John Shirley - Watch Dogs - Dark Clouds

“We don’t go up there, today,” Shuggie said.

“Aw, Shuggie, come on! There’s a lot of guys in the Army around, don’t mean—”

Shuggie spun around, his niner suddenly in his hand. He shut Renfo up by shoving the nine millimeter pistol in the Viceroy’s mouth. “Say one more thing like that, I blow your head right up, Renfo. This man ain’t just Army. He’s Delta Force.”

He shoved with the gun and Renfo staggered back, choking.

Lordy cleared his throat and, stepping cautiously back, he said, “Is one thing you ought to know, Shuggie. There’s word out about Mick Wolfe. The Club wants him. They got two hundred grand on his head. He’s the one shot up their casino the other night.”

Shuggie looked at Wolfe with renewed appreciation. “No shit! Two hundred thou!”

Wolfe slowly lifted his right hand, preparing to grab his .38. He doubted he could shoot his way out, but he had to try.

Shuggie shook his head at Wolfe. “You don’t need to go for that gun. I wouldn’t take two hundred thou, or a million damn dollars from those pricks in the Club—not for any fucking reason. Not even as a pretty present tied in a bow.”

Lordy groaned. “Two hundred K is a lot of fucking money, bro.”

Shuggie nodded. “Yeah, kind of. But the Club’s our enemy. So now we got another reason to watch this man’s back. Two reasons now. He’s my friend… and he’s our enemy’s enemy.”

He turned to the five other Viceroys there, and swung a pointing finger to encompass them all. “This man is under my protection! You all got that? My. Fucking. Protection! He is an honorary Viceroy, far as I’m concerned. I owe my life three times to men like this. Anybody don’t like it better see me in person. You spread the word! No motherfucker touches this man—and nobody says shit to the Club about where he is! Or I’ll put your damn stupid heads on spikes!”

“Wolfe? Any luck with that imaging?”

It was Pearce’s voice, coming from the TV. It almost made Wolfe fall out of his chair.

“Jesus, Pearce, I wish you’d give me some warning.”

“I specialize in not giving warnings. What happened to your shirt?”

“Black Viceroys. Little run in.”

“I heard they were tracking you. But—you didn’t kill any of ’em, did you?”

“No. Found a friend. Close enough to a friend. Their neighborhood boss, name of Shuggie.”

“Shuggie. There’s worse than him around. How’d you friend up with him? Military connections?”

“Something like that.”

“Better put on a new shirt, clean up that jacket.”

“I plan to. You don’t need to micromanage, Pearce.”

Pearce chuckled. “So how about that image enhancement?”

“Yeah. I got it. Can you pick it up out of this PC?”

“I can.”

The PC wasn’t hooked up to anything. But there was something concealed in it, Wolfe figured, some tech that responded to a signal, and when exactly signaled it transmitted on a discrete wifi frequency… to some local hub that sent it to another, and so on, till Pearce got it through the almost legendary black market apps on his smartphone.

“It’s up on the desktop,” Wolfe said. “Do you need me to—”

“No, no, I got it. So that’s the son of a bitch who tried to splash my brains on the sidewalk…”

“Yeah. I think it is.” The image of the shooter, at the train station Pearce had traced him to, was now fully enhanced. Wolfe knew that enhancement programs could distort too—he’d seen it happen with those “face on Mars” photos—but he knew how to do it without distortion and anyway, he recognized the face that had emerged from the process. It was the guy he’d seen shooting at Pearce. He hadn’t seen him with much clarity out there on the street, but he was pretty sure this was the shooter.

“Okay, I’m gonna run this through ctOS facial recognition. They’ve got access to an international database. Hold tight.”

The wait wasn’t more than ten seconds.

“Uh huh,” Pearce said. “Here he is. Stan Grampus is the prick’s name. Says he’s rumored to be an assassin used by fixers. Works out of Chicago and St. Louis mostly. I hope he’s still in Chicago. I don’t want to go to St. Louis to find him.”

“What else they got on him?”

“Ambidextrous, it says. Amphetamine habit. Caught with half an ounce of amphetamines about six months ago. Charges dropped because they couldn’t find the evidence… Oh and look who arrested him. Detective Tranter, CPD. He’s the dirty gold shield I saw you with in that parking lot. The one who tried to warn you off. I figure this Tranter ‘lost’ the evidence in exchange for Grampus doing work for him.”

“And maybe some cash thrown in?”

“Maybe. Good chance Tranter hired Grampus to hit me. Doesn’t seem likely to have been Tranter’s personal priority to have me killed. He did it for someone else..”

“So whose priority was it?”

“That’s what we gotta find out. From Tranter—or maybe Grampus. Maybe Tranter told him…”

“That system say where to find Grampus?”

“No. It doesn’t. Last known address is now a confirmed ‘no longer resides’. But if he works for fixers … I just might have a lead for you. First thing you need to do, though, is meet Blank tomorrow. He’ll wire you in—and then you can be a serious player.”

“Pearce—” Wolfe turned in the desk chair just in time… to see Pearce’s image vanish from the screen of the TV.

Noon, under the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway, near West Van Buren.

The homeless encampment beneath the freeway ramp overpass was like a great overcrowded bird’s nest to Wolfe’s eye. Spilling out from under the concrete and steel overpass were broad, moldy pieces of cardboard, rusty sheet metal, large plastic black bags and old paint stained blue tarps were spread out in a rough circle, like the outline of a nest around the edges of the camp. Tents, some of them homemade, were propped up here and there; at almost regular intervals were shopping carts, some of them piled high by hoarding. A couple of people had made their own flags on scrappy wooden poles, rags with hand painted symbols snapping in the cold wind: one peace symbol, one obscene gesture. The indigent tried to grab some sleep, fully dressed against the cold as they lay in sleeping bags and under transparent plastic sheets.

There was surprisingly little trash. Most of the encampment tried to keep it clean.

Wolfe got some hostile looks as he walked through the encampment, and some curious looks; most of the squatters, lost in their own inner world, looked at him with dull, indifferent eyes.

Not standing out much from these people , he thought. Really have to get some new clothes.

“Did I see you here before?” asked a red-nosed, bearded man in a floppy hat and shaggy overcoat.

“Maybe,” Wolfe said. “I’ve been here before. I’m…” He remembered what Lulu had called him. “Mickey. You?”

“I’m Mayor Brock. I’m the mayor of this camp.”

“He’s full of shit, said a toothless woman with lank gray hair, sitting on a sleeping bag, with another one wrapped around her shoulders. “He’s not mayor of nobody or nothing.”

“You see Blank around?” Wolfe asked.

“Blank? Yeah he’s… wait, you got to tell me something funny first. I don’t give nobody nothin’ unless they make me laugh.”

“That sleeping bag—you know what they call those in the Army?”

“What?”

“Fart sacks.”

She cackled at that and pointed. “Up there, underneath the freeway ramp!”

Between the concrete columns holding up this end of the freeway ramp was one of the only burning campfires here now—the fire department had recently made them extinguish the most obvious ones. This campfire, made from broken wooden pallets, was filling up the space under the ramp with gray smoke.