Soldier of Fortune: A Gideon Quinn Adventure (Fortune Chronicles Book 1) (13 page)

Fehr was shaking his head. “You do not understand. Knowing who told me would not help you, because the information was given me by a dead man.”

Gideon blinked. “That — is quite a feat.”

“To be fair,” Fehr said as he strode around Gideon and into the Errant, “he did not know he was dead at the time.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO

MIA SLOUCHED IN
the shotgun seat of the ‘borrowed’ Edsel Comet. As it was too dark to read she had, with great reluctance, tucked Pitte’s book into one of her tunic’s many inner pockets. She’d need to stash it on her way back to the hive or Ellison would have her hide. Assuming, that is, he didn’t just dump her in the river for coming back without the draco.

Which was when it occurred to her this was the first time she’d given Ellison a thought since bursting into an alley to find Gideon at gunpoint. And then there’d been the scene at Kit's, and the rush to the Errant and what had happened there and, well, with one thing and another, her fagin’s existence had just sort of faded into the background.

But now they were clear of folk chasing Gideon, and Jinna was gone (which Mia hated because Jinna was a mate), thoughts of Ellison were creeping back into her consciousness like cockroaches in the brain.

Still, she’d rather Jinna do a runner than stay and be stalked by that old cockroach, Del. Gideon had been on the starbuck to suggest bringing Jinna to Rory’s people, and since Jagati had made some arrangements with the air field’s night crew, no one from the government would hear of the airship’s unscheduled departure.

Which was good for Jinna, but now Mia had no choice but to face the reality of Fagin Ellison.

“Problem?” Gideon asked.

She looked to her right, where Gideon, in the driver’s seat, was eying the road ahead while Elvis nestled around his shoulders like some scaly version of a scarf.

“Just thinking,” she shrugged, and didn’t see the flash of amusement in his eyes at the gesture. “You worked that business with Jinna smooth as honey. Or you did until the —“ she grabbed her throat and mock throttled herself.

“Yeah well,” now
he
shrugged, and surprised her with a look of genuine shame before he returned his eyes to the road. “Lucky for all of us cooler and better armed heads prevailed.

“Anyway,” he looked to his right, out the window where, as far as Mia could tell, there was nothing to see, “there wasn’t much to work, really. It was more — facilitating Jinna’s move to a less stressful environment.”

“Oooh, fancy talk,” Mia grinned. “So when you were forking Rolf inna sausage n’beans, you was just —“

“
Were
just—“

“— facilitating him round to your point of view?”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

It was, she thought, a nice smile, and completely at odds with the cold, deadly rage that had overtaken him when he’d first laid eyes on Captain Pitte.

Mia wasn’t sure she’d ever been more scared than in that moment, or more confused when, after everything was done and dusted, both Gideon and Captain Pitte seemed to be getting on just fine.

Grownups, she thought — and not for the first time — were all a little swarm in the head.

And some, like old man Del and Fagin Ellison, were just plain mean.

Gideon wasn’t mean. Angry, sure. Even at thirteen (give or take), Mia could see Gideon carried a bone-deep fury under the kind smiles and twisty sense of humor. She’d first glimpsed it in the diner (after, she now realized, Gideon had overheard Rory mentioning Captain Pitte by name), and it had bubbled a mite when he’d taken on the three (
three
) Ohmdahls. It had iced over his features on coming face to face with Pitte but now, from what Mia had been told on the Errant, she understood how Gideon might blame the captain for the deaths of his mates.

But not once had it been directed at her, not even when he learned she’d meant to steal Elvis.

Which again reminded her of Ellison, and what he was waiting for.

Now
she
looked out the window, to take in the nothing view that was the drive between the airfield and Nike proper.

“Sure there’s not a problem?” he asked again.

“No,” she said then immediately added, “Maybe.”

He waited, eyes on the road, head tilted to show he was listening.

She sighed. “It’s like this, then. Night’s gettin’ on, right? And it’s great Jinna’s settled but…“ here the sentence trailed off and she shrugged again.

