Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption Read online

  Nowadays, when he went into the kitchen, the bus-boys, waiters, and cooks just gave him a curt nod and went about their business. He was almost like another member of the staff. His boss regularly dropped over a hundred nuyen per night at the joint, keeping much of the staff employed, so they cut Bailey a lot of slack.

  “Where’s the sink?” Bannickburn asked. “Why are you sitting down?”

  “You should sit down, too,” Bailey said. “We need to have a brief chat.”

  “Do we? Last I checked, what I needed to do was procure a drink for Martel.”

  “That’s what we need to talk about. It’s not what you think. Sit down.”

  Bannickburn obediently perched on one of the tall wooden stools. A cook brought a quarter lamb out of the freezer and threw it on the table behind Bailey. The chef took out a knife and removed the leg with a single quick stroke, almost burying the blade in the wooden surface. Bailey suppressed a smile.

  “Listen, Robert, you’ve just struck gold. I didn’t know Martel would ask you to do this, but I hoped he would. This isn’t just any old glass of water he wants you to get. This is a bottle. And it’s not here. It’s in Portland. In the hands of some associates of that . . . other family in town.”

  Bannickburn grasped the plot immediately. “The Fin-nigans have people in Tir Tairngire? And they’ve got a bottle of water, and Martel wants it?” Fie shook his head. “Why?”

  “I’ll be perfectly honest with you—I have no idea,” Bailey said. “All I know is that this is something Martel’s been obsessing about. For whatever reason, he’s made getting this bottle of water into his own little Manhattan Project.”

  “He thinks the results will be that good?”

  Bailey shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Why? What could a bottle of water do for him?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. And Sottocapo Martel is not the kind of person who takes kindly to lots of questions.”

  Bannickburn stood silently for a moment, watching the lamb on the table behind Bailey get sliced into ever-smaller pieces. Finally he shook his head.

  “I don’t think so, Quinn. I don’t think this one is for me.”

  “What do you mean it’s not for you?” Bailey smiled and spread his arms wide. “It’s the Tir! You’re an elf! It’s perfect for you!”

  “I’m not especially fond of the Tirs.”

  “Even better! All the more reason to do this! Stick it to them!”

  “I’d rather just avoid them.”

  Time for a different tack, Bailey thought. “Look, I told you how important this is to Martel. You can be sure that’ll be reflected in what he pays you. It’ll make what you took home from the Kader job look like chump change, and I’m including your side income from pickpocketing and gambling when I say that.”

  That gave Bannickburn pause. Bailey watched happily as greed worked its way across the elf’s features, raising his eyebrows, wrinkling his nose, pursing his lips. But then, inexplicably, the greed slipped away.

  “If he’s paying that much, it just means the job’s that much more dangerous. I’m sorry, Quinn. I’m going to have to sit this one out.”

  Bailey sat on his stool silently for a moment, then nodded his head. “All right, Robert. All right. Your decision, right? Martel’s not going to be happy, but he won’t be homicidal, so that works out okay for you. Look, there will be other jobs. I’m sure of it. I’ll be in touch.” He stuck out his hand.

  Bannickburn looked at it curiously. “Aren’t we going back to dinner?” he asked.

  “I am,” Bailey said. “You’re not. When I said Martel wouldn’t be homicidal, that was more of an educated guess than a certainty. It would still be best if you weren’t here when I tell him you’ve turned him down. You’re going out the back and hurrying home.”

  “Okay. ’Night, Quinn.”

  “ ’Night, Robert. Be seeing you.”

  17

  Bannickburn had other friends. Not many, and they weren’t the most quick-witted lads in the metroplex, hut they were friends. It was high time, he decided, to spend time with them. One night had passed since his dinner with Martel, Bailey, and Kross, and he wanted to stay away from that group for at least a week or two. Shivers, too.

  He was away from Bellevue, in a makeshift dice parlor called the Masterson that sat in a dried-up sewer pipe. The sound of dice bouncing off warped wooden tables echoed off the corrugated metal interior. The atmosphere was poor (and, when the air moved up from underground, quite rancid), the furnishings subpar at best, and the liquor one step up from kerosene. But there was usually a fair share of drunks and imbeciles who had stumbled onto a little cash and were ripe for the plucking by someone who knew how to throw dice.

  Bannickburn had just finished relieving a one-eyed troll of a few shiny coins, and was spending them on a green liquor that looked and tasted like glass cleaner. At least it had a hint of lime. A dreadlocked ork named G-Dogg, whom Bannickburn had met through Jackie, sat next to him, not playing any games, just enjoying himself by watching Bannickburn pick his next victim. It helped that Bannickburn kept buying G-Dogg drinks.

  “Is it the wrist?” G-Dogg asked.

  “A little.”

  “Is it loaded dice?”

  “Keep your voice down!” Bannickburn looked around rapidly to see if anyone was paying attention. It looked safe. “No, it’s not,” he said in a loud whisper. “Too much hassle to keep switching the real and the loaded dice back and forth.”

  “Is it magic? A focus?”

  “No,” Bannickburn scoffed. “I don’t have magic to waste on trivial matters like that.”

