A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) Page 13

"That's not a dead-or-alive bounty," said Jeff. "They only pay off if he's dead." He smiled. "Which figures."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because he's the Wizard."

  "I don't follow you," said Kinoshita.

  "He spent twenty years as a stage magician, using the Wizard as his stage name. From everything I've been able to find out, he was pretty damned good at his job. There's probably not a cell door lock he can't pick, not a force field he can't deactivate, not a pair of tightly-bonded manacles he can't slip in half a minute's time."

  "Okay, it makes more sense now," said Kinoshita.

  "Let me finish my coffee and I'll see if I can come up with a spell or two of my own," said Jeff.

  "You're going into the District after him?" said Kinoshita. "Just like that?"

  "It's what I do. You know that."

  "But you don't even know your way around there," protested Kinoshita.

  "I don't know my way around any planet until I land on it," said Jeff.

  "A lot of people in the District are looking to kill the Widowmaker."

  "I don't doubt it," answered Jeff with no show of concern. "And they all know that he looks pretty much the way I'll look in another forty years or so."

  "But—"

  "Suppose you stop raising objections that you know I'm going to ignore and tell me what your real problem is."

  "I can't do it!" said Kinoshita unhappily.

  "What is it you can't do?" asked Jeff.

  "I can't let you go into the District alone."

  Jeff looked amused. "You're going to stop me?"

  "No one can stop you from doing something you want to do," answered Kinoshita. "We both know that."

  "Ah," said Jeff. "You're going to tag along and save me from the denizens of the District."

  "Stop it!" said Kinoshita angrily.

  "You're under no obligation to come with me," said Jeff. "We no longer travel together, in case it's escaped your notice."

  "I'm coming."

  "Suit yourself."

  Kinoshita looked his annoyance. "It doesn't suit me at all."

  "Then why bother?"

  "Because I serve the Widowmaker—and until Jefferson Nighthawk comes back or Jason Newman gets out of the hospital, you're the only Widowmaker I've got."

  "Thanks for that ringing endorsement."

  "Would you rather I lie to you?"

  "Much," said Jeff, getting to his feet and tossing a couple of platinum coins on the table. "Time to go to work."

  Kinoshita grabbed his half-eaten muffin and carried it out to the slidewalk. They rode the walk north for half a mile, transferred to a westerly walk for two blocks, and then crossed the street that marked the border of the District.

  "I'd always meant to get by here sooner or later," commented Jeff, looking around at his surroundings. "I don't subscribe to law-free zones."

  "Somehow I'm not surprised," said Kinoshita.

  "Where do they all congregate?" asked Jeff, "I might as well start asking around until someone can tell me where to find the Wizard."

  "What makes you think anyone will tell you?"

  "They usually do," replied Jeff, and for just a second Kinoshita thought the tone and tenor were those of Nighthawk's voice.

  Kinoshita turned to his right. "The heart of the District's about five blocks ahead," he announced.

  "The District doesn't have a heart," said Jeff. "Just a groin and a couple of veins covered with puncture marks."

  "And a Wizard."

  "Temporarily," said Jeff, increasing his pace. "Very temporarily."

  19.

  They walked to the center of the District. Then Jeff entered a nearby drug den. There were two men and a woman there, all semi-catatonic after chewing alphanella seeds, and a Canphorite whose large eyes couldn't focus.

  "Can I help you?" asked the proprietor, a burly woman with a deep voice and too much make-up. Her fingers were still recovering from having the prints removed, and her eyes still showed the tiny scars that came with a change of retina patterns.

  "Just looking for a friend," said Jeff. "But he doesn't seem to be here."

  "Perhaps he comes in from time to time," said the woman. "What's his name?"

  "Beats me," said Jeff. "But he calls himself the Wizard."

  "I didn't know he had any friends."

  "Well, actually we're not really friends," amended Jeff. "I just owe him money."

  "And you're going out of your way to find him and pay off your debt?" she said dubiously.

  "He's the Wizard. Would you want him mad at you?"

