“You don’t have to do this!” the target pled from within the bag over his head. “Stop the car!”
It was only Geir and Left on this job. Grab the guy—Hank, a human—and bring him to Grouch for a talk. No more information than that. He’d resisted, cowering through his apartment and throwing anything he could reach at the approaching zoans while blubbering incoherently, but hadn’t put up a fight once they got their hands on him. He recognized Left, and knew whose behalf they were here on.
“He doesn’t have to bring me in,” he kept going. “Anything he wants—he can just take it! He knows that!”
“Quiet,” Left growled.
It didn’t work; Hank was chattering too much to hear anyone else. The car that had answered their call had seats arranged like an old person-driven vehicle, so that the two zoans were up front and the human in the back, out of reach and not even facing each other. Geir and Left could exchange annoyed glances all they wanted but short of climbing over the seats they had to put up with him.
“Do you know who he is?” Geir asked the rhino. He didn’t bother lowering his voice.
“Not our business,” Left grumbled, jabbing irritably at his wristband to distract himself.
By now, Geir had been in Grouch’s employ for most of a month. The routine was surprisingly consistent. Unremarkable workaday labor that was nearly as rote as railminding, if not for the variety of locations it took him in the city, and the company of his partners. Shakedowns, intimidation, standing guard outside meetings—often between two humans whose names and faces meant nothing to him. Three nights a week fighting at the carpet factory, where he had fortunately not yet lost. He was bringing in a lot of money for Grouch.
He could only ask the occasional question—at bars between jobs; of bystanders unbothered by the muscle’s presence; at public terminals when he wasn’t being watched—but he kept his ear to the ground. The ZF had slowed down on robberies and shows of strength but was starting to put out tendrils into every racket in Terrace. A fence remarked on his surprise that they had become regular clients, when previously they had always been very circumspect around explicitly illegal activities. Another facilitator said they came to him often with large orders and paid with paper money. Very few who dealt with them ever had before the Mover station bombing. And, the few times he had felt safe asking about Samuel, no one had seen him.
“If it’s about Parson, that’s over and done!” the human was still yelling. “I don’t work with him anymore, I swear!”
“Quiet,” Left growled more forcefully. It seemed to work a little better this time.
“Parson?” Geir asked.
“Heard the name,” Left shrugged.
The antiquated arrangement of the seats at least let Geir watch out the front windows, rather than a camera view on his wristband. They shimmering white-and-crystal skyline of the city’s opulent outer ring slid gently past in the distance. Complete with a new colossal monument to some human business tycoon or other, stack of books under one arm and other hand raised to the sky. Pointing anywhere but the city where all the work he was rich off of was done. That one had gone up in the last two weeks, printed by a Stamper and coated in reflective brass.
“Have you ever been to Uptown?” Geir asked his partner idly, while the momentary quiet permitted small talk.
“Couple times. Some big players have places there. Nothing worth seeing." He reconsidered. “Manny liked some of it.”
“I’m gonna get your name out of you one of these days,” Geir smirked.
The rhinoceros looked at him sidelong.
“Darius,” he said, as the captive in the back started up again.
Geir offered to shake his hand, but was met with a grumble.
When they arrived, Hank stumbled docilely up to Grouch’s complex, though without shutting up. The boss was waiting in the dining hall, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, when they reached him. He gestured away with the bag, and Geir removed it.
“I swear,” Hank said as soon as he could see, continuing from whatever he had been ranting about.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Grouch asked.
“Please—”
“I’ve been hearing about your side business. And I’ve got friends that don’t like it.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re going to hand it off to—”
“No, I swear I—”
Grouch let out a loud huff from his nose, accompanied by a look to the zoans that meant to sit the captive down. They did so, none too gently, and stood back. The older human leaned closer to Hank’s face and dictated terms lowly but forcefully. Hank agreed to each, nodding and sputtering.
Some business accomplished, the boss stood back up and turned away to tap something in on his wristband.
“That job…” Hank said quietly. “The one for Palmer—I didn’t know…”
“Shut up,” Grouch turned back to glower.
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way, you can’t blame it on me—I was just hired hands, Palmer didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t know the guy was rich or that they’d come after you…”
Grouch had his pistol out, muzzle against Hank’s forehead.
“Say another word,” he snarled.
“I didn’t know he was gonna use it against you—”
The gunshot, unsilenced, was deafening in the dining hall. It caved the seated human’s head in and knocked the chair over, splattering bone and blood on the parquet. Grouch wiped the same off his face and slipped the gun back into his waistband.
“You didn’t hear any of that,” he glared at his zoans. “Do something about this. I have to make some calls.”
He returned bloodied and furious to his office, leaving the ruined body to be disposed of, and Geir startled but intrigued.