A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) (7 page)

"Come back when the time's up," said Nighthawk. "Oh, and one more thing."

"Yes?"

"Don't push your luck."

There was something about the way he said it, something ominous. She looked at him, then nodded a quick assent and made a quicker retreat.

"Now what?" asked Kinoshita.

"Now we wait."

"For what?"

"For someone to come along."

"Have you got anyone in mind?"

"I don't even know who's in the District today."

"Well, then?"

"I know who'll be at the top of Jeff's list. Some of them have to be here, and sooner or later one or more of them will walk into Horatio's."

"So you just plan to sit here until one of them shows up?" asked Kinoshita.

"It's easier than going out looking for them," answered Nighthawk. "Only a fool wanders aimlessly at night in the District, and if they were fools they wouldn't have lived long enough to make Jeff's list."

"But we were outside just a few minutes ago."

"Very briefly," replied Nighthawk. "We had a destination in mind. So will they."

"You are the least informative son of a bitch I've ever met," complained Kinoshita.

"You traveled with me from the day I got out of the hospital back on Deluros VIII until the day I sent Jeff out to take my place. You know what I'm like. If it annoys you, you shouldn't have come."

"Let's not go into that again."

"Suit yourself."

It comes back to me now,
thought Kinoshita.
Jefferson Nighthawk's not exactly loquacious, but he talks to me. The Widowmaker just concentrates on the business at hand. He tolerates my presence, but he feels no obligation to share any thoughts or plans with me.

"Are you sure you'll recognize one of the men you want if he walks in here?" asked Kinoshita at last.

"I took the trouble of studying the Wanted lists on the trip here while you were sleeping."

"Of course," said Kinoshita bitterly. "You might have awakened me so I could help spot them before they recognize you."

"They won't recognize me," said Nighthawk. "I quit bounty hunting half a century before any of them were born. To them I'm just an old man visiting the District for a last thrill on the way to the grave."

"I'd forgotten," admitted Kinoshita. "I've seen you in action since they revived you, so I assumed everyone knew you were back."

"I'm not back. I'm just going to make a few minor adjustments to the man I sent out, and then I'm going back to live out my life on Goldenhue."

"I never thought you'd stick it out this long," said Kinoshita. "I just don't picture you as a gardener."

"And a birdwatcher. Don't forget the birding." He paused, then amended: "Well, the avians, anyway. Goldenhue doesn't have any true birds."

Two hard-looking men entered the room, nodded to a couple of others who were already there, and walked to a table.

"They're carrying a lot of firepower," noted Kinoshita softly. "Pulse gun, burner, even a couple of projectile pistols."

"I've always liked projectile weapons," said Nighthawk approvingly. "They're pretty accurate at close range, and they make a hell of a bang. The noise usually freezes your opponent for a second or two. He's mostly used to the humming of a burner or a screecher's whistling."

"So is there paper on these two?"

"I'd be surprised if there wasn't," said Nighthawk. "But they're minnows. I came here to find some whales."

"What's a whale?"

"Big fish. Used to swim in Earth's oceans a few thousand years ago before we killed the last of them. That's what they say, anyway."

Four men and three aliens left in the next fifteen minutes, and two men and seven more aliens entered. Minx was kept busy supplying them with liquor and sticks of mexalite. One Lodinite slipped her a large bill and walked through a door at the side of the room, doubtless on his way to a sexual encounter elsewhere in the building.

She cast an occasional glance at Nighthawk, but never returned to ask for more money.

"So far she's the only person I've seen working the room," noted Kinoshita. "I wonder who runs the place?"

"Ask her who pays her salary," suggested Nighthawk.

"It might be someone we're after."

"
We're
not after anyone," said Nighthawk. "
I
am. And Horatio's won't be owned by anyone I want."

"What makes you so sure?"

"If he's busy running this place and securing his mexalite supply, he hasn't got time to get the kind of price on his head that would bring him to Jeff's attention."

"Maybe he's already got it and is hiding out here," said Kinoshita.

"If he's on that list, he has enough money so he doesn't have to own a dive like this."

