The Langley Case: A Nathan Roeder Mystery

After all that shooting, I resolve things with bribery

The Albino meets me at the door to his club. “I must say, I admire you, Mr. Roeder.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I was quite convinced you would fail to even make it to the door, let alone to cross the threshold.”

I looked at the threshold, right in front of me, between the two of us. “Are you inviting me in, then?” I asked.

“And then some. I would like to offer you a drink, actually.” He says.

I thought about Max, slowly bleeding to death out in the street. “What about my friend?”

“He can have a drink too, if he can manage to get himself in here to take it.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit, and I still had a gun in my hand. The only reason I hadn’t used it was because The Albino didn’t use his. That, and I was worried about what Max said would happen if The Albino died.

The Albino laughs and snaps his fingers. The man who’d dropped his gun outside stepped up behind me, almost got shot for troubles. “Help Mr. Roeder’s friend to a hospital please,” The Albino says. “Quickly.”

The man disappeared like a bad dream. I stepped inside.

“Mr. Roeder,” The Albino says. “I take it you are here because you want to purchase Ms. Serano.”

“She’s not a piece of property,” I said.

He shrugs. “To you, perhaps not. But to me, she is. She is little more to me than a commodity to be traded, one that can make me great sums of money. Once she is properly trained, that is.” I was about to protest. He holds up a hand. “It does not matter,” he says. “What matters is that you want her, and I am not willing to give her up for free.”

I reached my hand into my pocket, grabbed the trigger inside, and palmed it. If I needed something big and flashy, I would have it. And it would not be cheap for The Albino.

“What kind of price are we talking?” I asked.

The Albino walks to the bar and takes a bottle of whiskey from the other side. “This is, I take it, your drink of choice?”

I nodded, and he poured us each a glass. I didn’t drink until after he did. Just in case. “What kind of price are we talking?” I asked again.

“Mr. Roeder. As you may have guessed, I did not request the presence of the gentleman outside. To be perfectly frank, I rather resent his presence out here. When the people in Town and in the Tiers come out to the Sprawl, they tend to try to throw their weight around. They treat us poor Sprawl folk as if we were beneath them. Little more than excrement with some semblance of cognizance.” He takes a long drink. “A trait which, I’ve noticed, you do not seem to share.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think you should judge someone by their genetics,” I said.

“A rare and admirable quality.” The Albino walks over to his table, towards my satchel. If I wanted to kill him, my opportunity was coming up. “But the people who wish you dead, they feel it is their right to give orders anywhere in the city. Even in my territory. This will not stand.”

“Then why’d you give this guy what you gave him?”

“He possessed quite a wealth of information about you, Mr. Roeder. He was apparently tracking your movements. I do not pretend to know or care how. But he, and the people he works for, want you to be very dead; and that quite badly.”

“So you let him try?”

The Albino nods. “I had to make sure you were a worthy opponent. For them.”

“And what do you think?”

The Albino smiles. “The jury is still out.”

“What’s this all about, Albino?”

He smiles again, broader this time. “You and I share an enemy, Mr. Roeder. I hate them because they think I am the king of a dung heap, and treat me accordingly. They hate you for whatever reason; I would guess it was related to that diary. The point is, they are my enemy; they are your enemy. And you know the saying.”

“The enemy of my enemy?” I asked.

He nods. “Care for another?” He asks, pointing at my drink.

I offered the empty glass to him. “That’s all well and good,” I said. “But it still doesn’t answer my question about prices.”

“The first issue of price,” The Albino reaches under the table and pulls out my satchel, “is that you explain what you were intending to do with this.”

I pulled my hand out of my pocket, to show him the trigger. “I was not intending to hold you hostage,” I said. “But I guess I could at this point, couldn’t I?”

His eyes, no longer even pretending to be blind, are locked on my hand. After a few seconds of silence, he smiles again. “How long have you known I was not blind?”

I downed the rest of the whiskey in my second glass. “Since I met you,” I said.

He looks disappointed. “Is there something wrong with my performance?”

“Not exactly.” I tried to remember what it was that told me he wasn’t blind. He eyes were too sharp, too clear. “There’s a level where you can’t fake it.”

He nods. “No use in pretense then, is there?”

I shrugged. “You can keep the rest of them if you want.”

He turns his head at an angle. “Every time we speak, you impress me more and more.”

“I’m glad there’s at least someone.”

