Authors: Kathy Disanto
According to Euripides, the tongue is
mightier than the blade. I agree, up to a point. If I didn’t believe words
have power, I wouldn’t be in the business I’m in. But the morgues are full of
poor, dumb stiffs offering silent testimony to the fact that when it comes to a
street fight, blade trumps tongue nine times out of ten.
And I wanted a street fight.
Assuming I could pick a fight at all.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to start a tiff with the Ferrymen, let alone the
knock-down-drag-out I was after, but I had to try. I owed it to Cuey, Michaels,
and now, Bugsy.
I only hoped the old Greek was
right, because talk was all I had–no evidence, no leads, not even the
glimmer
of a lead to back it up. What I did have was the branding.
If Hell’s Boatmen
had an
Achilles heel, it was their rep. The obits were the giveaway. Why leave a
calling card when you’ve committed the perfect crime? Because you want to
build your street cred. You want potential clients to know you’re relentless,
lethal, and available for hire. When you market yourself as death on wheels, reputation
is everything.
So, my plan, such as it was, was to hit
them in the brand. Tarnish the Ferrymen’s aura of invincibility. While I was
at it, I would lie through my teeth and claim to have what I didn’t, namely,
information that could hurt them. If I got lucky and struck a nerve, Charon
might get worried. Get him worried enough, even the Angel of Death can make a
mistake.
If I got
unbelievably
lucky,
I might live to see it. Another big if, because jerking the tiger’s tail hard
enough to raise his hackles is a sure-fire way to shorten your life expectancy.
But while I was willing to play fast
and loose with
my
life, I didn’t want my family in the line of fire.
There was probably no way to slide them completely out of the crosshairs, but I
would do my best by giving them fair warning before I made my move. Two
caveats: I couldn’t let them get a fix on me when I called, and timing would
be crucial. If they knew where to find me, and I warned them too early, my
clan would move heaven, earth, and two divisions of Marines to protect me from myself.
If I held off too long, Bart Dickson wouldn’t have time to circle the wagons.
Make that three caveats. I couldn’t
let them sic Eagan on me. I would be facing
that
music soon enough, I
admitted with a wince. Iceman would land on me with both size thirteens for
pulling this stunt. Imagining his reaction was enough to give me heartburn, so
I decided to take a page from Scarlett O’Hara and think about it later.
One other person had to be brought
on board ahead of time: my editor. But again, not too far ahead. Discretion isn’t
Tug’s strong suit. I would brief him in when I was ready to roll and not a
minute before, then let the expletives fall where they may. Once he got all
the cuss words out of his system, Maxwell would chomp down on his stogie, roll
up his sleeves, and light a fire under the entire network, because there’s
nothing Tug enjoys more than a late-breaking chance to stop the presses.
But first things first
.
Before I could start to put my
pieces in place, I needed space to maneuver, and I didn’t have an inch of
wiggle room with Eagan and company keeping even closer tabs on me now that the Ferrymen
had made it personal. So not only did I have to give my watchers the slip, I
had to do it without them realizing the slip had been given. If somebody got
to wondering what I was up to, Eagan would start sniffing around, a process
that could only end with him putting the kibosh on my best-laid plan.
Neutralizing the CIIS UpLink seemed
like a logical first step toward freedom of movement. ULs make tracking easy,
and let’s face it, sometimes people listen in. Suddenly leaving it home would
be like tattooing,
Look, monkey business!
on my forehead. Fortunately, I
had a couple ideas on ways to outsmart the technology. Whether they would work
or not remained to be seen.
I devoutly hoped they would, because
keeping CIIS in the dark until my first salvo had been fired was crucial.
After that, it would be too late for the feds to do much more than hang on for
the ride.
Providing the Ferrymen took the
bait, of course.
That would be me.
“You sure had me fooled.”
I glanced over my shoulder to where
Sadie stood in the parlor doorway, sleeves of her tailored navy blue shirt
rolled up to her elbows, arms folded across her chest. Cosmo ambled in to sit next
to her, so they could
both
give me the fish eye.
