James Corey - Nemesis Games

“So, you still with that crew?” Erich said.

“I am. Why?”

“Because you’re sitting in my office right now drinking my tequila. Still playing that out in my head. Useful guy like you can always get work. If that’s what you want, I’ve got it. But if you’re not here looking for work, what are you looking for?”

Amos grabbed the bottle and poured himself another drink. Erich tried very hard not to look nervous. He’d had a lot of practice, because he almost pulled it off. Time can change a lot. Erich had gone from twitchy little hacker with a price on his head to the boss of a respectable chunk of Baltimore’s harbor-front property. But some things don’t change. Some tells never go away. While Erich sat very still and looked him in the eye without blinking, the tiny hand on his deformed left arm opened and closed like a baby grabbing at a toy just out of reach.

“Went to Lydia’s house,” Amos said, sipping slowly at the tequila.

“Not Lydia’s house anymore. She’s dead,” Erich said. “That what this is about? I treated her like you would have after you left.”

“Yeah?” Amos asked, eyebrows going up.

“Well,” Erich admitted with an embarrassed look to the side. “Not exactly like you would have.”

“Thank you for that too,” Amos said.

“You didn’t kill me once when you had every reason to, and after that, you couldn’t have stayed,” Erich said, leaning forward. His left hand had stopped clenching. “Walking away from her was part of the favor you did for me. I never forgot that. And she helped me, at first. Helped me build what I have now. Taught me to use brains to beat brawn. She never lacked for a thing it was in my power to give.”

“And I appreciate that,” Amos repeated. Erich’s eyes narrowed and his right hand came up from under the desk with a short-barreled automatic in it. Amos found himself surprised and a little proud of his friend. Erich rested his hand on the desk, the gun pointed away from Amos, more a warning than a threat.

“If you’ve got some beef you came here to settle,” Erich said, “you won’t be the first guy to leave this office in a bag.”

Amos raised his hands a little in mock surrender. “Not even armed, chief. I came here to talk.”

“So talk.”

“What you did for Lydia was real nice,” Amos said, putting his hands back down slowly but keeping his eye on the gun. “But you’re wrong. She’s not all dead. Some of her’s left.”

Erich cocked his head to the side, frowning. “Gonna need to walk me through that one.”

“There’s an old man loved her and lived with her and kissed her goodnight before she died. A house with a little rose garden they worked together. Maybe some dogs. I saw a picture, but not sure if they’re still around.”

“I still don’t get it,” Erich said.

Amos rubbed his thumb against his knuckle, trying to find the words. It wasn’t a thought he’d said out loud before, and if he screwed it up and Erich misunderstood, there was a chance they’d wind up trying to kill each other. So it was worth thinking about some.

“It’s like this. The old man keeps the house until he dies. He’s the only thing she left behind. He’s the last bit of her. He keeps the house.”

Erich put the little gun flat on the desk and poured himself another drink. He leaned back, holding the glass with his right hand. He couldn’t pick the weapon back up without dropping the drink and he couldn’t do that faster than Amos could reach him. It was a signal, and Amos felt the tension leave the muscles in his neck and shoulders.

“That’s more sentimental than I would have guessed,” Erich said.

“I’m not sentimental about much,” Amos agreed. “But when I am, I’m pretty passionate.”

“So I’ve heard the request. What’s the payoff for me? I had something of a debt to Lydia, but I don’t owe the old man shit. What does this win me, I keep him on the dole?”

Amos sighed, and gave his oldest friend a sad smile. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I don’t kill you, kill those two guys outside. I don’t dismantle this organization from the top down and rebuild it with someone who’ll owe me a favor.”

“Ah,” Erich said. “There he is.”

Amos had to admit, Erich had grown some stones. He didn’t even look down at the gun on the desk as he was being threatened. Just gave Amos his own version of the tragic smile.

“There who is?” Amos asked.

“Timmy.”

“Yeah, I guess. It wouldn’t be my first choice, though. So how’s this go?”

“Costs me almost nothing to keep the old man’s house,” Erich said, then shook his head as if disagreeing with himself. “But even if it did, I’d still do it. Just to keep Timmy off my streets.”

“Again, thanks.”

Erich shooed the gratitude away with a wave of his good hand, then stood up and walked to the office’s large screen pretending to be a window. The gun still lay on the desk, ignored now. Amos considered it briefly, then leaned farther back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, elbows spread out wide.

“Funny, right?” Erich said, pointing out the window at something Amos couldn’t see. “All those new faces and old corners. Shit changes and doesn’t. I did, you didn’t.”

“I live on a spaceship and fight alien monsters sometimes,” Amos said with a shrug of his elbows. “So that’s different.”

“Anything out there scarier than a hype with no money when you’re holding his fix? Scarier than a street boss thinks you skimmed?” Erich laughed and turned around, putting his back to the window. “Fuck that. Anything out there scarier than a life on basic?”

“No,” Amos admitted.

“So you got what you wanted,” Erich said, his voice going flat and dead. “Get the fuck out of my city or it’s open season.”

Amos stood. He was closer to the gun than Erich now. Could feel it pull at him like gravity. He could pick it up, kill Erich, kill the two guards waiting outside. By the end of the day he’d own a chunk of Erich’s old territory and have the muscle and credibility to take the rest. In a flash, the whole scenario played out in his mind.

Instead, he hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets and backed toward the door. “Thanks for the drink,” he said. “I forgot how good tequila was.”

“I’ll have Tatu give you a couple bottles on the way out. To take with you,” Erich said.

“Shit, I won’t turn that down.”

“It was good to see you,” Erich said, then paused a moment. “The gun was empty.”

“Yeah?”

“Fléchette turret hidden in the light,” Erich said, with a flick of his eyes at the inset LED housing above them. “Poisoned darts. I say a word, it kills everyone in the room isn’t me.”

“Nice. Thanks for not saying it.”

“Thanks for still being my friend.”

It felt like goodbye, so Amos gave Erich one last smile, and left the room. Tatu was waiting in the corridor with a box full of tequila bottles. The guards must have been monitoring the whole thing.

“Need help on your way out?” the guard asked.

“Naw,” Amos replied and hoisted the box over one shoulder. “I’m good at leaving.”

Amos let his hand terminal take him to the nearest flophouse and got a room. He dumped his booze and bag on the bed and then hit the streets. A short walk took him to a food cart where he bought what the sign optimistically called a Belgian sausage. Unless the Belgians were famous for their flavored bean curd products, the optimism seemed misplaced. Not that it mattered. Amos realized that while he knew the orbital period of every Jovian moon by heart, he had no idea where Belgium was. He didn’t think it was a North American territory, but that was about the best he could do. He was hardly in a position to criticize assertions about their cuisine.