The Iron Swamp (37 page)

"If anyone is going to die here it's you, but that won't happen if you co-operate."

He gobbed a big ball of spit onto the floor. "I could kill all four of you with my hands tied behind my back."

I didn't doubt him. Wolsad, the man Hayson trusted sufficiently to give us for help, was as thin as I was short. His sleeves, no wider than a cup of jaffee, hung loosely on his arms, and his head narrowed at the top as if someone had drawn a face on a bottle. Resisting the urge to look around him to see if he had restrained the pimp properly, I began to fill the syringe in my pocket with vansetomia, the same paralyzing solution Ruby used. The network suggested even a tiny dose of it would leave Oldan instantly unable to move his limbs.

I wasn't taking any chances. The van we'd been given would have been well placed at a scrap yard. All vehicles in The Kaerosh had some degree of rust on the outside, but in this van lines of rough brown ran from floor to ceiling, flaking around spots of yellow. It was half surprising the anti-grav kept it hovering.

"There is something we want you to do for us, Mr. Oldan," I said, "and then we'll let you go."

"Piss on it. You'll let me go right now, or I'll rip you all to pieces."

I sighed. The man Rake killed couldn't have been any worse than this. "Listen you dim-witted oaf, none of your friends even know you're here. Help isn't coming for you any time soon, so unless you think you can fight your way loose of those restraints, you either cooperate or you die."

"Wanna see me fight midget?" he said. Metal jingled, something snapped as 130 kilos of muscles rushed at me.

Terrified almost into paralysis, I stuck the needle out just in time for him to run into it, squirting the liquid into his body. His lifeless mass collapsed on top of me, crushing the air out of me.

The vehicle swayed as Sikes and Wolsad pulled his limp body off and placed him on the floor in his own spit. "You alright?" asked Sikes. "Guess we're gonna need thicker cuffs."

My heart still beating to a drum roll, I checked his restraints. The chain and the cuffs had both held as they were designed to, but the bolt at the bottom, itself more oxide than metal, had sprung from a pit of crumbling brown flakes that wouldn't have had the strength to hold a man half Oldan's size.

I nudged him with the end of my toe. "This isn't working. He'll be out now for a few hours at least, and we never even told him what we wanted him to do. Which one of you arrested him?"

Sikes raised a hand.

"Wolsad, I need you to be a pimp."

Wolsad's face grayed as if he'd been eating rotten fish. "I can't be a pimp. The wife will kill me."

"I just need you to tell the girl, Kathryn, that she has a client tomorrow called Rezir Loshe at the Attari bath houses in Palias."

"What if she doesn't believe me? What if someone comes by looking for him?"

Becky laughed. "Say he's ill to anyone who comes asking, but the girls know we took him, so you'll have to tell them that we arrested him for lewd behavior or something, and you're his replacement. They'll understand your need to lie to clients and associates."

"I don't know," said Wolsad. "Mr. Hayson didn't say anything about impersonating pimps. I should probably go check with him."

As Wolsad made for the door, Sikes dragged him back, forcing him into one of the seats. As Sikes moved away, I rounded on him. "There's no time for that. Hayson wants you to do whatever I say, and those are my orders."

"But it'll be so obvious I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

"You tell the girls you're a temp and get them to help you. In fact, get Kathryn to help you, and let slip subtly that the next day she will be going to the baths to meet Rezir Loshe. Other than that, keep business running as usual."

"I don't think I can do this. Why can't Sikes do it?"

"Because someone might have seen him arrest Loshe. It needs to be you. It's not hard, Wolsad. Most likely the only people there will be a bunch of little girls. They'll tell you what to do. And remember, if you do this right, Hayson will rain promotions on you. This job could be the making of you."

He looked up, assessing me for mockery before he shrugged. "Alright."

If Wolsad was Hayson's idea of a joke, it wasn't funny. That promotion sparked so little enthusiasm in him was generally something I respected, but it just made Wolsad seem even limper. When it came to impersonating troglodyte pimps with heads full of muscle, Wolsad was the wrong man. But with no replacement, I was forced to accept his appointment with the same relish as he had for it himself.

My SP tablet bleeped. The single word message simply read,
OK
.

