A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) (20 page)

"It's none of his business," said Nighthawk. "It's no one's business except ours—Jason's, mine, and now yours." He was silent for a moment, ordering his thoughts. "I never planned to be a bounty hunter. I grew up on a farm on Phalaris II. I was twelve years old when a gang of thirty men and aliens robbed the bank and the businesses there. My father was in town on business; he was an innocent bystander. He'd never even owned a weapon in his life. They killed him anyway. And they paid off the planetary police, so no one arrested them or followed up on any leads. They didn't even question the survivors. When I saw that, I stole a couple of burners and went after them on my own. One by one I picked them off—but by the time I'd killed the thirteenth, I was spotted and identified. They came out to our house to kill me. I wasn't there, but they killed my mother and my sister."

The muscles in Nighthawk's jaw twitched, and he continued. "That was a little more killing than the police had bargained for —or at least more than they'd been paid to ignore—and the remaining gang members fled to the Preteep system. I followed them there and killed all but three of them. They grabbed some hostages and escaped. Later they killed the hostages—a woman and her two daughters. I tracked them down and killed them, face to face."

"At twelve years of age?" said Jeff, cleearly impressed.

"Thirteen," answered Nighthawk. "It took some time to hunt them all down." He paused. "My parents and sister were buried on our farm, but of course no one had kept up the payments, and I heard that it was going up for auction. I wanted to buy it back, if only to plant proper headstones on their graves. I knew there was paper on most of the gang members, so I took the last three to the bounty station on Daedelus IV and asked how to claim the reward, which would have come to four hundred thousand credits, more than enough to buy the farm. A kindly white-haired old gentleman helped me fill out the forms, and even bought me a couple of meals. I stopped by every day to see if the money had arrived—and on the fifth day the old man was gone, and so was my money."

"Is
that
when you became the Widowmaker?" asked Jeff.

"It was years before they began calling me that," said Nighthawk. "Anyway, I became a bounty hunter after I tracked the old man down and took back my money."

"
After
?" repeated Jeff. "You didn't kill him?"

Nighthawk shook his head. "I knew even then that if I killed every lawbreaker on the Inner Frontier, there weren't going to be too many people left alive. People come out here to get
away
from the Oligarchy and its laws. So I created a code I've tried to live by: I will kill only those who themselves have killed—or, if the occasion demands, I'll kill in self-defense. As I got more skilled, I limited myself to the men and aliens that normal lawmen and bounty hunters couldn't take. It's the same code I taught you when I was training you."

"I know," said Jeff. "And I've lived by it. I fired on Jason Newman in self-defense."

"Did you?"

"You sound like you don't think so," said Jeff.

"Let me suggest that he stood between you and Pickett precisely because he knew you
wouldn't
shoot him, that you lived by the same code he and I do, that if he didn't pull a weapon on you, you wouldn't draw first. Think hard, Jeff—did he go for his weapon before you did?"

Jeff closed his eyes, trying to relive the scene. Finally he opened them. "I don't know."

"Well, it's an honest answer."

"We're both so fast."

"I know," said Nighthawk. "Now let me ask you a question, just one, and then the subject is closed. With everything I've told you, with everything you know, do you think Jason would have fired at you if you hadn't gone for your weapon?"

"No," said Jeff slowly. "No, he wouldn't have."

"Good," said Nighthawk, placing a hand on Jeff's shoulder and squeezing it gently. "You're learning."

"Learning what?" asked Jeff bitterly. "Not to shoot Nighthawks?"

"No, you're learning to believe me when I tell you something you'd rather not hear."

Jeff looked at him, surprised. "I guess I am," he said.

"And I'm learning to confront things
I'd
rather not think about," continued Nighthawk.

"Such as?"

"You didn't ask to be born. The fact that I feel an obligation to you, that I trained you and will keep working with you, doesn't absolve me from other things I owe you. As you pointed out, you don't have a father. It's not enough to tell you that genetically you and I share the same one; he's been dead for a century and a half. You don't have a mother. You never had a childhood. By the time you were a week old Kinoshita and I were teaching you how to handle weapons. You're actually better-adjusted than you have any right to be—but as I said, that doesn't absolve me. I wanted to retire, to live out my life with Sarah, to never hold a weapon in my hand again."

