Expanse: Nemesis Games Part 12

"This was about the black market stuff, wasn't it?" Alex said. "I guess you've been asking the right questions."

Bobbie managed a smile. Looking at her now, there was a lot of blood on her shirt.

"Don't know," she said. "All they asked me about was you."

Chapter Twelve: Amos.

"Want some c.o.ke?" Erich asked. "Not synth. Real stuff that came from a plant."

"Nope. But I'd take a drink if one is handy," Amos replied. The pleasantries were just ritual, but ritual was important. In Amos' experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be. The loud, bl.u.s.tering ones were trying to get the other guy to back down. They wanted to stay out of a fight. The quiet ones were figuring out how to win it.

"Tatu, bring the El Charros," Erich said, and one of the two guards slipped out the door. To Amos he added, "Been on a tequila kick lately."

"I haven't," Amos said. "Earth is still the only place you can get good tequila. The Belter stuff is undrinkable."

"Not a lot of blue agave up there, I guess."

Amos shrugged and waited. Tatu returned with a tall skinny bottle and two narrow shot gla.s.ses. Erich filled both then lifted one in salute.

"To old friends."

"Old friends," Amos repeated and tossed back his shot.

"Another?" Erich asked, pointing at the bottle.

"Sure."

"Seen much of the neighborhood?"

"Just what was between here and the train station."

"Hasn't changed much," Erich said, then paused while they both drank off their shots. He refilled their gla.s.ses. "Faces change, but the corners stay the same."

"Funny, I was just thinking that same thing on my way in. Things have changed for you though."

"Not the important ones," Erich said with a grin and wiggled his small, withered left arm.

Amos gestured at the room, the guards, the renovated building around them. "When I left, you were running for your life. So, at least one thing's different."

"You guys can go," Erich said to Tatu and his partner. They slipped out quietly and shut the door behind them. That seemed like a good sign. Either it meant that Erich was sure Amos wasn't there to kill him, or Erich had a way of protecting himself that didn't require other people. It wouldn't be a gun under the desk. That was too direct for Erich. Amos started casually scanning for wires or suspicious lumps on his chair or the floor beneath it.

Erich poured two more shots of tequila then said, "I learned something important from you, when you left."

"Do tell."

"I'll never be the toughest guy in any room, unless I'm by myself," Erich said, waving his small arm again. "But I'm usually the smartest. Executing a plan can be subcontracted out. Making the plan in the first place, not as much."

"True enough," Amos agreed. "It's why I'll never be the captain of a ship."

Erich reacted to that. He didn't change his expression or flinch, but Amos could see the words getting taken in and filed as important.

"But always useful, you," Erich said. "You were always useful. You on a crew now?"

"You haven't seen me in the news?"

"I have. You look different. Shaved your head, got your nose broke a few more times. But I'll never forget a name."

"Well, not this one anyway," Amos said, and then tossed his shot back in a toast to Erich. "Gracias for that, by the way."

"So, you still with that crew?" Erich said.

"I am. Why?"

"Because you're sitting in my office right now drinking my tequila. Still playing that out in my head. Useful guy like you can always get work. If that's what you want, I've got it. But if you're not here looking for work, what are you looking for?"

Amos grabbed the bottle and poured himself another drink. Erich tried very hard not to look nervous. He'd had a lot of practice, because he almost pulled it off. Time can change a lot. Erich had gone from twitchy little hacker with a price on his head to the boss of a respectable chunk of Baltimore's harbor-front property. But some things don't change. Some tells never go away. While Erich sat very still and looked him in the eye without blinking, the tiny hand on his deformed left arm opened and closed like a baby grabbing at a toy just out of reach.

"Went to Lydia's house," Amos said, sipping slowly at the tequila.

"Not Lydia's house anymore. She's dead," Erich said. "That what this is about? I treated her like you would have after you left."

"Yeah?" Amos asked, eyebrows going up.

"Well," Erich admitted with an embarra.s.sed look to the side. "Not exactly like you would have."

"Thank you for that too," Amos said.

"You didn't kill me once when you had every reason to, and after that, you couldn't have stayed," Erich said, leaning forward. His left hand had stopped clenching. "Walking away from her was part of the favor you did for me. I never forgot that. And she helped me, at first. Helped me build what I have now. Taught me to use brains to beat brawn. She never lacked for a thing it was in my power to give."

"And I appreciate that," Amos repeated. Erich's eyes narrowed and his right hand came up from under the desk with a short-barreled automatic in it. Amos found himself surprised and a little proud of his friend. Erich rested his hand on the desk, the gun pointed away from Amos, more a warning than a threat.

