A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) Read online

  "I've got a little more business to conduct," replied Nighthawk. "As for what happened here, we'll let it be our little secret."

  And it would stay their secret, Nighthawk knew, for five minutes at the outside, which was just what he wanted. The more people talked about the Widowmaker being on New Barcelona, the sooner the word would get back to Jeff.

  Kinoshita showed up a few minutes later with a trio of airsleds. He and Nighthawk hefted Bellamy's huge body onto one, then loaded the other two sleds.

  "Where to now?" asked Kinoshita. "The spaceport?"

  "First we'll stop at a police station and have their identities officially confirmed. Then we can apply for the reward. Even if Jeff doesn't hear what happened, he'll be keeping an eye on who's claiming the biggest rewards, if only so he'll know not to go after men who are already dead."

  "Yeah, he checks the list every couple of days," confirmed Kinoshita.

  "Of course he does. I trained him. And if he sees a few hefty ones claimed on New Barcelona, he'll start looking into it, just as I would."

  Nighthawk fastened the three sleds together. They floated some three feet above the ground, and he guided them as he began walking.

  "You know," said Kinoshita, walking alongside him, "it occurs to me that the police aren't going to be very happy to see you. They had an unspoken agreement, and you broke it. Some of the residents of the District may even blame them for not stopping you."

  "If the killers come out of the District looking for the cops, they're going to have to respond by going into the District looking for anyone with a price on his head. That's not necessarily a bad thing." He paused. "But none of it will happen until long after we've left New Barcelona."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "If the good guys and the bad guys wanted a war, they've had two hundred years to start one."

  "Okay," admitted Kinoshita. "You've got a point."

  They attracted some attention after they'd walked two blocks. Bystanders stopped and stared, and began whispering Bellamy's name, but no one made a move to stop them. Two more blocks, and they were out of the District. It was the middle of the night, but word of what they were carrying got out pretty fast, and by the time they came to a police station half a mile from the District they had a curious crowd of perhaps thirty men and aliens following them.

  The doors opened to let them through, and the instant the officer on the night desk saw who was on the largest sled he summoned his superiors.

  Kinoshita's analysis had been correct. The police were definitely not happy to see a bounty hunter carting Hairless Jack Bellamy's body out of the District, but there wasn't much they could do about it.

  "Is there paper on the other two?" asked Nighthawk after they had officially confirmed Bellamy's identity.

  "You mean you shot them without knowing?" demanded a captain who was the ranking officer on the premises.

  "In self defense."

  "Have you got any witnesses?"

  "If there's paper I don't need them," said Nighthawk, "and if there's no paper I'll let you hook me up to a Neverlie Machine."

  An officer walked over to the Lexonian. "I know this one. He's wanted all the hell over the Frontier, and I think there's paper on him in the Spiral Arm as well. I can't pronounce his name, but he's carrying about two hundred thousand credits on his head."

  "The other one's McAllistar Morgan," added the desk officer. "Or at least that's what he's been calling himself lately. He killed two men in a holdup on Benvenuti II, and they're after him for some other stuff as well."

  "Well, that's that," said the captain. "Your ass is covered. Now fill out your claim and get the hell off my planet. I hope to hell you haven't caused more problems than you've solved."

  "I want the two smaller bounties sent to a hospital on Giancola II, to be applied to Jason Newman's bill," said Nighthawk. "My friend here can give you the exact location and details. Have them send the big bounty here to the station and hold it for me."

  "I'll need your name," said the desk officer.

  "Jefferson Nighthawk."

  "A lot of people have borrowed that name," remarked the captain. "I hear there's a young one out here on the Frontier— one who's actually calling himself the Widowmaker."

  "You don't say?"

  "You could do a lot worse," said the captain. "Hell, we could use another Widowmaker these days—a legendary hero to clean out the District."

  "Well, you know what they say," said Nighthawk with a smile no one but Kinoshita understood. "Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."

  10.

  "What now?" asked Kinoshita as they walked back across the street and entered the District.

  "Now I go back to Horatio's, and you go around to all the nearby hotels and boarding houses."

  Kinoshita looked puzzled. "What do I do there?"

  "Take out a room at each," Nighthawk instructed him. "At least ten of them. Twenty if you can find them. Then meet me at Horatio's."

  "I assume you want me to take them out in my name, not yours?"

  "Right. There's no sense making it too easy for whoever's following you."

  "Me?" said Kinoshita nervously. ""Who do you think's going to be following me?"

  "The same men who are following us right now," answered Nighthawk calmly.

  Kinoshita looked around. "I can't see or hear anyone."

  "I can."

  Kinoshita fingered his screecher nervously.

  "Don't worry," said Nighthawk. "There are only two of them, and they don't want you. That's why I took Bellamy out in the street—so everyone would know it was me who did it, not you and not us. I would think by now the word has spread throughout the District."

  "Maybe you need me to stick around and watch your back," suggested Kinoshita.

  Nighthawk shook his head. "They're going to take their time. After all, I just killed a man who everyone knew couldn't be hurt. They're going to spend a while studying me before they make a move."

  "You'd better be right."

  "I didn't live this long by being wrong."

