Part 38 (2/2)
”Any idea what?”
”Still nope.”
He was more than half-surprised when the elevator doors opened. Flood damage could have ruined the mechanism. Of course it could also get stuck halfway up, and they could die in it. When he selected the club level, the screen clicked to life. A broad-faced woman with a scar across her upper lip sneered out at him.
”The f.u.c.k you want?”
”Amos. Friend of Erich's.”
”We got no f.u.c.king handouts.”
”Not looking for any,” Amos said. ”Want to talk about a job.”
”No jobs either.”
Amos smiled. ”You new at this, Butch? I have a job. I'm here to see if Erich wants in. This is the part where you go tell him there's some psycho in the elevator wants to talk with him, then he says who is it, and you say the guy calls himself Amos, and Erich tries not to look surprised and tells you to let me up and -”
”For f.u.c.k's sake!” Erich's voice was distant, but recognizable. ”Let him up, or he'll talk all day.”
Butch scowled into the screen and blinked out to the blue arcology menu system. But the car started up.
”Good news is he's here,” Amos said.
Erich's office looked the same as the last time Amos had been in it the same wall screen showing the same ocean view, the rubber ball instead of a chair, the desk encrusted with decks and monitors. Even Erich didn't look different. Maybe better dressed, even. It was the context that changed it all. The screen showed an ocean of gray and white, and Erich's clothes looked like a costume.
Butch and the four other heavily armed thugs with professional trigger discipline who'd escorted them from the elevator walked out, closing the door behind them. Erich waited until they'd gone before he spoke, but the tiny fist of his bad arm was opening and closing the way it did when he was nervous.
”Well. Amos. You're looking more alive than I'd expected.”
”Not looking too dead yourself.”
”As I recall the way we left it, you weren't ever coming back to my city. Open season, I called it.”
”Wait a second,” Peaches said. ”He said if you came back here, he'd kill you?”
”Nah,” Amos said. ”He broadly implied that one of his employees would kill me.”
Peaches hoisted an eyebrow. ”Yeah, because that's different.”
”If this is about the old man, I haven't checked to see if he made it or not. Deal was he kept the house, and I did that. More than that, and I've got other problems.”
”And I got no trouble to cause,” Amos said. ”I figured things had changed enough maybe the old rules weren't a great fit for the new situation.”
Erich walked over to the wall screen, limping. A few seagulls circled, black against the colorless sky. From the last time he'd been there, Amos knew the buildings that should have provided a foreground. Most of them were still in place close in. Out toward the sh.o.r.eline, things were shorter now.
”I was right here when it happened,” Erich said. ”It wasn't a wave like a wave, you know? Like a surfer wave? It was just the whole f.u.c.king ocean humping up and crawling onto sh.o.r.e. There's whole neighborhoods I used to run just aren't there now.”
”I didn't see anything happen,” Amos said. ”The newsfeeds and the mess after were bad enough.”
”Where were you?”
”Bethlehem,” Peaches said.
Erich turned back to them. There was no anger in his face, or fear, or even wariness. That was good. ”So you're headed south, then? How bad is it up there?”
”Not that Bethlehem,” Amos said. ”The one in the Carolina admin district.”
”Where the Pit is,” Peaches said, raising her hand like a kid in a cla.s.sroom. Then a second later, ”Was.”
Erich blinked and leaned against his desk. ”Where the third strike hit?”
”Close to there, yeah,” Amos said. ”Lost that tequila you gave me with the hotel, so that sucked.”
”All right. How are you still alive?”
”Practice,” Amos said cheerfully. ”Here's the thing, though. I've got a job. Well, Peaches has a job, and I'm in. Could use some help.”
”What kind of job?” Erich asked. A sharpness and focus came into his voice, talking business. It was like watching someone wake up. Amos turned to Peaches and waved her on. She hugged stick-thin arms around her torso.
”Do you know Lake Winnipesaukee?”
Erich frowned and nodded at the same time. ”The fake lake?”
”Reconst.i.tuted, yeah,” she said. ”There's an enclave on Rattlesnake Island. The whole place is walled. Independent security force. Maybe fifty estates.”
”I'm listening,” Erich said.
”They have a private launchpad built out onto the lake. The whole point of the place is that you can drop there suborbital or down from Luna or the Lagrange stations, and be walking distance from home. Everyone there has a hangar. Probably nothing with an Epstein, but something that could get us to Luna. Going through the road, you couldn't get past the checkpoints, but there's a way in from the water. The boathouse locks are compromised. Put in the right code, and they pop open even if the security chip's not in range.”
”Which you know how?” Erich said.
”I used to summer there. It's how we got in and out when we went slumming.”
Erich looked at Peaches like he wasn't sure how she'd gotten in the room. His laugh was short and hard, but it wasn't a no. Amos picked up the pitch. ”Idea is we get in, grab a s.h.i.+p, and head for Luna.”
Erich sat down on the ball, his legs wide, and rolled a few centimeters back and forth, his eyes half-closed. ”So what's the score?”
”The score?” Peaches asked.
”What are we taking? Where does the money come in?”
”There isn't any,” Peaches said.
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