Reapers (10 page)

The man on the dais crouched around the back side. "What the
fuck
?"

Lucy hunkered behind a barrel, umbrella on her knees. Men screamed while the invaders laughed. Hooves struck the piers with hard thumps. Gunfire answered the raiders and was met with a full-on, ear-shredding, five-second burst of multiple fully automatic weapons converging on the same offender. In the silence after, the shots rolled across the river and echoed back from the New Jersey towers. It smelled like smoke and horse.

A gift shop blocked Lucy's view of the battle. That was just fine with her. Nails groaned and wood splintered. The raiders barked orders and positions. Lucy lowered herself to the dusty green ground and peeked around the corner of the building. Next to the barge, the raiders bashed apart a crate and divvied up heavy fabric bags. The raiders saddled up and raced from the docks, firing over their shoulders. Caught flat-footed, the Distro workers had no time to mount a counter.

Hoofbeats faded into the distance. Lucy got up and brushed off her clothes. "Bold leadership, Attila."

Atop the dais, the man in the pinstriped suit had lost his sunglasses and his eyes were alive with fury. A pistol appeared in his hand. He pointed it at Lucy's right eye.

"I got one!" he shouted to his people. "Get your sorry asses out here!"

A couple pairs of feet shuffled from the other side of the buildings. Lucy drew back her chin. "What in the world are you pointing that at me for?"

"Don't play dumb, you runty bitch."

She laughed. "You think I'm scouting for them?"

"You stroll in and two minutes later we're hit with a fucking
raid
? What was the signal?"

A man sprinted around the gift shop, rifle in hand. Lucy gritted her teeth. "I assure you, sir, my arrival was nothing more than unfortunate coincidence."

The man laughed. He had a thick City Yankee accent that made Lucy want to ram a poker down his throat and wiggle it around until he learned to talk right.

"You dumb whore." He stepped down from the platform, keeping the gun on her. "Your friends forgot you, didn't they?"

She cursed herself for not slipping away during the raid. Ought to have seen
this
one coming. She'd been looking forward to seeing a few people get shot and she'd wound up bagged herself. She only had two shots in the umbrella and her .22 pistol was all the way down at her ankle. As she considered this, a woman ran to join the others, chrome pistol held aloft like the torch of the green lady on the island in the bay.

Lucy sighed and leaned on her umbrella. "You got a manager I can talk to?"

The man in the pinstripes laughed. "I got a manager all right."

She swore he was about to grab his crotch, but instead he disarmed her and took her pack and umbrella and marched her down the docks to a gutted French restaurant. Inside, they climbed a spiral staircase to a rotunda with a sweeping view of the pier, the river, and the skyline.

The dining tables had been converted to desks thick with paperwork and toy-like square objects rigged with wires and beads. At the windows overlooking the docks, a man with slick black hair spoke very softly to a pudgy man with a rifle who looked ready to shit his pants.

"Bossman looks busy," Lucy said. "Why don't we—"

Her captor clamped her wrist until the bones ground. Lucy bit her teeth together, partly from pain, partly to stop herself from sinking them into his steroidal neck. After a moment, the pudgy man across the room nodded repeatedly and ran for the stairs.

The pinstriped man marched her toward the windows. "Sir?"

The dark-haired man gazed at Lucy in a way that made her skin itch worse than Georgia humidity. "Yes?"

"We got a prisoner. A scout for the raiders."

"Then shoot her."

"Hold your horses," Lucy said. "This is slander. You'll be hearing from my lawyers."

The man holding her wrist laughed. "If you weren't working with them, how'd you know they were coming, smart guy?"

"Because my eyes happen to be connected to my brain. I saw the riders in a park across the street and figured I'd do the neighborly thing and warn you."

"Nuh uh. No way. They went straight for the greenies. How'd they know to do
that
?"

Lucy glanced over her shoulder. "What the hell's a greenie?"

The man glowered and crushed her wrist some more. "I told you not to play dumb. The green beans. The coffee. Fresh off the boat."

"In that case," she said, real slow, "I would say you got a mole."

The man in the suit scrunched up his face. "I would say you're full of shit."

