Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (18 page)

Like, you couldn’t call yourself the
“Official Belvaille Party,” it was misleading. And you couldn’t call yourself
“Garm’s True Choice.” There was even one group that had the gall to try and
call themselves “The Kommilaire,” even though they had nothing to do with us.

Managing the candidate list was turning
into a full-time job.

“Why?” Judge Naeb asked suspiciously.

“Because none of the people who are
running for Governor actually know how Belvaille works. You’re the
longest-serving judge,” I said.

We were in Judge Naeb’s quarters on
Courtroom Three Street. They were well-appointed, even a bit tacky, considering
he was supposed to be a judge and not a pimp.

He sat at his big desk and openly smoked
some drugs in front of me.

“What do I get out of it?” he asked.

“Uh, you’d be Governor.”

“I’m a judge now. I know what a judge
does. What’s the Governor do?”

“Probably way more than a judge.”

“Probably,” he mocked.

He looked at me for some time. But I had
a great poker face. My face and body didn’t move. It required too much energy.
Six hours from now I wouldn’t have twitched a muscle.

“Can I be blunt?” the drug-smoking judge
asked, as if he cared about my answer.

“You bet.”

“Why are you approaching me? I never got
the sense you particularly liked me or my service to the city.”

“Can I be blunt?” I asked.

He waved his hand for me to continue.

“I don’t think you have served the city.
I think you’re a crook who has lined his pockets, obstructed justice, caused me
tons of problems, and recently made it legal for people to point guns at me.”

“So why would you want me to be
Governor?”

“Because then you won’t be a judge. I
work with judges all the time. I’m sure the Governor will have ample
opportunity to steal, but it won’t be in my way.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I don’t. But I know what a judge does.
And there are only so many things a Governor could do. Like give out city contracts,
hire and fire people, propose changes to the city design, approve and deny
laws. I don’t care about that stuff.”

He squinted hard.

“Will you back me?” he asked.

“I can’t back anyone, I’m Secretary of
City.”

He laughed.

“You’re an odd screw, Hank of Belvaille.
What happens if I lose the election?”

“Stay a judge.”

“I heard there’s a thousand thumb fee
for registering.”

“Yeah.”

“Waive it and I’ll run.”

I looked around the office. Just his
artwork was probably worth fifty times that.

“Fine,” I said.

I was meeting Fat Neep at his club just
outside of Deadsouth.

Fat Neep was pretty big, both literally
and figuratively, as a gang boss. He had promised me dinner, so I was bringing
my appetite, which was also considerable.

I went alone, as it was late at night,
and I got that this was more of a personal call.

The club was fairly upscale despite its
proximity to Deadsouth. Logic would tell me people would not want to come here
to pay money when they could go to better parts of town. But this was why I
wasn’t a businessman.

There was a lot of dancing and colored
lights and I had to slowly step across the floor.

A few people began hanging off me like I
was a carnival ride and I stopped moving. I wasn’t able to brush them off. Not
without hurting them. So I stood there with some drugged-out barnacles until
security
finally
noticed there was a Supreme Kommilaire hogging the
dance floor and they pried the people off and cleared a path for me.

Inside the back office was Fat Neep. It
was black with black couches and black chairs and everything painted black. The
lights were dim and it felt like I was walking in space.

Fat Neep was…fat, obviously. Not as big
as his name might imply, however. Maybe he came from a really skinny planet and
was a behemoth by comparison. He wore a metal shirt and metal pants, kind of
interlocking plates about two inches long. It didn’t look comfortable.

“Thank you for coming, Hank,” he said,
nodding his head. “I’ve got sandwiches.”

Ah, I had almost missed them in the
darkness of the room. He had a huge plate of sandwiches to the side which I
immediately headed toward.

“What drinks you serving out there?” I
asked. “People are loopy.”

“It’s a new designer drug.”

“You making any money?”

Bosses didn’t like talking about their
business, because that was their business. I still had the mindset of a thug
and it was just work to me.

“Eh, I miss alcohol. It was simple, you
know? You pour a glass, they drink a glass. Now everything is dots and
half-dots and twists and pinches.”

I was already through my third sandwich.

“How are the candidates coming?” he
asked.

“It’s probably the most useless thing
Belvaille’s ever done,” I said.

“That’s saying a lot,” he smiled.

“I don’t see the point,” I said, accidentally
spitting some sandwich onto his carpet.

“If a City Councilman were to request
something, what would you do?” he asked delicately.

“Huh?”

“Like if your office was contacted for
assistance.”

“What office?”

“Your…if one of them asked you,” he
said.

“Asked me what?”

He twiddled his fingers together.

“Alright, if a City Councilman broke the
law, what would you do?”

“What law?”

“I mean…it’s just…what about if the
Governor asked you not to arrest someone, would you not arrest them?”

“I’m really confused. Asked me
not
to arrest someone? What reason?”

“Whatever reason,” he said.

“That’s not a reason.”

Fat Neep rubbed his forehead now.

“Would you take orders from the City
Council and Governor?”

“Orders? Why would I do that?”

“Because they are the City Council and
Governor.”

