Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption Read online

  Jackie blinked several times, trying to focus her eyes, but she was too involved in the Matrix. Her expression stayed slightly dazed. “These people are savvy. Most of them know Kader wouldn’t show up with counterfeit credsticks. They figure he was duped, not crooked.” Then she smiled. “But they don’t care much. Just about everyone’s happy to see him take a hit, even if no one thinks he’s going to be off the streets for any real length of time. There’s absolutely no interest—well, except from Kader and a few Finnigan goons—in finding this Miller character. He’s already on his way to becoming a folk hero.”

  “Anyone connecting the Bigios to the job?”

  “A few people are assuming it was them, just because they figure anytime the Finnigans take a hit, it’s the Big-ios’ doing. But no one’s got a hint of evidence of a connection.”

  Perfect. And to top it all off, X-Prime had cashed in his chips just before his staged death. The team had agreed in advance to evenly divide any gambling winnings, and the total for each runner came to significantly more than the original payment for the run. It was a complete, total, unvarnished success. Damn, I’m good at this, Bannickburn thought.

  “Visitor,” Jackie said.

  “Who?”

  “Shivers. Lurking around outside.”

  “Ah! Splendid. I’ll go let him in.”

  Jackie’s eyes finally focused on him. “The hell you will. You’ll go out, greet him, and talk to him someplace else. Shivers doesn’t come in here. You shouldn’t have let him get this close.”

  “But he’s the one who introduced me to Bailey, who hired me for this whole wonderful job! Surely that’s enough to earn an invite inside.”

  “You’d think. But it isn’t. Keep him out.” Bannickburn sighed. He’d pulled off the very public humiliation of a much-feared mobster, only to be pushed around by a short blonde. The world never stayed perfect for long.

  Jimmy had his cycle, so they took it into Bellevue for a real breakfast, one that had meat that wasn’t all fat. They laughed at the drones and wage slaves who scarfed down their food so they could get to work, and ate slowly and with relish. The fog in Bannickburn’s brain was still there, but the food and fresh air seemed to help clear his head.

  “I just wish I could’ve watched him die,” Bannickburn was saying. “He seemed like an intrepid lad, and he really put gusto into his performance. I’ve never seen so many tics at a card table. So I’m sure that, when the opportunity came for him to die, he did it with a certain Hair. He must have really sold that death. Of course, he’d taken the Cold Slab, so that could only help.” “Cold Slab? What’s that?”

  “It’s new. Experimental. Simulates death.”

  Jimmy actually looked impressed. “Playing with experimental drugs, are we? That’s big-league stuff. How did you get your hands on that?”

  “Bailey obtained it for us. He seems to have excellent pharmaceutical connections,” Bannickburn said, then wished he hadn’t. Jimmy was a friend, of course, but people who didn’t know details of an operation usually didn’t know them for a reason. He’d battled this problem ever since his youth—when he was excited and happy, he talked, and often became more expansive than he should be.

  Luckily, Jimmy didn’t seem too interested in learning more about the drug. After a slight pause, he left the topic behind. “If I were you, I’d expect an invitation from Sottocapo Martel later today. He’s a very fair man who likes to show his gratitude toward people who do good work for him. I’d keep your dinner plans open.” That should mean good bacon for breakfast and steak for dinner, Bannickburn thought. This was quickly shaping up as the perfect day, especially if he could round up a good lunch.

  “Sounds like Kader never knew what hit him,” Jimmy said.

  Bannickburn nodded modestly. “Well, that was the plan.”

  “Still, he must have had some expectation, right? You don’t do what he did without expecting something to come back around to you, right?”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “It’s almost like he was trying to start another war. He had to know Kader would retaliate, and then they’d retaliate against us, and then everything blows up.” “That’s why we kept the Bigios out of it.”

  “But he has to guess, right? After what he did?”

  And then, finally, it hit Bannickburn. Without the brain cloud, it probably would have registered sooner. Jimmy was out of the loop. He didn’t know what Kader had done, so he was fishing for information. Bannickburn had no idea why Jimmy shouldn’t know what was going on, and he also had no idea why Jimmy wanted to find out. He hated to do this to his friend—without Jimmy, the run wouldn’t have happened in the first place—but he had to close up.