Just then a huge man, well over seven feet tall, heavily-muscled top to bottom, entered Horatio's. He was totally bald, and when he turned his head Kinoshita saw that he didn't have any eyebrows. His entire face looked smooth as a baby's; there was no indication that he'd ever had to shave. Nevertheless his most striking facial feature wasn't his skin but his eyes—one blue, one brown; obviously he'd been born with one and the other was a replacement.

There was something curious about his hands. It took Kinoshita a minute to figure out what it was: he had no fingernails, nor did it look like he'd ever had any. What he did have was a ragged row of white bone that had been grafted onto the backs of his fingers on each hand, giving his fists the equivalent of a pair of brass knuckles. He carried neither a burner nor a screecher. A pulse gun rested in a small holster on his right hip, and he had a pair of exotic-looking alien weapons tucked in his belt. It had been a few thousand years since men rode horses, and even longer since they wore spurs, but he clearly had something sharp and formidable sticking out the back of his boots.

"Interesting guy," whispered Kinoshita.

"Very," replied Nighthawk.

"Look at him. He's two and a half men crammed into one package, and armed to the teeth. I sure as hell would never want to face him."

"You won't have to. You're just here as an observer."

Kinoshita suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He looked questioningly at his companion.

"He calls himself Hairless Jack Bellamy," continued Nighthawk calmly. "You'd have to hunt far and wide to find a crime he hasn't committed, and he's worth six million credits dead or alive."

8.

Kinoshita stared at the bald man, then whispered to Nighthawk. "Are you going to try taking him right now?"

"No."

"You want to study him first," said Kinoshita knowingly.

"I've already studied him," said Nighthawk.

"Then—?"

"He's not alone."

"You're mistaken, Jefferson," said Kinoshita. "He walked in by himself, and no one has entered after him."

"See that Mollutei sitting all alone across the room?" said Nighthawk. "And the two men drinking beer over there?"

"What about them?"

"They're working for Bellamy. I'll take him outside, when he's alone—or at least where I won't have to turn my back to his bodyguards."

Kinoshita looked at the men and alien Nighthawk had indicated. "How can you tell?" he asked. "They were here when we arrived."

"The men put their mexalite away the second he entered," answered Nighthawk softly. "And the Mollutei checked his holster to make sure the strap was off his pulse gun. They're on duty now."

"They haven't given him a second look."

"They're here to protect him, not shoot him. They've been studying everyone else in the room."

"What if you're wrong?" asked Kinoshita.

"Then he gets to enjoy a few drinks and maybe some mexalite, and live a few hours longer."

Bellamy sat down at a table near the door and signaled to Minx, who brought him a bottle and half a dozen sticks of mexalite without asking what he wanted. He shoved a wad of notes down her neckline and gave her bottom a familiar pat as she walked away.

During the next ten minutes a man and a Canphorite each entered Horatio's, walked directly over to Bellamy's table, sat down and conversed with him in low tones. They handed him various currencies, got up, and walked out.

"This must be his office," observed Kinoshita.

"Makes sense," agreed Nighthawk. "Why let anyone know where he lives? Better to meet them here, where he's got men protecting his back."

"It can't be that hard to find out where he sleeps," said Kinoshita. "You could just follow him back to his hotel, or wherever it is he's staying."

Nighthawk regarded his companion as a teacher would look at a very slow child. "He won't take a direct route to his rooms," he said. "And he'll have three or four more gunmen posted along the way, just in case someone's stupid enough to follow him."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because he's survived long enough to be worth six million credits," said Nighthawk. "You don't have to be a bounty hunter to claim the reward. Anyone who works for him could stick a bullet in his ear, or burn a hole between his eyes and turn the body in. Most of them wouldn't hesitate a second if they thought they could get away with it. The fact that he's still alive means he knows how to protect himself."

"Then he'll be protected the second he steps outside," said Kinoshita.

"Probably," agreed Nighthawk.

"We should come up with a course of action, then," said Kinoshita.

"
We
aren't doing anything.
I
am."

"I'm willing to help," protested Kinoshita. "I'm no Widowmaker, but I was pretty good at my work."