“And I’m the Supreme Kommilaire. What,
are they going to go out patrolling? Is that what their responsibilities are?”

“No, they tell you what to do.”

“I already know. What do I need them to
tell me for? Why don’t you ask me what you want?”

“I’m trying!” He said, exasperated.
“Would you ever kill a City Councilman?”

“Kill? Like, for the hell of it?”

“No! If they did something wrong.”

“Something like what? I don’t kill
people randomly. If he shot me in the face, sure.”

“What about selling drugs?”

“Are you running for City Council?”

“Not if you’re going to kill me!”

I thought about it for a bit.

“I’m not sure what the City Council and
Governor do. But this is Belvaille. If we could only elect people who were
squeaky clean, not only could we not elect anyone on the city, but they
wouldn’t know anything about us.”

“So my business here is fine?” he asked,
trying to clarify.

“Unless you’re chopping up people out
back, sure. I mean, you know what all is illegal and what isn’t.”

“That’s the problem. You all seem to
make it up as you go along.”

“Well, don’t chop up people. I mean, I
guess it wouldn’t be bad to hold our politicians to a higher standard,” I
pondered dreamily.

“See? Now you’re changing your mind.”

“People don’t die here, right?”

“Some have,” he said weakly.

“But not a lot. And you didn’t kill them
on purpose or anything, right? Probably just overdoses.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay, what?”

“I mean, it sounds fine.”

“You’re terrible. Is this how it is for
everyone?” his voice was hoarse.

“You asked me a lot of weird questions
and I wasn’t sure where you were going. Give me a break, this is my first
election.”

“Eat some sandwiches.”

I stuffed a few in my mouth.

“So, do you want to run for City
Council?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

The lighting increased in the dark room
and I was thankful, because I was trying to find the last of the food.

But it wasn’t the overhead lights.

“Huh?” Fat Neep said, as 19-10 fully
materialized in front of him.

Bshzow!

Fat Neep’s head slumped forward and hit
his desk.

19-10’s ambidextrous, multi-jointed arms
swiveled to me. I was armed with just a sandwich.

“You know—” I started, and 19-10 was
gone.

I stood there stupidly. I was literally
thinking
ten seconds slower than that assassin could act.

I put the sandwich down, wiped my hands,
and took a gun from my vest.

Fat Neep was dead, unsurprisingly. Four
shots straight into the neck at perfectly aligned and spaced coordinates. It
was insane accuracy.

19-10 had “seen” Fat Neep’s metal
clothes and opted for the exposed neck.

What was scarier was that he must have
somehow been hanging out here. Listening to us. Was that possible? He appeared
and fired right when Fat Neep said he was going to run for office. It was too
much of a coincidence.

Here I was worried about trying to track
an untrackable, dimension-hopping assassin and he was following me,
eavesdropping. Were all my conversations unsafe now?

I had said I was going to tell the
candidates about 19-10, but in retrospect I didn’t really care if any of them
died. I mean, Garm’s ticket was already dead. It would just even the field.

The only people I was concerned about
were the Ank, who he had already chosen to wound instead of kill, and Delovoa,
who no one with even half a brain would dare attack.

So besides the Ank, besides Su Dival, besides
hiring the feral kids, 19-10 had now killed a gang boss who was going to run
for office. But we had a lot of people running for office. 19-10 still hadn’t
shot me, however. He hadn’t even hinted he didn’t like me.

I shot Fat Neep in the neck with my own
gun to cover up 19-10’s wounds.

I waited for his thugs to come running
in at the noise, but I realized I was in a club and they couldn’t hear us so I
walked over to the door and opened it.

A few stoic toughs came in and quickly
got emotional when they saw their boss.

“Hey, bring all the other employees in
here. I’m not going to shoot anyone.”

After much hesitation, I got everyone
inside.

“Yeah, so, I had to kill Fat Neep,” I
said weakly.

“Why?”

“I just did. Sorry. If any of you know
Zadeck, I’ll try and get him to take over this organization with as little
disruption as possible. By the way, have any of you seen someone around with
four arms?”

No one answered.

“Seriously. Hey. Have you seen anyone
with four arms?” I repeated.

“Four arms? I don’t think so. Saw two
heads once.”

“I saw a guy with four legs.”

“It’s not a competition. Never mind.”

“Should we close up the club or what?”

I thought about this. If I let them keep
it open without another boss supervising, they’d just rob it blind, and then
spread to the wind, and then become unemployed and troublesome a week from now.

“Yeah, close it,” I said.

“Still a bunch of people flying. They
won’t be coming down for hours.”

“Deadsouth is just over there. They want
a taste of the real life, let them taste it.”

“I need you to make some way to track
19-10,” I told Delovoa.

He was in one of his lab buildings
working on something large and mechanical. He had on protective rubber gear and
a face shield and sparks were flying.

“Lift the back of that,” he said.

I walked over and lifted. It was about
the size of a car but I managed easily.

More sparks gushed out and he backed
away, taking off his mask.

“Okay.”

I put it down.

“Why did you drop it?” he yelled.

“I didn’t drop it. I put it down.”

“You bent it, look.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” I said.