“But you’re not,” he said, nodding his understanding. “Because of your fagin, and the draco.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back in her seat. “I’d be in comb and crystal if I could figure out how to facilitate Ellison.”

To that Gideon seemed to have no response, and they rode the rest of the way to the city in silence.

* * *

“You’re counting again,” Mia said.

Gideon promptly stopped counting (Aloud. In his head he continued).

It was close to two in the A.M., and they’d already dropped the coupe off in a space around the block from where they’d found it.

The reason they didn’t return the Comet to its original parking place was because the owner had apparently decided he wanted to take a midnight drive and discovered his car was missing.

By the time Gideon cruised past the neighborhood around 1:30, it had been alive with lights and cops and concerned (or most likely nosy)  neighbors.  

Rather than explain they’d just been borrowing the vehicle, Gideon continued to the next block over which also, conveniently enough, held the district’s police station. Mia assured him it’d be well past suns light before anyone noticed the extra vehicle parked out front, which gave them plenty of time to stroll away.

They were, in fact, back in the same district as the Elysium Hotel, though several concentric streets out from Nike’s city center than the hotel and Shakespeare Circus, and one east from Kit's Place (and the home of the stolen car).  

The street they walked now was narrow, barely wide enough for a rickshaw, and crowded with the hard-drinking types who worked the air and the river, along with a goodly number of Nike’s independent business folk (the type who did most of their business at night).

“I can see why they call Nike the city that never sleeps,” Gideon said as he dodged a trio linked in either a torrid embrace or a three-way wrestling match.

“Late drinkers make good marks,” Mia said, trotting along at his side.  

“Tell me you have not been dipping your way from the cop shop,” Gideon said, then came to a standstill so quickly Elvis, dozing on his shoulder, almost fell off  and Mia took a few more steps before she realized he was no longer moving.

“What is it?” she asked, turning back.

“Speaking of cops,” he jerked his chin to the corner of Jafa and Thames, where a man with tea-dark skin and lightly greying beard was deep in conversation with a woman. Her own appearance, average height, pallid coloring and dressed in a selection of nondescript clothing — not too bland but not too flashy — made the cheap suit and battered shoes Gideon associated with coppers appear downright edgy in comparison.

“That’s DS Hama,” Mia identified the man as Gideon tugged her under the nearest awning, conveniently crowded with overspill from a pub bearing the ponderous name of The Old Man and the Sea.

“I think I spotted him on back a few streets, taking a statement from the Comet’s owner.”  

“Yeah, guess he’s on the night shift,” she said. “Hama’s decent, for a copper. Not on the take from anyone, high up or low down,” she explained. “If he was, Ellison would be doin’ a lot more business in the 9
th
district.”

Gideon nodded, then watched as the cop continued to talk to the woman. Had she witnessed the theft? Was she, even now, giving Hama a description of Gideon, Mia and Jinna?  “Who’s he grilling, now?”

“A dealer. Goes by Dr. Bayer  —  but I don’t think she’s really a doctor.”

Gideon would have bet his non-existent pension that Mia was right. “What’s she sell?”

“Ease, Spike, Milk’n’Honey, Morph,” Mia listed the top sellers before adding. “Whatever’s to hand, really.”

“Wonder if she sold the stuff that put me out,” he said, watching as Bayer put on a show — and it was clearly a show — of the put-upon ’just an honest businesswoman’ routine.

Hama, his bearded face still revealing an expression of blatant disbelief, was in fact listening closely, nodding on occasion as Bayer’s story wound on. When at last she stopped talking he grimaced, then made a slick pass from his pocket to her hand — if he hadn’t been looking for something of the sort, Gideon wasn’t sure he’d have seen it —before delivering a textbook admonishment to clear off the street or face the consequences. He continued to watch as the woman departed, suitably chastised. “Wonder what she sold him?”

“No drugs,” Mia said. “I told you, Hama’s a decent sort. Probably she sold ‘im another dealer.”

