Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [2]
“Two hundred dollars,” the man said, his eyes trying to look cool and watchful at the same time, and making a fearful mess of both. He wasn’t talking about what I was trying to sell. I wasn’t even in New Richmond yet. It was after eight o’clock at night and I was losing patience and running out of time.
“Bullshit,” I said. “Fifty is the rate.”
The man laughed with genuine amusement.
“You been away or something, man? Shit, I can’t barely remember when fifty dollars was the rate.”
“Fifty dollars,” I said again. I guess I was hoping if I said it often enough I’d end up neurolinguistically programming him. I was standing in front of a door, a door that was hidden in the basement of a building in the Portal settlement, the high-rise nightmare of ragged buildings and shanty dwellings which surrounds New Richmond proper. I was there because this particular building had been constructed right up against the exterior wall of the city, inside which I needed to be. I’d put up with being frisked on entry by the street gang that was currently controlling the building, and had already paid twenty dollars “tax” on my gun. I didn’t have two hundred dollars, I barely had a hundred, and I was in a hurry.
The man shrugged. “So go in the main entrance.”
I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets, fighting back anger and panic in equal measure. “And don’t be thinking about bringing out your gun,” he continued, mildly. “‘Cos there’s three brothers you can’t even see with rifles trained on yo’ ass.”
I couldn’t go in the main gates, as he well knew. No one came to this part of the Portal town if they could enter New Richmond through one of the legitimate entrances. Going in that way meant running your ownCard through the machines, thus broadcasting your name to the cops, the city administration, and anyone else who had a tap on the line.
“Look,” I said. “I’ve been this way before. I don’t need a guide, I just need to get past you. Fifty dollars is what I have.”
The man turned away and signaled into the darkness with an upward nod of his head. I heard the sound of several sets of feet padding out of the darkness toward me.
“You still piecing your action from Howie ‘The Plan’?” I asked, casually. The footsteps behind stopped, and the man turned to look at me again, eyes watchful.
“What you know about Mr. Amos?” he asked.
“Not much,” I said, though I did. Howie was a medium-time crook operating out of the eighth floor. He ran some girls, owned a bar, and had pieces of the drugs action so far down the chain that he was tolerated by the real heavy-hitters above. He was a fat, affable man with a surprising shock of blond hair, but he was fitter than he looked and knew how to keep a secret. Late at night, when most of the customers were gone, he’d been known to sit in with his house blues band and play a hell of a lot better than you’d expect. He didn’t have the Bright Eyes, but he could have. He was a stand-up guy.
“Just enough,” I continued, “to tell the wrong people about some of the deals they don’t know he’s into. And if he thinks that information came from you guys, well…”
“Why would he get to thinking that?” the man asked, though he was losing heart. These guys were below bottom-rung lowlife: hardly on the ladder. They most likely didn’t even know where the ladder was, and had to use steps the whole time. Running this door was as close as they got to operating in New Richmond. Guys like this don’t want to tangle with the jungle inside. It bites.
“I can’t imagine,” I said. “Look. Fifty dollars. Then on my way out I give you the other hundred fifty.”
For all he knew I was never coming out, but fifty was better than no cash and a lot of potential grief. He stepped aside.