Black Man / Thirteen

“Name of Ferrer, Suerte Ferrer. Likes to call himself Maldición. He went out walking, so he’s either tougher or smarter than average. That ought to ring some bells.”

“Yeah, Maldición. Smart, I’m not convinced on, but he certainly fit tough. Sure. Think I could be induced to remember that boy.”

“Good. You think you could be induced to tell me where he is now?”

“You talking about where he is outside population?”

“Yeah, it looks that way.”

A thoughtful, spreading pool of quiet on the line again. Carl could smell the reek of mistrust it gave off. The Guatemalan’s voice came back slow and careful.

“I been in here nine long years, Eurotrash. Terror and organized crime, they slammed me away for both. What makes you think I’m in any position to know anything about what goes on outside?”

Carl let his tone sharpen. “Don’t get stupid on me, I’m not in the mood. I cut a deal with COLIN, not drug enforcement or the morals committee. This isn’t some hick Jesusland entrapment number. I want Ferrer found, and if possible delivered over the fenceline to the Rim. I’m willing to pay COLIN prices for the service. Now can we do each other some good, or not?”

The Guatemalan missed a beat, but only just. “I heard…COLIN prices?”

“Yes, you did.”

Another pause, but this time it thrummed with purpose. He could almost hear the whir as the Guatemalan made calculations and guesses.

“Moves on the outside come a lot higher-priced than in population,” the other man said finally, and softly.

“I imagined they would.”

“And cross-border delivery, well.” The Guatemalan made a noise with indrawn breath that sounded like spit steaming off a hot griddle. “That’s topping out the favors list, Eurotrash. Big risks, very high stakes.”

“Unreleased Marstech.” Carl dropped the words into the pool of quiet expectation at the other end of the line. “You hear what I’m saying?”

“Not a lot of use to me in here.” But now you could hear the excitement cabled beneath the Guatemalan’s casual tone.

“Then I guess you’ll have to spend it outside somehow. Maybe buy yourself some big favors at legislature level. Maybe just lay down a little future growth here and there. Man like you, I’m sure you’d know better than me how to find the best investment options for your capital. Now, you going to find Maldición for me or not?”

Silence again, tight with the promise of its own brevity. Carl twitched a sudden look over his shoulder, tingle of alarm. Gloom across the space behind him back to the steps up to the tower. Dark bordering shrubs and foliage. Nothing there. He worked his shoulders and felt the unreleased tension of days locked up there. The Guatemalan came back.

“Call me in two days,” he said calmly. “And think of a very big number.”

He hung up.

Carl folded the phone and listened to the faint crackle as the internal circuitry fired and melted. He let out a long breath and leaned on the wall, shoulders hunched. The tension gripped his neck like muscled fingers. The soft mounds of the Marin coast rose on the other side of the bay. He stared at the final orange leavings of dayglow on their flanks, filled with an obscure desire he couldn’t pin down. The phone casing was warm in his hand from the meltdown, the air around him suddenly chilled in contrast.

“You’re looking in all the wrong places, thirteen.”

The voice sent him spi

She stood at the borders of the trees, and he knew the shiver of alarm he’d picked up earlier was the sensation of her watching him. She came forward, arms spread, hands open, palms turned upward with nothing on them. He knew the poise, knew the voice. Looked for the face paint and saw that this time she hadn’t bothered.

“Hello, Ren.”

“Good evening, Mr. Marsalis.”

Carmen Ren came to a halt about three meters away. Feet set apart on the evercrete in cleated boots that promised steel beneath the curve of the toes. Black pilot-style pants with thigh pockets sealed shut, plain gray zipped jacket with a high collar that pointed up the elevated planes of her face, hair gathered simply back off the pale narrow face. He looked her up and down for weaponry, saw none she could access in a hurry.

He straightened out of the fighting crouch.

“Very wise,” she said. “I’m here to help.”

“So help. Sit down cross-legged with your hands on your head and don’t move while I call RimSec.”

She peeled him a brief smile. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling that generous.”

“I didn’t say you had a choice.”

Something moved in her eyes, the way she breathed. The smile floated back onto her face, but this time it was the adrenal veil, the prelude to fight-or-flight. She telegraphed it to him with an odd, careless abandon that was curiously like the offer of open arms. Abruptly he wasn’t very sure that he’d be able to take her.

He cleared his throat. “That’s very good. How’d you do that?”

“Practice.” The smile went away again, pocketed for later use. “Are we going to talk, or are you going to get all genetic on me?”

He thought back to Nevant. Broken glass and blood. The nighttime streets of Istanbul, walking back to Moda and—

He put a tourniquet on it, twisted hard. Grimaced. “What do you want to talk about?”

“How about I hand you this case in a bento box?”

“I told you already I’m not a cop. And anyway, why would you do that? Last time I checked, you were playing on Manco Bambarén’s team.”

He was watching her face. No flicker on the name.

“The people I work for hung me out to dry,” she said. “You want to ask yourself why I left you and Merrin to fight it out?”

He shrugged. “Off the sinking ship in your little rat life vest. I assume.”

“You assume wrong.”

“Want to back that up? You know, with evidence?”

“Right here.” She patted her jacket pocket. “We’ll get to it in a moment. First, why don’t you play back the fight in starboard loading for me. Think it through.”

“I think I’d rather just see this evidence.”

A thin smile. “You knock me down, take the others back inside, and use their numbers against them.” She mimed a pistol grip. “You take Huang’s sharkpunch, use it on him and Scotty, that’s Osborne to you, the Jesusland kid. So I hear both of them go down while I’m still on the floor, but that’s all it takes me to get back on my feet and there you are, mixing it up with Merrin and all that Mars-side tanindo shit. Now, you really think I didn’t have time to swing back in there and pull you off him? Come on, Marsalis. Work the gray matter. I had all the time in the world, and keeping Merrin alive was my job.”

Hairline crack of unease. “Keeping Merrin alive?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Someone paid you to shadow him?”

“Shadow him?” She raised an elegant eyebrow. “No, just get him aboard the Cat. Hook up with Daskeen Azul and keep him there, look after him until further notice.”

The crack ran out, split wide, from unease to splintering confusion.

“You’re saying…you’re telling me Merrin’s been locked down on Bulgakov’s Cat the last four months? He hasn’t been anywhere else?”

“Sure. Took us about a week to get him there from Ward’s place, but since then? Yeah. Just a handling gig. Why?”

The quarry face of what he knew blew up. Detonated from within, multiple blasts in the thin Martian air and the building roar after, rock shattering and slumping, sliding down itself into rubble and dust. He glimpsed the new face of what was behind, the new surface exposed.

Onbekend’s face.

The trace familiarity about the features, the certainty he knew them from somewhere, had seen them before or features very like them.

Rovayo’s voice floated back through his head. This Onbekend must have been greased up pretty good.