Chapter Twelve
“What will it be, strangers?” asked Kasia.
“Gimme something that’ll eat a hole in my stomach,” said Corbyn. “I have a load of bitter memories to erase.”
“I’ll just have a glass of water,” said Toku. “Leave the bottle – I’m parched!”
“No problems,” said Kasia.
“Urgh, what a day,” moaned Corbyn. “If I have to turn another bolt, I’m going to slam a wrench into the bosses head!”
“I know, I was right there next to you,” said Toku. They’d come up to a bar in order to drown their sorrows. It had been a long, grueling shift. Normally things weren’t too bad, but today the replacement team had had problems so they had to work an extra four hours.
“Want to come over to my place and shag like rabbits?” asked Corbyn.
“Not worth the trip. You’ll be asleep before you reach your bunk.”
“Yeah, that’s true. I can barely sit up straight as it is.”
Kasia brought their drinks. A rather funky-looking bottle that looked like a twisted pillar and glistening with condensation was placed in front of Toku with an empty glass next to it. A rather garish looking concoction was placed before Corbyn in a rather thick glass. And it was on fire.
“Looks like you won’t be able to see straight either if you drink that.”
“Better drink it quick before it blows up, big man,” said Kasia.
Corbyn looked beleagueredly at the burning glass. “Can I change my mind?”
“Sure thing little man,” said Kasia. She picked up the glass, blew out the flame and sculled it in one go, then did a little quiver and slapped the bar. “Wow, damn that’s good! Thanks for the drink.” She put another empty glass in front of Corbyn.
“What’s that for? Am I buying you more drinks?”
“Nah, it’s so you can share the water with your lady friend there. You look like you need it.” With that, Kasia walked off to tend to other customers.
“Maybe we should start seeing other people,” said Toku. “I see you every day and we spend about twelve hours together tightening and un-tightening bolts.”
“Is that a euphemism?” asked Corbyn. He was putting on a brave face, but he was fading fast and he knew it.
“Cut it out. It wasn’t funny five years ago and it’s not funny now.”
“I know. I have to get some-”
“-new lines,” finished Toku. “Definitely need to start seeing new people. See you tomorrow.”
Corbyn watched Toku thumb the bar to pay for the drinks, pick up the bottle and walk away. He thought about going after her but decided against it. It would be too much effort. Maybe if he fell asleep here against the bar a nice bouncer would throw him onto some comfortable steel decking to sleep on. There was always the risk that he would be mugged, but he didn’t have anything worth stealing. He waved his hand and got Kasia’s attention.
“Can I get something alcoholic in this empty glass? Not too strong, not too weak.”
“Sure thing Hun. Sweet or sour?”
“Ooh, sour please. It’ll make a perfect ending to my day.” He watched her pour something green into the glass. For a moment he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but then he realized that the liquid was turning red as it swirled within the glass.
“Want me to drink that one for you too?”
“Nah, I think I can handle this one,” murmured Corbyn. “Just give me an hour or two to fight it down.”
“At least this one won’t blow up on you. And don’t fall asleep there.”
“Why, someone going to hurt me?”
“No, you’re taking up the spot of a paying customer.”
Blearily, Corbyn looked around the bar. There were a lot of people around, but the bar was still at under half of its capacity. “Okay, whatever.”
“Well now, don’t you just look like the type of person who could use a little pick-me-up.”
Corbyn looked around to see who was talking. A thinish man was standing next to him. He was dressed in a strange outfit that had gone out of style a couple of decades earlier but looked quite snappy on the man. He carried a thin cane and was casually leaning against the bar regarding Corbyn with a lopsided little smile. He was of an indeterminate age, but if asked Corbyn would have said that he was over fifty but under a hundred. Probably a hustler of some type or other.
“Sorry, I don’t have any money. You might be the smoothest talker ever, but you can’t take what I don’t have.”
The strange man chuckled. “Oh, I’m not here to steal your money. I have plenty of my own. And you look like just the type of fellow I’m looking to spend some money on.”
Corbyn looked the man up and down again. “Sorry, I don’t swing that way, so you’re out of luck on that point as well. You might have better luck down the other end of the bar.”
“Here, take this and put it in your pocket,” said the strange man, still chuckling to himself. He handed Corbyn an infocard. “I’m a philanthropist. I made a huge stack of cash who knows how long ago. A few years ago I realized something, an epiphany of sorts. I had all this money, but it was making me miserable. Then I noticed that other people were miserable because they didn’t have any money. So now I travel around and look for unhappy people such as yourself and offer to set them up.”
Oh great, a crackpot. “Sure thing dad. I think you need to get back on your meds.”
Still quite happy, the man continued. “Ah, I love how people never believe me at first. But you’ll see, if you accept my offer. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. But hang onto my card and drop me a line if you’re interested. But the offer is only open for twenty-four hours. Plenty of sad people I could be helping instead. Allow me.”
With that, the strange man thumbed the bar and paid for Corbyn’s drink, then walked away. Corbyn looked at the infocard. On it was written a number and a name: Merchion Zanardi.
“Yeah right,” said Corbyn. “And I’m the King of Haapasalo.”
The smell of coffee.
That was the first thing that Welton became aware of. It was a curious thing to find, because although he was quite familiar with the smell, he didn’t drink the stuff.
A pain in his skull.
That was the second thing that he became aware of. Briefly he wondered if the two were related. Probably not, since it was the other types of drink that normally gave you a headache. Coffee was used to get rid of that type; it didn’t give it to you.
