The Miner waited while Feeney’s face cycled through an impressive array of colors, and for a moment thought he’d have a stroke.
“Son of a bitch,” he managed. “Disloyal little toad! I’ve made him rich, that ingrate! I’ve given him protection, I’ve given him cover, kickbacks, laundered his money, and this is how he repays me?”
He swept the glassware off the desk so hard it all shattered against the wall. The Miner slowly but pointedly reclaimed her bank chip showing the “proof” that had sent Feeney into a steaming rage: twenty thousand credits’ worth of hush money paid by Gordonson when she’d confronted him with his treachery. She bent to rescue a glass off the floor that had merely chipped, and then languidly stood and filled it from the decanter on the sideboard – the cheap stuff, she noted.
“I’m too loyal,” Feeney was saying. “I’m too goddamned loyal, Jane, that’s my problem. Loyal to Gordonson, loyal to Angelica. They all told me to cut Wilfred loose, and by God I know I should have, but I’m too goddamned loyal, and they all take advantage of me. Now look at me.”
He rounded on her, planting both hands on his desk and leaning forward. “They’re bleeding me, my good Mick. I’m telling you, they’re bleeding me like two dozen leeches. Business has been shite since this damn fighting started, since that ingrate Angelica cut my feet out from under me. Instead of running my operations I’ve been paying out for these lousy cut-rate gangsters. Why? Because otherwise she’ll hire them and overrun me. Nobody stays at this hotel who pays. Nobody gambles at my casino she’s squatting in either. Nobody comes to this damn station at all except lunatics who come for a fight and to suck me dry.”
“He can’t have been at it long,” the Miner offered after a sip of rescued whiskey. It wasn’t nearly as good as the good stuff. “After all, your guards keeping an eye on him would have noticed before too long.”
Feeney stopped ranting and went completely still. He started tapping his fingers on his desk, then sat heavily in his chair. The Miner watched him make a call and speak in low, angry tones. While he talked, she pretended to scratch herself behind the neck and retrieved the bug she’d printed on her ship, tucked in her collar. She shifted in her chair and dropped it between the cushion and the arm.
Feeney cut the call and smiled grimly. “Well, those two can earn their pay, at least.”
The Miner nodded. “By the way,” she said offhandedly, “I had to kill one of Angelica’s people.”
Feeney stared. “What, now?”
“No big deal. One of those I beat up earlier took a run at me in the back passages. Now he’s dead.”
Feeney ran his hands through his thin white hair. “Well, these things happen,” he said, seemingly more to himself than to her. “As long as nobody saw it–”
“I’m pretty sure he was streaming video when he attacked me,” the Miner interrupted. “Probably got the whole thing. Don’t know if anyone was watching.”
He flushed and she got a glimpse of a very ugly expression before he mastered himself. Still red in the face, he gave her a strained smile. “You do work fast, Jane, I have to hand you that. You do work fast.”
“Is there a problem? I didn’t think you’d mind me breaking some eggs.”
“No, no,” he protested. “Not at all. Only… maybe you’d better lie low for a little while.”
She took that as a dismissal and stood. He’d just suffered a couple of blows: he’d paid her out a lot of money and lost a major asset, and if his situation was as precarious as she hoped, he was teetering. “McMasters going to be a problem over this?”
He waved it away, but he wasn’t very convincing. “He’s my problem, not yours.”
That was definitely a dismissal, and she took it gladly. Getting Feeney teetering was one thing, but the question was whether she’d strengthened Angelica. She considered that on the walk down from Feeney’s office, around the bend and down the stairs.
There was a commotion in the lobby, cries of pain and anger. She strolled down the steps, hand resting lazily on her sword, watching as two of Feeney’s gang were carried in by five of their fellows. They were dumped onto the couches, leaving smears of blood down the back cushions. They weren’t dead – they were swearing loudly enough that she could be sure of that even through the mashed noses, blackened eyes, and broken limbs.
“Ambushed.” A young woman covered in spikes came up to the Miner from behind. “Coming back from checking up on the old man’s interests down below, and some of the witch’s crew jumped them.”
“Anybody killed?”
“Naw. This is revenge for what you did.” She really did have a lot of spikes. Through her ears, implanted around her neck, stubby little ones in a line along her cheekbones with tattoo swirls exploring them like raked lines in a Zen garden. The Miner wondered how she slept without shredding the pillow.
“They need to get their eyes checked to mistake those kids for me.”
That earned a snort from Spikes. “They don’t have the guts to go after you.”
“That so?”
She nodded at the Miner’s sword. “You know how to use that thing?”
“Yup.”
“You ever killed anybody?”
The Miner glanced sideways at her, but couldn’t read anything but idle curiosity. “Some.”
“How come?”
She shrugged. “You can’t like everybody.”
“Huh.” That earned her a long side eye. “You know, we got it pretty good here. Place is a dump and it’d be better without the fighting, but it is what it is. Just don’t go psycho on them, and they’ll return the favor.”
“That so?”
“I’m just saying, don’t fuck it up.”
The Miner just rubbed her chin and nodded, thinking that she didn’t have to.
“I keep hearing this name Nuke,” she said, watching as some idiot kid tried entirely the wrong way to set a broken arm. It was kind of entertaining. “Who is he?”
Spikes gave her a suspicious look. “Why? He’s not here anymore, so what do you care?”
“I heard something about a doublecross. Not the kind of thing you want to hear when you start a gig.”
She looked angry. “Wasn’t a doublecross. He was balls-out crazy.”
“Mmm,” the Miner said.
“It wasn’t a doublecross. I was here. He had to go, everyone agreed. Eventually.”
If she intended to say more, she was stopped when the hotel doors slid open and McMasters strode in like he owned the place. Puffed up in his black uniform and with his neat little pencil mustache newly-waxed, he walked stiffly with his black cap under his arm like he was inspecting the troops at a parade ground. He looked like a swagger stick would be the best birthday present anyone could ever give him.
He strode through the middle of the room, pausing only briefly to inspect the groaning bodies on the couch and sniff in disdain. He made for the stairwell just past the Miner and Spikes, up to the old man’s office. Spikes raised her middle finger like she was scratching under her chin with it, and the Miner saw McMasters’ fleeting indecision of whether to scowl or pretend he hadn’t seen it, with the latter unconvincingly winning. He looked daggers at the Miner, but said nothing as he passed.
“Going to bitch about the fighting,” Spikes predicted. “And try to get his kickback early. You’re getting to be expensive.”
“Is it getting around how much Feeney’s paying me?” She hoped so; it would sow discontent in the ranks on both sides.
“Not yet, but it will.”
The Miner nodded at that, and thought. She turned to Spikes. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“Mary Feeney.”
“Huh.” She considered the likeness under the tattoos and spikes. “Your granddad calls me Jane.”
They didn’t shake hands.
“I didn’t agree with hiring you,” Mary said. “I think you’re trouble.”
The Miner didn’t answer. She agreed, after all. A pair of scruffy-looking toughs came in the front door and peered at the injured on the couch. One was tall and dark, with white tribal tattoos on his forearms and a busted lip. He had an intense, excited look on his face, in contrast to the laid-back shorter guy with a bit of a pot belly and a dopey smile.
“Excuse me,” Mary said, and went down to join them.