Lieutenant Arkham: Elves and Bullets (26 page)

“Tracheotomy …?”

“Just get in and shut up.” My humour is wasted here. Full ogres (they say) possess intelligence which is analogous with that of humans, but half-bloods are lucky if they possess an I.Q. of over seventy, at least in my experience. Losers and retards, it’s no surprise that up until the collapse of the Khanate they made up the largest caste of slaves.

The City toll gate is fifteen minutes away from where I parked the car. The traffic of people and goods within the federal area is usually free from checks and taxes, nevertheless Nectropis is, as in many other respects, an exception to the rule. Due to various reasons ranging from extraordinary maintenance required by the peculiar urban structure to the constant, endemic criminality, the metropolitan district enjoys a series of privileges which are wholly unaffected by the regular angry protests from other states. The truth? Nectropis is simply too important to be equalized with any other political body. Since long before the idea of unification enlightened the western sub-continent, the City was the epicentre of the whole region. “Blood inheritance” was the explanation behind the exceptions to customs regulations pertaining to the the union of customs which preceded the agreement and subsequent political union. In today’s constitution that definition has disappeared but it’s always the same old story, and deep down, everyone who lives here is irrationally convinced that the City is doing the rest of the world a favour by interacting.

Following my directions, we take the emergency lane, and the driver gets visibly antsy when the barrier doesn’t go up.

“Relax, that’s normal. No sirens or lights, someone’ll come and check us before letting us through.”

“Okay,” he answers, still suspicious.

“Did I say you could speak?”

What a drag.

A suit with a protruding belly and grey hair that matches his uniform approaches the car and taps on the window. Perfect, an old man with no axe to grind who knows the procedure off by heart. I motion to him to go round the vehicle to talk to me and I wind the window down, I stick my arm out and let my badge swing. It’s funny how when he sees it, he turns around and disappears into his booth without even stopping his bike. It’s a pleasure to work with expert staff. The all-clear comes so quickly that I don’t even have time to wind the window back up. The half-ogre pushes his foot down on the accelerator with a sigh of relief, and we’re onto the eternally gridlocked ramp. Goods arrive in the City mainly by rail, but once inside the traffic is ninety percent on wheels. Only express delivery services can afford flying vehicles, for everything else it’s a jungle seven days a week. Fortunately, on the sixth level, where we’re headed, the traffic improves as soon as we’re half a kilometre away from the suspended ringroad. The racket of the car horns in the traffic jam always calls for a consolation snort, but I make a point of only sniffing with people deserving of my respect. That doesn’t apply here. As a way of avoiding dropping off to sleep to the monotonous sound of the engine, I decide to broaden my cultural horizons with a conversation, which I suspect, will only consolidate my already unflattering opinion of half-pigs.

“So, seeing as this is going to take some time should I carry on calling you shitface or would you like to tell me your name?

“Bomutu,” he answers through the corner of his mouth, propping up his cheek with one fist and his elbow against the door, the other hand draped across the steering wheel.

“Bomutu. Does this name for a stomach complaint derive from the colour of your skin or is it the other way around?”

“It comes from the Horned Coast. I was born there.”

“Yeah. Now I can see how that happened. Do you also have some tragic dick disease to complete the pretty picture?”

“Listen, cop, you’re the boss tonight, but you’d better watch yourself if you want to see tomorrow.”

“So touchy. I thought your sort were hard.”

“I
am
hard!”

“Didn’t sound like it.”

“You get on my tits,” concludes Bomutu. The van creeps forward to occupy the small space which has appeared between us and the other metal coffin which moves in front of us at a snail’s pace.

“Mother always tells me to make new friends.”

I turn on the radio to fill the heavy silence inside the cab. I twiddle the dial until I tune into a non-stop music station. The insipid contemporary pop music helps me think while still keeping my wits about me.