  "Or being modest," said Kinoshita.

  "There's no place in this business for false bravado or false modesty," said Nighthawk. He stood still and closed his eyes for a moment, listening intently. Suddenly he smiled. "One of them's got a prosthetic leg. The right one, I think. He hides it well."

  "Shit!" said Kinoshita. "You're enjoying this! You can talk all you want about living in peace and raising your goddamned flowers, but you love being the Widowmaker!"

  "There's already a Widowmaker," said Nighthawk. "I'm just his coach."

  "There's already a Widowmaker," agreed Kinoshita. "And I'm standing next to him."

  "That's not the safest place to stand," said Nighthawk. "It's time to start hunting up hotels. I'll see you in an hour or so."

  Nighthawk turned and headed off toward Horatio's. He had assumed the two men would split up, and a moment later they did. He could easily have lost the man who was tailing him, or simply waited for him and killed him, but instead he kept on walking, and reached his destination a few minutes later.

  "Hi again," said Minx as he stepped out from the airlift and into Horatio's. "I thought we'd seen the last of you for the night."

  "I got thirsty," said Nighthawk, sitting down at an empty table. "Bring me a beer, please."

  "They say you and Hairless Jack had a little argument out in the street," continued Minx, and Nighthawk became aware that every eye, human and alien alike, was trained on him.

  "A little one."

  "I hear he's Lifeless Jack now."

  "Well, you hear all kinds of rumors in a place like this," said Nighthawk. "How about that beer now?"

  She vanished into another room, then returned with a beer in a tall iced glass.

  "How'd you do it, Mister?" asked a thin man clad all in black who was sitting at the next table.

  "Relentless logic wins most arguments," answered Nighthawk.

  "They say
you carted him off somewhere."

  "I was taught to clean up after myself."

  The thin man stared at him for a long minute. "You ain't much for giving straight answers, are you?" he said at last.

  "I've answered everything you've asked," said Nighthawk.

  "All right, how about answering this one: are you the Widowmaker?"

  "I've been called that," he acknowledged. "I've been called worse."

  "You don't belong here, Widowmaker," said the thin man. "This is the District."

  "My money spends as good as yours," said Nighthawk, taking a swallow of his beer. "I figure as long as I'm not breaking any laws I've got as much right to be here as you do."

  "You can't break any laws in the District!" snapped the man. "We don't have any."

  "Then what's your problem?"

  "Everyone knows what you do. The District is off limits to lawmen and bounty hunters."

  "I must have missed the Keep Out sign on the door," said Nighthawk.

  There was an uneasy murmuring in the room.

  "I suggest you all relax," said Nighthawk. "If I wanted any of you, you'd be dead by now."

  And with that, they did relax.

  "Then who do you want?" asked a Canphorite from the far side of the room.

  "That would be breaking a professional confidence," said Nighthawk with a humorless smile.

  "It's got to be the Wizard," said the thin man. "They say he's worth eight million credits dead or alive."

  "Nobody wants him alive," added a Lodinite, looking up from the green bubbling stuff he was drinking.

  Nighthawk knew the price on the Wizard, of course, but he hadn't known he was in the District until that moment. He decided to see what further information he could elicit without seeming to ask for it.

  "I'm after bigger game than the Wizard," he said.

  "There isn't any," said a man who was swaying in his chair from the effects of the mexalite he was smoking.

  "Sure there is," chimed in another. "The Widowmaker doesn't just go after Men. There's the Younger Brothers, whatever the hell they are."

  "Right," said the thin man. "They've got to be worth more than eight million for the lot of them."

  "And what about that woman who arrived yesterday?" asked a man from the corner. "What was her name?"

  "Cleopatra Rome."

  "Right—Cleopatra Rome. She might be worth more than any of them."

  They continued to toss names around. Nighthawk was content; there were at least three more, maybe as many as five, that would have to come to Jeff's attention within day or two of his collecting them.

  Curious word—collecting, he reflected. He never thought of it as killing them. The killing was a foregone conclusion. It was finding them, cutting off their escape routes, taking them without collateral damage, and presenting the bodies for the rewards. Collecting. It seemed much more businesslike than killing, and the trick was never to forget that it was a business, that emotion had no place in it. He could be warm and relaxed with Sarah, he could toss off a wry or sardonic line with the best of them—but that was when he was Jefferson Nighthawk. When he was at work—when he was the Widowmaker—humor, love, friendship, tenderness, fear, all of them were locked away into the same closet in his mind that contained Jefferson Nighthawk. From time to time he wondered what a psychiatrist would make of it. Then he reminded himself that at least he'd survived long enough to be of some interest to a psychiatrist.

  Kinoshita entered a few minutes later and sat down next to him.

  "We're registered at fourteen hotels and rooming houses," said the small man.

  "You worked fast," said Nighthawk approvingly.

  "They're all within a few blocks here. I can hunt up more if you want."

  "No, fourteen should be enough."

  Kinoshita handed him a sheet of paper on which he'd scribbled down the names and addresses of the various hostelries. "Have you got any preference for tonight? I assume we're going to just keep rotating to a new one every day."

  "We're staying right here," said Nighthawk, lowering his voice.

