S Huang - Zero Sum Game

“I keep a few places around the city in case I need to get off the grid, but I figured we’d drive around and swap cars a few times first,” I answered. Go Cas, ever prepared.

“Russell,” said Tresting, “I don’t think I can work with you.”

Dammit. Not this again. Maybe I could make him understand. “Look, I know you don’t like Rio—”

“No.” He rubbed his forehead with one hand, like someone with a migraine coming on. “Well, yeah, that’s an issue. But it ain’t him, Russell. It’s you.”

Something constricted inside me. “What does that mean?”

He took a deep breath. “Life is cheap to you.”

I started to get angry. “Those snipers had rifles pointed at us. It was self-defense.”

“Yeah, and why was that? Your little trick with the hunk of wood? Violence ain’t always the best choice, you know. If you didn’t—”

“We don’t know he was going to tell them to let us go,” I countered, bristling. “Maybe he was going to give the order to shoot on sight instead. Did you ever think of that?”

“Maybe,” said Tresting, “and maybe we could’ve got out of there without anyone hurt at all if we just walked away. Without anyone else dying. And without another dozen eyewitnesses fingering us for a crime.”

“You don’t know that,” I argued. “Any of it could have gone either way. And I did just save both our lives— again —so a little gratitude might be in order!”

“Gratitude?” He shifted in his seat to face me. “You caused the whole damn situation in the first place! And shooting off a bunch of rounds in a crowded park—what if you’d hit an innocent?”

“I knew I wouldn’t,” I tried to defend myself. “I’m really good at what I do—”

“Which is what?” challenged Tresting. “Killing people? Threatening people with guns? Punching them when they insult you? That what you so good at?”

I fumed in silence for a minute, revving the engine hard and then slamming on the brakes every time traffic moved a few inches.

“You got some good in you,” Tresting said quietly. “You do. But you also scare the shit out of me.”

Usually I enjoy scaring people, but for some reason, hearing Tresting say that gave me a crumpled feeling inside. I didn’t like it.

“And you’re a smart kid, shit, maybe brilliant, but for some reason your first solution is always to pull the trigger,” Tresting continued after a moment. “And I can’t work with that. I can’t.”

“I don’t go around killing innocent people,” I said stiffly.

“That guy just now, in the park,” said Tresting. “You went to shoot him.”

“Piece of crap gun misfired,” I said. “Look, he was trying to grab us or kill us, one of the two—”

“Yeah, and that’s another good reason to avoid that sort of fubared situation in the first place: what if you got a jam in the middle of capping those snipers? Or if there was more than four? But that ain’t my point. First you tried to shoot him, and then…I don’t know where you learned to fight, but you kicked him so hard…” He swallowed. “Shit. I was almost sick on the street right there.”

I thought back. I’d been in the throes of adrenaline at the time, but now I could remember the feeling of his face collapsing against my boot—I cut off that line of thought. “He was a threat,” I insisted stubbornly.

“And now he’s dead, ain’t he?” said Tresting. I didn’t answer. “What about our buddy Finch and his boss? They dead too?”

“No,” I said. “It would’ve been too hard to get the leverage from that distance.”

“Listen to yourself,” Tresting said, his voice cracking.

They’re enemies, I told myself. Taking out an enemy is not wrong.

“How about me, back in that motel bathroom?” Tresting said. “Just couldn’t get the leverage then neither?”

I didn’t answer.

“Too small a space, I guess,” he filled in for me after a moment. “Lucky me.”

“You were threatening me with a gun,” I pointed out angrily.

“The rate you do that yourself, it should count as a hobby.”

I accelerated and slammed on the brakes a couple more times.

“Drop me in East LA somewhere,” said Tresting.

“Pithica’s after you,” I reminded him, trying to keep my tone neutral. “And the police. And now these guys—without me around and whatever they want from me, they’ll just kill you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Right.

I pulled off the freeway and found the seediest-looking neighborhood I could to park the van in. We both got out, Tresting giving his door handle and seatbelt a quick wipe down with a napkin as he did so.

“I guess this is good-bye, then,” I said.

We stood awkwardly.

Then Tresting spoke, with an obvious effort. “Thanks again for saving my life, back at my office.”

I shrugged a little too harshly. “We’re even.”

“Russell.”

“Yeah?”

“Think about what I said, okay? You’re a good kid. You ain’t gotta be like this.”

“I like how I am just fine,” I said.

“Take care of yourself.”

I shrugged again.

He turned and walked away, leaving me on a graffitied street corner that smelled vaguely of human urine. My adrenaline had faded into listless fatigue.

Well, I supposed it was time to steal another car and head to one of my bolt holes. Cas Russell, ever prepared.

I sighed.

Why did people have to be so complicated? I thought of Dawna Polk’s superpowered human relations ability, and a spark of jealousy twinged. Dawna Polk would have known how to say exactly the right thing so that Arthur understood her. He’d have been eating out of her hand.

I, on the other hand—well, I could have killed him in less than half a second, but that didn’t help at all. In fact, a niggling voice in the back of my head reminded me that attitude was what he had such issue with in the first place.

Why am I even upset? I wondered. I was used to being on my own. I’d never concerned myself with what anyone else thought of me before. Why now?

Fuck, I thought, I’d started to care. Somewhere in this whole mess, I’d started to care about Arthur—whether he lived or died, what he thought—Jesus, I was even feeling friendly toward him.

Well, there was an easy solution to that, clear and simple: stop caring.

And I’d better make a mental note never to make such a stupid mistake again.

I decided to walk for a little while to clear my head; the night air felt good—and, I’m not going to lie, I sort of hoped someone would try to mug me, but nobody did. Eventually I ended up near a metro station, and on a whim I elected to travel legally for once. I tended to forget LA had a metro system.

I took the line up to Union Station, where I stopped at a tourist stand to buy a large and obnoxious “I ♥ LA” T-shirt, a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a tote bag, and then found a toilet to change in. The sunglasses covered half my face, including most of the bruising that made me look like I had raccoon eyes, and with the baseball cap and loud T-shirt and sans tall black guy next to me I was sure I wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye as matching certain witness reports. The T-shirt was thin, so I rolled most of my hardware up in my jacket and stuck it in the tote bag, leaving only one of the Glocks tucked in my belt underneath my clothes.

I rode the subway for a while after that, zigzagging the city and letting my mind go blank. I didn’t want to think about Arthur, or Leena Kingsley, or Dawna Polk and what she might be capable of doing. I didn’t have much I could do about any of it anyway.

Courtney Polk was probably dead. Maybe I should drop the case and disappear into the woodwork—I didn’t precisely live on the grid anyway; I could get a new set of IDs and head off to a new city, and just let Pithica or anybody else try to track me down. I could leave Steve and his people chasing Dawna Polk, and the police chasing their tails, and Arthur and Checker doing whatever the hell they wanted, and Pithica could keep playing its merry game—I didn’t really care. And screw Courtney. Dawna had hired me to rescue her under false pretenses anyway and hadn’t even paid me.