The next day, I went back to Market!Market! to pick up the ID from Maurice. It was shiny, perfect, and came with a black leather sheath. Maurice made a display of pulling the wallet out of a layer of thin paper wrapping and presented it to me like a merit badge. He is always big on presentation.
“So, what do you intend to do with this? I don’t usually want to know, but this is a serious piece of work. You’ve got my curiosity.”
“I want a good safety net, just in case. I’ve got another scan to run.”
“Must be a good one,” he grinned and shook his head. “You still live for the rush, don’t you?”
I smiled back. “You’re trying to tell me that this wasn’t a thrill for you too? Faking a Cloak ID isn’t exactly easy and they tend to take forgeries of their own pretty personally.”
“You see this place, the way I operate? I am unafraid of Mr. Slayer’s lapdogs. Let them come and I will sell them their deaths. I offer blood, guts, and the gnashing of teeth.”
Blood Guts, and Gnashing of teeth, eh? Catchy line, but too bad he hadn’t found anyone to deliver that to Macy for me. I left his stall and made sure that no one was waiting under the awning with a GASH baton this time before heading out. As before, it took my eyes a few moments to adjust, but I waited until they were clear before stepping into the rain.
Part of surviving here is knowing how people react. If you understand the flow of the crowd, you can tell when something is moving on you and move first. It’s like people’s inner sense tells them to give the guy some room before the maniac pulls Blitzer and the screams start. If you can read it, you live. Otherwise you’re rat food. Or you end up in the back of my truck, hanging from a rail.
When I left the cover of the awning, I made the two guys near the “GIRLZ LUV Wild Wooly Wankers!!!” stall but didn’t let on. I moved into the flow of the crowd and moved slowly enough that I could watch them watching me. They stayed together, but not professionally, so the goons weren’t Slops. Maybe off duty Monarchs or Shivers, but I wasn’t sure. As I pretended to watch the transvestite behind the glass at “Big Mama’s Playhouse” gyrate, they began to close the distance as a pair, but split up when they got close. I slipped in behind a marching procession of orange clad Tsa’ Mar Dahn monks as they chanted and cut themselves for sins in past lives. A few moments later I slid in between a trio of Props named Ribbon Man, 24-7, and BadAxe and headed back the other direction. When the props started to turn a corner, I cut to the right and stepped between a kiosk and a warung called “Ratman’s Burgers”. I was out of the shadow’s sight and they seemed to be a little upset. I guess they didn’t think that anyone could possibly lose them. Amateurs. Probably grew up in the suburbs.
Dodging is a survival skill that I learned as a kid’s game as I grew up near the Palisades. Back then, there were as many as four child-molesting serial killers stalking the area at any given time. Still wonder if they were a cognate or if SLA just decided to dump a bunch of loonies loose there. Once one of them took two of my playmates and hunted me for a full day before I finally lost him. I was better at it than he was so I won. I’ll never forget the look on his face when my brother and I found him years later, down on his luck in a box in an alley. He was drunk and his skin was rotting from some sort of disease. I was eleven and that was the first man I ever killed. I still have nightmares about him when I dream.
I watched the two for a while to see what they were going to do and decided to follow them for a while. I pulled off my dark overcoat to change my appearance and wadded it under my arm. Since the inner jacket I wear was a light tan and would be enough to keep me dry for the time being. I risked it and worked a little closer. Since they didn’t see me, I decided to try something a little risky.
I bought a wide straw hat like the Chang workers wear and pulled it on. With the simplest of disguises, I walked up to them and brushed the larger of the two long enough to rip his wallet. Most people keep them in the front pockets, if they have one at all, so I guessed his right side and got lucky. With the two slow movers getting jostled in the crowd flow, he never felt a thing. With the prize in hand, I kept walking until I was out of sight. I pulled on my overcoat and headed to the truck where I could read the ID safely. I picked up a bag of burgers and a few cans of soda for my favorite crew.
Maab was sitting on the running board with a 12 gauge across her lap as I walked up. She stood up as I approached and grinned.
“Whatcha bring me?” she said.
I shook my head and seated the hat on her head. It was too large and covered her down to her chin.
“There’s an improvement” I said then climbed into the cab. Once seated I pulled out the wallet I had taken and looked at it. It was cheap vinyl and had a bulge in the middle. I opened it to find a Monarch badge, number 13804. The cab door swung open and Maab-san tried to vault a puddle into the cab. The hat was too wide for the door and for a moment she was clothes-lined on the chin strap. I tried to remain dignified as she hung there, but the sight got the better of me and I started laughing. She glared and yanked the hat off, then flopped into the shotgun seat. She shook her jacket to try and soak me, but mostly hit the dash and console. After a moment (a count of two) she decided to become nosy again.
“So what are you looking at?”
“Here” I said and shoved the bag of food at her. It seemed to distract her for a moment and she started fishing through the bag. The driver side door opened and Chaz climbed in, shaking the rain off his brow. He smelled the food and looked in the bag.“What, no fries? HEY!” she said as Chaz snatched the sack from her. He began fishing through it also and she tugged at it like a kid. Somehow the two of them managed to fight over the food and hand me my share at the same time.
“Officer Paul Wilcox, Monarch Station 454. Badge 13804” I read aloud. I pulled his citizen ID card and his housing card. “2714 Nightview tenements, that’s near the Palisades. Not too bad.”
“So what’s this about?” Maab said, half swallowing a burger.
“A couple guys were trying to tail me, but weren’t very good. I wanted to find out who they were so I ripped one’s wallet. He’s a Monarch. Guess he has to moonlight to make ends meet.”
“I take it, we’re gonna go visit him and ask him why?” Chaz asked.
“Yeah, but later on. I have other things to do first.”
“Like settle up with Macy?” Maab asked.
“Yeah. Like settle up with Macy.”
I was disappointed that Maurice didn’t find anyone, but I understand he had to be more careful than usual. When a bag team gets whacked by contract, the trade hunts everyone involved. Since there are rumors that he has several young children, it’s a risk that he can’t afford to take. I can’t fault him on that.It meant that I had to get more involved than I wanted and that required deniability. I had to find someone who could do the job for pay up front, then walk away and forget about me. I didn’t want to have to hire a killer to take out the first one, so I had to be careful in the hiring. I only knew one place to look for one and that was way out of my normal territory.
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