  "You have a point," admitted the woman. "I can't help you, though. He's never come to my place."

  "Have you got any idea where I can find him?"

  "I know he's somewhere inside the District," she said. "That's enough. Once he knows you're looking for him, he'll find you."

  "Thanks for your time," said Jeff. "Perhaps I'll make use of your services next time I'm on New Barcelona." He turned and walked back out onto the street, where Kinoshita was waiting for him.

  "Any luck?" asked Kinoshita.

  "It's early yet."

  Jeff walked into half a dozen bars and a pair of drug dens with the same question and the same story. No one seemed to know where the Wizard could be found. When he walked out of the last bar, he joined Kinoshita once again.

  "Okay," he said. "I've laid the groundwork. Now it's up to him."

  "I don't think I follow you."

  "About three hundred residents of the District know I'm looking for the Wizard. At least a few of them have to know where to find him—and since he knows I don't owe him any money, he should be curious enough to come looking for me."

  "After the way Nighthawk took care of Bellamy and Cleopatra Rome, he'll probably come looking to kill you," suggested Kinoshita.

  "I doubt it. Everyone got a good look at me, and the ones who are sober and clear-headed enough to find the Wizard will be able to tell him I'm not the man who's been collecting bounties in the District. I think he'll be curious to find out who I am and what I want."

  "So what do we do now?" asked Kinoshita.

  "We stay on public display so he knows I'm not laying a trap for him," said Jeff. "If he shows up after the old gentleman gets back, I'll step aside and let him take another bounty. But if the Wizard makes contact before then, he's mine."

  "And if he shows up with some friends?"

  "Then their life expectancy can be measured in hours," said Jeff with no more passion than if he were discussing the weather. A brief pause. "You know, I've never seen a magician," he continued with youthful enthusiasm.

  "There aren't any magicians."

  "All right, then—an illusionist. Oh, I've heard about them and seen them in holos. But I've never seen one in person. I think it would have been interesting to see if I could spot how they do their tricks."

  "From what I hear, you may get your chance sooner than you think," said Kinoshita.

  "I certainly hope so." He paused. "Let's go get a drink."

  "I'm not thirsty."

  "Neither am I," replied Jeff. "But I'm pretty sure you can't tell me where the Wizard is. Maybe I'll meet someone in the bar who can."

  "They won't," said Kinoshita. "After all, he's the Wizard, and no one knows that you've been the Widowmaker for the past couple of years."

  "Maybe they'll just tell me about him, then," said Jeff, heading for a tavern he hadn't been to yet. "What his favorite weapon is, whether he travels alone. You wouldn't believe how little information there is on him in the computer—just that he was a performer for about twenty years. Evidently he took the full force of a screecher in a dispute over a woman, and came back a thief and a killer." He paused thoughtfully. "I wonder what Jefferson would be like if someone killed Sarah?"

  "That's a morbid thought," said Kinoshita distastefully.

  "I love her like a mother," said Jeff. "But when you're the Widowmaker, you know better than to get emotionally involved with anyone.
The second your attachment becomes known you've put them as risk." He frowned. "He taught me that. What the hell did he come back for after he married her?"

  "I'm sure he'll be happy to discuss it with you when he gets back to New Barcelona."

  "I got the distinct impression that nothing made him happy except digging in that damned garden and spying on birds," continued Jeff.

  "Sarah makes him happy," said Kinoshita. Then: "You made him happy."

  "Thanks for the compliment—but I just made him happy because it meant he'd have more time to nag his flowers and his birds."

  "You don't understand him."

  "Of course I do. I am him."

  To which Kinoshita had no reply.

  They entered the spacious tavern. Kinoshita headed for an empty table, then noticed that Jeff had walked up to the bar, so he reversed course and joined the young man.

  "I'll have some Corvus crystalblue," said Jeff to the human bartender. "Another for my friend here, and one for yourself."

  "Thank you, sir," said the bartender, pouring the blue liquor into a trio of oddly-shaped glasses.

