The Fastest Gun in the Slums
I.
It's evening by the time Piotr reaches the Sector Five market, and the stall owners are locking doors, folding up awnings, packing tables away. The sun's hung halfway between the dirt and the lip of the Plate in that precious half-hour when it actually sprays some light on the slums and turns everything golden and soft around the edges. Piotr walks through streams of labourers and cleaners and factory workers who are trudging home after hard days inching closer to death. The weight of the pistols strapped to his ribcage tells him his own work day is just getting started.
He wonders why the Don wants him to take care of this, anyway. It's not going to be a hard job, and Mona's got plenty of young thugs thirsting to prove themselves. Why does Corneo want to send his most trusted bodyguard when he could take his pick of Mona's boys? That's what they're for, after all.
On the edge of the market square, Piotr finds the place he's looking for: a coffee shack that starts selling liquor the minute the sun drops and the lights flick on under the Plate. It's made from sheets of corrugated iron, each a different shade of rust. On the doorstep he flicks his cigarette to the ground and twists his boot over it.
Inside the tables are mostly empty but the two guys he's there for, Sergei and Iago, are huddled in the back corner. They're so deep in conversation that they don't notice Piotr approach and by the time they look up he's already got a pistol in each hand. Both men stare into the barrels with the colour draining from their faces.
"We're dead, ain't we?" Iago says. He's skinnier and made of harder stuff than Sergei, whose face looks like it's shaped out of dough.
"Afraid so," Piotr tells them.
"Shit," Iago says, his gaze falling into his empty cup.
Sergei's face folds up and he starts to cry. "We ain't hurting nobody," he wails. "All we wanted was to get clear of the mob and start up our own little shop. Our own little shop to sell items in. What harm's that doing, man? How's that hurting the Don?" Piotr finds it hard to look at him, a grown man with his face all red and wet. He feels a little disgusted by Sergei, by himself.
"Shut up, Serge," Iago says, but he just kind of breathes it out, there's no force behind the words. His head is slumped in his hands.
"That ain't hurting nobody," Sergei blubbers on. "Sure, we might have sold a little salt out back, but that ain't hurting nobody neither. There's plenty to go around, the Don don't need all of it. All that business. It ain't fair, it just fucking ain't."
People in the coffee shop are staring and trying to look like nothing's wrong. They all know better than to get involved.
"Outside," Piotr says, jerking his head at the door. No point in spraying bullets around the shop. The owner's just trying to make a living, like the rest of them.
The two men get to their feet and Piotr shepherds them out the front door. Sergei is whimpering and the skin on Iago's face looks too tight for his skull. The other patrons watch them go with expressions that show more curiosity than fear.
Once they're back out in the market square, Piotr tells them to walk into the alley at the back of the coffee shop. Of course, they both try to run for it. Sergei is screaming, clutching the seat of his flapping jeans as he scrambles for safety. Piotr shoots him first, and then Iago. Bullets through the back of their skulls, laying them out, face down. Little clouds of dust puff up as they hit the dirt.
Piotr doesn't blame them for running. Who wouldn't claw at life with everything they had in those last few seconds? When he thinks about it, though, Piotr wonders if he would. You have to have some reason to live, to use as motivation.
Killing these guys doesn't feel nasty, but it doesn't feel good, either. Piotr's tired, more than anything. Sergei and Iago, they knew how the Don treated deserters when they left the mob. Nobody forced them to make that gamble, him least of all. You don't blame the dealer if you lose money on a hand of cards.
Come to think of it, it's been a while since Piotr's killed anybody. Maybe the Don just wanted him to keep his teeth sharp. Not that it matters. It's done now, and he can get back to – well, whatever he does with his life these days. Leaving the bodies for the monsters to clean up, Piotr lights another cigarette and steps out into the stream of workers, heading home.
II.
The next day at lunchtime, like every other day at lunchtime, Piotr watches his boss eat. The Don always dines like a king, these days. Today his table's laid with ham, chicken, noodles, bread, grapes, tomatoes, little cakes, salads – enough food for five. The Don chews very quickly, cheeks flapping, moustaches wriggling like worms, his bottom jaw really working hard. Gold rings flash on his fingers when he dabs at his lips with a square of silk. He drinks a whole bottle of wine in twenty minutes.