"Yeah?" With her free hand, she gestured dock-wards. "Are all those people your brothers and sisters? Or are they some dumb humps you pay in dried corn? How much can you trust them?"

"More than I trust some skank looking to save her own skin."

She turned to the man with the slick hair. "Then I guess you ought to shoot me. It'll feel good, won't it? Right up until the next time your enemies run off with the one thing you covet most."

The man gazed back at her. "Go downstairs, Jimmy."

The pinstriped foreman beetled his brows. "Sir, she showed up not two minutes before the cavalry struck."

"Incidentally, who allowed that to happen?"

Jimmy paled. "We never been hit like this before."

The other man tipped his head ten degrees to the side. "That doesn't answer my question."

"I did, sir. And I'll see that it never happens again."

He watched his boss the way an unarmed man watches a trigger. The other man opened and closed his palm, rings clicking. Finally, he gestured toward the stairs.

"Times are changing. If you can't change faster, I'll find someone who can."

Jimmy smiled in relief and hurried down the spiral stairs. A door closed below. Shouts filtered through the windows.

Lucy jerked her thumb past her shoulder. "Not exactly the kind you're eager to promote, is he?"

The man with the slick hair examined her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Decisive enough, but no imagination. Great sergeant, but you wouldn't want him to wind up leading the platoon, if you know what I mean."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Lucy Two," she said. "I came from Florida, but that's not where I'm from."

"They call me Nerve," he said, and for a moment she thought she was off the hook. "You're a smart girl, aren't you, Lucy?"

"I never got the chance to find out."

He almost laughed. "You have three days to find the mole."

She squinted at him. "Or you decide it's me."

"Very smart."

"What happens when I do?"

"I reconsider our situation."

"Well, that ain't much of a deal, but I guess that's why you're the businessman and I'm the girl with the not-so-metaphorical gun to her head." She gestured toward the piers. "Who were the raiders?"

Nerve shrugged. "Figure it out."

He glanced toward the bar at the side of the rotunda. The man there was much too large to have hidden so long yet it was the first Lucy had taken note of him. His head was shaved to the scalp and there was such violence concealed in his walk that it made you want to run away.

"Where is she allowed?" the man said.

"For this?" Nerve said. "Anywhere she wants."

"Can I have my umbrella?" Lucy said. "My skin's real sensitive to the sun."

"When I inspect it, I'll find a sword, won't I?" Nerve said.

"Shotgun," Lucy said, feeling sheepish for the first time since she'd brought back Beau's Honda with a dent in the back fender.

"Get to work."

The large man took hold of her arm and led her to the stairs. He descended in perfect silence. Lucy made a quick assessment of the circumstances. When she'd walked up to Jimmy, it hadn't been her
plan
to get saddled with a life or death challenge before she'd discovered whether Tilly still worked for Distro, but when you get thrown a curveball, you don't watch it go by, then argue it wasn't a strike. You won't change his mind and all you'll get is ejected from the game. Anyway, she had two and a half days before she'd have to do anything crazy.

She smelled opportunity, too. She got the vibe Nerve had rare judgment and the good sense to trust it. Put yourself in front of a person like that, and you can rise in a hurry.

"Anyone call in sick today?" Lucy said to the man of quiet menace.

"Sick?"

"No sick days? Real union-busters, huh? I need a list of everyone who didn't show up today. If you know armed horsemen are about to bust into the office, you might be inclined to take the day off."

"I don't have access to that," the man said.

Lucy glanced up at him as they exited the converted restaurant into the sunny morning. "Nerve said to give me anything I want. I want attendance records."

The man laughed like shifting rocks. "He's going to love you or kill you."

"More likely he'll order you to."

She headed toward the road. Some blood had splashed on the green surface of the docks but nothing indicative of a massacre. Men had already resumed unloading the barge. Others stood watch with guns in hand. Lucy crossed the street and strolled to the apartment where she'd first seen the raiders plotting in the courtyard. The big man accompanied her without a word. Through the grimy window, the courtyard was silent and shadowed. She shoved at the window, but it stuck fast.

"Give me a hand, Hulk," she said.

The man gazed down at her. "My name is Kerry."

"How about you put those big muscles to use, Kerry?"

