Soldier of Fortune

Mia, slouched in the passenger seat, tucked the Pratchett novel into one of her tunic’s inner pockets, reminding herself she’d need to find a place to hide the book from Ellison.

At which point she realized this was the first time she’d given Ellison a thought since the fight at Kit’s Diner.

“Problem?”

At the question, she looked at Gideon in the driver’s seat. He was eying the road ahead, Elvis nestled around his shoulders like some scaly version of a scarf.

“Just thinking.” She shrugged. “You worked that business with Jinna smooth as honey. Or you did until the . . .” Here she grabbed her throat and mock-throttled herself.

“Yeah well . . .” Now he shrugged and surprised her with a look of genuine shame before he returned his eyes to the road. “Lucky for all of us, cooler—and better-armed—heads prevailed.” He paused, tapped the steering wheel. “Anyway, there wasn’t much to work. It was more—facilitating Jinna’s move to a less stressful environment.”

“Oooh, fancy talk,” Mia grinned. “So when you were forking Rolf inna sausage n’beans, you was just—”

“Were just—”

“—facilitating him round to your point of view?”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

It was a nice smile and completely at odds with the cold, deadly rage that had overtaken him when he’d first lain eyes on Captain Pitte.

Mia didn’t think she’d ever been more scared than in that moment, or more confused when, after everything was done and dusted, both Gideon and Captain Pitte seemed to be getting on just fine.

Grown-ups, she thought—and not for the first time—were all a little swarm in the head.

And some, like old man Del and Fagin Ellison, were just plain mean.

But Gideon wasn’t mean.

Angry, sure. A body didn’t need to be a sensitive to know there was an Earth-sized fury lurking under the twisty sense of humor. But even in their short acquaintance, Mia had never seen that anger aimed at someone who didn’t deserve it.

Not even at herself, when he’d learned she meant to steal Elvis.

Which again reminded her of Ellison and what he was waiting for.

“Sure there’s not a problem?” Gideon asked again.

“No,” she said, then immediately added, “maybe.”

He waited, eyes on the road, head tilted to show he was listening.

She sighed. “It’s like this, then. Night’s gettin’ on, right? And it’s great Jinna’s settled, but . . .”

“But you’re not,” he filled in the silence. “Because of your fagin and Elvis.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back against the seat. “I’d be in comb and crystal if I could figure out how to facilitate Ellison.”

To that, Gideon seemed to have no response, and they rode the rest of the way to the city in silence.

“You’re counting again,” Mia said and Gideon promptly stopped counting; out loud, anyway.

It was close to two in the morning, and they’d just dropped the Edsel off a few blocks from where Gideon had first found it.

The reason they didn’t return the Comet to its original parking place was because the owner had apparently decided he wanted to take a late-night drive and discovered the car was missing. All of which meant that, by the time Gideon cruised by on the cross street, the sidewalk was alive with lights, coppers, and concerned-slash-nosy neighbors.

“Oy, that’s Detective Sergeant Hama,” Mia had whispered, pointing to a man of medium height in plain clothes who appeared to be questioning the concerned-slash-nosy neighbors.

“You know the coppers by name?”

“A few,” she said. “Hama’s decent, for a copper,” she continued, angling to see the detective. “Not on the take from anyone, high up or low down. If he was, Ellison would be doin’ a lot more business in the Ninth District.”

Thankfully, the decent Hama was too busy to look in their direction, so Gideon drove on, not stopping for another couple blocks before leaving the car near the ninth district’s police station.

Though in unfamiliar territory, Mia assured Gideon they were only a few streets away from the Elysium Inn and Shakespeare Circus, but where the Circus and lodging were in wide, well-lit regions, the streets they walked now were darker and barely wide enough for a rickshaw.

They were also crowded, the streets teeming with laborers looking for a good time in the cramped pubs lining the way.

Some, seeming to want more than a pint, could be seen passing starbucks to nondescript characters loitering on various stoops in exchange for small packets.

“I can see why they call Nike the city that never sleeps,” Gideon said as he dodged a trio linked in either a torrid embrace or a three-way wrestling match.

“Late drinkers make good marks,” Mia said, trotting along at his side.

“Tell me you have not been dipping your way from the cop shop,” Gideon said, then came to a standstill so quickly that Elvis, dozing on his shoulder, almost fell off, and Mia took a few more steps before she realized he was no longer moving.

“What is it?” she asked, turning back.

“Speaking of cops, isn’t that the Detective Sergeant Hama? From the Edsel?” He jerked his chin to a nearby corner, where the man with dark skin and a lightly graying beard they’d spied less than an hour ago was in conversation with a rumpled civilian.

“That’s him,” Mia agreed, following Gideon as he joined the queue outside a pub bearing the ponderous name of The Old Man and the Sea.