“What do you mean?”
“I would have bet my pitifully small
government pension we would have to hogtie you to keep you off the Ferrymen
after they dusted Senator Oppenheimer.”
I turned back toward the window and
the sun-dappled yard outside. “I’ll deal with the Ferrymen when the time comes.”
“So you keep telling me. I hear a
whole lot of
just you wait
, but talk is cheap, right?” She snorted. “Look
at you! You are
no
kind of threat to
anybody.
When was the last
time you even left the house? Went for a run?”
I shrugged. “Couple’a weeks, I
guess.”
“You guess right. You don’t go out,
you don’t sleep, and you don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive. Never thought
I would see
that
day,” she added under her breath. A second later, her
hand was on my shoulder. “Look, I know the senator’s murder hit you hard.”
“Never lost anybody close to me
before. Knocked me for a loop, I guess.”
“It will do that. From what you’ve
told me, she was quite a woman.” She punctuated this iota of sympathy with a
hard knuckle to my upper arm. “So you think a high-spirited lady like the
senator would be proud of you now, Miss She Was Like a Grandma to Me? Miss
Big-time Po-lice Reporter? Moping around, staring out windows and acting all
hang-dog.” Biker Dog grunted. “No offense, Cosmo. Oppenheimer was a scrapper,
A.J., and I thought you were, too. Hard-charging journalist, and all that. Yeah,
right! Well, you better snap to, if you plan to get payback!”
I turned to meet her gaze. “What do
you want from me?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Me? Not a
thing. It’s no skin off my nose if you want to take it on the chin. Long as the
government pays your rent on time, I’m happy. On the other hand, you
might
consider
getting off your butt to help Jack nail those creeps.”
I frowned at her. “Eagan doesn’t
want my help.”
“
Eagan doesn’t want my help,
”
she parroted through her nose. “Does the law
ever
want your help? You
know how it is between The Man and the press. Since when do orders from
headquarters keep a hot-shot correspondent like you from sticking her nose in?”
“Well ....”
“You ever turned the cops onto a
lead they missed?”
“Once or twice.”
“All right. Only one question left,
the way I see it. You want that payback for Senator Oppenheimer or not?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You know I
do.”
“Prove it,” she said. “But keep your
snooping under the radar. Jack will kick my butt, he finds out I been putting
ideas in your head.” She shooed me with both hands. “Now go on and get busy.
Just remember, dinner’s at six. And you had
better
bring your hollow
leg!”
Cosmo measured me with his trademark
Johnny Ringo stare, huffed in disgust, and padded out after her.
When the fading sound of footsteps
assured me they were out of earshot, I exhaled heavily.
About time!
How do you pull the wool over a spook’s
eyes? Spies are worse than reporters, always looking at you sideways and dissecting
your every word and motive. To tell you the truth, I almost gave up before I
tried. But I had business to take care of.
Necessity being the mother of
invention and all, it wasn’t long before I settled on my strategy. It was
called “Do What Comes Naturally
.
”
The trick was to use the emotions I was
actually experiencing without letting them stop me in my tracks. Give my
audience the grief and anger they expected, so I didn’t arouse suspicion, but
avoid going up like a Roman candle, so I didn’t wind up sedated or incarcerated.
Not the easiest tightrope to walk when your moods are swinging like a well-oiled
pendulum. Some days, the balance took all the self-control I possessed.
Per my own first commandment, the
hardcore grief and rage were vented behind closed doors. Once I drained the
tear ducts, I would take my bloodshot eyes downstairs, corner my landlady and
talk about who Bugsy was and what she had meant to me and how awfully I would
miss her. I chatted up my thirst for revenge. Added a dollop of fretfulness—“I
hate being hamstrung!”—and a soupcon of dire promises about what I would do
when my hands were no longer tied,
et voila!