  “Is it the way you drop it out of your palm?”

  “A little.”

  “Why don’t you just say what it is?” G-Dogg complained.

  “That would be telling,” Bannickburn said, with his most irritating, smug smile.

  G-Dogg rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m changing the subject. How’s Jackie?”

  “Fine. I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Haven’t seen her in a couple of days. She’s been out. But last time I saw her, she was fine.”

  “And you and her? Are you and her fine?”

  “Bloody hell, Guggenheim, is that any of your business?”

  G-Dogg laughed—a short, quick bark. “That’s not what the ‘G’ stands for. Nice try, though.”

  Bannickburn shrugged. “I gave it a shot. Will you tell me if I ever get it right?”

  “Sure. Then I’ll rip your arms off.”

  Bannickburn considered. “May not be worth it.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  G-Dogg smiled, but it quickly dropped as movement rippled through the Masterson. Door security at the gambling hall was nonexistent, so the patrons had learned to quickly respond to any possible threat that walked in. A serious threat—gun-toting gangers, revenge-minded thugs—made most of the patrons flee into the sewers. Minor threats just made them hide their cash to avoid looking like possible targets for the newcomer, which was what happened now. Cash, credsticks, and anything rise with appraisable value disappeared into pockets, socks, pouches, or any other concealed places players could dream up. Bannickburn turned toward the hall’s entrance to see what kind of threat had walked in.

  It was a threat with floppy red hair, a black leather jacket, and a permanent sneer. It was Shivers.

  “Gods almighty,” Bannickburn whispered.

  “What?” G-Dogg asked.

  “Nothing. But you might want to run along now. I’m afraid the fun part of my evening is over.”

  “Really? Anything I can help with? I’ll back you up il you need it.”

  “I know, G.” G-Dogg’s eagerness to help was both endearing and somewhat annoying. “But there’s not much you can do in this one. You’d best not be involved.”

  G-Dogg nodded and took a few steps away from Bannickburn to give him a little privacy. Bannickburn knew the ork would keep an eye on him, which was reassur
ing.

  Shivers paced slowly through the hall, scanning the players’ faces, clearly looking for someone. Bannickburn was fairly certain who Shivers wanted to find, and since he had no reason to hide, he decided to keep on drinking his glass cleaner until Shivers found him.

  When he did, a remarkable change happened. The sneer on Shivers’ mouth almost disappeared. The angry furrow of his brow loosened. He almost looked like he cared about something. It was odd and more than a little unnerving.

  Shivers walked quickly toward Bannickburn, apparently not wanting to make a scene by calling across the hall.

  “Come on, Robert,” he said as soon as he was within three meters of Bannickburn. “Let’s go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “I don’t know, wherever you want. Just pick someplace safe. I’ll help you get there.”

  “Someplace safe? Why? What’s going on?”

  Shivers’ eyes widened. “What do you mean, ‘What’s going on?’ You don’t know?”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “People are looking for you, Robert. And not to buy you a drink, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “What people?” Bannickburn’s voice rose in anger. “Martel? Bailey said he wouldn’t be homicidal!” Shivers’ confusion only deepened. “Martel? No! Martel loves you after what you did at the casino. No, it’s Kader.”

  “Kader?”

  Shivers grabbed the elf’s arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Then we’ll talk.”

  He didn’t want to take Shivers back to Jackie’s—that could end his relationship with her then and there. He owed it to her to keep Shivers away. He tried to prod Shivers into suggesting a place, but apparently Shivers was reluctant to take a marked man to any of his safe places.

  So that left the embarrassment that passed for Bannickburn’s home. Part of him had wanted to abandon it as soon as Jackie said he could stay with her, but one thing he’d learned in his lifetime was that you can never accumulate too many safe places to crash. So he kept paying the minimal rent on his small room in Vico’s Den, a storage facility that had been converted into living quarters. The “conversion” actually hadn’t taken much effort—Vico took down the storage for rent sign, replaced it with an apartments for rent sign, and that was that. The rooms were small, cold, with limited electricity and, of course, nothing resembling a datajack. But there were more than three hundred rooms in the entire facility, and few authorities or crime bosses had the patience to conduct a room-by-room search of the place—especially given the rough nature of the characters that lived in old storage buildings in the Barrens.

  Bannickburn stooped to open the padlock, then pushed llie door up. It opened with a rattle.

  Shivers entered before he was invited in, taking in the matching mahogany buffet and coffee table and the twin tan wingback chairs. He focused particularly on the buffet. “Is that a Morganton?” Shivers asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Impressive. Where did the furniture come from?” “Careful shopping and scavenging, my boy.” In truth, the antiques represented Bannickburn’s life savings. Since lie couldn’t put his money in a bank, he figured he might as well put it into functional form. Plus, it was much harder for people to walk off with a buffet than with a pile of cash.

