Firefly: Big Damn Hero Read online

“With all these folks around?”

  “I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid.”

  “I believe you,” said Yellow Duster. “And in this part of town, chances are they wouldn’t bat an eyelid either. All right, you got me. I’ll come quietly.”

  She steered him towards the alley she had scoped out earlier when she’d first realized Mal was missing. Halfway along, beside some overflowing garbage bins, she halted. Scavenging animals— rats, dogs, raccoons—had been through the bins, and trash was strewn across the alley in reeking mounds.

  “Turn round,” she ordered.

  Yellow Duster did as told. “What now?” he said, grinning around the matchstick. “I drop my pants?”

  “You should be so lucky. All I want from you is talk.”

  “I can do much better things with my mouth, you give me the chance.”

  Zoë resisted the urge to clobber him. “You gave a note to someone tonight, in the bar,” she said.

  “Did I?”

  “Don’t even try to lie. I saw you. The man you gave it to is a friend of mine.”

  “So?”

  “So what happened after?”

  “What do you mean? All I did was drop off a note I never read. Something go sideways?”

  She scrutinized him. Yellow Duster had clearly mastered the art of the poker face. She said, “My friend is missing.”

  “That’s too bad. But I promise you, I had nothing to do with it. I was paid to take the note into Taggart’s—half up front, half afterwards. I was given a description of the fellow I was supposed to hand it to. Your friend matched the description. I slipped him the note, and he didn’t seem surprised to receive it, so I knew I musta had the right man. After that, I left.”

  “Who gave you the note in the first place?”

  “Some guy.”

  Zoë leveled the Mare’s Leg at Yellow Duster’s crotch. “You can be more specific than that.”

  The man tried to maintain his cocksure air, but the matchstick drooped in the corner of his mouth, somewhat giving the game away. “Never knew his name. Never asked. Somebody offers me good coin for a simple job, I say ‘yessir’ and keep the questions to zero.”

  “What did he look like, the man who hired you?”

  “Well heeled. Slick. Beard. Dressed like a gentleman.”

  Hunter Covington. Had to be. Not that Zoë had been in much doubt.

  “He give you any clue what he intended to do with my friend?”

  “None whatsoever, and I didn’t inquire. I prefer to know as little as possible about the dealings of others. The kind of people who hire me like to keep their business private, too.”

  Zoë had few doubts on that front. Yellow Duster was a classic go-between, the type of guy you could rely on to be incurious about the whys and wherefores of a job so long as the money was right.

  She pressed him for further information anyway. Maybe he knew something useful about Covington without knowing he knew it. “How did the man who employed you contact you? Are you part of an organization, or—”

  “I’m on my own. Freelance. Sole trader. Got no organization to answer to.”

  “So how did he contact you?” she repeated.

  “In person,” Yellow Duster said.

  “Not by wave?”

  “No, ma’am. People who have a need for me can find me. They don’t necessarily invite me out for dinner and a slow dance, although it’s been known to happen. But we always meet in person. Every time you send a wave, see, it leaves a trail that can be followed. People I work for don’t like trails. That’s why they come to me in the first place. I’m known for doing odd jobs around the docks for people. I’m also known for having something of a reputation. I’m reliable. A straight shooter. You give me something to do, it gets done, no quibble, no mess. No trail.”

  “Anyone doing odd jobs in Eavesdown would need consent from the criminal operators who run the docks,” Zoë said. “Such as Badger, for instance.”

  The mention of Badger’s name earned a flicker of recognition from Yellow Duster, but then that was hardly surprising. You worked in the shadier edges of Eavesdown, you’d at least know of Badger, if not associate with him personally.

  “Actually it’s not as simple as that,” he said, smirking. “Everything in this town—and on Persephone overall—is more like live and let live, up to a certain point. And ‘by a certain point,’ I mean the amount of platinum on the table. Folks who are careful can earn their daily scratch without answering to higher-ups, Badger or anyone else.”

  “So the man who paid you for handing over the note isn’t a higher-up, then?”