  “I don’t know,” Bannickburn said. “Tough to say what someone else is thinking.”

  “Sure. And I guess that what he did was sort of . . . surreptitious, right? Below board? So he wouldn’t raise a whole lot of ire.”

  “I guess.”

  The conversation went that way through the rest of breakfast. Jimmy poked and prodded, and Bannickburn gave him nothing in return. At the end of the meal, a clearly frustrated Jimmy didn’t even offer to pay. Fortunately, Bannickburn was feeling wealthy enough to pay for both of them.

  When he returned to Jackie’s, the invitation Shivers told him to expect had arrived. Sottocapo Martel wanted to extend his personal congratulations to Bannickburn that night at the Brigham Steakhouse. Unlike Shivers, Martel promised up front to pay.

  “Don’t go,” Jackie said once Bannickburn reviewed the invitation. “You’re on top. You’re coming off of a success. This is the time to end it.”

  “Ah, my dear, but that would be rude. All the man did was invite me to dinner. A well-deserved dinner, I might add. He didn’t tell me to crawl into his lair.”

  “He might as well have.”

  His reflexes begged him to make an argument, but when he thought of his breakfast with Jimmy, and the machinations between the different levels of the mob, he was beginning to give more heed to Jackie’s warnings. He felt like his head was well above water, but he remembered what Jackie had said about the trickle of drops.

  “Okay,” he said in his most soothing voice. “Okay. I.isten. I have to go. You know I have to go. Standing up a Bigio sottocapo is the kind of bad manners that can easily lead to broken fingers. So I’ll go, and I will generously accept Martel’s thanks, and if they even so much as dangle more work in front of me I will say that I am unavailable and they should look elsewhere. I will spend all evening, if necessary, politely disentangling myself from their association. Is that satisfactory?”

  Jackie smiled in relief. “Quite.”

  “All right, then. Of course, I’ll still be having the occasional drink with Jimmy and Quinn . .

  Jackie shot him a look that made him throw both hands in the air. “But not until at least a month has passed,” he finished.

  He felt a pang of regret as soon as he said the words, since he was having too much fun to have it end. But there definitely was such a thing as getting in too deep with Bailey and his people, and he was perilously close to that level.

  It was okay, he told himself. He’d managed to find one way to indulge his thirst for a little power. He could always find others.

  16

  Most of the project had gone so perfectly that it was a shame Bailey couldn’t just sit back and bask in the glory of his success. Yet while his current project had gone well, an episode had occurred that endangered the future, and he couldn’t have that. Sadly, he had to make another trip to Slidestream’s office.

  He’d obtained the chip earlier in the day. Better Than Life chips were easy for him to get—he regularly had drinks with Vanessa Yarl, a Bigio caporegime who helped get BTLs into the hands of desperately addicted users. Yarl had done a double take when he told her what kind of chip he wanted (he could practically hear her blinking rapidly over the telecom when he mentioned it), but she’d said she’d get it for him. All part of the perks o
f “family” life.

  Kross was waiting for him when Bailey arrived at the building down the street. He’d sent the ork ahead because, had he just wandered over by himself, there was a good chance the man he was looking for would be hiding somewhere, and Bailey would have to spend time tracking him down. But with Kross at his disposal, he could skip over the boring part, do what he needed to do, and set up a fine anecdote for Kross to relate to Martel.

  The small decker was doing his best to look relaxed under Kross’ glare. But he shifted in his chair roughly every fifteen seconds, so the illusion didn’t work.

  “Slide!” Bailey said cheerfully. “How are you? Hey, I wanted to congratulate you on a fine job last night. A fine job. Hacking into Gates security—that’s top-quality work.” Slidestream sat up a little straighter. He snarled a bit at Kross, then made his face pleasant for Bailey. His confidence was on the rise.

  “Of course, from what I understand—and correct me if I’m wrong, because I couldn’t even hack my way into my own office—the trick on the Matrix isn’t just getting in somewhere, it’s staying somewhere. Since protocols change on the fly, specifically to keep people like you out, it’s all too easy to get into someplace only to get kicked right back out. Do I have that right?” Slidestream slowly melted back into his chair, his confidence ebbing again. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

  “Oh, so you know about that problem?” Bailey said. “I wasn’t sure. Because a strange thing happened while I was watching the show—my picture blacked out.” “Yeah, see, what happened was . . .”