The sudden sensation of heat made me flick off my coat. Loshe was going to the baths, meaning that as long as Kathryn told Ruby about him then everything was running according to plan. It seemed logical that if Ruby was trying to kill all of these people then Kathryn would have a list of names, though even if she did, I had no guarantees that Loshe was on it. He traveled with Deson and Kenrey prior to the burning down of the orphanage, and Mrs. Jason had confirmed he still hired girls, but I still knew very little about the exact cause of Ruby's vendetta.

Loshe's agreement was a relief, but it also brought a level of clarity that I was engineering the death of another human being. Importantly, I could not be sure he meant me any harm. I didn't even know for sure that he was a pedophile or a rapist, which would mean that in such regard he was no worse than me, keeping a secret for his own preservation. I always assumed the worst about people, but in truth I
knew
nothing about this man. He could have a family; people dependent on his survival.

On the tailside was the possibility that I was right about him. He was a pedophile rapist and murderer who had, or would, order my death and those of my colleagues. Any hesitation on my part would lead to our own assassinations rather than his. I had a responsibility to Becky, Sikes, and even Hayson, to save their lives, which meant that Loshe had to die. If he turned out to be a philanthropist, I would make amends for it standing over his corpse. At terminus, whether Loshe was killed or not came down to Ruby, and that would reflect his guilt or innocence as well as anything.

Wolsad was making his way to the door at the rate of an aquatic animal dying of thirst.

"Get going." I pushed him forward causing him to stumble over the metal step. "You tell Kathryn as naturally as possible, and then give her space in case she needs the network screen to contact Ruby."

Wolsad looked back at me like a glass skeleton.

"Don't fail me," I said, and turned to Sikes. "Wally, you need to get down to those baths. Pose as a customer not a police officer, map out the access points, and find out about their security systems. Most importantly, find out if they're watching the private baths on security cameras."

Becky nudged the pimp with her foot. "And what do we do with him?"

"We'll have to cut his throat," I said, winking at her. Fresh whimpers came from the floor, but his body remained as limp as water weed. "Or we could just tie him up and leave him in the van until we're finished."

Becky smiled. "It seems a lot easier just to cut his throat."

More whimpering.

"You'll have to go find some better restraints inside the station while I watch over him."

Becky opened the door and ran up the steps, leaving it wide open. I sighed at her complete lack of caution and went to shut it.

The door was almost clicked back in place when a fist pushed its way in, knuckles clunking against the steel before the sliding metal rebounded. Surprised, I stepped back, allowing the fist to unfurl and force the door open. In stepped Lisbold, grinning as he shook the sting off his digits. The hand fell to his side as he raised a 67S police issue pistol in the other. He clambered in, squatting in front of the door as he closed it.

Chapter 23

In full Kaeroshi swamp gear, Lisbold was only recognizable by the streaks of blond fanning out as they tried to cover too much head. His eyes hid behind black mist goggles, their bronze rims protruding over his flattened nose. His tin-beige coat and trousers puffed with insulating zeolate designed to keep a man warm and dry at the bottom of a frozen lake. Inflated to twice his normal size, Lisbold was overdressed even for the dank cities of The Kaerosh, leaving me with little doubt of his intention.

In my pocket I still had the vansetomia, but there was no way I would be fast enough. "Lisbold, the man on the floor is dangerous. We need to tie him up before the effects of the drug wear off, then you and I can sort out our differences later."

Ever the friend maker, Lisbold kicked the pimp in the face. "I reckon he should be out for a bit longer, and our little chat can't wait."

"About what? You got fired for your own stupidity. It had nothing to do with me."

He smacked me in the face with the gun hard enough to knock me to the floor. "Odd how everyone you don't like keeps getting fired."

I tried to stand, but the motion made me feel dizzy, and I fell again.

"Get us out of here, short ass. The slider won't register my voice since you got me fired." He took my tablet from me and gestured again for me to tell the van to move.

"Where are we going?" There was no point in refusal. If he was mad enough to abduct me so close to a police station in a police van, then he was mad enough to shoot me in one.

"Where do you think?"

"The Hotel Fyadarra?"

From his seat, he kicked me in the stomach. "Try again."

"The swamp." I exhaled the word amid a spasm of pain.

