Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy (38 page)

Judith stepped up beside her and continued the oration “—And from their spies, and their terrorist godders, and their soldiers, and their breeders, all united now, all allied in a plot and a plan to invade our country, kill our people, destroy and conquer us. Newt Scorsi and his thugs can’t protect our people. The All-Sierra party can and will!” Jo whispered something to Frank, who dropped down into the crowd beside me and glared at the little band of Newt supporters who had begun to work their way back toward the entrance. Then he swung on Newt and his brothers and gave them the same look. They stomped off after their friends.

I smiled at Frank. He looked smug and happy.

Jo picked up the speech again. “We all know the truth about Rocky now. We know we have to get strong and defend our borders. You’ve all read it in the Sierra Star.” The crowd agreed noisily that they had, indeed, seen the story in the paper. “Those Rockies confessed. We know what they’re up to.”

Frank chuckled. “That sure worked,” he said to me. “It was a great move, wasn’t it? I tell you, we’re unbeatable.”

What did he mean? Move?

“Which move are you talking about?” I smiled, going along with the joke, whatever it was.

“Making up that confession and putting it in the paper.” He laughed. “That Jo, she’s really something.”

She’d lied to me. I’d barely had time to take that in when I heard Jo say, “We have a plan. Part of that plan is to build a strong alliance with our old friends in Redwood. Together, we can turn back the Rocky threat.”

Alliance? Or conquest. What was she lying about now?

Rocky might not be planning to attack, but there was a nasty smell around its stronger presence. Newt’s toxie army was growing, and there was an important election coming up. The Colemans looked like the only shield between Newt and Redwood, between Rocky and Redwood. What was I supposed to do when all the choices were bad?

Create another option that was all my own. If I could only figure out what it might be.

What’s going on down there?

I stayed for the rest of it, long after I’d stopped listening to “This is a great candidate,” and “Do you trust Newt Scorsi to protect us from Rockymountain?” I was busy obsessing about two things: Jo had lied to me; the Rockies never confessed, never said anything about a Rocky invasion. And the Colemans were campaigning for an “alliance” with Redwood that I was afraid was meant to be something more. Maybe the whole point of the Rocky lie was to build enough support and enough army to grab Redwood. It was a rich country, rich in natural resources and in talent of every kind.

On the other hand, and there always seemed to be another hand in Tahoe, there was the nature of Rocky and its self-righteous intrusions.

So I waited, and thought about what to do next. First, I was going to challenge Jo on her lie. How she responded, how she acted, that would tell me a lot. I was supposed to be working with the Colemans. I had a right to ask some questions. Straightforward, honest, distressed, nothing to hide, unwilling to suspect her. A worried friend. I could do that. I was already partway there.

It took another hour for the rally to finally wind down, the crowd to drift away, the backslapping and jokes and earnest little chats to subside. The minute I saw Jo heading for her car, I fell in beside her.

“We need to talk,” I said. She raised that damned eyebrow at me. “You lied to me. Outright lied. You said the Rockies confessed, said there was an invasion plan. There was no confession.” Would she lie again, tell me the sheriff lied to her, she really believed it had happened?

She nodded, sighed. “Yeah. I did.” She pointed to a bench behind the motel. We sat. “But it wasn’t because I was lying specifically to you, Rica.”

“What’s that mean?” I kept the hurt-friend look on my face.

She chuckled. “It means, that’s our story.”

“And you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth?”

She shook her pretty head. “Sweetie, no. I don’t. Not yet. How’d you find out?” I wished she wouldn’t talk to me that way. Sweetie indeed.

I stayed silent.

“Probably that moron Frank. Well, never mind. Now you know.” She reached over and laid her hand on mine. It felt warm. I didn’t pull away. “Look, Rica, it doesn’t matter whether they actually said it or not. You know it’s true. It’s an invasion waiting to happen. As soon as they got their factions working together, in any way at all, the danger jumped tenfold. People need to be ready for that. We need to be prepared for it.”

“So you made it all up, just so people would prepare?” How much more would she admit?

