Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (26 page)

“What does Poor Yorick look like?”
asked Cain.

“I really couldn’t say. I’ve never
met him.”

“But you’re sure you know where
he’ll be,” said Cain caustically.

“I’ve had dealings with him
before,” replied the Swagman. “And I make it a habit to learn everything I can
about my business associates. I know he’s on Roosevelt Three, and I know that
there’s only one city on Roosevelt Three; finding his exact location is just a
mechanical exercise.”

They reached the terminal, rented
a vehicle, and drove into the nearby city, which, like the planet, was named
Roosevelt. Someone—an architect, a city planner, a corporate head,
someone—
had had big plans for Roosevelt once upon a time.
The spaceport was built to support ten times the traffic it actually handled,
the city was crisscrossed by numerous broad thoroughfares, the central square
boasted two skyscrapers that wouldn’t have been out of place on Deluros
VIII—but some centuries back the Democracy had paused to consolidate its
holdings, and when it expanded again it had been in a different direction,
leaving Roosevelt III just another unimportant cog in the vast human machine,
neither abandoned nor important. The proposed megalopolis became a city of
diminished expectations, as modest apartment buildings, nondescript stores,
unimpressive offices, and unimaginative public structures gradually encircled
the two enormous steel-and-glass buildings like jungle scavengers patiently
waiting for some mighty behemoth to conclude its death throes so they could
partake of the feast.

The Swagman drove once around the
city, then homed in on the most dilapidated area with an unerring instinct and
brought the vehicle to a stop.

“I’d say we’re within four hundred
yards of him right now,” he said, handing a rainshield to Cain and activating
one himself.

“It can’t get much more rundown
than this,” agreed Cain, dispassionately eyeing a number of drunks and
derelicts who peered through the driving rain at them from their safe havens
inside seedy bars and seamy hotels.

“I have a feeling that I’m not
properly dressed for the occasion,” remarked the Swagman, looking down at his
satin tunic, carefully tailored pants, and hand-crafted boots.

“You’re not the only one who
thinks so,” commented Cain, staring at an exceptionally large, barrel-chested
man who was scrutinizing them from a distance of fifty feet, oblivious of the
rain that was pouring down upon his unprotected head.

“Well, we certainly don’t want the
riffraff rising above their stations,” said the Swagman, unperturbed. “I think
we’ll make them your responsibility.”

“What do you do when you find
yourself in a situation like this and there isn’t a bounty hunter around?”
inquired Cain dryly.

“I’m not totally without my own
resources,” replied the Swagman, withdrawing a device the size of a golf ball.
He tossed it casually in the air, caught it, and replaced it in his pocket.

“A fire bomb?”

The Swagman nodded. “It’s more
powerful than it looks. It can take out a city block, and spreads like crazy on
detonation, even in weather like this.” He smiled. “Still, I’d much prefer not
to use it. It wouldn’t do to fry Yorick to a crisp before we have a chance to
talk to him.”

“According to you, we’re within
four hundred yards of him,” said Cain, looking up and down the street. “That
narrows it down to fifteen or twenty beat-up hotels and boarding houses. How do
you choose which one?”

“Why, we ask, of course,” said the
Swagman, walking into a tavern. He spent a moment exchanging low whispers with
the bartender, then returned to Cain, who had been waiting just inside the
door.

“Any luck?”

“Not yet,” admitted the Swagman.
“Not to worry. The day’s still young, if a little moist.”

He sloshed through the rain to two
more taverns, also without success.

“Ah!” he said with a smile as they
approached yet another barroom, which had a watercolor of a large-breasted nude
in the window. “We’re getting close! I recognize the style.”

“You collect Yorick’s paintings?”

“The better ones.”

The Swagman entered the building,
spoke to the bartender, passed a five-hundred-credit note across the scarred
wooden bar, said something else, and stepped out onto the sidewalk a moment
later.

“He lives at the San Juan Hill
Hotel, just up the street,” announced the Swagman. “When he hasn’t got enough
cash for alphanella seeds, he trades paintings for drinks.”

“He’s not bad,” commented Cain,
staring at the nude.