  “Now, I wouldn’t be happy about losing my view under any circumstances, but there was this showdown. Did you see the showdown?”

  “Well, I saw the beginning . . .”

  “Right, right, of course, you saw the beginning. Kader, this Miller character, the card cheat, and a whole passel of Gates security. And I wondered, how are they going to deal with this situation. Did you wonder about that, Slide?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, sadly, we’re both left to wonder what happened. Sure, I could ask the people involved, but there’s always the chance they’d lie. And why would they lie? Because when you have a bag of tricks, like this Mr. Miller seems to have, you don’t like to let them out of the bag. But I wouldn’t have to rely on Miller telling me the truth if I had seen the fragging footage. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Slidestream understood too well. “It was only thirty-five seconds! Do you know what I was up against? The fact that I got in at all . . . do you know how many people could have done that? And kept you there as long as I did? And only lost thirty-five seconds? I pulled off a miracle for you!”

  “You told me you could do it. And then you failed. I don’t think there’s much to discuss.”

  Kross recognized his cue. He stepped forward, seized Slidestream’s arms, and pinned them behind his back.

  “The problem here, Slide,” Bailey said as he stepped forward, “is that since you don’t seem to be a man of your word, you don’t expect others to keep their promises. But I take a promise seriously, because a man is only as good as his bond. I have that right, don’t I, Mr. Kross?”

  Kross growled something that might have signified assent.

  “Right. So the best way to look at this is as a demonstration of the importance of following through on your word.” He paused briefly. “Don’t look so concerned! Come on, give me a smile. Haven’t you ever heard me talk about the glory of dying with a smile on your face? Give it a shot.”

  Bailey inserted the Black Death chip into Slidestream’s head, and much unpleasant thrashing about and screaming ensued. Bailey checked his watch—really, there was no reason for Slidestream to drag this out. There was a lot more to do this evening.

  Within a minute, he had removed the chip from Slidestream’s jack and walked out the door, Kross just behind, holding his nose. Mouth agape, what had once been Slidestream sat still in his chair, smoke curling out from behind his eyeballs.

  “When you tell Sottocapo Martel about our exploits of the evening, do you think you’ll cast me as a charming rogue? Or will you just go for the ruthless enforcer type?”

  Kross didn’t rise to Bailey’s baiting.

  “I really hope you include the charming part. It’s not just that I’m effective at what I do—it’s that I do it with such panache.'’’

  Kross delivered the grunt Bailey had heard so many times.

  “Well put.”

  Kross parked his cycle and almost ran into the Brigham to get away from Bailey.

  Bailey smiled. Martel had sent him a fine companion— Bailey wouldn’t know how to behave if he was working with someone he actually got along with.

  Martel was, naturally, at his table, and Kross was already seated next to him as Bailey approached.

  “Sirloin. Large one. Rare,” Kross snapped at a passing waiter. Bailey had made the ork forget his normal veneer of manners—truly, this was a triumphant evening all around.

  “Please. Sit,” Martel said in his low rumble. Bailey obliged.

  “I understand Mr. Bannickburn will be along shortly,” Bailey said, and added a silent, fervent wish that this would turn out to be true. He wasn’t relishing spending any time alone with Martel and his lackey.

  Thankfully, Bannickburn arrived practically on Bailey’s heels. Martel actually stood to greet him, extending his hand and taking Bannickburn’s in a crushing grip. Bannickburn was far too seasoned to grimace at the pain.

  “Mr. Bannickburn,” Martel said. The water in the glasses on the table quivered at his voice. “You have our thanks.” He sat.

  “It was my pleasure,” Bannickburn replied modestly.

  “Mr. Bailey. Proceed,” Martel said, returning his attention to his dinner.

  “Right. Yes. Well, Robert, Mr. Martel would like me to convey his thanks, and that of his associates for your recent work. The job you did surpassed all reasonable expectations we could have placed on it.”

  “You’re very kind,” Bannickburn said.