“And so we had a clear, strong issue for this election. We want our candidates to win. We want to protect Sierra, make it strong. Newt can’t do that. Newt can’t keep a spy on his side or control the people who stay with him.”

She made it all sound so plausible, but I wished she hadn’t used that word. Control. Was she controlling me?

“Did you kill them? The paper says they were taken to the border, but is that true? Why would you do that? Why turn them loose to cause more trouble?”

She frowned. “Kill them? No. We did kill one of them on the street, before they were arrested, but he didn’t leave us a choice. We did take them to the border. We might regret doing it, but it was an opportunity to send them back with a message we wanted them to carry. We filled their little heads with exaggerations of our strength and warnings not to mess with us. They went back to Rocky thinking we have a real and ready army. They think Blackjack is in control and the citizens are behind us and any attempt to invade will be turned back and war will be carried right into the heart of Rocky.”

“Maybe they just think you were bullshitting them.”

“It’s possible.” She shrugged.

“I think it’s more than possible.”

“Even so, there’s a difference between willingness to wage war and willingness to commit convenience killings. There are lines I don’t want to cross.”

I liked what I was hearing but she was a politician and she’d already lied to me once.

“Why didn’t you just keep them locked up if you didn’t want to kill them?”

She relaxed visibly. She seemed to feel as if she was on more solid ground. “We couldn’t just keep them locked up without a trial. Word would get out. People wouldn’t like it. It would make the citizens nervous to see candidates abusing people’s rights. And we couldn’t have a trial because we didn’t want to give them a chance to defend themselves. We didn’t want them convincing anyone they were just causie tourists. We didn’t want doubt. Doubt is destructive. The slightest taste of it can destroy a political campaign.”

I stood up. “Thanks, Jo. I understand. I appreciate your honesty.”

She gave me one of those soft smoldering looks she was so good at. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I should have known a smart spy like you would find out.” Flattery? Not a worthy move. It cleared my head again.

“One more thing, Jo.”

Still sitting on the bench, she crossed her legs and cocked her head, waiting.

“When the chief and Newt first hired me to come here and spy on you, she said one of the crimes you were suspected of was skimming tax money.”

“That kind of thing is hard to find out.”

“People talk, sometimes.” No one had to me, but that was beside the point. I tried to look like I knew more than I did. Maybe there was something here I could hold over her head. “You do seem to have a large supply of ready money.”

“Not so large. You saw our weapons.” True, but good guns weren’t easy to find even with money.

“You’re playing with me, Jo.” She grinned and I could feel my face and neck flushing. “Are you skimming? Because that’s okay with me.”

“That’s nice. But even if I were, I wouldn’t admit it.” She stood now, too. “Is that all you need?”

It was, for now.

I didn’t stumble over the broken concrete on my way to my car, but it took all my concentration not to.

I drove to a side street, punched my sys alive, and called Gran. She answered.

“How are things, Rica?”

“Confusing, Gran. Here’s what’s going on. Those Rockies I told you confessed they were planning an invasion? They didn’t confess. The whole story was a political maneuver by the Colemans.”

“Those rascals.” She laughed.

Rascals? She needed to take them more seriously than that. “To say the least, Gran. But the fact is, Rocky’s got its people together and they are getting more aggressive. They are probably a danger, and a growing one. So lie or no lie, Redwood needs to be alert. And there’s more.”

“More?”

“Jo is talking about forming an alliance with Redwood to fight off Rocky.”

“What kind of alliance?”

“That would be the question, wouldn’t it? And another thing— I saw Scorsi’s little army playing games yesterday. They’re terrifying, they’re growing. If they get loose, well, they’re not going to stop at the border. I think the Colemans have to beat him down. Which means I’ll have to help them. So it’s a one-two-three Redwood has to worry about: a band of barbarians crossing the border from Sierra, the Colemans trying to get a wedge into Redwood, and Rocky aggression.”

She whistled. “Damnedest thing. Well. Okay. I’ll talk to my friends. It won’t be easy getting them to listen, but I’ll sure try.”

“Tell them they need to put aside their wineglasses, step out of their hot tubs, and start thinking about covering the border and watching for Coleman-friendly politicians.”