“Maybe,” Gideon said, then without warning ducked behind a man in the tar-splattered clothes of a river worker waiting entree to the pub. The man, while not as tall as Gideon, was twice as wide and blessed with a truly explosive amount of hair, thus providing pretty decent camouflage.

“Why are we hiding?” Mia whispered, though she, too had slid between a pair of women who, if their burn-spattered coveralls were any clue, worked as machinists during the day.

“I don’t know,” Gideon confessed, also quietly. “Just a feeling.” He peered through the river-man’s bobbing curls to see Hama staring in their general direction. The riverman shuffled closer to the door.

Gideon shuffled with him.

The man, suspecting Gideon was trying to get into the pub before him, turned to glare, forcing Gideon to bob and weave with the hair.

“S’okay,” Mia told the riverman, quickly, “just duckin’ the filth.” She looked to where Hama was still standing, skimming the street.

“Law on your back my friend?” the riverman’s Dole accent was as warm as the islands from whence it came. “No problems here,” he held up his own right hand, on which a faded prison code was tattooed. “That your man?” he asked the general air around himself, “in the bad suit?”

Gideon nodded.

“He still looking around,” their new best friend told them as all three shuffled another step closer to the pub. A few more meters and they’d be joining the party.

“Uniform just joined him, got her notebook in her hand,” the river-man said. “They talking and — it’s all good — your man and his officer are moving on to Beam Street.”

Gideon leaned around to confirm and it seemed DS Hama had indeed disappeared.

“Thanks.”  

“Anytime,” the riverman said. “And friend,” he waited for Gideon to turn back, “you decide you want to take sail from your troubles, the Amber Queen ships out tomorrow night. Just ask for Juban.”

“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean thanks, but — never mind,” Gideon waved off the grinning sailor and, with Mia, headed out into the street.

Mia took one look at him and shook her head. “Come on,” said, grabbing his hand and tugging him onwards. “This way.”  

“Where are we going, now?”

“Someplace quiet,” she said. “Where you can get some rest. You’re knackered.”

“I dunno, I had a nice little nap after Jagati clocked me.”

Her gaze slid sideways. “You had that coming.”

“I absolutely did.”

* * *

It was likely because Mia was right, and he really was knackered, that Gideon didn’t notice when the Ohmdahl triplets came stumbling out of The Old Man and the Sea a few moments after they’d slipped out of the line.

With them came another set of siblings, with whom Gideon also had a very short, very violent, history.

“Look at dat,” Rolf pointed his sausage-like finger at Gideon’s retreating back. “Dat is fellow we told of, the one with Mia the dodger.”

“I am to be limping for week because of that man,” Ulf added.

“He is good fighter,” Freya noted with respect. “And not snooty, like Del. Him, we will not work for again— wait!” she called to Rey, who had already taken off after the soldier. Ronan, despite having one arm in a sling, was on her heels.

Ulf looked at Rolf, who looked at Freya, who shrugged, and then all three took off, much less fluidly, after the twins.

The Ohmdahls, who’d known Ronan and Rey for some time (siblings in the freelance intimidation business were bound to run across one another), had been pleased to stumble over the twins (literally in Ulf’s case) while drowning their sorrows in the pub. They’d further been gratified to discover Rey and Ronan were on a job, seeking information about a man who bore a distinct resemblance to the soldier who’d just deprived them of a night’s pay.

The upshot of this meeting being the three Ohmdahls happily describing the job gone swarm earlier in the evening, and the tall soldier who’d changed the game mid-play.

“Though Miss Jinna got Ulf pretty good wid dat fork,” Rolf had explained back inside the pub.

“Almost as good as that dodger got you wid a teapot,” Ulf countered, grinning.

But Rey was only interested in the soldier. “Blue eyes, you say? And tall?”

“Skinny, too,” Freya tossed back a shot of vodka — her fifth. “I am thinking Gideon could use some of Mama’s borscht.”