Crescent (24 page)

(Part XVI)

Heathen’s was the last place Gerald wanted to be, and
Albin
Catlier
and Jacob Raney were the last people that Gerald wanted to be there with. Gerald was still water-logged and fatigued from the good times in the rain on
Anrar
III. The whole experience was already becoming hazy—like the border line between an alcohol blackout and memory. Sure, the recollections were there, but the pictures were fuzzy around the edges and Gerald didn’t quite believe it had been him in the starring role. He couldn’t. The air had been bad down there on
Anrar
III. That was all there was to it. It had to be why Core Sec never attempted to colonize the place—it was just a shitty rock in a shitty part of space.

Gerald tapped the beer bottle. It was an absent and impatient gesture. He had been sitting with
Catlier
and Raney for more than thirty minutes, and neither man had said more than two words. Raney spat out black tobacco spit on the floor and
Catlier
chain-smoked and stared off into the crowd.
They’re trying to make me uncomfortable,
Gerald thought.
Kendall sent them here to make me squirm.
Gerald overcame the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he tipped the dark bottle to his lips and drained the contents. A group of teenagers dressed in black entered through the batwing doors. From behind the bar,
Maerl
yelled at them to leave, shouting that they weren’t old enough to come into the place. The kids tossed a stack of black flyers on one of the tables and ran out.
Maerl
shook his head and went back to tending bar. Gerald looked at his beer bottle.

“My beer is done. If you boys have nothing to say, I’m done here, too. Not much in the socializing mood.” Gerald started to get to his feet.
Catlier
reached out and grabbed his wrist with a dry, calloused hand.

“We’re not done here just yet, Mr. Evans.”
Albin
flashed his teeth. Jacob Raney smiled as if on cue. Raney would still have been an ugly son of a bitch, even if his teeth weren’t stained shit brown from all the tobacco chewing. Gerald slumped back into his seat. What was it with Kendall and ugly employees?

“In that case, I hope you’re buying.” Gerald signaled to the server for another beer.

Albin
snorted and shrugged.

“The tab is on our good mayor,” he said.

“Whatever you say, hombre.”
Gerald took one of
Catlier’s
cigarettes and lit it casually.

“Kendall has work for you,” Raney said at last. It was apparent that Raney’s announcement had irritated his partner. Two small circles of red flared on
Catlier’s
pale cheeks.

“Yeah?
Been a little while,” Gerald said. “I was starting to think I was fired.”

“Well,”
Albin
said. “That all depends.”

“Depends on what?” Gerald raised a brow.

“Depends on what you told that Core Sec
piggie
,” Raney said, and laughed. A trickle of tobacco spit ran down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

“I had nothing to tell that guy,” Gerald said. These two were boneheads. So long as Gerald kept his cool, they wouldn’t be able to tell truth from lie and back around to the other side. His feet ached. He wanted to get out of his boots. That was his primary concern.

“You sure?”
Catlier
leaned forward, his lips pulling back in a snarl.
“You real sure?”

“I’m real sure. I told him that I didn’t know shit, which, really, is the truth. I want to pick up my paycheck at the end of the day, just like everyone else. I’m not going to rock the boat,” Gerald said and wiggled his toes in his boots.
Catlier
looked over to Raney. Raney shrugged.

“Raney, there, he isn’t the brightest globe in the chandelier, but he’s got a sense about him. Like a human
lie detector
.
Ain’t
that right, Raney?”
Albin
asked.

“Yep.”

“He can sniff out a lie. What do you say about Gerald?
He
lyin
’, Jacob?”

“I don’t think so,
Albin
. He’s
bein
’ straight with us,” Raney hawked another glistening, brown glob of tobacco spit.

“Straight as can be, pal,” Gerald affirmed.

Catlier’s
hand disappeared into the bulky, feathered jacket he wore; the ridiculous garment made him look like a big, black turkey. The hand returned with a data wafer which he slid across the table. Gerald placed his hand atop the wafer, palm down, and slid it the rest of the way across the tabletop and into his breast pocket.
Things have become awfully cloak and dagger
, Gerald mused.

“There are coordinates on that wafer.
Upload’m
to your ship’s computer. Do this job and you’re done. Kendall has decided you are a liability, but he’s in a bind. And lucky for you, he can’t kill you while Core Sec is here,”
Albin
said, and winked. “Go to those coordinates and await further instruction. Once you finish the job, he wants you off Crescent in forty-eight hours. That is, unless you’re spotted talking to the Core Sec auditor again. If that’s the case, you’ll be off the station when Raney and I find you.”

Gerald patted his pocket and smiled. He would show up on time and as instructed. Bean’s cameras would be rolling and the DVR would be recording. If proof was what
Swaren
needed to take Kendall out, Gerald would gladly hand over an optical disc chock full of evidence. Gerald would be flying free by that night, no doubt.

“All right, then.”
Catlier
stood and dropped his eyes to his companion. Raney stood and spat a glistening wad of nastiness close to the toe of Gerald’s boot.

“Tomorrow night, Mr. Evans.
Seventeen-hundred hours. You be at those coordinates. Fuck it up and the next time Kendall sends us to you, it won’t be a data wafer you’ll be receiving.”

“I’m sure not.” Gerald said and tapped his pocket again. “Seventeen-hundred hours. I’ll be there with bells on.”

Raney’s brow creased. He looked confused.
Albin
gestured to the exit with a cock of his head and Raney started obediently in that direction.
Catlier
followed, pausing briefly to add,
“Thanks for the beers.”

Gerald heard Raney asking the tall man, “
bells?
” as the pair stepped through the batwings.