* * *

“I think,” Jo said, “that Newt made enough of an ass of himself today to bring quite a few undecided votes to our side.” She was very pleased with the way things had gone.

Zack grinned. “Judith says the next issue of the Star will have a front-page piece on the rally and Newt’s party-crash.”

“And his quick exit.” They both laughed. Jo had made sure Iggy sent a Blackjack employee who also moonlighted as a reporter to cover the event.

Jo and Zack were sitting up late in her office. Judith had already gone to bed; she rarely lasted much past midnight. They were talking about the rally and weighing the performances of the various candidates. They agreed that both Emmy and Tim had been charming, and attractive to the crowd, and that Emmy had been a powerful voice.

“Seems like a lot of people know Drew,” Jo said.

Zack shrugged. “He’s been all over this casino since he learned to walk. Sure they know him. And people trust him. He’s a good kid.”

“Yes he is. He’s careful, he thinks before he acts, and they can tell. He’s not a kid any more, either.”

They sat quietly for a moment, Jo congratulating herself on the way things were going, Zack scribbling ideas for campaign posters in a notepad resting on the arm of the couch. They were comfortable together. Jo was as sure of his loyalty as she was of Samm’s. He’d been with the family for a dozen years. He worshipped Samm and his emotional attachment to the Colemans was very strong. Once, briefly, she’d wondered about his deep attachment to Samm, but he seemed to be working his way through a succession of women, just like Samm was.

The sys on her desk buzzed. The call was from a spy she’d all but lost track of, an elderly man who lived near the Rocky border.

“Yes?”

“Jo, bad news.” He was an irritating man who had to lead up to everything dramatically; he couldn’t seem to just spit it out.

“What is it, Fiedler?” She rolled her eyes at Zack, who grinned back at her. It was pretty late at night for one of his “I’ve been thinking” calls.

“A gang of Rockies— big gang, several dozen, they took the border guard. They were all dressed like soldiers, in that brown color—” Zack’s eyes widened. He’d stopped scribbling and was focused entirely on the words coming out of the sys.

“What do you mean ‘took’ the border guard?”

“Not sure. Took her away or killed her, I got two different stories on that. But I think the guy who said they killed her is more reliable.”

Shit. “Then what happened?”

“Then they just marched right into Sierra. Some of ’em had cars. Last they were seen they were heading due west.”

Several dozen, he’d said— hardly a big enough group to qualify as an invading army. But big enough to take on what Tahoe had; They could do some damage.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely sure. I know something bad happened to the border guard and I know more than one person has seen them on the road.”

“Anything else you know?”

“Some of the ones who were walking, they were singing some kinda hallelujah song.”

Double shit. Soldiers in vehicles and militant godders.

“Any possibility this is the lead bunch in a larger force?”

“Not that anyone’s seen. No one else came through that anyone saw.

Zack interjected quickly: “Are they sticking to the road?”

“Up to an hour ago, that’s where they were. Route 50. There could be more…”

Zack was on his feet.

“Anything else you can tell us?” Jo asked abruptly.

“I did hear that some of them took control of Colby, but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll hear more…” Colby was a tiny town, a half dozen families, right near the border. Some victory. Was Rocky planning on conquering Sierra one village at a time?

Jo was standing, now, too. “Whatever you hear, even if you think it’s meaningless, let me know immediately. Got that?”

“Yes, Jo.”

The end light flashed.

“I’ll report to Samm,” Zack said. “Let him know we’re mobilizing. I think we can at least double the army in a couple hours by everyone calling on some volunteers. Just in case there’s more Rockies than we know about. People won’t stand for this.”

“No. Don’t stop to tell Samm. I’ll do it. Just get on it. Get out there, get everyone together, roll through the streets collecting volunteers. Find a way to commandeer every floater in Tahoe and anything else that runs. Head for Colby. Concentrate on route 50 but look behind every tree, too. Tell Frank he has to stay in town. He might try to go. Meanwhile, I’ll get Samm’s ideas and pass them on to you. And I’ll send word through the casino that you need everyone who can fight.” She had another thought. “Don’t take anyone who was wounded badly enough in the Scorsi raid to be a drag on the others.”