"There's nothing wrong with that," said Jeff. "You were the Widowmaker for a long time."

"There's nothing wrong with
wanting
that. What was wrong was the way I went about it." He looked at the young man. "I created you to be a lightning rod. I wanted them to stop shooting at me and start shooting at someone else—at you. You never had a choice. It was a shitty thing to do, and I'm sorry."

"I'm not," said Jeff firmly. "I enjoy being the Widowmaker. I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I like the fact that kids look at me with awe when I walk down the street, and that killers fear my name." He paused. "I just wish I knew that there was one person in the whole damned galaxy who cared about me—not about the Widowmaker and what he can do for them, but about Jeff Nighthawk."

"I'm working on it," said Nighthawk.

"Did you ever feel this way?" asked Jeff.

"No. Every person who ever cared about me wound up dead. That was last thing I wanted. The closer people got to me, the sooner they died. Do you know why I wasn't on New Barcelona when you arrived here?"

"Kinoshita told me a couple of men found out that you lived on Goldenhue, and you had to go back there to make sure Sarah was all right."

"She wasn't all right. They were using her as bait for me, but they never planned to let her live whether I showed up or not. And the reason they were there was because they didn't have the guts to face me, so they went after someone I cared for. It wasn't the first time."

"They've gone after Sarah before?"

"I've been the Widowmaker for a long time," said Nighthawk wearily. "They've gone after
everyone
I ever cared for."

"That explains a lot."

"You can take care of yourself better than any man alive, maybe better than any man who's ever lived," said Nighthawk. "Intellectually I know that. But I've got a gut feeling that says if I get too close to you you're a dead man."

"I suppose telling you that you're wrong wouldn't matter," said Jeff.

"How do you argue with an instinct?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I," said Nighthawk. "But I'm trying."

"You know, I came here with a lot of built-up resentment," said Jeff. "It's all gone now. I don't envy you."

"It could be worse."

"You meant you could be me?" suggested Jeff with a smile.

"I could be Jason Newman."

"Why do you say that?" asked Jeff curiously.

"He'll never be the original Widowmaker or Jefferson Nighthawk; that's reserved for me. And he'll never be the best; that's reserved for you. He tried so hard not to be a shadow of the Widowmaker that he changed his name and even his face. And where is he now? Tied in to a bunch of machines in a hospital tens of thousands of light years from his home world, put there by a Widowmaker."

"When he's better, I plan to go out to Giancola," said Jeff.

"And do what?"

"Apologize," said Jeff. "And ask him to forgive me."

Nighthawk stared at him silently for a moment. "Have another beer," he said at last. "My treat."

23.

Nighthawk and Jeff wandered over to Horatio's in mid-afternoon.

"Welcome back," said Minx to Nighthawk as they entered. "I hear you've been a busy Widowmaker."

"We're going to grab a table in the back," said Nighthawk. "When my friend arrives, send him over."

He and Jeff had been seated about ten minutes when Kinoshita stepped out of the airlift and looked around. Minx pointed to Nighthawk's table, and the little man walked across the room to join them.

"The money arrived," he reported, pulling up a chair.

"Good," said Nighthawk. "Did you arrange for the new routing?"

"Transfer it to the Cataluna Branch of the Bank of Spica II, from there to the Andrican Savings and Loan, then the First Planetary Bank of Far London, then route it through Binder X and Roosevelt III to Goldenhue, where it's waiting in the numbered account you had me set up this morning."

"That money's doing a lot of traveling," commented Nighthawk. "You know, back when I was a young man, I heard of more than one speculator getting rich by moving his money every eight or ten hours and drawing interest three times a day. With a million worlds in the Oligarchy, they could always find some with 25% inflation, and that meant that, compounded daily, they doubled their money every year without ever doing anything but depositing it in banks—until the economies crashed, anyway. The Oligarchy finally outlawed it; it was taking too much money away from the fundamentally sound banks."