"If you've got some beef you came here to settle," Erich said, "you won't be the first guy to leave this office in a bag."

Amos raised his hands a little in mock surrender. "Not even armed, chief. I came here to talk."

"So talk."

"What you did for Lydia was real nice," Amos said, putting his hands back down slowly but keeping his eye on the gun. "But you're wrong. She's not all dead. Some of her's left."

Erich c.o.c.ked his head to the side, frowning. "Gonna need to walk me through that one."

"There's an old man loved her and lived with her and kissed her goodnight before she died. A house with a little rose garden they worked together. Maybe some dogs. I saw a picture, but not sure if they're still around."

"I still don't get it," Erich said.

Amos rubbed his thumb against his knuckle, trying to find the words. It wasn't a thought he'd said out loud before, and if he screwed it up and Erich misunderstood, there was a chance they'd wind up trying to kill each other. So it was worth thinking about some.

"It's like this. The old man keeps the house until he dies. He's the only thing she left behind. He's the last bit of her. He keeps the house."

Erich put the little gun flat on the desk and poured himself another drink. He leaned back, holding the gla.s.s with his right hand. He couldn't pick the weapon back up without dropping the drink and he couldn't do that faster than Amos could reach him. It was a signal, and Amos felt the tension leave the muscles in his neck and shoulders.

"That's more sentimental than I would have guessed," Erich said.

"I'm not sentimental about much," Amos agreed. "But when I am, I'm pretty pa.s.sionate."

"So I've heard the request. What's the payoff for me? I had something of a debt to Lydia, but I don't owe the old man s.h.i.t. What does this win me, I keep him on the dole?"

Amos sighed, and gave his oldest friend a sad smile. "Really?"

"Really."

"I don't kill you, kill those two guys outside. I don't dismantle this organization from the top down and rebuild it with someone who'll owe me a favor."

"Ah," Erich said. "There he is."

Amos had to admit, Erich had grown some stones. He didn't even look down at the gun on the desk as he was being threatened. Just gave Amos his own version of the tragic smile.

"There who is?" Amos asked.

"Timmy."

"Yeah, I guess. It wouldn't be my first choice, though. So how's this go?"

"Costs me almost nothing to keep the old man's house," Erich said, then shook his head as if disagreeing with himself. "But even if it did, I'd still do it. Just to keep Timmy off my streets."

"Again, thanks."

Erich shooed the grat.i.tude away with a wave of his good hand, then stood up and walked to the office's large screen pretending to be a window. The gun still lay on the desk, ignored now. Amos considered it briefly, then leaned farther back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, elbows spread out wide.

"Funny, right?" Erich said, pointing out the window at something Amos couldn't see. "All those new faces and old corners. s.h.i.t changes and doesn't. I did, you didn't."

"I live on a s.p.a.ceship and fight alien monsters sometimes," Amos said with a shrug of his elbows. "So that's different."

"Anything out there scarier than a hype with no money when you're holding his fix? Scarier than a street boss thinks you skimmed?" Erich laughed and turned around, putting his back to the window. "f.u.c.k that. Anything out there scarier than a life on basic?"

"No," Amos admitted.

"So you got what you wanted," Erich said, his voice going flat and dead. "Get the f.u.c.k out of my city or it's open season."

Amos stood. He was closer to the gun than Erich now. Could feel it pull at him like gravity. He could pick it up, kill Erich, kill the two guards waiting outside. By the end of the day he'd own a chunk of Erich's old territory and have the muscle and credibility to take the rest. In a flash, the whole scenario played out in his mind.

Instead, he hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets and backed toward the door. "Thanks for the drink," he said. "I forgot how good tequila was."

"I'll have Tatu give you a couple bottles on the way out. To take with you," Erich said.

"s.h.i.t, I won't turn that down."

"It was good to see you," Erich said, then paused a moment. "The gun was empty."

"Yeah?"

"Flechette turret hidden in the light," Erich said, with a flick of his eyes at the inset LED housing above them. "Poisoned darts. I say a word, it kills everyone in the room isn't me."

"Nice. Thanks for not saying it."

"Thanks for still being my friend."

It felt like goodbye, so Amos gave Erich one last smile, and left the room. Tatu was waiting in the corridor with a box full of tequila bottles. The guards must have been monitoring the whole thing.

"Need help on your way out?" the guard asked.

"Naw," Amos replied and hoisted the box over one shoulder. "I'm good at leaving."

