Part 20 (1/2)
”The fines? h.e.l.l, not much. I'll go ahead and waive them to show my good intentions. Consider them paid,” Morgan said, tearing up a sheet of paper with a flourish.
Ryan wasn't buying the show. ”What about the damages?”
”Nothing I can do to help you there, I'm afraid,” Morgan said as he pulled a stack of whisper-thin sheets out of a wire-mesh basket on his desk and flipped through them. Finding the one he wanted, he put down the rest and handed over the single d.a.m.ning piece of paper to Ryan.
”Fireblast!” Ryan spit as he saw the list of figures and the combined total at the bottom of the list. ”That's a lot of jack.”
”Some of those vid machines are d.a.m.n near irreplaceable, Cawdor. Any good comp equipment is usually salvaged for something of more value than mere entertainment, and to find full units in working order takes time and lots of money. Lucky for your boy, the arcade owner is a forgiving sort once he feels that proper justice had been meted out.”
Ryan gave Morgan a thin smile. ”All about greasing the palms, isn't it?”
The bearded man nodded. ”Perhaps. To be honest, I like to quote a phrase from an old predark song called 'Hotel California.' ”
”Been there. Hot as Hades. Unless you're wanting to build sand castles out of radioactive dirt, I can't advise the trip. Besides, I thought this was the Carolinas.”
”The theme still applies. Besides, if you've been there, I'm sure you know most of California fell into the ocean when the bombs. .h.i.t. Now, the song sort of goes, a person can check in, but he can never check out. During my tenure here as operations manager for the Freedom Mall”
”Thought you said you were the administrator,” Ryan snorted.
”Like you told me earlier. t.i.tles. Words. Barons. Kings. Means the same thing. But during my stay here, I've seen what I've just said come into play hundreds of times. I look at it as providing employment. Running a compound this size takes people, Cawdor.”
” 'Mr. Cawdor,' to you, Morgan. I want my boy and my friend.”
”And I want to be hung with a c.o.c.k the size of my forearm, but it isn't going to happen,” Morgan retorted, his elegant face flas.h.i.+ng with anger. ”This isn't some little ville on the edge of nowhere, my one-eyed friend. Nor is it a place where you can come swaggering in and do whatever the h.e.l.l you please.”
”Is that a fact?”
”The fact is thislike it or not, Freedom is a civilized patch that has been carved out of the southeastern h.e.l.lzone. We've got all the tenants we can handle and a waiting list of thousands who'd like to live here on a regular basis instead of just pa.s.sing through from one pesthole to the next. Those with the jack give up on permanent residence and just visit here for extended stretches. Any way you want to debate it, people want to stay in here and visit the mall because they can't find what we have to offer anywhere else on the remains of the North American continent.”
”What, high prices? Overcrowding? Sec men with fancy green jackets and a bunker mentality?” Ryan asked. ”Or that snazzy pit with the broken-down droid used in staging your own gladiator bouts for the unwashed ma.s.ses? Pretty sad.”
”No, no, no,” Morgan corrected. ”What we offer to them, besides access to food, clothing and shelter, is safety.”
”That's debatable. What about those stickies on the outside trying to get in that I keep hearing about?”
”Yes, well, no location is perfect. Which is where you come in.”
”I was told the muties want to come in and spend some jack and have a hot meal along with the rest of us,” Ryan said laconically. ”Seems to me you're missing out on the almighty stickie dollar. p.i.s.s-poor thinking for a businessman like yourself.”
Morgan burst out laughing, his amus.e.m.e.nt coming in a series of mirthful snorts.
”Believe me, Cawdor, if those dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had the brains to understand the concept of legal tender, they'd be more than welcome to come in and spend, spend, spend. Unfortunately stickies are about as bright as a bag of dirt. Only thing on their mind is burning and killing, not necessarily in that order.”
Ryan turned to leave. ”Well, thanks for the chat. I guess I've got some selling to do, see if I can come up with the jack to bust Dean and Jak out of your jail.”
”There is another way.”
”How so?”
”Work for me. Your entire group. Work off the debt. The mall will make good with the vid-game owner, and in exchange you join my sec squad for thirty days. You've got a rep. Let's see how you earned it.”
”No.”
”Best offer you're going to get tonight, Cawdor. And if you have any ideas about trying to take your son and friend out of the Wings by force, you're sadly mistaken. Even if you could get to the cells, there are b.o.o.by traps designed to kill if you try opening doors without proper authorization.”
”If you're so d.a.m.n strong and all-powerful, why do you need me?” Ryan finally said, growing fed up with all of the blunt goodwill. He was beginning to wish for the more traditional baron who smirked, pranced and bragged a blue streak. At least those types were men that Ryan could take their measure and figure out where he stood.
Morgan shook his head. ”Ease up. I'm getting to that. Let me give you some background first. See, your timing is most fortuitous. There's death in the air of Freedom. Bad enough keeping the peace from within, but now the stickies are becoming stirred up. A group like yours enters, and we take notice. I quizzed that Adrian scavie that came in with you, and he told me a few things. If your son hadn't f.u.c.ked up in the vid arcade, I would have been coming to you with an offer anyway. Now I can make the offer, and it's one you can't refuse.”
”I don't like being pushed,” Ryan warned.
”Who does?”
”Why me?”
”I know you're not exactly a teenager. A man lives to be your age, he's got something on the ball. That's why I'm willing to make this deal. Frankly I need your help. Good sec men are impossible to find, much less keep. They tend to have this annoying habit of following the money. I pay a decent wage, but once some dumb-a.s.s baron gets his panties in a wad, off they go to fight yet another private little war.”
”I'm not a sec man.”
”Now you are. Better still, you're an intelligent sec man. Freedom exchanges information with other villes, other barons. Your face and name aren't unknown in this region. Amusingly enough, since you've never left any of your past adversaries alive, there has been no bounty placed on your head.”
”I'm not laughing.”
”Well, I found it amusing.”
”You seem to know a lot about me.”
”I know a lot about anyone who comes into Freedom, or at least I try to.”
”You can't know everything. Can't know what I'm thinking about right now.”
”I could hazard a guess.” Morgan eyeballed Ryan carefully. ”What's with you, Cawdor?”
”What do you mean?”
”I mean you look and act the role of a gunslinger, but your vocabulary and carriage belie the brains of an educated man.”
Ryan snorted. ”Doc Tanner's the one for book learning. Not me.”
”That preening fool? Far as I've been told, he wears knowledge like a suit of armor, verbosity aimed at keeping the rest of us poor, slack-jawed yokels out of the loop. No, you're smarter than you let on, Cawdor, otherwise you wouldn't have survived Deathlands as long as you have.”
”What do you know about survival? You hide in this back office, away from the mall floors, away from the outside. When's the last time you felt real sunlight, Morgan?”
”Been a few months, but haven't you heard? It's dangerous outside. Skin cancer. Rad sickness. Who needs it? Not me,” Morgan replied in a salesman tone. ”That's why people come to Freedom to shop, to live, to deal. We're a stronghold, Cawdor, with a movie palace, places to eat, things to buy, places to stay. Safe, wholesome entertainment, minus a few gambling dens, bars and the after-hours gaudies.”
”Yeah, men gotta have their drinks, cards and s.l.u.ts.”