  “Could be. Sure looked like he was. Don’t know his name, though. Not that I’d necessarily reveal it, even if I did. Another part of my reputation is my discretion. I’m famous for it.”

  “I already know his name,” Zoë said.

  “Well, bully for you! Then I reckon that makes you one up on me. Look, lady, are we finished here? I’ve told you all I can. Figure it’s high time you lower that cannon of yours, an’ maybe then you and I can go somewhere, have a drink, see what develops, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  In case she might misinterpret his meaning, he gave her a slow, lascivious wink. It fair turned Zoë’s stomach. She firmed her grip on her gun.

  “I still have a couple more questions,” she said.

  “Fire away,” said Yellow Duster, hastily adding, “Not literally.”

  “Your ‘employer,’ for want of a better word. Where did you and he meet?”

  “Right here,” he said, as if it should have been obvious. He nodded in the direction of Taggart’s.

  “How did he know to look for you in Taggart’s?” she pressed, but Yellow Duster simply smiled. “Right, your lofty reputation preceded you.”

  “Lots of dealings go down in Taggart’s,” he said. “Reckon you already know that.”

  Zoë felt herself growing increasingly vexed. Time was slipping away, and the man was giving up what little useful intelligence he had in a very relaxed and roundabout fashion. Plus, nothing he’d said could be verified beyond doubt, so there was no reason to believe he was playing straight with her.

  Inadvertently she shifted onto her bad leg. A spike of pain made her grimace.

  “Hold your horses now,” Yellow Duster said, misreading her expression and taking it for a precursor to homicide. There was a first, faint hint of panic in his voice. “I’ve been accommodating so far, ain’t I?”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  “Well, I can be even more accommodating, if you’ll just let me.”

  “Go on. As long as that’s not innuendo.”

  “Not this time. When he hired me, the fella muttered something about this had been a long time coming. Said there’d been a betrayal. Said there was a price that was long overdue paying, and now was the reckoning.” Yellow Duster looked at her expectantly, optimistically. “Didn’t understand it myself. Guessed maybe your pal owed him money going way back. Is that what he meant?”

  “It’s possible,” Zoë said. Mal doubtless had past financial debts he hadn’t honored. “Anything else?”

  “That’s all, I swear.” The man was emphatic. “Of course, the remark wasn’t addressed direct to me, so I may have misheard.”

  “He was talking to somebody else? Who?”

  “A woman,” came the reply. “Real quiet type. Fidgety. She came into Taggart’s with him. He said it to her.”

  Zoë seized on the new information. Covington had an accomplice. Maybe his wife? “What did she look like?”

  “She was pretty. Light brown skin, black hair, all kind of curly and long. Not unlike you, though not as intimidating. She kept staring at me with these big greenish eyes, hard, like she was trying to tell me something. Ask me, I think she was frightened.”

  “Frightened of what?”

  “Who she was with. Like she didn’t want to be with him.”

  “Maybe she was trying to solicit help,” Zoë bit off. “Hence the
look. Sounds like she could have been a kidnap victim, or else a bondswoman. She was pleading with you to do something about her situation.”

  “Why would she do that?” Yellow Duster said.

  “Because she mistook you for a decent human being?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Now, now, darlin’. Don’t get all high and mighty with me. You run your life and I’ll run mine.”

  With effort, Zoë reined in her aggravation. “How long ago did this conversation happen? When were you hired to hand over the note?”

  “Just a couple days ago. The guy came into Taggart’s with his lady friend, asked for me by name, and I chanced to be in that day.”

  Zoë decided to take a risk and reveal her hand a little further. “The name Hunter Covington mean anything to you?”

  Yellow Duster looked at her keenly. “Not a smidge. Should it?”

  Zoë fancied he was mentally filing the name away for future reference, in case it proved useful income-wise. “Not necessarily,” she said. “Where did you go after you gave the note to my friend?”

  “To get the second half of my money.”

  “Where?”

  “Some old flophouse, not ten minutes’ walk from here.”