"I thought you were sending all the bounties you earned in the District to the hospital at Giancola to pay for Jason Newman's medical bills," said Jeff.

"I've already sent them more than ten million credits," replied Nighthawk. "They could clone a dozen spleens and livers and buy him two dozen new arms with that, and still have plenty left over."

"Now that it's
en route
to Goldenhue, what do you plan to do with the bounty on the Wizard?" asked Jeff.

Nighthawk shrugged. "I haven't given it much thought." Suddenly he smiled. "Maybe I'll spend it all trying to create a rose that grows in that damned soil." He turned to Kinoshita. "Did you reserve the rooms?"

"Yes."

"What rooms?" asked Jeff.

"We're targets wherever we go," said Nighthawk. "But we're bigger targets in the District than in the rest of the city. I had Kinoshita get us some rooms at . . ." His voice trailed off. "Where the hell
did
you get them?"

"The Golden Palace," said Kinoshita. "Three suites, including the Presidential. I figured the man who's keeping the Wizard's bounty can afford it."

"Cancel two of them and keep the Presidential," said Nighthawk. "It's got to have four or five bedrooms, and we'll take turns standing guard."

"You expect someone to come after us?" asked Kinoshita.

"We broke tradition and started collecting bounties in the District," answered Nighthawk. "The residents can't be too thrilled with us right about now. Once we're ensconced in the suite, we'll decide what to do next."

"I thought we were staying here," said Jeff.

"I thought so too, and maybe we will," said Nighthawk. "But I've been out of touch with the rest of the galaxy for a few days. Let's see what's going on. There may be more interesting situations elsewhere."

"Why bother?" asked Kinoshita. "Half the men and aliens walking around the District have some kind of paper on them."

"He already knows how to kill people," said Nighthawk. "We took the three who needed taking, the only three who could provide the Widowmaker with a real challenge."

"Correction," said Jeff. "
You
took them."

"The Widowmaker took them," said Nighthawk. "Eventually that will accrue to your benefit." He stood up. "Ready to leave?" His two companions stood up. "I can't say I'm going to miss this joint."

"I can't say I blame you," remarked Jeff.

"Just a minute." Nighthawk walked over to Minx, leaned over and said something to her in low tones, then shoved a bill into her hand.

"What was that about?" asked Kinoshita as they took the airlift to the main floor and stepped out of it.

"Tell him, Jeff."

Jeff looked blank for a moment, then suddenly smiled. "Of course! You told her we were staying at some place in the District, and tipped her to keep her mouth shut."

"Then what was the point?" asked Kinoshita.

"Go ahead," Nighthawk said to Jeff.

"He only gave her one bill, probably a small one," replied Jeff. "She knows what kind of bounties he's earned since he got here, and now she knows that ten or twenty credits is the most she's going to get for keeping his whereabouts a secret. So she's got information to sell, and she'll probably be selling it in the next ten or fifteen minutes."

"And that means no one will come looking for us in the Golden Palace," added Nighthawk. "Or less people, anyway."

They walked out into the street.

"Ugly place," remarked Nighthawk. "I won't be sorry to see the last of it."

"What's Goldenhue like?" asked Jeff.

"A little agricultural world, nothing special," said Nighthawk. "We were thinking of moving to the Spiral Arm, but Sarah's got family on the Inner Frontier, and her son works on Roosevelt III, so . . ."

"I didn't know she had a son," said Jeff.

"I've never met him," said Nighthawk. "He was at college when I teamed up with Sarah, and as long as we send him money from time to time, he's content to keep his distance." He smiled. "I don't talk about him much with Sarah. My best guess is that he's got some kind of business scam going, and he's scared to death I'll find out and turn him in for the reward."

"Would that be before or after Sarah staves your head in for even thinking about it?" asked Kinoshita.

Nighthawk chuckled. "She's a tough lady. I suppose that's why we get along. Sooner or later, when the chips are down, every other woman I've known, and almost every man, is afraid of me. Not that I'll do them any harm, but rather that I have the ability to do it and if I choose to exercise that ability there is nothing anyone could do to prevent it."

"I know," said Jeff. "Even the ones I risk my life for breathe a little easier when I leave."