  “Not at all. And Mr. Martel wants you to be assured that he has not just noticed your success in this mission, but in the wide variety of projects given you. Calling you a valuable asset to this thing of ours is accurate, but seems inadequate—calling you our good friend seems more fitting.”

  Martel gave a slow nod of approval at Bailey’s words.

  “If there’s any one thing the sottocapo would like to convey to you tonight,” Bailey went on, “it is how valuable our friendship can be. I’m sure you understand that there are thousands, perhaps millions of people in the world who would enjoy having someone like the sottocapo as a friend, and these sorts are often quite aggressive in their efforts to gain the sottocapo’s attention and, hopefully, his sympathies.”

  “Nuisances,” Martel said, the word falling heavily off his tongue.

  “You now have what all these people want,” Bailey said. “It is our belief, of course, that you will live up to the trust we are putting in you by offering our hand in friendship—that you will honor the sottocapo as he honors you.”

  “Of course,” said Bannickburn, who appeared bemused by the formality of Bailey’s presentation.

  “And that’s the long and the short of it,” Bailey said. “Did I cover everything, Alexei?”

  Martel did not appear pleased at being addressed by his first name, but he grunted, and it sounded enough like “yup” for the others at the table to move on to other topics of conversation.

  The next part of the evening had to appear spontaneous and casual, and that was the main reason Bailey was here. Kross could have served as Martel’s mouthpiece just as easily as Bailey, but the light-conversation part of the evening might have proven more difficult for him (though he was surprisingly adept at social conversation for an ork). Bailey, though, was in his element, and he and Bannickburn swapped war stories for forty-five minutes—or, as Bailey measured time when eating with Sottocapo Martel, for a sirloin and two pork chops.r />
  Then they hit a moment when Bannickburn appeared relaxed, even Kross seemed fairly mellow, and Martel was between courses. It was time to discuss the evening’s true purpose.

  Martel leaned on the table, and it screamed under his weight. The abrasive screech turned almost every head in the restaurant; most of them, once they realized who they were looking at, turned back.

  Bannickburn, Bailey, and Kross, however, all kept their attention on Martel, because they knew that was what he wanted. He leaned forward slightly, and beneath his thick brow the two pinpoints of his eyes locked with Bannickburn’s. Then he stood, slowly, unfolding his body until his entire frame, well over two meters and about a hundred and fifty kilos, towered over the table.

  “Mr. Bannickburn,” Martel rumbled. “Have a favor to ask you. Important—want you to consider it carefully.”

  Bannickburn fidgeted—the first time during the evening that he’d looked uncomfortable—but he held Martel’s gaze. “I’m not sure I’d—” he began, but Martel had only paused to take a breath, not to allow Bannickburn to say anything. The sottocapo continued what was, for him, a long-winded speech.

  “Mr. Bannickburn. I would appreciate it very much if you would get me a drink of water.”

  Bannickburn looked at Bailey, then at Kross, then at Bailey. Bailey was putting all his efforts into remaining expressionless. Kross looked similarly blank, but Bailey thought that that appearance came to the ork (hell, any ork) naturally.

  Bannickburn looked again at Martel, who still loomed in front of him. “Water?” he said.

  Martel nodded and held his position for precisely five seconds. Then he leaned back a little, wiped his hands, and thudded toward the men’s room.

  Bannickburn watched him go. “Water?” he said again.

  Bailey stood. “Come with me, Robert,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  “Kitchen.”

  “Martel wants water from the kitchen?”

  “Just come on,” Bailey said, and the two of them left Kross alone at the table.

  Since Martel was at the Brigham so often, and Bailey worked under Martel, Bailey had needed, on many occasions, to have conversations in the restaurant’s kitchen. It was a good place to talk, especially in Bailey’s favorite spot—two stools near the door of the walk-in meat locker, right by the long wooden table where meat was cut. The slabs of beef hanging from their cold hooks on the other side of the open freezer door, the long, sharp knives wielded by cooks with wickedly quick hands, and the whump-whump sound of steel cleanly slicing muscle all worked together to give the appropriate ambiance to the types of conversations Bailey tended to have back here. He found the surroundings gave enough hints of death and dismemberment that he hardly ever needed to resort to threats of his own.