  The hairs rose on the back of Zoë’s neck. Finally, something tangible to work with. Maybe it would connect the dots. The flophouse might even be where Mal was.

  “Who did you meet there?” she asked. “Covington?”

  “That the gent? No, not him. Some other guy. No one special. Pale hair. Couple scars on his face. That’s about as far as it goes for distinguishing features.”

  Scars were not rare in a postwar era; nor, for that matter, on a hardscrabble world like Persephone. “And do you think you can find your way back to this flophouse?”

  “I look like I just stepped off the boat? Like I don’t know my way around these here parts? Course I can.”

  Zoë pondered her options. Shepherd Book was heading to Guilder’s. Jayne was taking the kid Allister home. Kaylee, Inara, Simon and Wash should stay on board Serenity, all hands being needed to deal with River. That left Zoë to follow this lead, her and no one else—and sore leg notwithstanding, that’s what she was going to have to do.

  “Then take me there,” she said.

  “Now, I’m not the sort who does anything as a favor,” said Yellow Duster. “I think you’ve had enough out of me for free. How’s about a little cash reward for my services?”

  She gave him a look. “How’s about I don’t blow a hole in you?”

  He pursed his lips speculatively. “Seems fair.”

  They stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Then Zoë waved the Mare’s Leg meaningfully. “Flophouse. Let’s go.”

  “Ladies first,” Yellow Duster said with a mock-courteous ushering gesture.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Zoë said, stepping behind him and prodding him forward with the gun.

  “But you’re a… Ohhh, I get it,” the man said. “Very funny.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Ain’t I just a barrel of laughs?”

  “You carrying?” Zoë said as they walked

  “Now she asks,” said Yellow Duster. “Yep. Six-gun. Shoulder holster.”

  “Maybe you should give it to me.”

  “You don’t trust me?” he said, making out as if his feelings were hurt.

  “Don’t take it personally. I don’t trust anyone.”

  The man reached under his coat for his weapon.

  “Nice and slow,” Zoë warned. “Use your fingertips and keep them well away from the trigger.”

  He passed the six-gun to her as instructed—a snub-nosed .38 caliber Baird and Chu Special. Zoë slotted it barrel first into her belt.

  “You got a name?” she inquired.

  “Call me Harlow. It’s not actually my name, but I answer to it,” he said. “What should I call you?”

  “Hopalong.”

  “Really? On account of the leg, I suppose. Bet that ain’t actually your name either.”

  “Depends.”

  “What do your friends call you?”

  “They call me Hopalong.”

  “I see,” said Harlow. “This relationship of ours, y’know, it’s seeming kinda one-sided to me.”

  “That’s just how I like it.”

  They wended their way down back streets, passing under lines of washing that had been hung out to dry but were probably just getting dirtier in this polluted air. A mangy, one-eyed cat yowled at them from a doorway, then turned tail and fled. The route they were following was so labyrinthine, Zoë was having trouble mapping it in her head and wasn’t certain she would be able to retrace her steps unaided. Her leg continued to voice its complaint. It wanted nothing more than for her to sit down and rest it. She wished she could but knew she couldn’t.

  All the while, she kept an ear out for Book or Jayne buzzing in, or possibly the captain himself. From now on, to avoid another gŏu cào de communications mess like this one, she was going to make sure they double- and triple-checked their comm links beforehand.

  “Down here,” Harlow said.

  The alley he was indicating was no more than an arm-span wide. The roofs of the two-story buildings that bracketed it were perfect for a no-survivors ambush. To make matters worse, there wasn’t a single streetlight in the vicinity, only the faint backwash gleam from a couple of nearby windows.

  “Got a flashlight,” Harlow said. “Okay if I take it out? Don’t want you getting all itchy-fingered on me.”

  “Go ahead, but do it slow, like with your gun,” Zoë said, firming her hold on the sawn-off pistol grip of her holstered weapon. “Shine it in my eyes to try and blind me, and you are a dead man.”

  Harlow took out the flashlight. He aimed it down the alley and flicked it on, creating a bright corona of illumination directly ahead of them.

