He looked away with an offended glare.
“What about transpo?” I growled. I peered over with annoyance at the two deadbeats playing old retro video games in the back shadows. The noise of buzzers and beeps and their grunts and sniggers rubbed at the edge of my concentration.
“You got your ship,” said Marty, “plus we can steal some local rides if need be. They’ve got some air speeders I’ve heard.”
“What, like we’re just going to fly in there, gun them down, and take their goods?”
“Something like that,” Marty said with a grin.
I shook my head, blinking with amazement. “You’re something else, Marty, you know that? I think all that gumtox you’ve been chewing has gotten to your head.”
“Careful there, Ruskie. The old Q himself gave me this drop. And he don’t drop favors like that for nothing.”
“Maybe.” I grunted, licking my lips. “I just like to know what I’m getting into.”
“Don’t be a pussy. It’s half the fun not knowing everything.”
“Not really, Marty. Remember the last time we winged it, was nearly the end of us working together.”
“This is your chance to make it big, Rusco. A slam dunk, instead of all those cheap little gigs out in backwaters-ville. I need ride and backup and figured you’d be good for it. I’ll wait point while you nose around, scoping the place out. We’ll keep in contact by bug wireless. Here—” He held up a pair of little black earpieces. “These little babies are untrackable. Shortwave or something. Tape it behind your ear.”
“Shortwave,” I scoffed. “Why me, stuck with the dirty work?”
Marty grinned his cat-like grin. “You’re the security guard, aren’t you? Didn’t you tell me once you did—”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s skip the little Red Riding Hood story.”
“You were always good with B & E. I’m a better bullshitter and better at messing up wise guys, you know it.”
I looked at him in wonder, seeing where this was going.
“Relax, this is what we’re going to do, Rusco. We camo our faces, go in like cats, knock out their surveillance system. Those cams they have are ancient tech like everything on this scumbucket planet. CCTV, or something like that.”
“Nighttime heists are tricky, Marty.” My voice wavered between the condescending and serious.
He shook his head. “There won’t be a ‘nighttime’. I’ve been staking them out. The contra-crews and loader-boys work nights. Daytime, just a dumb fuck bunch of skeleton crew guards. Sleepy types, nothing ever happens during the day in Baer’s yard. We go in in broad daylight.”
“And transpo? You still haven’t told me what your plan is for that. What are we going to do, fly there on our pink little wings? We’re going to need a van or something to go in and truck out a load.”
“You kidding me? A truck parked on the side of the road is a red flag, asking for attention, conspicious as doggy-do.”
“Scooter then,” I said with irritation. “We hide it somewhere in the grass and foot it the rest of the way.”
“Better. From what I gather, this contraband is not needing a lot of horsepower to move it. We can always snag some wheels along the way.”
“I’ll think it through,” I said. I bridled my doubts, clamped my jaw shut, cradling chin in my hands.
Chapter 2
We took an electric three-wheeler with high chopper handlebars a buddy of Marty’s had stored up on the end of the old U-line in his equipment yard. I made Marty sit in the back, be the bitch for once, indicated we’d hide it in the ditch when we got closer. The wheels rolled up on the hardtop which turned to gravel as we snaked along the river. More fenced yards, larger plants, disused factories, metal-pressing mills, boatyards. Not much of anything here away from the smelly, dirty city that was Hoath. Abandoned warehouses, loading docks, crane and metal factories, food packing companies, you name it, suppliers and distributers of every manufactured product one could imagine. The river wound itself tightly alongside a service road behind those complexes, black, slimy water that back in times of older generations used to carry cargoes into town. I felt a desolate unease wash over me. The memories of old sin and dark doings lingered about these tumbledown bastions of yesteryear. Again, that nagging feeling pricked at me, of regretting I had taken on this job.
Now the river was fouled with contaminants and garbage, thick oily water that no respectable fish would be caught dead in. I looked in wonder at the sight of the makeshift shelters and wanderers dressed in tattered khaki or lumberjack shirts, with hand-made rods casting out for fish. I shuddered to think what they’d catch.
Marty tapped my shoulder and pointed at the looming warehouse. We slowed up. Beyond a fenced yard two large, gray-muzzled Behusian hounds yanked at their rusty chains by the cement block outbuilding. I didn’t like the beasts’ incessant yapping, so I moved away and ditched the three-wheeler, hiding it in the weeds while Marty did his best to usher me along.
We walked past that place and stared at the next yard, Baer’s yard, where the docking crane lay and the chain-wired fence, and ugly looking cinder-block, prison-like warehouse with its equally rundown outbuildings.
“This is it?”
Marty opened palms in what looked like a mock apology.
“Seems kind of dumb, Baer having this kind of setup for something this big.”
Marty’s lips hooked in a knowing grin. “All part of the act, Rusco. Small security crew means nothing worth stealing. The bigger players don’t bother. Works well, costs them less, and doesn’t draw attention.”
“Whatever you say, Marty.” I’d only met Q once, and didn’t like the man, that big shaggy mother of a criminal, with a dirty cigar hanging out of his mouth, brown teeth, b.o.