“He’s damned good, considering that
he probably didn’t even know his own name when he painted it. I offered to buy
it, but the proprietor wouldn’t sell. I got the distinct impression that it’s a
pretty fair representation of his girlfriend.”

“Or his business partner.”

“The two are not mutually
exclusive,” said the Swagman, heading off toward the San Juan Hill. “Especially
around here.”

Only one man seemed intent on
stopping them, but something in Cain’s face convinced him to reconsider, and
they made it to the hotel without incident.

It had been a long time since the
lobby of the San Juan Hill had been cleaned, and even longer since it had been
painted. The floor, especially around the entrance, was filthy, and the whole
place smelled of mildew. There was a small, inexpensive rug in front of the
registration desk, surrounded by a light area from which a slightly larger rug
had been removed at some time in the past. Miscolored rectangles on the walls
marked the spots that had formerly been covered by paintings and holographs.
The few chairs and couches were in dire need of repair, and the camera in the
sole vidphone booth was missing.

The Swagman took one look around,
seemed satisfied that this was precisely the type of place where Poor Yorick
was likely to reside, and walked up to the registration desk.

The unshaven clerk, his left elbow
peeking out through a hole in his tunic, looked up at his visitor with a bored
expression.

“Good afternoon,” said the Swagman
with a friendly smile. “Terrible weather out there.”

“You tracked all the way across my
lobby to tell me that?” replied the clerk caustically.

“Actually, I’m looking for a
friend.”

“Good luck to you,” said the
clerk.

“His name’s Yorick,” said the
Swagman.

“Big deal.”

The Swagman reached out and
grabbed the clerk by the front of his soiled tunic, pulling him halfway across
the counter.

“
Poor
Yorick,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I hate to rush you, but we
are
in a hurry.” He twisted the tunic until the seams
started to give way.

“Room three seventeen,” muttered
the clerk.

“Thank you very much,” said the
Swagman, releasing him. “You’ve been most helpful.” He looked around. “I don’t
suppose any of the elevators are in working order?”

“The one in the middle,” replied
the clerk sullenly, pointing toward a bank of three ancient elevators.

“Excellent,” said the Swagman. He
nodded toward Cain, who walked across the lobby and joined him in front of the
elevator. “If there’s one thing I hate,” he said, “it’s a surly menial. You
are
protecting my back, aren’t you?”

“He’s not going to do anything,”
replied Cain.

“How do you know he hasn’t got a
weapon hidden behind the counter?”

“If there ever was a weapon back
there, it’s long since been stolen or pawned,” said Cain as the doors slid shut
and the elevator began ascending. “Still, I think we’ll take the stairs down,
just to be on the safe side.”

The elevator lurched to a stop and
swayed somewhat unsteadily as Cain and the Swagman emerged onto the third
floor, which was in even worse repair than the lobby. Some of the rooms had no
doors at all, scribbled graffiti covered the others, and the dominant smell had
changed from mildew to urine.

“Three seventeen,” announced the
Swagman, gesturing to the last door on the floor. “Things are obviously looking
up for friend Yorick; he has a corner view.”

He knocked once, and when there
was no answer he punched the number 317 on the computer lock.

“I always admire a complex
security system, don’t you?” he commented with a grin as the door slid back
into a wall.

A frail, wasted man, his teeth
rotted, his complexion sallow, sat totally naked on a rickety chair by a broken
window, oblivious to the rain that sprayed him after bouncing off the pane. He
was working on a painting with short, incredibly swift brush strokes, muttering
to himself as he continually retraced the outline of a beautiful woman’s face,
never quite getting the proportions correct. Scattered around the floor were
cheap containers filled with artificial diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and
emeralds, a complex machine for covering base metals with gold plating, and a
number of jeweler’s tools.

The man looked up at his two
visitors, flashed them a brief, nervous smile, put a few more dabs of color
onto his canvas, then casually tossed his palate onto the floor and turned to
face Cain and the Swagman.

“Good afternoon, Yorick,” said the
Swagman. “I wonder if we might have a few minutes of your time?”

Yorick stared at him for a moment,
frowned, looked back at his canvas, and then turned to him once more, a puzzled
expression on his face.

“You’re not in my painting,” he
said at last.