Amos let his hand terminal take him to the nearest flophouse and got a room. He dumped his booze and bag on the bed and then hit the streets. A short walk took him to a food cart where he bought what the sign optimistically called a Belgian sausage. Unless the Belgians were famous for their flavored bean curd products, the optimism seemed misplaced. Not that it mattered. Amos realized that while he knew the orbital period of every Jovian moon by heart, he had no idea where Belgium was. He didn't think it was a North American territory, but that was about the best he could do. He was hardly in a position to criticize a.s.sertions about their cuisine.

He walked toward the old rotting docks he played on as a child, not for any reason more profound than needing a destination and knowing which direction the water was. He finished the last of his sausage and then, not seeing a convenient recycling bin, he chewed up and swallowed the wrapper too. It was made of spun corn starch and tasted like stale breakfast cereal.

A small knot of teens pa.s.sed him, then paused and turned to follow. They were in that awkward age between being a victim on legs and capable of real adult crimes. The right age for petty theft and running for the dealers mixed with the occasional mugging when opportunity presented itself without too much risk. Amos ignored them and climbed down onto the rusting steel of an old bayfront jetty.

The teens hung back, arguing in quiet but tense voices. Probably deciding if the reward of a solitary mark with an outsider's credit balance it being an article of faith that anyone from outside the docks of Baltimore had more money than anyone in them was worth the risk of taking on a man of his size. He knew the calculus of that equation well. He'd been in on that very argument himself, once upon a time. He continued to ignore them and listened instead to the gentle lap of the water against the pilings of his jetty.

In the distance, the sky lit up with a line of fire like a lightning bolt drawn with a ruler. A sonic boom rolled across the bay a few moments later, and Amos had a sudden and intense memory of sitting on those very docks with Erich, watching the rail-gun supply lifts fired into orbit, and discussing the possibility of leaving the planet.

To everyone outside the gravity well, Amos was from Earth. But that wasn't true. Not in any way that mattered. Amos was from Baltimore. What he knew about the planet outside of a few dozen blocks of the poor district would fit on a napkin. The first steps he'd ever taken outside the city were when he'd climbed off a high-speed rail line in Bogota and onto the shuttle that had flown him to Luna.

He heard quiet footsteps on the jetty behind him. The discussion was over. The yeas outweighing the nays. Amos turned around and faced the approaching teens. A few of them held improvised clubs. One had a knife. "Not worth it," he said. He didn't flex or raise his fists. He just shook his head. "Wait for the next one." There was a tense moment as they stared at him and he stared back. Then, moving as though they'd reached some sort of telepathic consensus, they drifted away in a group.

Erich was wrong about him being the same. The man he'd once been wasn't a collection of personality traits. He was the things he knew, the desires of his heart, the skills he had. The person he'd been before he left knew where the good bas.e.m.e.nt booze was brewed. Which dealers had a consistent supply of quality black market marijuana and tobacco. The brothels that serviced the locals, and the ones that were there only to rob thrill-seeking poverty tourists. That person knew where to rent a gun for cheap, and that the price tripled if you used it. Knew it was cheaper to rent time in a machine shop and make your own. Like the shotgun he'd used the first time he killed a man.

But the person he was now knew how to keep a fusion reactor running. How to tune the magnetic coils to impart maximum energy to ionized exhaust particles, and how to fix a hull breach. That guy didn't care about these streets or the pleasures and risks they offered. Baltimore could look exactly the same, and be as foreign to him as the mythical land of Belgium.

And in that moment, he knew it was his last time on Earth. He was never coming back.

He woke up in his rented flop the next morning with half a bottle of tequila on his nightstand and the first hangover he'd had in years. For a moment he thought he'd been so drunk he wet the bed, but realized that in the stifling heat of the room he'd sweated out about a liter. His throat felt dry and his tongue swollen.

He rinsed off the night's sweat and drank steaming-hot water out of the shower, tilting his head back to let it fill his mouth. After decades of filtered and sterilized ship and s.p.a.ce station water, he marveled at all the flavors in it. He hoped not too many of them were microbes or heavy metals.

He pulled the remaining tequila bottles out of their box and stuffed them into his duffel bag, wrapping his clothes around them to protect them. Then he picked up his hand terminal and started looking for a hop back to Luna, then a connecting long flight to Tycho. He'd said goodbye to Lydia, or the pieces of her that she'd left behind anyway. He'd said a goodbye of sorts to Erich. There was no one left on the entire planet he gave half a s.h.i.t about.

Well, no. That wasn't true. Maybe half.