“We will squash the rebellion. Dissent will not be tolerated.” The king repeated this several times, sweeping the floor of the room with the trim of his cape as he paced back and forth. A hog of a man, he had done nothing but put on weight since his own rebellion had put him on the throne, leaving the kingdom in a constant state of revolution. He had cast down the Church, the Council, and even the Knights Errant, until the peasantry had trusted only him. And now they clamored at his gate, disappointment having turned into wrath.
“Why are they so angry?” the king asked his vizier. “I’ve cut everyone’s taxes.”
To which his vizier responded, “The nobles used their swollen wealth to buy up much of the farmland.”
“Who could make them safer?” the king bloviated. “I’ve closed the walls to the kingdom.”
“True. But now the wandering workers are trapped outside and unable to help with the harvest.”
“I’ve kept out all the foreign goods.”
“Which include metal to forge plowshares.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Now the people starve.”
The king gestured to his banquet table, abundant with meats, vegetables, grains, and fruits. “But how can they be starving if there’s all this food?”
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The pistol was an old Tokarev, complete with the star on the handle and no safety, a piece of surplus equipment that had probably been killing people in France’s underworld since World War II. And now it was pointed at the Beard.
Everyone, including Thibalt and me, stopped dead, the jabbering of the crowd going quiet in a rush of inhalation. When Thibalt did try to say a calming word to Sartre, one of Carlu’s boys punched him in the face.
Panic began to jabber at the back of my mind and my feet suddenly felt too big and too hot for my shoes. Stomping around Fallujah, I had thought the heat was responsible for that particularly physiological reaction, but had learned in the years since it was just part of my brain that poked out when things got violent.
I watched Sartre for what felt like a very long time, afraid to move, afraid that any action might set off the pistol.
The Beard stood there and smiled, a cavalier half-grin, but I could see him sweat. Sartre said something and several of his heavies started throttling Whip and Brick. Two descended on Brick, one holding him from behind by the arms while the other landed body blows from the front, another team smacking Whip around. The eyes of both men filled with impotent anger, unwilling to fight back while the Beard was under the threat of death.
The smarter people in the crowd began to use the distraction of physical violence to quietly move away. The rest of the fools stood rooted in place, just like me. Sartre was saying something to the Beard, but it was in a language I couldn’t understand, not French or Russian, but something else.
The initial panic began to recede from me, replaced by a disassociated shock. I marveled at the possibility that Sartre might actually shoot, here, in the casino, in front of all these people. Staring at the pistol, my mind couldn’t quite function enough to conjure up what the consequences would be, but some gremlin in the back of my brain began to speak with a lacquered tongue. It whispered about the resulting loss of business or official sanction, its honeyed tone speaking promises of destruction, joyful at the idea the casino might burn to the ground. Not even Sartre could get away with this.
The spell was broken by Sartre reaching forward to crack the Beard on the head with the Tokarev. Being shorter he had to reach up so he didn’t have the leverage to land much of a blow, but it was enough to cause the other man to bend at the waist. Sartre grabbed him by the back of his collar and began to wrangle him towards the exit. To my horror I realized he was taking the Beard to the palatial and very public front entrance.
I considered stepping in front of Sartre and trying to direct him towards one of the many side exits. Even with the gremlin whispering about sweet destruction the man in the driver’s seat wanted to do his job. But then I thought about the pistol and decided Sartre knew exactly what he was doing. Trying to divert him, even with everyone’s best interests in mind, might just get me shot.
Instead I followed him. Sartre and his group of apes beat on Beard and his crew, ushering them out in a parade of domination and submission. Behind me I heard the crowd collectively release its breath and break for the room’s other exits (even though they’d probably be safer stayed put).
Sartre was making a show of it, pushing the Beard out in front of him, kicking him in the ass, grabbing him by the neck again. He had stopped waving the pistol around but made sure that anyone they passed by saw his treatment of the bigger man. The crowds parted for them with the occasional gasp or disapproving glare from someone shocked at such unseemly behavior. I followed in the wake of Sartre’s crew, a reassuring institutional presence that kept anyone from feeling a need to call the police.
Out in front, under the blazing lights of the casino’s marquee, Sartre didn’t stop. He tossed Beard down the short flight of steps to the wide sidewalk that ran between the casino and the Promenade that separated it from the Mediterranean. I could feel the sea breeze make its way cross the traffic that darted over multiple lanes, over the wide pedestrian walkway, and finally to my grateful, overheated face.
