indeed. Hot dog, more like it. He gave me a couple more bumps, grunted louder, exhaled a blast of stinking breath, and let go. I spun around and swung at him, connecting with his left ear. He yowled and grabbed for me again.

“No, Ham.” Newt sounded like he was talking to a half-trained dog. “Let her go.” Ham stopped, glared at me, then turned and marched away to lean against a tree, sulking and petting his ear.

Right about then another half dozen men arrived. More bandits. Ragged. Uncombed hair tied in various imaginative constructions. One of them was limping on a crooked leg. Several had visible scars that looked like the wounds had never seen a suture. I didn’t recall seeing any of them before. New recruits?

Newt took me by the good arm and led me to a stump.

“Here. You can sit here and watch.” He was still grinning.

Within ten minutes, the clearing was alive with a mixed bag of “soldiers.” A few women, some of whom looked more like camp followers than fighters, soft, sullen, and slow-moving. None of them looked like they could win a fight with Hannah. Maybe they were glad she wouldn’t be there that day. A range of men from bandit-scum to hard, polished-looking mercs in leather and big boots, heads shaved or hair tied back neatly in pony tails. I had just counted three dozen when Newt ordered them into ranks, lined them up like he was going to march them all the way to Blackjack.

“Okay, you guys! Take a look at Rica over there on the stump.” Their heads turned. “No matter where you see her or who she’s with, leave her be. She’s ours.” Then he yelled over to me: “There, satisfied?” I nodded.

From that point on, he simply ignored me.

Samm’s war games had looked pretty casual at the start, but had resolved into a capture-the-flag exercise that seemed to be heading in a reasonably war-like direction. Nobody had looked or acted like a rapist or a thug. But Newt’s troops were just plain disorganized, and even more plainly a brutal bunch of dick-waving killers. Newt wouldn’t have to pay them much. If they actually got a chance to do battle, they’d take their wages in loot, living and inanimate. I could smell their meanness and feel their eyes crawling around on my body. The raid on Blackjack had involved only a few of the mercs. The attack on Samm’s war games had been sudden and over quickly. This was my first really good look at Newt’s troops, in large numbers.

Once Newt cut them loose from their opening lineup, he strutted around looking thoughtful, occasionally yelling, posturing, while mercs clobbered bandits and bandits tripped over their own feet. A target-practice episode with old guns and a couple of laser pistols held together for a few minutes, and he had some impressive marksmen in the group, but when Newt strolled away to talk to a pair of mercs who were wrestling in the dirt, the target practice deteriorated into a wildly violent capture-the-pistol game. One bandit waded into the target practice waving a club and roaring, and effectively ended it. Nothing but hand to hand from then on.

When the hour was over, Newt lined them up in their ranks again, a dusty crowd made up of equal numbers of bruised and bleeding bandits and chortling mercs.

Their mindless violence, along with their sheer incompetence and blundering aggression made them an incomprehensible and terrifying force. They could and would do a lot of damage. If they grew in number, and if they ever got to Redwood, they’d overrun it like the barbarian horde they were.

And I didn’t think Newt’s introduction would protect me even in the near future.

As wary as I was of the Colemans, I would do everything I could to help them stop this bunch and worry about the next step later.

* * *

Jo heard two quick taps on her office door. Rica strode in.