The MP is looking for Gilder. I’m looking for Gilder. And to top it all, in ascending order of investigative ability, the elves are looking for Gilder. Unless this ass turns out to be the biggest genius of Saros, which seems unlikely considering his last job, there are two possibilities: either he’s so skilled as to manage to remain invisible forever, or someone is hiding him. His friends. What would be friends with someone who is on practically everybody’s shopping list? Funeral companies with an exclusive? Ghouls? Other people under a magic contract? No, that’s not possible. If he had that much cash he wouldn’t be in such desperate circumstances.

Wait, wait. There’s a thin red line underneath my nose that I didn’t notice before. Inla took part in the Croce riots, and I have every reason to believe that the Blonde was somewhere around there, too. Equal rights for all etcetera. The Spire, on the other hand, plays the little soldier but leaves in disgust soon after. Both of them are ostracised by their respective families, “spitting on tradition” as Colonel Marblearse said. A pay-off that even I wouldn’t know how to squander in only a few years. If the dots are joined up, the picture that comes out is of two idealistic kids too caught up in screwing themselves to take a step backwards. What if they were part of one of the many underground political movements? Only subversives or revolutionaries would go against everything and everyone to save the arse of a hare on the run. Particularly two fanatical activists like our two lovebirds. They could even have set it up themselves—which would explain what happened to all that money.

Scene: Gilder and Inla finally have something damning against their blood relatives, after years of ineffectual attempts with their ragbag group of terrorists. They prepare the bomb and the escape plan, but somehow the other rabbits find out and send their hired assassin to clean up. Maybe the redhead tripped herself up with that phone call to her father, she gave something away. Or maybe there’s some weird thousand-year-old law that says that it’s the parents who have to sort out their children’s shit and she calls him and asks him to pardon her, I don’t know. Anyway, whether he likes it or not, Nylmeris, like a good tin soldier, all duty and honour, gets his blade and kills her, but Gilder gets away. So, not only did he do something that earned him a death sentence, but now he’s also hell bent on getting his own back on his old commander and comrade in arms, therefore there’s no fucking way he’s leaving. That said, he also has sound moral principles, and simply killing the old man doesn’t quite cut it, he wants him to be publicly condemned. He wants justice, the imbecile. Or perhaps he’ll make do with justice because he knows he can’t get to the colonel. But why me especially? Maybe, being a Feltu, he’s heard of my endeavours. Then again, he may have believed all that rubbish in the papers and he thinks I’m some sort of defender of the law.

Here’s another plausible theory with just one hole in it, some pieces don’t fit, the premature aging, the corpse in the middle of the street; even though the latter could have been a simple demonstration. Regardless of the official version, those with ears long enough to hear with, heard and heard well, everyone else got the titillating stories such as the ogre lover and jealous boyfriend, the scandal would have lasted until the next saucy story came out and then ended up, inexorably, being quickly forgotten. The story stands up, but I haven’t got a shred of evidence. However, if my theory is right, the Blonde has already got the proof.

But then, why on earth did he run away when we met him at Cicisbeo? Easy: because I would almost have certainly arrested him. He presumably didn’t think we’d have found him so soon, he went to get his bit of money before disappearing for good.

Or the proof, shit. The fucking proof. He couldn’t hide it in his house, too obvious. So he hid it in his dressing-room, where somebody wouldn’t think to go and look. I can’t really see Nylmeris going into that dump, never mind rummaging around in Gilder’s sweaty thongs. If I’d apprehended him and taken him to the station, I reckon he’d have been dead in under an hour. I can just see it, three hundred pissed off lawyers descend on us and start hitting MetroPo with lawsuits for anything and everything, including the empty fire extinguishers or the certification for the heating systems, Cohl’s commissioner pees his pants and they get rid of him in eight minutes flat. Gilder takes ten steps inside the building and he’s mowed down by a mammoth which escaped from the zoo, reduced to elvish mush or is the victim of some bizarre accident, and that’s goodbye to both proof and witness.

So the good news is that all I have to do is find Gilder and get hold of the proof. While the bad news is that I can’t go door to door, ringing ten million doorbells and ask if by any chance they’ve seen a handsome star of the stripping world.

