“And you brought her here? Are you out of your everloving mind? She’s a cop! You have to let her go!”
Takata’s voice rose to a squeak. He stared at the hog-tied black-uniformed sniper, who in turn was scanning the darkened restaurant kitchen with terrified eyes.
“Well look,” said the Miner. “If I go to Feeney I won’t get a word in edgewise. And if I go to Angelica, they’ll just kill her outright, leaving me without a bargaining chip.”
The sniper whimpered.
“So you brought her here?”
“What can I say, I lack imagination. Have you heard from Herrera?”
“He’s at home, in bed, sleeping. Which is what I should be doing, instead of serving drinks to kidnappers and murderers and lunatics!”
“You haven’t served us any drinks.”
“Well I got it half right, anyway. You’re out of your mind. Are you the one who blew something up in the galleria?”
The Miner considered her options. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, she says.”
“A lot goes on, you might be referring to a different explosion.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You should listen,” the Miner heard in stereo. She and Takata both turned to see Mary Feeney standing in the back door, arms folded. She had dark circles under her puffy red eyes, her tattooed skin was blotchy, and her lips were set so tightly they were white. She looked like hell.
“Hello, Mary,” said the Miner.
“Hello, Jane. I hear one of you killed my husband.”
The Miner pointed at the sniper, who probably would have pointed back if she hadn’t been tied up.
“So you say. McMasters says different.”
“McMasters has six people standing guard outside my ship where they have me cornered.”
Mary blinked and coughed what might have been a laugh. “Christ, what an asshole.”
“Seriously.”
“But just being an asshole doesn’t make him wrong. He showed us your rifle. He showed us your medal for sharpshooting. He told us that you admitted to trying to destabilize this station.”
“That’s all true,” the Miner said. “But I didn’t kill Raj. Won’t say it didn’t cross my mind, or even that I didn’t think he had it coming. But I didn’t kill him.”
Mary frowned. The sniper made muffled noises through the gag. “Takata, was she really here?”
“Oh, the other shoe drops! This is why you invaded my restaurant in the middle of the night, so I can alibi you? Forget it. You want an alibi, go wake up Herrera. He was here.” He seemed to realize what he’d just said. “Shit. Go to hell, both of you.”
The Miner shrugged. “Can’t have it plainer than that.”
“I’m pretty sure you can.”
The Miner didn’t reply, just rubbed her injured hand. Even with the painkillers she’d grabbed from the infirmary it still throbbed. She had a change of bandages, real ones, but hadn’t had time to put them on. Mary stared at her a long time, then swore. “Give her to me. We’ll want to question her.”
“She’s no good to me dead,” the Miner said, shifting her weight so that more of her body stood between Mary and the sniper. “Not while Angelica still wants to kill me.”
“That’s your problem, not mine.”
They stared at each other until Mary sighed. “We won’t kill her. That’d be too convenient for you if you’re lying.” She unholstered her pistol. “Come on, you. On your feet.”
The sniper thrashed when they tried to pick her up, slamming her bound feet so hard against Takata’s cabinets that the doors dented and plastic plates tumbled and clattered on the deck. Even at gunpoint, she refused to stand on her own, so that finally Mary called for a couple of goons. The Miner watched without helping as four of them managed to wrangle the struggling cop by just picking her up by the twisted tape.
Mary studied the squirming form and frowned. “Bring her to the old man,” she said. “Tell him I want her kept alive and able to talk.”
She got four uncertain nods in reply, but she didn’t wait to see them. Ignoring Takata’s protests, she walked quickly and purposefully out of the kitchen, navigated the bar floor in the dark, then punched the button to raise the shutters. The Miner stayed back in the shadows.
“Where are you going?” called one of the goons. The Miner recognized her, but not well.
“To talk to my sister-in-law.”
“Woah, woah, wait, what?” The goon looked alarmed, and left her three cohorts to deal with the struggling captive. She shoved past the Miner. “Wait a sec, Mary.”
She held up a hand. “I know. But he was her brother. She deserves to be in on this.”
“Man... I dunno.”
Mary’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know either. But it’s high time we ended this shit. That means trusting each other, and that means someone goes first. Go on. I want to see you leave.”
The Miner watched from the kitchen doorway as they exchanged dubious looks and hauled their captive out the back.
“This is probably dumb,” the Miner said.
“Are they gone?”
“Yeah.”
Mary set off across the galleria, head held high. The Miner watched her go.
“See, this is going to backfire, too.” Takata had a bowl of oatmeal or something and was eating. It smelled amazing. He didn’t offer her any. “You think you’re going to rile them up again, but they like their little equilibrium.”
“I thought you hated the status quo.”
“I do, but I hate the open fighting more.” He sighed and set down his spoon. “Look. Yeah, I’d rather that asshole McMasters did his job and ran them all out of here. But you’re not going to push him to do that, you’re just going to get him killed.”
“He’s got it coming.”
“Why? Because he fucked up your ship?”
“Because he stood by taking bribes while this station went to hell. Because he had someone assassinated in the middle of the goddamn galleria so he could keep taking those bribes. Because he was going to fucking pin it on me.” Takata gave her a level gaze until she threw up her hands. “And yeah, all right, because he fucked up my ship. My homicidal urges, my rules.”
“You’ve killed a lot of people yourself, you know.”
“Never said I didn’t have it coming, too.”
An ornately-tattooed kid with horns burst from Angelica’s casino and dashed across the galleria. The Miner ran out to meet her, and when she didn’t stop, pulled her sword left-handed.
She reared back. “Get out of my way! I have to deliver a message.”
The Miner stared at her, wondering who Angelica considered more expendable than electrons. “I’ll come too.”
The messenger stared at the sword and didn’t argue. Which was just as well, as they’d gotten attention from the security station. Two armored guards came out, sidearms drawn. The Miner followed the messenger at a jog up the stairs to Feeney’s hotel where a crowd had already seen the runner and emerged en masse. The messenger doubled over wheezing after the run up the stairs, and gasped out that Angelica had Feeney’s granddaughter and would trade for the sniper.
It didn’t take long for the message to filter up to the old man, who came out roaring that he’d kill that backstabber. He fumed and raged, and he made one of his soldiers restrain the messenger. He growled instructions to different people who jumped and ran.
Mr Shine strolled out of the hotel, still in his tuxedo, but with his arm in a sling. He looked like he’d just been woken up. He walked up to Feeney and tried to say a few words in his ear, but Feeney had none of it. He paced and ranted and hurled invective at Angelica and her “idiot brother” who, in his telling, had probably – if with difficulty – committed suicide. Someone came out and passed him a little red megaphone that had ridges like it’d been printed in a hurry.
“Angelica! Get out here, you damned snake, and bring my granddaughter.”
The casino window’s neon dice rolled in silence, coming up double-sixes for the umpteenth time. The Miner was starting to think they were loaded.
“Goddamn you, get out here!”
“In my own time, old man.” Angelica’s reply came over some kind of loudspeaker, and was hard to hear over the crowd. “Cool your jets.”