  Shivers and Bannickburn sat. Bannickburn would have offered to make tea, but his hot plate was broken. And he didn’t have any tea.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s this about Kader?” “There are rumors going around about surveillance footage that’s leaked out. Footage that links you to that Alex guy, shows you were in cahoots.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bannickburn replied quickly. “Kader doesn’t know who I am. He only knows Miller.” “Well, that’s the second part of the problem. Seems someone took a few pictures of you while you were being made up as Miller, and they plan to leak those to Kader.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s incredible. But that’s what’s happening. Kader hasn’t even seen any of this stuff yet, but he’s on the warpath. He’s issuing contracts on ‘the guy with Alex in the surveillance footage.’ And if he actually gets his hands on the footage . . .” Shivers shook his head, the front locks of his hair swaying gently. “Then you have real trouble.”

  “But this doesn’t make any sense. Who would be taking pictures while I was getting made up?”

  “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter much, does it? The point is, you’re in trouble. Lucky for you, I can help.”

  Then Bannickburn started to see. Slowly, everything started making more sense, and the bottom fell out of his stomach. He’d screwed this one up pretty good. The drops had been falling steadily, and he’d ignored them. And now he was about to go under.

  “This is one of the things we specialize in,” Shivers was saying. “Protection. We can take you in. Give you sanctuary from Kader. He doesn’t want a mob war, either, so he’s not going to come after you while we’ve got you. We can keep you safe.”

  Bannickburn nodded absently.

  “We may be able to do more than that, even,” Shivers said. “The footage isn’t in Kader’s hands yet. If we act quickly, we may be able to keep it that way. He’ll still be mad, of course, but he won’t have the proof he’s looking for. That should help.”

  Of course he won’t, Bannickburn thought. He won’t have it until you want him to, because you have it. The only person who would have taken pictures when he was applying his disguises was someone looking for blackmail material for later. And there were plenty of Bigio people around when he was getting ready for the job.

  “That’s awfully generous of you,” Bannickburn said aloud, trying not to let the anger show in his voice. “Go ahead and get the footage. Hold on to it. I approve.” Shivers sat silently in his chair. He ran his hand along the smooth upholstery. Then he just looked at Bannickburn, and smiled without warmth.

  The two men stared silently at each other for a minute or two. Bannickburn was waiting for Shivers to go ahead and say what he was already thinking, to make the conditions more explicit. But, of course, Shivers didn’t want that. It would work out best for Shivers if any ideas for what was going to happen next came straight from Bannickburn.

  The elf wasn’t worried about his safety yet. Sure, he knew at least five hit men living right here in this building, but the information Kader was acting on was too vague. For the moment, he was safe. He had no doubt that Shivers had inflated the danger so he could talk to Bannickburn alone.

  But his relative safety was fragile. If he sent Shivers out of here unhappy, the situation would head downhill last. Kader would probably have the footage in his hand, confirming Bannickburn’s identity, within the hour.

  He tried to wait Shivers out for another few minutes, but the mafioso remained resolutely silent. Finally, Bannickburn caved.

  “You want me to come with you,” he said.

  “For your own good. Yeah.”

  “We’ll just go to your house? Have a few drinks, then I urn in?”

  “My house isn’t big enough or secure enough,” Shivers said. “Sorry.”

  Bannickburn sighed. Shivers was going to make him guess every bit of what he was supposed to do.

  He took another stab. “Bailey? I could stay with him.” “Bailey really doesn’t like to have other people at his house.” Shivers put a slight emphasis on the word “house.” Bannickburn took that as a clue.

  “His office, then. It seems pretty secure. He’s got a nice couch in the reception area.”

  Shivers slapped his knee, putting on a show of approval. “Of course,” he said with mock enthusiasm. “There’s always some muscle there anyway. They could keep an eye on you. Bailey’s office would be perfect.” Now for the part Bannickburn really didn’t want to do. “It would be quite generous of Bailey to put me up there.”

  Shivers nodded gravely. “Yes. Yes it would.”

  “I’d like to repay his generosity, of course,” Bannickburn said, then glanced arou
nd the storage unit. “Perhaps he'd like the buffet?”

  Shivers didn’t spare another glance for the buffet. “I’m sure he’d like it,” he said. “But not for this particular favor.”

  “I could pay cash rent for the time I’m there.” Shivers shook his head gently.

  “I could help out around the office.”

  Shivers cocked his head, pretending to think. “Hmrnm. That might work. There might be a thing or two to do.” “I was thinking some secretarial work. Filing. Correspondence. That sort of thing.”

  “Think again.”

  All right, Bannickburn thought. I know what they’re after. I know what it’ll take. All right.

  “Maybe I could go to the Tir for him.”

  Shivers stood up immediately. “About damn time you said it. Of course you could. Come on, let’s go.”

  18

  Bannickburn turned. He heard a leathery squeak. He almost drifted off again, but his shoulder was wedged underneath him at an uncomfortable angle.

  This wasn’t working. He rolled over onto his left side, and promptly got a face full of smooth leather. It pressed his nose flat and woke him up the rest of the way.

  He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around, trying to remember where he was. There was a large black desk. Behind the desk was a black chair, and on the chair was an ork leaning back with his feet on the desk. The ork wore a pinstriped gray suit with a white handkerchief. His feet were clad in enormous wingtips.