Once we get past the junction, the cars visibly thin out and we quickly cut though the general squalor. Around these parts humans are a small minority. The area’s grimy pubs are surrounded by herds of anthropomorphic boars intent on seducing sows. We streak past a group of gremlins busy cooking three fat rats stuck on pointed sticks, the improvised chefs are huddled round a burning bin. As though we could be tempted in some sick way by their sumptuous banquet, the demons eye us suspiciously until we’re well out of their line of vision. Nobody knows for sure just how many and what kind of bizarre creatures populate these crumbling buildings, and I have absolutely no intention of finding out, especially as I recently received confirmation, unfortunately for me, that rumours concerning un-dead creatures hiding at the bottom of Nectropis are true. Inevitably, there’s the standard brawl outside another sleazy dive two blocks down the road. Hope they’ve got knives, that’ll bring the numbers down nicely. It’s definitely more efficient than any campaign promoting the use of contraception.

We make our way towards the centre of the level, avoiding the ring roads, where there is the slight risk of running into an overzealous cousin, who has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and he’s trying to die on the job so his family can cash in on the insurance. Every now and then we see some seriously shifty characters hurrying along who knows where, or smoking while standing guard at the entrance to a pusher’s square, more to keep the tramps and rivals away than out of the fear of the authorities.

All I need to do now is find the Blonde.

That’s what I was thinking while I was rubbing my eyes, when a
wrong
noise brought me back to the present. Initially, I can’t block the image, something dark and rumbling overtakes the van. Metallic, chrome. Combustion engine, pistons pumping. Motorbike, sounds like a gang of pigs on horseback. Dark leather jackets, orange shaved heads and…

“Ambush!” I yell at Bomutu, who instinctively slams on the brakes.

And sub-machine guns.

The vehicle swerves when the brake pads hit the plates. One of the bikers stops and raises his weapon, he sweeps the windscreen with a precise spray of bullets, from left to right.

I duck behind the dashboard a fraction of a second before a bullet rips open the padding inside the backrest of my seat. The driver is less fortunate and is torn apart by at least six shots to his upper torso. He dies with his foot firmly on the brake, while the van obstinately skids around until it is stopped by the soft impact against a couple of dumpsters surrounded by piles of rubbish bags.

“And here’s me bothering to ask you your name,” I say to the corpse while I beckon the Altra.

Shit. I’m dead this time. The holes in the glass are tidy and precise. Professionals.

The wing mirror on my side is still intact. One of the four is sliding along the side of the van with his weapon at the ready. He’s coming to certify the killing. I can see another one farther away, he’s positioned so as to cover the others. Fucking experts. The only positive thing is that pros tend to get cocky as their careers develop, and this, sooner or later, will kill them.

I fling the door open and fire with my left hand, trying to shoot parallel with the vehicle. The muffled cry and subsequent thud tells me that the Altra has done it again. This theory is supported by a shower of blasphemous expletives in the Ogre’s own language and a hail of bullets which forces me back inside the vehicle.

The bullets are incessantly peppering the chassis, like a drum roll. Fuck, I’ve got to get out of here. They won’t fall for it again. The windscreen is cracked in two places, keeping as low down as possible. I try and knock it out with the butt of my gun. Another round of bullets hisses past my ear, just to make life easier.

It’s a half-arsed idea, but I haven’t got anything better, okay? Pushing back against the seat, I tense my kidneys and throw myself out, rolling out in a somersault across the bonnet and falling into the rubbish. This time a bullet grazes my shoulder and wrenches a yell from my lungs.

Oh, no. While I take cover between the dumpsters, I realise I’ve pulled a muscle in my back.

“So presumptuous, Arkham. The last time you did a somersault was in a P.E. lesson at high school.”

Yeah, witty banter. That’s what the heroes on the silver screen do. It’s more realistic than you think, it stops you from shitting your pants.

A new series of detonations and ensuing impacts against the dumpsters reminds me that I’m certainly no athletics champion. The pigs are still there, there are still three of them and they’re even more outraged than before. I check how many bullets I’ve got left in the magazine and push it back in, satisfied. Eight shots. I mean, if I can actually manage to fire eight shots before they screw me I will consider it a glorious death.