He grinned. "No one makes a fool out of me frak-wit."

"No one except the woman who gave birth to you."

He slapped me across the face with less enthusiasm than the last time, satisfied that he could meet word with fist for as long as I continued to talk. Leaning back, he stretched his legs towards the pimp. "I dare you to run that mouth of yours again."

I said nothing. Perhaps having him beat me was a good stalling tactic, but at the cost of severe weakening. My gut, thigh, and face all sent shooting pains through my body with the slightest movement. I wasn't built for fighting. I'd always known that. In a less civilized age I wouldn't have made it through my first cycles.

He shoved me onto a seat. "Tell it to take us to Von Ras."

"Why?" I said, hiding my surprise that we were not off to Cosaw or Lisaw. Since the destruction of The Drys, Von Ras was the second biggest swamp north of the Line of Knives.

"Because, you piece of dis, I'm going to feed you to the fracking degodiles."

I said nothing. Von Ras was full of creatures that made Lisbold and his weapon look like a child with a water pistol, but I could also see the sense in it. There were people in the smaller swamps, children playing, adults walking or looking for their kids. Witnesses. Lisbold was not SP; he couldn't just bury me in shallow swamp at the outskirts of a city with impunity. If he wanted to get away with murder then his best bet was that my body was never found. No one was conducting an investigation into the intestinal tracts of the Von Ras degodiles, not even if I was Clazran himself.

Lisbold rammed the point of his gun into my mouth bashing my teeth so hard it sent a ringing through my head. "I swore I'd feed you to them, dwarf, when you got me fired. And now I got my chance. Tell it to get moving, or you die right here right now, and don't think I'll make it any faster."

"South of Von Ras," I told the slider, and we started moving.

"Who's this?" asked Lisbold, kicking the pimp again.

"Do you care?"

He shrugged. "What else are we going to talk about?"

My tongue sat in a pool of blood and saliva, forcing me to swallow before I answered. "How about nothing?" I felt across my teeth until I reached a gap where the gun had knocked one of them out. Tapping the nerve with the tip of my tongue, it sent electricity through my jaw akin to biting down on a blade.

The journey from Las Hek to Von Ras wouldn't take long. I had to think of something soon. If I could inject him with vansetomia, he would go as limp as Oldan swimming in his own drool. Lisbold was a brute, muscly where weight approximated to strength, but he was also stupid. And stupid people made mistakes.

"You got a lot of enemies, you know?" he said, looking down the sights of his gun at me as if he was aiming at something in the distance. "People are lining up to bring you down."

He tapped his tablet and it started dialing. "Fache, I got him. Meet where we said."

Fache hung up. Lisbold showed me every tooth in his mouth. "He's looking forward to watching those crocs pull you apart almost as much as me."

In my pocket I readied a syringe, screwing the needle onto the top ready to jam it into him if he got close enough.

"You two been following me?" I said.

He laughed. "Actually, yeah, but it was my informant who told me where you were. I wanted to get your little bitch as well, but I'll get her later." He chewed on his gums. "Throwing jaffee in my face."

This was my chance to provoke him.

"Even if you kill me, you stupid fool, this will be the end of you. It was never me who ruined your career. It was you when you admitted how useless you were at Clazran's dinner. This is the same; it's you destroying yourself through your own moronic barbarity."

He stood up as best he could in the cramped space, a mad look on his face as if every vestige of control had departed him.

"E.V. STOP," I shouted. Before he could balance, the slider began emergency deceleration, catapulting Lisbold to the front of the van on top of the pimp. It threw me sideways as well, but I kept hold of the syringe, righting myself faster before Lisbold could turn. I pulled the syringe out of my pocket and brought it down as fast as I could.

The gun went off, and for a moment my hand dipped into Cythuria. Sharp pain ran down my arm as if trapped under something heavy. By the time the syringe hit Lisbold's leg it wasn't a syringe anymore, just shards of glass mingled with my own blood.

Lisbold pulled his leg away before I could bury a shard through his puffy trousers, then plowed a fist into my chest sending me sprawling backward, coughing and wheezing. I heaved air into my lungs. My vision blurred as my eyes flooded, but not enough. I could still see the hole in my hand where the bullet passed through.