"Pretty good won't be enough, not here in the District," said Nighthawk. "I can't face him and whoever's waiting for him if I have to worry about you too."

"You don't have to concern yourself with me. I can take care of myself."

"In most places, against most men, I'm sure you can," said Nighthawk. "But not here, and not now."

"But—"

"If you want to help, stay here after he and I leave, and make sure the two guns and the Mollutei don't come out after me. If they do, they're your responsibility."

"All three?" asked Kinoshita, unable to hide his nervousness.

"If they're here in the District there's paper on them," replied Nighthawk. "Just remember that it's not a sporting contest. Stick a beam or a bullet in each one before he knows you're there."

Kinoshita swallowed hard and nodded his assent.

"Good," said Nighthawk. "Now let's order something before Bellamy notices that we're not drinking or smoking." He signaled to Minx.

"You didn't seem to care about that before," commented Kinoshita.

"Bellamy wasn't here before."

"The others were."

"The others don't matter," said Nighthawk, making no attempt to hide his contempt for them.

Minx approached them, and Nighthawk ordered a bottle of Cygnian cognac. She returned a moment later with the bottle and two glasses.

"Thanks," said Nighthawk, handing her a roll of Maria Theresa dollars.

She counted it, smiled, and handed him two sticks of mexalite.

"I didn't ask for that," he said.

"I know—but you paid too much for the drinks."

She walked away before he could argue.

"She must be the owner," Nighthawk he remarked to Kinoshita as he put the mexalite in a pocket. "Or at least living with him. I can't imagine any other reason for her to make sure we didn't feel cheated."

Kinoshita examined the bottle. "This looks like the real stuff." He smiled. "I don't think I've ever had Cygnian cognac before."

"It's just for show. Take tiny sips, and not a lot of them. It's stronger than you think."

They nursed their drinks in silence for the better part of a half hour. The Hesporite took a brief break, then returned and began playing an evocative melody on the sax-like instrument again.

"He could spend the next few hours here," whispered Kinoshita.

"I doubt it."

"Why?"

"When you've got as many men after your head as Bellamy's got, you don't want to be predictable. He's probably got six to ten joints just like this where he makes his contacts and does his business. He'll be leaving soon."

"You're sure?"

Nighthawk didn't even bother to answer him.

Kinoshita dwelled on the comparison Nighthawk had made between the young athlete and the older one. Jeff was simply the best: he didn't plan, didn't analyze, didn't try to stack the odds in his favor. He saw his prey, he confronted it, and he killed it, seemingly without effort. Nighthawk, like the aging athlete, had lost half a step. Maybe he could still take anyone but Jeff, maybe he couldn't, but he saw no reason not to use everything he'd learned, every observation he'd made in his long career, to better the odds. Jeff and Newman had been created to be the Widowmaker, but Nighthawk had had to learn the job from the ground up, step by step, and he never stopped learning.

"There he goes," said Nighthawk as the bald man got up, threw some more money on the table, and walked to the door. "Don't follow me out unless his flunkies do."

Only you would think of skilled bodyguards as flunkies,
reflected Kinoshita.

Nighthawk got to his feet, went to the airlift, and reached the street no more then twenty seconds behind Bellamy. He didn't follow the huge man until he'd scanned the area, spotted a man loitering half a block away and a Lexonian sitting in the middle of the street a block in the opposite direction, swaying drunkenly with a bottle in its hands.

Bellamy turned to his left and continued walking. Nighthawk's hand dropped to the butt of his projectile pistol, then moved to his burner. No sense making an identifying bang in enemy territory; the hum of a laser would attract a lot less attention. He drew the burner and aimed it, not at Bellamy, but at the Lexonian. The beam was straight and true, and the alien keeled over without a sound.

For a huge man Bellamy's reactions were incredibly fast. Without seeing the source of the laser beam he hurled himself between two buildings, firing his pulse gun in Nighthawk's general direction as he did so. Nighthawk knew that it would take Bellamy a couple of seconds to right himself and aim his weapon properly, and he used that time to spin and take out the loiterer, who was trying to draw his weapon when the beam burned a black smoking hole in his forehead.