“No,” said the Swagman. “I’m in
your room.”

“My room?” repeated Yorick.

“That’s right.”

“Well,” he said with a shrug, “it
had to be one or the other.” He stared intently at the Swagman. “Do I know
you?”

“You know
of
me: I’m the Jolly Swagman.”

Yorick lowered his head, still
frowning. “Jolly, jolly, jolly, jolly, jolly,” he murmured. Suddenly he looked
up. “I don’t know you, but I know
of
you,” he said
with a satisfied smile. He turned to Cain. “I know
you
,
though.”

“You do?” said Cain.

“You’re the Songbird,” he said
emphatically, suddenly rational. “I know all about you. I was on Bellefontaine
when you killed the Jack of Diamonds. That was some Shootout.” Suddenly his
face went blank again. “Shootout,” he said as if the word had lost its meaning.
“Shootout, Shootout, shootout.” And just as quickly as it had come, the
emptiness left his wasted face. “What are you doing here, Songbird?”

“I need a little information,”
said Cain, sitting down on the edge of Yorick’s unmade bed.

“I need a little something, too,”
said Yorick with a wink and a cackle. “A lot of little somethings. Chewy little
somethings, sweet little somethings.”

“Maybe we can work out a trade,”
said Cain.

“Maybe maybe maybe,” said Yorick,
spitting out the words in staccato fashion. “Maybe we can.” He paused, then
suddenly looked alert. “How about a trade?” he suggested.

“Good idea,” said Cain.

“Why is
he
here?” asked Yorick, gesturing to the Swagman.

“He likes your paintings,” said
Cain.

“Oh, he does, does he?” Yorick
cackled. “He likes more than that. So you’re the Swagman, are you?”

“The one and only,” said the
Swagman.

“Well, one and only Swagman,” said
Yorick, “did the museum on Rhinegold ever discover the one and only North Coast
Princess that I forged for you?”

“It’s still sitting right there in
its display case under round-the-clock guard,” replied the Swagman with a grin.

“And you’ve got the real stone?”

“Certainly.”

“Certainly,” repeated Yorick.
“Lee-certain,” he said, moving the syllables around. “Cer-lee-tain.” He got to
his feet and glared at the Swagman. “My courier was killed!” he said
accusingly.

“Most regrettable,” said the
Swagman. “I hope you don’t think
I
had anything to
do with it.”

“You guaranteed his safety,” said
Yorick sullenly.

“I guaranteed that he would gain
safe entry to my fortress,” the Swagman corrected him. “What he did after he
left was his own business.”

“I never got my money.”

“I paid it to the courier. My
obligation to you ended with that.” He reached into his pocket. “However, I
wouldn’t want us to become enemies. Will this square accounts?” He withdrew a
trio of small tan seeds.

“Give give give give give give!”
murmured Yorick, snatching them out of the Swagman’s hand. He raced to a
dilapidated dresser, pulled open the top drawer, and tossed two of the seeds
onto a pile of dirty clothing. The third he put into his mouth.

“Where the hell did you get those
things?” asked Cain. “You didn’t know back on Altair that we were going to see
Poor Yorick.”

The Swagman smiled. “What did you
think I paid the bartender five hundred credits for?”

“Information—or so I thought.”

“Information’s worth about
twenty-five credits, tops, on a dirtball like this. The rest was for alphanella
seeds.”

Yorick was sitting down on his
chair again, his face suddenly tranquil as he slid the seed between his cheek
and his gum and let the juices flow down his throat.

“Thank you,” he said, his face
relaxed, his eyes finally clear. “You know, sometimes I think the only time I’m
not
crazy is when I’ve got a seed in my mouth.”

“Good,” said Cain. “Just suck on
it for a while. Don’t chew it until we’re through talking.”

“Whatever you say, Songbird,”
replied Yorick pleasantly. “Oh, my, this is good. I don’t know how I lived
before I discovered this stuff.”

“Responsibly,” suggested Cain
wryly.

Yorick closed his eyes and smiled.
“Ah, yes—the killer who’s hindered by a moral code. I know about you,
Songbird.” He paused. “You gave my friend a pass.”