He shakes his head. “You give yourself far too little credit, Mr. Roeder. You have certainly made an impression with the employers of the gentleman outside. Who, incidentally, is a further portion of the price.”

“How so?”

“What he represents to me is the Tiers moving into my territory and telling me what to do. This, as I said, will not stand.”

I shrugged. “So kill him.”

“Ah,” he says, holding up the hand that was not holding my satchel. “But if I kill him, then someone from the Sprawl has murdered a citizen of the Tiers. This is never acceptable. This never stands, and always brings down severe repercussions. No matter how justified the death might have been.”

“But if he died trying to kill a Townie, it’s not as much of a problem.”

He smiles. “Precisely.”

“So I take the heat for it.”

“You be willing to attest that he tried to kill you, and you responded in kind.”

“Fair enough. What about my price?”

“Your price, Mr. Roeder?”

“How much is your life worth to you, Albino?”

He laughed. “A difficult question to answer, certainly. I believe it would be fair to say that quite a bit would be an acceptable starting point.”

“Enough to give up Felicia?”

He held up a finger. “That is a difficult thing to bring up, Mr. Roeder. Let’s say I agreed. I gave you Felicia, and you walked out of here with your satchel. As soon as it was away from my person, what reason would I have to keep up my end of the bargain? It’s a very biblical problem.”

“Biblical?”

“Moses,” he said. “He threatened and performed ten plagues, but each time, as soon as the plague ended, the pharaoh went back on the deal. So how do you intend to prevent me from going back on the deal? And please, do not say that you will collapse a sea upon me and my soldiers. It would not become you.”

I didn’t recognize the story he was telling, or understand that last bit, but I got the point. “Okay,” I said. “So I can’t ransom your life for Felicia’s. Not like this. Fair enough. But you’re willing to agree that, if I wanted to, I could just kill you now and go find her on my own?”

The Albino stiffened for a bit. I saw him trying to come up with a retort. A Reader would have known more. “I will concede that point.”

“Okay then,” I said. “Toss me the satchel.”

“What?”

“I have the power to kill you. As a show of good faith, I won’t.”

“Why?”

I looked at him. “The enemy of my enemy,” I said.

He laughed. “As I said, Mr. Roeder,” he tossed me the satchel. “You continue to impress me.”

I nodded. I could still shoot him if I had to. “What about Felicia?”

“Further price?”

“Is there?”

“Hmm.” He scratched his chin. “You have effectively saved my life, you have helped me deal a blow to my enemies, and you have given me a piece of information that could potentially be very dangerous to certain people. Dangerous enough that they might consider leaving me alone in the foreseeable future.”

He sat down and took a sip of his drink. “On the other hand, you have executed my bouncer. Not a terrible loss, but the fact remains: you attacked me, in broad daylight. I cannot have you walk out of here unscathed for such a thing. It would invoke repeat performances.

“So we are at an impasse.”

If I couldn’t bribe him with money, maybe I could bribe him with the situation. “Well, suppose I had succeeded in the first place,” I said. “Suppose I had fought my way inside your club, managed to grab Felicia, and escape by the skin of my teeth. I then ran al the way back to Town, too afraid to set foot into the Sprawl again, where your power reigns supreme.”

“Hmm. An interesting proposition. We lie to everyone. The Sprawl becomes off limits for you, my reputation, while tarnished, remains intact. I gain all that I have gained, and lose only something that I did not have yesterday.” He put the glass down on his table and clapped his hands. “I will miss your company, Mr. Roeder.”

“It’s a deal then?”

“It is. A shame we won’t speak again after this morning.”

I shrugged. “You never know,” I said. “Maybe some day you’ll find some reason to put old grudges behind you. Maybe you’ll need my help for something.”

“I doubt it.” His voice was all cold. “But you never know, I suppose.”

“So,” I said. “Felicia and I leave the Sprawl, never to return.”

“That, I’m afraid, is the idea. She at least is better off.”

“Not me?”

He laughed. “A man like you belongs in the Sprawl, Mr. Roeder. Regardless of what your genes have to say about it.”

I didn’t look back at The Albino’s club when Felicia and I left. I barely stopped to look at the form of the Mergers and Acquisitions man. I was all ready to throw some last quip, some final insult, at him. All ready for him to do the same to me.

But someone had already come looking for his Wire. So I didn’t have the chance. Neither did he.

Max, I figured, would let me know he was all right. After all, I owed him money.

Felicia didn’t say much until we were well out of sight of Enticement. After that, I couldn’t get her to shut up.