John Shirley: Watch Dogs: Dark Clouds

Tranter cleared his throat. “Yes sir. He seemed like a… harmless bozo. Maybe a PTSD case out of the war.”

“Indeed. Hold on—the war? Which war?”

“Uh—I don’t know. I saw his Army I.D. Guy was Delta Force.”

“Delta Force?” Verrick sat up straight, ignoring the spike of pain in his back. “Tranter. What was this soldier’s name?”

“Uh… Wolfe. Mick Wolfe.”

Verrick closed his eyes. “Oh my God. I knew I should’ve had him killed up Leavenworth.”

“Sir?”

Verrick gave Tranter his coldest stare. “Tranter. You want to keep getting that extra money every month?”

“Yes sir. I do.”

“And you want to continue living, right?”

Tranter stared coldly back at him. Tranter might be corrupt, but he was tough, and Verrick could tell that Tranter wouldn’t easily stand for that kind of threat.

But Verrick meant it. First of all, he’d made a deal with the Club—it was important that Pearce go down. But then there was Wolfe. Talk about a loose cannon. He had made a big mistake deciding not to have Wolfe killed in prison. He’d been afraid it would awaken suspicion, and people might start looking at Wolfe’s testimony over again. They might start taking Wolfe seriously once he was dead. So Verrick had let him live, confident that destroying the man’s career would destroy the man too.

But here he was again, turning up like a bad penny. Maybe trying to use Pearce to get at his former commanding officer, Major Roger Verrick.

And Verrick wasn’t going to make any more mistakes. He silently vowed to take out anyone who got in his way from now on. There was more at stake here than covering his ass. From his point of view, the destiny of the world was in the balance.

“You better get on it, Tranter,” he said at last. “I have a lot of people backing me. They’ll snuff you out like a twenty-cent birthday candle if you fail. And you will not fail . You will see not only that Aiden Pearce is killed… but Mick Wolfe as well.”

The Hawk. That’s what they called the north wind that came slashing down the Chicago streets, this time of year. With the sun gone down, now, the wind was colder, bitterer than ever.

It had started when Wolfe had gone into the seediest bar he could find that still had wifi. He was searching through news on his laptop. On the internet jukebox was an old Stones song about “the girl with far away eyes”.

Mick Wolfe listened to the song in a distant way, as he tooled through the web for a way to find a certain son of a bitch. Wolfe was just sitting there at the bar, close to the wall, sipping a boilermaker and searching Chicago news for Verrick.

He glanced at the door whenever someone came in; he was keeping an eye out in case Tranter came looking for him. Tranter—or someone worse.

There on the laptop screen was a picture of Verrick in a powder-blue Italian suit, posing next to a shiny sensor array that was a sample of ctOS-2, the new system Blume Corporation was getting ready to launch. Verrick was Blume’s security head, and this was a security sensor, so it was no shock to see Roger Verrick in the picture, trying to smile and pointing at the metal and crystal cluster. Wolfe wasn’t seeing much else on Verrick that was up to date.

“Hey,” said a sultry voice at his elbow. “I know him! That’s the guy from the Upstairs Room.”

Wolfe twitched a little, managed not to jump out of his seat and turned to look at the girl.

“Ya didn’t even hear me walk up, didja?” she asked, smirking. She had a slight southeast Asian accent, oddly mixed with Chicago working class; was quite small but shapely, her black bob highlighted with silver at the tips, her lips and fingernails painted silver too; her eyes were almond-shaped and chestnut-colored. She had one fist cocked on her hip. “You sure jumped, soldier boy!” She pointed at the U.S. Army tattoo on his forearm.

“I’m not a soldier anymore,” he said, turning to the laptop . Not that kind, anyway. “But you should be, girl, walking up that quiet on people…” Wait, what had she said? “You saying you’ve seen that guy in person, somewhere?” He tapped Verrick’s image on the screen.

“Sure,” she said. “At the Four Clubs. They got a room upstairs—and guess what, they call it the Upstairs Room. Think they’re cute. I could tell you were interested in him, real personal like, the way you were staring at that boring picture. You buy me a Courvoisier?”

That was pretty expensive liquor. But if she knew where Verrick could be found when the bastard was out and about…

Wolfe dug some bills from his pocket. He still had eighty dollars left from the off-the-books construction work he’d done in Kansas City. He put a twenty on the bar. “Courvoisier for the lady,” he told the bartender.

The old man nodded, and shuffled over to get the cognac.

“You can afford Courvoisier?” she asked. “I thought you’d say, how about if I get you a vodka instead! You just got paid, huh? Wanta party?”

“I didn’t say I could afford the Courvoisier,” he said. “But I’ll pay for it.” Wolfe waited till she had climbed up on the stool next to him and had a sip of her drink, then he asked, “So this Four Clubs place… where is it? This Roger Verrick owes me money.”

“I can’t give out the address. That’d get me in trouble. Place is illegal—’course, all the cops know where it is. They’re paid off.”

“Old Chicago tradition.”

“Sure. Anyway… if ya go over to the Loop, ask around near Van Buren, check the scene, I bet ya find it. They won’t letcha in, though. Not unless you got a nice suit at home to put on first—and maybe a razor. You got to look like a high roller to get in there. They got more’n one tough bouncer.”

He’d cross that bouncer when he came to it, he figured. “What’s your name?” he asked the girl.

“Lulu.”

“I’m Mick.”

“Can I call you Mickey?”

“Make you happy, call me Mickey. Look, uh—could you get me into the Four Clubs?”

“Nah, not a chance, they eighty-sixed me outta there ‘cause I wouldn’t let some dumbjacks do something they wanted to do to me. If I go back, Honker’ll pulp my face. That’s what he said he’d do. I don’t even know what pulp your face is but I don’t wanta know.”

“I hear that, alright. This Verrick got anyone special he sees at that place?”

“Sure, if she wasn’t just bragging. Every Friday night, that guy sees Rose Blue. Looks like a model, that girl. Blonde and tall and with the long legs, you know? Dresses in rose color, and blue, when she’s working. Thinks she’s the tippy top, like she got all her clients twisted around her pinky finger…”

Should he try to get into the Four Clubs tonight? He could probably find Verrick if he watched the Blume Building, of course. But he didn’t want to be seen anywhere near Verrick’s turf. Didn’t want to go to that bastard’s center of power unless he had to. It’d be too well protected, too well watched. He needed to catch Verrick off guard.

If a guy wasn’t off-guard in the hooker suite of a mob casino, where was he off-guard?

“So how about that party, Mickey?” Lulu said, elbowing him. “It’s Friday night, time to let your hair down and your pants too.”

“You deserve top dollar, Lulu. Can’t afford it. But here… let me buy you another drink.” He put one more twenty on the bar. That was half his money gone. “You give me your phone number, I’ll get back to you when I get a paycheck…”

“I like that, you’re a guy thinks ahead! Not that many guys think ahead. They think ‘get into her pants right now’. You’re a good guy, Mickey. Hey Harry? Another Courvoisier!”