The Beard had clearly been roughed up before. He took his roll down the stairs in a way that minimized physical damage, absorbing it into his shoulders rather than his head or neck. The early spring air guaranteed that the damp of the sidewalk stuck to him, along with whatever detritus he rolled through. But he came up with that cavalier half-grin on his face and waved to Sartre as if he had shown to the door by a genteel host. I could see the flint in his eyes, though, the hard anger that promised future retribution. I had to admire his self-control.
His boys didn’t manage so well. While Brick was too big to be thrown down he lost whatever dignity he might have retained by turning to scream obscenities upon being released. He only succeeded in drawing the attention of passersby that might have otherwise ignored the entire spectacle.
Whip didn’t resist the launch down the stairs as well as Brick and didn’t manage it as well as his boss. He came up with blood on his face and joined Brick in his screaming. The weakest of the three, I noted.
A moment later a long, sleek sedan, resplendent in the reflective lights of the casino, shuttled up in a cloud of quiet German engineering. With another flash of his white teeth, brittle and promising reprisals, Beard stepped into the car and disappeared behind opaque glass.
Sartre stood at the top of the casino’s stairs, arms akimbo, his own grin wide and victorious. His entourage joined in the glow of their boss’ triumph until one of them leaned forward to whisper in the shorter man’s ear. Reminded that he had just committed a rather public crime, Sartre’s facial expression changed to someone who had just remembered a soon-to-be missed appointment. Perhaps, it said, it was time to leave. With that, Sartre began to walk away from the casino, his boys following in his wake. He didn’t go far before another car pulled up and he stepped into it.
The casino was already abuzz with what had just happened and the rumors of what might have caused it. Those who hadn’t seen the pistol expressed skepticism of its existence, that disbelief growing with each retelling of the story. This was bolstered by the casino staff acting as if nothing had happened.
I returned to the dungeon of the slot machines, where the scuttlebutt eventually reached even me. I listened and learned the Beard’s name was Marek Mitnick. Not surprisingly, he was another rumored crime boss.
Now I had the name and the face of the guy who had sicced Balaclava on me. So what did he want with me?
His legs in stocks, covered in days of his own filth and rotten fruit, Jared had a hard time feeling grateful that at least his hands were free, allowing him to ward off the worst of it. Left in the public square, he had only known peace at night, his days spent lying on the hard ground while townsfolk pelted him with rotten fruit.
The cover of darkness allowed Stephen to come out, though, his hat down tight around his head, collar turned up. “I’m sorry,” was the only thing he said before he disappeared again. Jared thought about the long hours in the tavern he had spent with the other man, the innuendo, the subtle flirting, eventually getting him out back in the alley. Their compromising position had let Stephen be the one to get away when they were caught. Jared thought about the effort he had put into all that and what Stephen might have lost if their positions had been reversed.
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I could almost hear the grin in Jasper’s voice. “Russian. Maybe Ukrainian or Belarusian. He’s got quite the entourage with him.”
I paused in the middle of all the bells and chiming of the slot machines. If Jasper was giving me this information it was because he wanted something. To respond would be to give him an edge. In an effort to maintain control I said, “Describe him to me.”
I rolled my eyes with my voice. “The roulette room is filled with Russians.” It was true. Roulette and dice were in the same sector and the Russians seemed to prefer those over games involving more skill.
Jasper came back with, “He’s a tall, good-looking fellow, not the usual fat, sweaty type. He must not smoke: His smile is nearly bleaching out the camera.” Almost as an afterthought Jasper added something actually useful, “And he has a beard.”
“Thanks,” I replied and waved to the nearest camera. I knew Jasper would be watching me to see if I took his bait and went to the roulette room. I stayed rooted where I was for a moment, not wanting to give him anything and suddenly reluctant to get involved. Then my curiosity moved my feet, pulling them off the reluctant gravity of the floor. This was probably the only opportunity I was going to get to see the high roller and move beyond the vague descriptions that had been provided to me thus far.
Without a word to Jasper I stepped away from my noisy sector, fairly certain nothing would happen without me for a few minutes. I made my way out of that dimness to the glitzier part of the casino, through a pair of double doors to the main floor that was made up to look like an old Riviera palace. This transformation was convincing enough that I thought maybe it once was one, going from the dim lights and deep red carpet to the bright chandeliers and marble floors. Emerging from the cave of slot machines and into the bright light with black tie high rollers and the tourists let in to gawk at them, I headed to the roulette room.