  Maintaining a comfortable distance behind Harlow, Zoë kept a lookout on the edges of the rooflines and the upper-story windows. There was no sign of movement from above, and none in the alley ahead.

  They continued on without speaking. The alley wound back and forth, taking a hard dogleg to the right, then the left. Between the roars of takeoffs and landings at Eavesdown Docks, Zoë could hear distant sounds of celebrations. Strings of fireworks or automatic gunfire. Yelling and cheering. The Alliance Day revels were still ongoing but it all sounded far away, as though they were taking place on another world.

  After approximately three minutes at a steady pace, the buildings on the right gave way to a high wall topped with concertina wire. The wall was broken by a closed, heavy wooden gate ten feet high and wide enough for a land speeder to pass through. It and the walls on either side were decorated with a sprawl of colorful graffiti tags. Most were crude and obscene, but some were kind of arty. One was an interpretation of the Blue Sun logo, tweaked so that it read “Blue Scum,” while on the gate itself was spray-painted DEATH TO ALL TRAITORS in tall, cringingly bright lettering. She thought back to the hatred the drunks in Taggart’s had shown for the Browncoats. Usually the worst that she heard was contempt for the losing side of the war. Folks around here sure had strong feelings on the matter.

  Closer to, she saw that the DEATH TO ALL TRAITORS graffiti was fresher than any of the others.

  “Any idea who these ‘traitors’ might be?” she asked Harlow, running a finger beneath the word as though underlining it.

  “Beats me,” Harlow replied indifferently. “Could describe any number of folks, I guess. But being as it’s Alliance Day, and that looks to have been added sometime in the past week… Well, you do the math.”

  “Browncoats.”

  “Not just a pretty face.”

  “And when Covington mentioned betrayal in connection with Mal, do you think that’s what he meant? That, rather than not paying money?”

  “Lady, I try not to think too much about anything except keeping my head on my shoulders and platinum in my pocket.” Harlow reached through a hole in the gate, pulled some
thing to unlatch it, then swung it open a crack. It squealed, possibly alerting any confederates that he had arrived. He stood aside and gestured for Zoë to go first. She just stared at him, so he shrugged and did the honors.

  The gate opened onto an even shabbier-looking street lit by Harlow’s flashlight. Brick buildings gave way to teetering, derelict tenements made of wood and plaster. This older part of the city was deserted but for squatters who didn’t mind the missing roofs and windows, the lack of power and running water, and the profusion of vermin. The street was empty. Even squatters were out celebrating the glorious anniversary.

  Zoë closed the gate and followed Harlow across the road and up a creaking stoop to a scarred door whose knob and lock had been broken off. As he shoved it open and crossed the threshold, Zoë peered past him. His flashlight revealed a floor of planks and walls garlanded with cobwebs. There were footprints in the dust, lots of them, overlapping. Holes had been opened in the interior walls to access ducts and electric wiring which had then been looted. There were no furnishings. No signs of a struggle. No Mal. No evidence that he’d been there, no hint where he’d gone.

  Disappointing, to say the least. Unnerving, to say something else.

  “Nobody’s home, looks like,” Harlow said, sweeping the flashlight beam around the room.

  He couldn’t see it, but she was giving him the stink eye. This whole thing felt wrong.

  “When you got paid, was my friend here?”

  “Nope. Just the scarface guy.”

  “And how long did you stay?”

  “Long enough to get the second half of my fee. No longer. Why hang around? Might have been more work waiting for me at Taggart’s.”

  Zoë went to the door at the opposite end of the room and opened it, then shoved Harlow through. They stepped out onto a small wooden porch whose railings had rotted away. An empty field spread out in front of them, a square of flat, featureless dirt lit by the burnt-umber glow of the night sky. Beyond, at the edge of the flashlight’s range, were more skeletal tenements. Firecrackers rat-a-tat-tatted in the distance.

  She descended the shaky back staircase with him in tow. Harlow swept the flashlight beam in front of her. That was when she saw the comm link, or rather the wrecked remains of a comm link, lying in the dirt.