Two weeks. That’s how long it had
taken to erase the watchful glint in Sadie’s eyes and replace it with concerned
exasperation. Fourteen days. Not forever, but long enough. I was beginning
to wonder if she would
ever
get fed up and kick me out of the house. I wondered
if I would be too weak from hunger to go when she did. Waiting for her to
relax her guard was no picnic, but eating like a fashion model almost killed
me.
In the end, the sacrifice was worth
it. The scene couldn’t have played out better if I had written the script
myself. I would still have to be careful, or I would wind up toe to toe with
Eagan before I was ready, but I had filched my inch. Now to snatch the mile.
The blood was racing through my
veins, plans buzzing in my head like a swarm of eager bees. I was psyched. Time
to get the ball rolling.
What about me?
moaned my stomach.
So who said I couldn’t get the ball
rolling over a large pizza with the works?
Exile in Dullsville had it perks. The
absence of official surveillance, for example. There were no patrol droids to
broadcast your whereabouts or query the authorities about suspicious behavior.
The only surveillance cameras in Hobson’s Hope were local feeds unconnected to
the big spy-eye-in-the-sky. Banks, convenience stores, like that. I knew
this, because I checked the public records. You’ve gotta love irony. In his
bid to keep me under wraps, Jack Eagan had stashed me in the one city on the
planet tailor-made for my end run.
God bless Whitfield and Abigail
Hobson.
Before I actually set the wheels in
motion, I decided to at least
try
to figure out if Sadie was Eagan’s
only asset in Hobson’s Hope. I thought she probably was, but it never hurts to
be sure. An undercover babysitter popping up at the last minute would seriously
gum up my works.
I had researched surveillance detection
routes once for a piece on undercover agents tracking anarchists in Toronto. I’ll
be the first to admit three how-to sessions with Dickson weren’t much to go on,
but they would have to do.
I counted thirteen other passengers
on the nine o’clock bus to Center City, but I was the only one who got off at
the King Street stop. I lingered over tea and a blueberry scone at a
closet-sized mom-and-pop. Stealing glances at a handful of fellow diners and
folks passing by the window. Memorizing shoes and jawlines, because most tails
don’t remember to change the former and can’t change the latter. After brunch I
hit the stores, reversing course once or twice, abruptly stepping into the odd
boutique, and surreptitiously checking reflections in various display windows.
No repeat sightings. Nobody seemed remotely interested, or even suspiciously
disinterested
,
in my movements. Best guess, no one was following me, and best guess was all I
had. I headed for the library.
About the time I wrapped my fingers
around the brass handle on one of the library’s glass double-doors, another
possibility dawned on me. If CIIS had tagged the library as one of my favorite
haunts, they might have an agent in place, waiting for me to show up. Unable
to decide if I was edging toward ridiculous or being canny, I gave the building
a quick walk-through, lingering on the fourth floor. I slunk around four for
fifteen minutes before concluding I was the lone skulker in the stacks.
Beginning to feel like a conspiracy
theorist run amok, I unlocked the study carrel and closed the door behind me. Using
my CIIS UpLink, I accessed the WNN morgue and pulled up the official
file
on the Ferrymen. I selected the Yanos hit, because there was more information
on that job than on any other; ergo, the file would entertain government eavesdroppers
longer, should any decide to tune in. Sadie was right, Eagan would probably
raise Cain if he did tune in. Okay, let him. I’ve been known to raise some Cain
myself.
The first 3-D clip swirled to life
in the airspace over the desk. So far, so good. I slipped that UpLink off my
wrist and laid it on the table.
Track
that
,
Iceman.
I sidled out the door and locked it
behind me. Zipped across the still-deserted reading area between blocks of
shelves to the ladies’ room, planning to make my calls and get back to the
carrel as soon as possible. Not that I expected Eagan to contact me, but you
never knew.
With nary a soul in sight, odds were
I had the restroom all to myself, but I tugged on each stall door to make
sure. Relieved to find myself alone, at least for the time being, I perched a
hip on the counter where I could keep one eye on the door. Firing up my off-the-books
UL, I got to work.