Next to private games, the roulette and craps tables had the highest stakes. It could generate a lot of excitement. And not just for the players. A hot streak at a table could light up the entire room, sometimes pulling in people from other sectors. Each table even had a video screen mounted above it to display game information to those who got crowded out, cheers and groans rippling away from whichever table emanated the heat of a lucky run.
Fortunately for me there wasn’t that kind of crowd yet, leaving enough room to make my way across the floor, sticking to the walls and out of patrons’ way. I kept my eye out for a bearded Russian with a sizable entourage. It didn’t take me long to find him. He stood up straight and had a smile on his face. That set him apart from all the other casino goers, most of whom were crouched over tables and grimacing or looking ecstatic, depending on what was happening at their table.
True to Jasper’s words, the Beard did have quite the entourage. There was the usual gun moll; a young woman, too thin and with sharp cheekbones, but startlingly beautiful nonetheless. She hung on his arm or around him, casually ordering drinks and hors d’oeuvre she never touched from whatever casino employee came close by. Not far behind those two was the muscle: One looked to have the shape and intelligence of a brick wall and the other an angry looking whip of a young man, a scar on his cheek marking him from a past dispute.
I didn’t know how if the Beard was the same man that Balaclava had informed me about, but he fit the description enough that I kept out of his line of sight. I floated close enough to confirm that I didn’t know him from Adam, though, which made me wonder how he had known enough about me to give a description. Judging by his movements and treatment by the staff, he was connected enough that he might have come by the information second-hand.
What really told me he was important, though, was the pit boss, Thibalt, floating almost unseen nearby. Efficiently, Thibalt coordinated everything to make sure the Beard and his people were happy. A waiter was nearby ready to swoop in if any kinesics indicated a desire for something not present, and a two security personnel cleared a path through the rabble should the Beard get bored and move to another table.
I nodded appreciatively at Thibalt’s efforts. It was a good idea to keep a curtain between the Beard’s security and the tourists. Russian muscle might not control themselves if someone got pushy and the casino didn’t need an incident that might bring cops.
Which is why both Thibalt and me took notice when another entourage appeared, set on a course for the Beard and his people. Walking through the outer doors of the roulette hall, wearing a dark suit with a black shirt and deep purple tie, came Carlu Sartre, a man known to everyone in the hall, the casino, and probably even the city. The local mob boss, he was rumored to be a silent partner in the casino, but no one would ever be able to prove that. Thibalt spoke into his collar microphone, setting the floor abuzz with an activity that was fitting for the arrival of the shadow king.
My own earbud buzzed, summoning me to where I was already at. I smiled at my luck as Jasper’s possible hold over me evaporated.
Detaching from the wall I watched Sartre and his team of heavies move towards the Beard, who kept smiling and betting, oblivious to the new arrival. I wondered at the coincidence of it all.
Despite the consistent lack of women around him producing rumors that Sartre preferred the company of men (or boys, depending on who was telling the tale) it would have made more sense for him to be involved in a dispute over a local girl. The same gossipers had it that amongst his other grifts he ran the local brothels.
I didn’t have a great deal of time to dwell on that, though, as Sartre closed the distance to the Beard with pumping steps of his short, thick legs. His gait spoke of intention. As I moved to intercept I saw Thibalt do so as well. Both of the Beard’s men saw Sartre before their boss did and closed ranks in front of him, but the Beard gestured them aside so he could step forward to meet the shorter man.
People around them stopped paying attention to the action on the table and started watching them. The air began to fill with the kind of intensity one might associate with a public brawl in a high school. I felt more than saw this, ignoring the stupidity of the herd animals. I knew full well that people with money could be reduced to a mob just as quickly as all the people they looked down on in their saner, more sober moments.
With all of that, I didn’t expect Sartre to pull out a pistol.
If there had been any doubt as to the wisdom of re-branding himself as the artificial intelligence known as Sage, the last of it melted away as Brian hit the submit button. Whereas before when he had put forth his work as a human the Internet merely reached into its wonted stable of insults, now it stopped and considered. Now critics pondered the use of certain colors, wondered at the framing technique, and generally asked the types of questions Brian thought all artists should ask of their fellows.
Standing up from his work station Brian put aside worries that someone would eventually call for proof that an AI existed that could do such work. That anxiety was shunted aside by by a cool gray that glided down his computer screen, erasing all the icons and shortcuts, vanishing the browser he had been using to view the digital marketplace. Words appeared on the screen as they buzzed out of speakers that should have been deactivated. “Hello Sage, I’m BrAIn. I think we need to talk.”