  Jeff turned to face the twenty humans and dozen aliens who were seated about the room. "I'm buying for the house, if any one of you can take a message to the Wizard."

  "What message?" croaked a tripodal Mollutei.

  "Just tell him his friend Jeff is here in the District with the money I owe him. I've got to leave for the Roosevelt system in the morning, so I'd like to take care of my debt tonight."

  "Where are you staying?"

  "I don't know yet," said Jeff. "But if he's half as good as he says he is, he won't have any trouble finding me." He waited for the Mollutei to reply, but it said nothing further. At last he downed his drink, looked directly at the little alien, and said, "Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "Well, am I buying everyone a drink or not?"

  A momentary pause as the Mollutei considered.

  "You are."

  "You heard him," said Jeff to the bartender, handing him a few bills. "If anything's left over, keep it for yourself."

  As the bartender carried the blue liquor from table to table, filling and refilling glasses, Jeff nodded to Kinoshita and slowly walked back out into the street.

  "What now?" asked Kinoshita.

  "It's boring as hell, but we do the same thing in three or four more bars. No sense making the same offer in the drug dens. Most of them wouldn't remember their names, let alone my message, by the time they walked out the door."

  "None of you," noted Kinoshita, "not you, not Jason, not Nighthawk, not even that ill-fated first clone, had any use for drugs or addicts, yet you don't mind alcohol. To me they seem to be one and the same."

  "There's a difference in degree," answered Jeff. "The old gentleman taught me how to hold my liquor, and even how to hold a few of the lesser drugs, because he knew that a lot of the information the Widowmaker seeks is to be found in such places. But I don't especially like hard liquor, and I won't use drugs unless I'm traveling incognito and need information in a drug den. Most men are still rational after a few drinks; most drug addicts are totally useless to themselves and anyone else after the first dose. I don't like depending on either, but if I have to count on one or the other for information or anything else, I'll take the drinker every time."

  "I know a lot of drug users who would disagree."

  "Only when they're cogent enough to form an argument, which means when they're not high on drugs. And people always rationalize their weaknesses. I know a lot of faithless husbands and wives who will swear that monogamy is against Man's nature and that it doesn't really cause their spouses emotional pain. And I've heard more than one swindler say that if God didn't want them fleeced, He wouldn't have made them sheep." Suddenly he smiled. "I'll bet they are even would-be Samurai who think they can justify leaving the lord they've sworn to serve."

  Kinoshita considered answering him, but kept silent. Anything he said he was sure Nighthawk could say better and with far more authority. "All right," he replied at last, "you've made your point. Let's hit those bars and get this thing rolling."

  "Consider it done," said Jeff, and in less than an hour it was done.

  "What now?" asked Kinoshita.

  "Now we wait."

  "Where and for how long?"

  "Where it's easy to find us, and for however long it takes." He looked around. "It's a little early for dinner, but I want to keep on display as long as I can. He'll have a tougher time checking me out in a hotel room."

  "You want him to study you?"

  "Someone's collecting all the big bounties in the District," replied Jeff. "He's not going to show himself until he knows I'm not setting a trap for him. You've spent a few days here. Which restaurant has the biggest windows?"

  "There's an alien restaurant a few blocks from here that Jefferson and I ate in, but . . ."

  "Fine. Lead the way."

  Kinoshita took a couple of steps, then stopped. "This is crazy!" he said. "You'll be a sitting duck!"

  "That's the point of the exercise," said Jeff. "There are two ways to go about this. I can root about in every cellar and attic and dark corner until I find him, and hope he hasn't rigged the place with a couple of dozen defensive mechanisms—or I can draw him to me. And he won't approach me until he's sure I'm not a threat to him."

  "He's never seen you in action."

  "An overt threat," amended Jeff. "He knows I want to meet him. He knows I don't owe him money. He doesn't know for a fact that I don't want to kill him, so the easiest way to assuage his fears is to make a target of myself."

  "You'll never know what hit you," predicted Kinoshita.

  "If I'm willing to be a target, he'll have no reason to kill me," said Jeff. "Eventually he'll show himself, or arrange a meeting—and once he does that, he's mine."