He was lying on his back, on something cold and hard.
Slowly, he started to become aware of other things around him. He could hear the murmur of voices. Someone was calling for a judge, which was weird because a judge was normally called when legal matters needed attending, not headaches. Then it dawned on him that he was a judge.
“Judge Leshem, are you alright?” asked a voice.
Welton opened his eyes. Now it came back to him. He was Judge Welton Leshem and he had just been interviewing Bamey Schultz. He’d walked out of the station when something had hit him on the head. Sitting up, he looked around. A small crowd had gathered around him. His hair was damp with coffee and blood and there were small bits of something that had shattered all around him and in his clothes.
“Sir, are you alright?” asked Tateo. Tateo was one of his deputies that looked after the day-to-day mundane things at the station.
“My head hurts like hell. What happened?”
“Looks like someone threw a cup of coffee onto you, probably from one of the upstairs offices.”
Welton rubbed his head with his free hand. He pulled shards of broken sealco from his hair and felt a definite lump rising up.
“Get me a medic and help me inside if you would.”
“Yes sir,” said Tateo. With another person helping, they lifted Welton to his feet. The crowd parted and he was helped back into the station and eased into one of the chairs in the lobby. “We already have five officers upstairs seeing if they can find where it came from, and ten more in the other structures around the pavilion to see if anyone saw something.”
“Good man,” said Welton. “Get someone to check the video feeds and see if any of the cams are facing in this direction. We might get lucky.”
“Of course sir.” Tateo gave a curt nod to one of the other officers in the room who promptly left in the general direction of the local security block. He was somewhat embarrassed to not have thought of it before. But it wasn’t everyday that one walked outside and found one’s boss knocked out cold on the floor.
“Hello again sir,” said Zavil.
“Hello Zavil,” said Georgi. It was morning, and he was back at the Hall of Records. During the night he had thought of more lines of questions that might be worth asking. Selinin had declined the invitation to attend this session. “Can you pull up the data that we were looking at yesterday?”
“Certainly. Done.”
“Okay then,” said Georgi as he rubbed his hands. “Tell me this. Did Judge Jordi Leshem arrive alone?”
“No, he brought Deputy Walden Haskell with him.”
“Okay, I was hoping that he brought two with him. Do you have any records for Haskell within the same ten day period?”
“Searching. Yes, there are fifty eight records, mostly clustered around The Mount Olympus Hotel.”
“Was Haskell with Leshem when he reached the space port?”
“Unknown.”
“Do you have any records of Haskell after Leshem disappeared.”
Another long blink. “No, the two sets start and end at the same times. The logical conclusion is that Deputy Haskell left with Judge Leshem.”
“Okay then. So if Leshem brought Haskell with him and picked up Asoye here, then the fourth person must have been someone with Asoye.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“Sorry, I was thinking out loud. Here’s a hard one for you: are there any persons who have no records after Leshem left but should have.”
A broad smile lit up Zavil’s face. “Now, that is a challenge the likes of which I have not had in a long time.” He settled down into his meditation pose again and went deep into the computer.
Sighing, Georgi got up. A clerk happened to be walking past. “Excuse me, where is the nearest restroom?”
“This way, sir,” said the clerk, leading the way.
When Georgi returned, Zavil was still deep in thought. There was no way of knowing how long he was going to be under. He wasn’t even sure what would happen if he wasn’t here when Zavil woke up. It would be a big pain if he’d forget the information and Georgi was forced to ask again.
Georgi was about to get up again when Zavil opened his eyes.
“That was a most interesting challenge. I feel greatly refreshed.”
Georgi resisted the urge to put his hands around Zavil’s throat and strange the answer out of him.
“There are sixteen persons planet wide who fit the criteria. Of those, only three where near the Zakharina Spaceport and only one is of interest.”
“Why is that one special?”
“Three reasons. He was a local enforcer who worked on both sides of the law. He had been hired on occasion by local police as a bounty hunter and for both those reasons would be the sort of person that Leshem would hire if he wanted a local guide. And thirdly, he owned a ground transport that was found abandoned three days later.”
Zavil did another long blink. Georgi realized that this was the missing piece. This was what the initial investigation had overlooked. Zavil opened his eyes again; this time smiling so widely that it seemed that his head would fall off his shoulders.
“What is it?” asked Georgi.
“The person of interest is named Peter Lehrer. He has an uncle named Kurt Lehrer who owns Inkwell Transport and had recently bought the courier ship Swift.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Georgi. Leshem, Haskell and Peter had taken Asoye aboard his uncle’s ship, the Swift and left in that without telling anyone. That was why there were no records - it was a private charter. Not even that, they had just jumped onto a regular courier run. “Where did the Swift go?”
“Checking.”
“Can you pull up all the records of the Swift?”
“Certainly.” A moment later, a frown crossed Zavil’s face. “There are no records for the Swift.”
“Excuse me? How is that possible?”
“The Swift was a new ship. No, it was a re-fitted ship. It was originally an Explorer Class ship, but had been overhauled by Inkwell Transport. Oh!”
Alarmed by the sudden exclamation, Georgi was startled.
“The Swift was a repatch.”
“What’s that?” asked Georgi.
“It is when an old or stolen ship is re-worked and sold as a new ship. Highly illegal and very dangerous for the new owner. Looks like Uncle Kurt didn’t like Peter that much after all. The Swift was really an extremely old ship, previously flying under the name of Immonen.”
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