“Do you know the woman he’s talking to?” Gideon asked.

“A dealer,” she said. “Goes by Dr. Bayer, but I don’t think she’s really a doctor.”

Gideon would bet his last few starbucks that Mia was right. “You’re not a client, are you?”

“Nah, but Ellison is,” she said with obvious distaste while Gideon watched Bayer put on a show—and it was clearly a show—of the put-upon “just an honest businesswoman” routine.

Hama, his bearded face still revealing an expression of blatant disbelief, was in fact listening closely, nodding on occasion as Bayer’s story wound on.

When at last she stopped talking, he grimaced, then made a slick pass from his pocket to her hand before delivering a textbook admonishment to clear off the street or face the consequences.

Gideon continued to watch as the woman departed, suitably chastised. “Wonder what she sold him?”

“No drugs,” Mia said. “I told you, Hama’s a decent sort. Probably she sold ’im another dealer.”

“Maybe.” Then as Hama turned in their direction, Gideon ducked behind a man with hair as curly as Mia’s, dressed in a riverman’s oilskin coat.

“Why are we hiding?” Mia whispered, offering a grin to a pair of women in burn-spattered coveralls.

“I don’t know,” Gideon confessed, also quietly. “Just a feeling.” He peered through the riverman’s bobbing curls to see Hama staring in their general direction.

The riverman turned around, and Gideon shifted to stay out of Hama’s line of sight.

“You’d best not be angling for my purse,” the man said, the warm Dole accent a direct contrast to the chill of his frown.

“S’okay,” Mia told the man quickly. “We’re just duckin’ the filth.”

“Law on your back, my friend?” The riverman’s eyes crinkled.

“They might be,” Gideon said, shooting Mia a look.

“No problems here.” The riverman held up his right hand to show the faded prison tattoo. “That your man?” he asked the general air around himself. “In the bad suit?”

“That’s him,” Mia said, peering around the coat.

“He still looking around,” their new best friend told them, angling about as if waiting for someone. “Uniform just joined him. She got her notebook in her hand. They talking and . . . it’s all good. Your man and his officer are moving on to Beam Street.”

Gideon leaned around to confirm, and it seemed DS Hama had indeed disappeared. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” the riverman said. “And friend . . .” He waited for Gideon to turn back. “You decide you want to take sail from your troubles, the Amber Queen ships out tomorrow night. Just ask for Juban.”

“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean thanks, but—never mind,” Gideon waved off the grinning sailor and, with Mia, headed out into the street.

Mia took one look at him and shook her head. “Come on,” she said, grabbing Gideon’s hand and tugging him onwards. “This way.”

“Where are we going now?”

“Someplace you can get some rest. You’re knackered.”

“I dunno, I had a nice little nap after Jagati clocked me.”

Her gaze slid sideways. “You had that coming.”

Gideon ran a hand over the lump on his skull. “I absolutely did.”

* * *

While Gideon and Mia were ducking the filth, inside The Old Man and the Sea, Freya Ohmdahl and her brothers were catching up with Rey and Ronan Pradesh.

Though the Ohmdahls and Pradeshes were acquainted—siblings in the freelance intimidation business were bound to run across one another—the twins weren’t known for social drinking.

Or, for that matter, socializing in general.

Freya’s surprise quickly turned to curiosity when, on greeting Rey, she discovered the twins were scouring the district for a man who sounded a lot like the soldier who had trounced Freya and her brothers earlier that night.

It was then, in solidarity with another family suffering through the post-war job crisis, that Ulf and Rolf happily described the man who’d put the wasp in the hive of their own job.

“Though Miss Jinna got Ulf pretty good with that mustard,” Rolf concluded.

“Almost as good as that dodger got you wid dat teapot,” Ulf countered, grinning over his swollen nose.

But Rey was focused on the soldier. “Blue eyes, you say? And tall?”

“Skinny too,” Freya confirmed, tossing back a shot of vodka that Gideon had paid for. “I am thinking Quinn could use some of Mama’s kugel.”

Rey smiled at that, but not the laughing kind of smile, before asking if Freya and her brothers would be willing to show them where they’d last seen Gideon, which was why the Ohmdahls and Pradeshes were exiting the pub only a few moments after Gideon and Mia turned down the street.

“Look at dat.” Rolf pointed his sausage-like finger at Gideon’s retreating back. “Dat is fellow we told of, the one with Mia the dodger.”

“I am to be limping for week because of that man,” Ulf added.

“He is good fighter,” Freya noted with respect. “And not snooty, like Del. Him, we will not work for again. Wait!” she called to Rey, who had already taken off after the soldier, Ronan on her heels.

Ulf looked at Rolf, who looked at Freya, who shrugged, and then all three took off, much less fluidly, after the twins.

And that, as the playwrights say, is when things got interesting.