  "Just like that?"

  "It's always just like that."

  "You're the boss," said Kinoshita, setting off for the restaurant.

  "I always was," said Jeff. "Some of us just forget it from time to time."

  They reached the restaurant in a few minutes. Jeff asked for a chair by the window, and Kinoshita nervously seated himself opposite the young man. Humans and aliens walked by in a constant stream. Some looked in, most didn't.

  They ordered cold drinks and sandwiches, and while they were waiting for their orders to arrive, Jeff stopped observing the bypassers in the street and turned back to Kinoshita.

  "Tell me about him," he said.

  "As far as I can tell he was happy on Goldenhue," answered Kinoshita. "He had his garden, and . . ."

  "Not the old gentleman," said Jeff. "I know all about him. He trained me. Tell me about the one I shot on Giancola, the one who calls himself Jason Newman."

  "He was something to behold," said Kinoshita admiringly. "He had your physical gifts and Jefferson's experience. When he decided that he was going to turn on the man who'd paid to create him and overthrow his government with a handful of men, I thought he didn't have a chance in hell. It was a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty men and aliens against a standing army of millions and the best-protected structure in the cluster. But he pulled it off. He killed Cassius Hill and got enough money to keep the original Jefferson Nighthawk alive for another three years, which was all the time he needed. By then medical science could finally cure his eplasia."

  "If he was that good, how did he lose his hand?"

  "He was betrayed."

  "By whom?"

  "By his memory," said Kinoshita. "Remember, it was Jefferson Nighthawk's memory. And when he brought it to bear against Hill's defenses, it was a century out of date. He did something that would have been perfectly safe at the time Jefferson Nighthawk was frozen, when his memories were set—but it almost cost him his life a century later, and it did cost him a hand. It wasn't Newman's fault. Hell, it wasn't anyone's. Without those memories and experiences, he'd have been . . ."

  "Me?" suggested Jeff with a sardonic sm
ile.

  "Sometimes physical ability isn't always enough," said Kinoshita. "Sometimes the most important weapon you have is your experience."

  "Perhaps," said Jeff. "But right now I've got less than two years' worth of experiences in my entire life, so I hope you won't mind if I depend on my ability."

  The sandwiches arrived. Kinoshita wasn't especially hungry, so while Jeff ate, the smaller man looked around the restaurant, observing the meals the various aliens had ordered. One looked like green sludge, another like thousands of tiny purple pellets, and one orange-furred Tormalindi had what looked like a plate of linguini, except that each piece squealed when he stabbed it with his equivalent of a fork and squirmed desperately as he noisily sucked it into his mouth.

  There was a time, reflected Kinoshita, when he would have found such a display disgusting. That was before traveling to so many worlds with so many Jefferson Nighthawks. Now it was merely interesting, and he could foresee the day when it would no longer even attract his attention.

  "That was good," announced Jeff a moment later, as he finished his sandwich. He looked across the table. "You haven't touched yours."

  "I'm just here to keep you company," said Kinoshita. "I'm not really hungry."

  "Do you mind, then?"

  "Help yourself."

  Jeff ate the sandwich, and, not for the first time, Kinoshita marveled at how none of the Widowmakers ever missed a meal or lost a moment's sleep preparing for whatever conflict lay ahead.

  Of course, why should you? he thought. You've never lost.

  Then he remembered that that wasn't exactly right. Jason Newman had lost a hand on Pericles, and damned near lost his life on Giancola II. Nighthawk had lost his health for a century. And the first clone had lost his life before he'd had a chance to begin living it.

  No, for all your skills, Widowmakers aren't immune to pain and defeat. I hope Jeff will keep that in mind when he finally faces the Wizard.

  But Kinoshita knew he wouldn't.

  Jeff looked out the window and frowned. "I wonder how the hell much longer I have to sit here before he gets his fill and decides to meet with me."

  "You think he's been observing you?"

  "If he's any good he has, and that dead-only bounty implies that he's good."