“Ah shit,” Gerald said, realizing that the drinks had been on his dime all along.
If I continue to be this sharp, I’m
gonna
find it harder to stay alive.

A job, or a trap—either way, Gerald was getting tired of feeling out of control. If he was flying into a trap, at least it was his goddamn decision. Gerald approached the batwing doors and took one of the flyers the teens had left behind on his way. It said
Believe in the power of prayer. A change is coming!
An email address was printed on the back of the flyer, and that was it. The religious freaks seemed to be everywhere lately. Just the other day, Gerald had caught them trying to leave the flyers on Bean’s viewports. A cult seemed to fit the times quite nicely.
Par for the
fuckin
’ course,
Gerald thought.

(•••)

“I’m not even going to try and guess what you said to Kendall that got him so crazy. He wanted me to fire you, Griffin. I finally convinced him that taking you off active duty was a better idea. I told him there was too much going on here lately and that we might need you. He still wasn’t happy, but he gave in.” Captain Benedict frowned as they made their way down the corridor. He tapped the glowing screen of his data pad. “But, Marisa, it’s your lucky day. Dock security is understaffed. Everyone is getting goddamned sick on me. I need to reinstate you in the same breath where I said I’d bench you.”

Marisa didn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say about any of it. She knew there had been an altercation with Kendall, but the how and why of it remained a mystery to her. One minute, the mayor had been in her apartment; the next, he had been hurrying out the door and cursing her name. Taylor’s face was bruised and bloodied. Both his eyes had been swollen shut. Did she hurt Taylor? She didn’t know. The only clear memory Marisa had was of waking up on the floor to the sound of the wall terminal ringing. It had been HQ calling to let her know she was in deep shit. After that, she hadn’t been able to make any outgoing calls or even leave her apartment. She was locked in. Her attempts to contact Nigel via PDA had been equally useless. It took Captain Benedict’s
housecall
to prove to her that her door still opened.

“I know you’re hot-blooded, Mari,” Benedict said in his most fatherly of voices as they walked to security HQ side by side, “and I know Kendall can be a bit hands-on with the ladies.” They stopped outside the bulkhead that led into HQ. Benedict crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at her. “I know for a fact that he has taken a fancy to you. I have no doubt you set him straight.” Benedict smiled his approval, even though he couldn’t flat out say it. “But, that kind of behavior can’t be encouraged. It’ll be my head next.” Benedict paused. “Have you been sleeping better lately?”

“Yes. Quite a bit, actually,” she said, but she could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. He shrugged as they stepped inside. Marisa followed Captain Benedict into the monitor station-turned-office.

“Report to the docks at fifteen-hundred hours.
I’ve informed Captain
Swaren
that you will no longer be able to assist him, due to our staffing difficulties. You’re all
mine
again, Mari.”

“Really?”

“Captain
Swaren
had some very nice things to say about you. And because of your hard work, Marisa, I haven’t had to have more than a single meeting with the man. Unfortunately, that’s going to have to change,” Benedict said.

“Do you think that Kendall didn’t like the fact that someone who knows Crescent’s idiosyncrasies was working with
Swaren
—that someone being me?” She suddenly wanted to tell Captain Benedict everything—Kendall’s blackmail, the
carthine
habit, and all the other crazy shit. But her mouth stayed shut.

Benedict grunted. He stepped to the monitor displays and began to cycle through the various security feeds.

“Countless lives are on this station—residents and transients alike. They depend on
us
, Core Security, to make this a safe place. Kendall wants nothing more than to keep his record clean and keep his station running smoothly. Sure, some of his methods may be questionable—draconian, even—and yes, they may not follow Core Sec’s standard operating procedures to a tee. But Crescent has been without major incident for more than fifteen years. And with the level of traffic that comes through here, that is a big accomplishment.
Especially on the frontier.
Kendall is old school, but the ship he runs is a tight one. He’s got nothing to hide from
Swaren
and last I checked
,
womanizing wasn’t a crime under Core Sec law.”

Marisa nodded. She was happy to get back to dock rotation. She didn’t want to be left to her own devices; not when she was dealing with blackouts and lost time.
That’s what happens when you stare at a wall
, she thought.
You fall asleep and you end up in strange places.
Activity would help her as she eased off the
carthine
, too.

“All right, Lieutenant.
That’s all for now.
Report to Walter Vegan at fifteen-hundred hours.
Don’t be late.”

She nodded. “I won’t be late.”

“I know you won’t be,” he said and smiled. He waved her out and she took her leave.

Marisa passed
Albin
Catlier
and Jacob Raney when she left HQ.
Catlier
watched her with his unnervingly blue eyes. He dipped his chin in salutation as she passed. She didn’t acknowledge the greeting. Raney hawked a ball of blackish spit as she went by them. She continued on for a meter or so and then stopped and turned, preparing to deliver a scathing comment, but the pair stepped through the security office bulkhead before she had the chance. Raney’s beat-up duster trailed behind him in a dark wake and almost got caught in the closing door.

Strange.

Marisa began to walk again, but her eyes were still on the door to HQ. She turned fully forward and ran right into a thin, pale woman. Wisps of blonde hair framed a delicate and surprised face. Time slammed to a standstill. Déjà vu, more consuming than she had ever experienced, gripped Marisa by the throat. She knew this girl. She’d seen her somewhere. Where? The same look of recognition was in the stranger’s blue eyes. Marisa smiled uneasily.

“I’m…
 
” she said.

“Sorry,” the blonde girl replied.

“Should have watched…
 
” Marisa began

“…
 
where
I was going. Right,” the blonde finished. She smiled the same hesitant grin Marisa wore on her face and then went on her way. Marisa watched her go.