  "In Horatio's?" said Kinoshita, surprised.

  "In the same building. When we leave we'll go to the top floor and see what we can find."

  "Then why the hell did you have me rent all those rooms?"

  "At least one man, maybe more, followed you to every hotel," said Nighthawk. "If we stay in one, the odds are 13-to-1 we won't be killed in it. This way the odds are 14-to-0." An amused smile. "There are Men and aliens who want us dead. Let's let 'em stand watch. Why should they have a good night's rest just because we intend to?"

  "You know," said Kinoshita, "Jeff would never have thought of that."

  "Jeff doesn't have to," said Nighthawk. "He's as good as I used to be. But us old men need our sleep."

  "Are you referring to you old men who just killed an invulnerable giant and his henchmen?"

  "If I killed him he wasn't invulnerable, was he?"

  Minx approached the table. "Can I get your friend anything?" she asked.

  "Ask him," said Nighthawk.

  "I'll have whatever he's drinking," said Kinoshita, indicating Nighthawk. As she walked off, he turned to the older man. "Did you pick up any information?"

  "A bit."

  "At one of the hotels I heard them saying that Cleopatra Rome just arrived in the District."

  "So they say."

  "Did she really do everything she's supposed to have done?"

  "Probably not," said Nighthawk. "She's too young."

  "Does it ever bother you?" asked Kinoshita. "Killing a woman, I mean?"

  "Do you think all the killing she's done bothered her?" responded Nighthawk.

  "I know. But—"

  "Who's more dangerous at ten paces?" asked Nighthawk. "The heavyweight freehand champion of the Oligarchy, or a ninety-pound woman with a burner?"

  "Okay, I just asked."

  "A woman can kill you as quickly and efficiently as a man can. Your problem is that you haven't overcome your early training."

  "How did you learn to overcome yours?" asked Kinoshita.

  "Quickly, and under duress," replied Nighthawk. He looked around. "Okay, I think I've been here long enough for word to spread through the District, and they've had time to post men at all fourteen hotels you visited. There's nothing more to be done tonight. We might as well leave."

  He laid a few bills on the table, then stood up. Ignoring all the stares, he walked to the airlift, waited for Kinoshita to join him, ascended to ground level, and stepped out.

  "I thought we were staying in the building," said Kinoshita.

  "We are."

  "Then why—?"

  "We're supposed to be keeping it a secret. If anyone's watching the airlift mechanism, why let them know? We'll wait here for a couple of minutes, and then go up. If anyone's checking it, they'll think whoever's on it just came in from outside."

  You're a remarkable man, thought Kinoshita for the hundredth or the thousandth time. The kid never plans like this, because he doesn't need to. You were as good as he is, and yet you're always planning three steps ahead. Did it start when you came down with the disease, or when age eroded one percent of your skills, or where you always like this? Someday I'd really like to know a little more about the man I've dedicated my life to serving.

  When Nighthawk decided that enough time had passed, they entered the airlift again and let it take them up to the third floor of the darkened building. Once the rooms had been offices, but that had been two centuries ago. Now those that weren't eaten by decay were storerooms, filled with contraband items, clearly owned by black marketeers and fences.

  Nighthawk walked up and down the corridor, breaking the computer code on each lock and deactivating the various security systems with a skill that surprised Kinoshita, who had thought nothing the Widowmaker did could still surprise him. The older man checked each room, re-activated the security systems, and after he had surveyed all of them he walked back to t
he third one he'd examined.

  "We'll spend the night here," he announced.

  "Why this room as opposed to one of the others?" asked Kinoshita.

  "There are no windows, so there's only one way in or out," answered Nighthawk. "And whoever owns it is fencing some delicate Jubarian crystal."

  "So?"

  "If two pieces of the crystal touch each other, they set up a high-pitched vibration that would wake the dead. I'll lay half a dozen pieces where the door will knock them into each other if it opens. We'll sleep behind that partition, which gives us plenty of time to get ready if someone tries to enter the place."

  "You think someone will?"

  "If I thought they would, I wouldn't have sent you around to all those hotels," said Nighthawk. "But you have to take enough chances in this business; it just makes sense to avoid the ones you don't have to take."

  Nighthawk closed and locked the door behind them, positioned the crystal, and walked over to the alcove behind the partition. He lay down on the hardwood floor, pulled his screecher out, placed it next to his head, and was sound asleep a moment later. Look at you, thought Kinoshita. You killed Hairless Jack Bellamy and two others tonight, and tomorrow you're probably going to go up against Cleopatra Rome, and you're sleeping like it was just another day at the office.

  Then he noticed the screecher. And you're still the most careful man I know. Even without consciously thinking of it, you never miss even the smallest detail. Anyone else might be sleeping with a burner or a pulse gun out, but you know the building's wood. A laser beam or an energy pulse might set it on fire; a solid burst of sound won't. Young Jeff was the most remarkable specimen I ever saw—but if he ever has to go up against you, I know who I'd put my money on.

  Kinoshita was still comparing all the Widowmakers he had known when he fell into a restless sleep.

  11.

  Kinoshita awoke with a start, and immediately felt Nighthawk's hand over his mouth.