He gazed at the window as if contemplating smashing it, then bent into the frame and heaved. His shoulders bunched like swelling waves. It held for two seconds and lurched up with a pained screech. Lucy ducked through and dropped into the courtyard. With considerable difficulty, Kerry squeezed through.

The grass was torn up like it had been punished. Horse turds lay in fibrous brown pellets. She moved methodically through the grounds. A cigarette butt had been caught in the thick green blades and when she picked it up it looked new but the butt was damp and the grass was not.

She held it up to her eye. A tiny golden crown had been stamped on the filter. "These must be stale as shit. You recognize the brand?"

Kerry shook his head. "I don't smoke."

"Good. They'll kill you, you know."

She tucked the butt into her pocket and continued to pick through the grass, finding two more butts of the same brand with just a bit of dirt on them. Recent. Satisfied there was nothing else to find, she headed back to the piers.

"I need that list," she said.

He nodded and moved toward the restaurant. She peeled off to approach the dock workers.

Kerry stopped and shook his head. "With me. All times."

"I don't have time for this."

"Then work without your list."

"Jesus H." She rolled her eyes but followed him to the restaurant. Inside the back door, a woman sat at a desk, hunched over a report the way felons guard their food.

"Today's attendance," Kerry said. "Do you have it?"

The woman glanced up, just noticing them. "Today's files."

Kerry moved to a stack of plastic shelves at one side of her desk. He withdrew a sheaf of papers, leafed through them, and handed a list to Lucy.

"That's my
original
," the woman said slowly. "If you want the records, make a copy."

"Mr. Nerve said I have access to whatever I want," Lucy said.

The woman gazed at her over her glasses. "You want my original? Leave your left hand as collateral. If that's too steep, then
make a fucking copy
."

"Don't strain your back celebrating when Nerve executes me." Lucy gestured around. "Pen and paper."

The woman pursed her mouth and retrieved both. Lucy set to work. Still scribbling, she glanced up at Kerry. "Listen, beefcake, you got any idea who did this?"

He didn't hesitate. "The Kono."

"The Kono being?"

"Fans of violence."

"You disapprove? Isn't violence your job?"

He shrugged mildly. "Most people don't like their jobs."

Lucy finished up and walked out, taking the pen and extra paper with her. The list was comprised of 33 names. Two of the dockworkers had not been present for morning attendance, but there had been a revision since then. A man named Woody Sloan had shown up just after the attack.

She tapped her notes. "Take me to Woody."

Kerry led her toward the barge tied at the pier, where he exchanged words with a gnarled woman overseeing the stevedores. She swore and climbed up in the boat. A seagull cawed from the roof of the neighboring pier. It smelled like cold fresh water and a drop of salt. A stevedore rattled by with a hand cart. Lucy smelled something she hadn't smelled in a long time: cinnamon.

The woman came back leading a short thin man with muscles as taut and tough as the ropes mooring the barge to the dock. A mess of cross-hatched scars covered the socket where his right eye should be.

"Mighty rude not to cover that thing, Woody." Lucy flapped her paper at him. "You were late to work today."

"I was given leave," he said.

"Not according to what I've got."

"Just ask Miss Tibbs." His sweat smelled like cumin and beef. "I got switched to the afternoon shipment."

Lucy looked up from her papers. "Then what brought you in early?"

"I heard the shots."

"You live nearby?"

He pointed across the street to a narrow tower overlooking the piers. His index finger crooked at the last knuckle where it had once been broken. "I'm not much for commutes."

Lucy frowned. "You like tobacco, Woody?"

"When I can get it."

"Filtered or unfiltered?"

He squinted at her with his good eye. "If I like it, why would I stick a filter on it?"

"Perhaps you intend to make it to your sunset years." She repressed a sigh. "That will be all, Woody."

As long as she was there, she took the chance to interview every stevedore hopping in and out of the boat. Most resisted her inquiries until Kerry shook his head, a gesture that somehow promised they could either move their mouths or lose their teeth. After that, the workers answered with grudging brevity. Lucy avoided insinuations and accusations, sticking to questions about what they had been doing when the raiders swooped in, who they thought the raiders may have been, and whether they'd seen anyone acting funny, whether that morning or within the last couple weeks.