In an ashtray beside Corneo's right hand, smoke rolls off a smouldering cigar and hangs in the air so that everything's sort of fuzzy. It's hard for Piotr to make out objects on the other side of the room. Even the tacky Wuteng lamps the Don likes fail to shine cleanly.
Finally Corneo sets his knife and fork together and says, "Okay, Pete. Let 'em in."
Piotr nods and opens the door to the hallway, where Slavko and Mona are sitting, trying to ignore each other. Slavko's running his eyes over yesterday's Shinra Herald while Mona digs dirt from her fingernails with this huge buck-knife. Most likely it's a habit she's picked up off her cousin, the Don. Piotr can remember when Corneo picked his teeth with a knife just like that. It had scared the shit out of him, back when he still got scared by that sort of thing.
"He's ready," Piotr says, and they get up and follow him through into the dining room. Mona moves quickly to make sure she's the first one in, and she sprawls in a chair at the Don's right hand. The knife is back in its sheath, strapped to her thigh. Slavko just dips his head as he enters and takes a seat on Corneo's left, where he towers over the table. He's wearing new glasses, Piotr notices, with thicker frames. His eyes must be getting worse.
The Don takes a few puffs at his cigar and sets it down in the ashtray again. Then he leans back into his chair, webs his hands over his gut.
"So," he says. "We all know why we're here, right? We're here to talk deserters. How many boys we lost this month, Slavko?"
"Five," Slavko says. "All of them mine." He leans forward to rest his elbows on the table, and Piotr's amazed all over again by the size of his arms. His biceps are as big as a grand horn's, and they're wreathed in tattoos.
Mona's laugh sounds more like she's crying out in pain. "Five?" she says. "Five fucking guys. What kind of operation are you running? None of my boys have deserted in years."
She's never still, Piotr has noticed. Her hands are always moving – tapping on the table, picking at the sand-scabs on her arms, fingering some stray piece of cutlery. Most of the time she looks bored, somehow hungry.
Slavko's face stays set and he says, "Nobody wants to push product all day, not when they could sit around waiting for orders to hit somebody. My boys work hard, and some of them get sick of it. Your boys only work a day every couple of weeks."
For just one moment, Mona's hands are completely still.
"We can't be seen losing so many people," the Don says. "It makes me look weak." The burgundy robe he always wears around the house has parted over his chest, and Piotr can see how the weight of his breasts pulls at the skin below his collarbone.
"What are you looking at me for?" Mona says, flinging her hands up. "This ain't my problem."
Piotr leans into his usual spot on the wall. He keeps this up, he'll have worn himself a nice little hollow there by the time he's forty. Not that he'll make it anywhere near forty if he keeps this up.
Slavko takes his glasses off and sets them on the table. "That so? 'Cause I think it's a problem for all of us. If we use some of your muscle –"
"Fuck off." Mona slams a fist down on the table.
"If we have an enforcer with the pushers on every corner, then if –"
"You're really going to let him say this shit?"
"That way we'll be keeping an eye on the boys. We'll know if anyone's thinking about leaving. And –"
"Am I really fucking hearing this?"
"My boys won't feel like they're doing all the work."
"Unbelievable."
Piotr can see why Mona's pissed off. She's always been the boss of Corneo's muscle, while Slavko manages the mob's money and the boys who make and sell salt. By telling Mona what to do with her thugs, Slavko's messing with the gang's whole structure of power.
The Don's not saying anything, and his eyes are watching cigar smoke drift up to the ceiling. Maybe he's thinking it over, or maybe his mind's someplace else. You can never tell, with the Don.
Mona snatches a grape off the table, tosses it in her mouth.
The Don glares at her, his forehead bunching in a frown. "Did I say you could eat that grape? Did I?"
Mona just looks at him, her face flushing red.
"You don't touch a damn thing of mine unless I say you can. You got that, cousin?"
The veins on the side of Mona's head look like wires under her skin. Her hands are clenched into fists so tight the knuckles have gone cloudy, and Piotr can see the shape of each bone in her hand. Slavko's face is like a marble statue's.
"Spit that fucking grape out," the Don says. Each word is sharp around the edges. He holds his empty wine glass below Mona's mouth.
Mona spits and the grape, half chewed, lands in the goblet and slides down to the bottom. She slumps back into her chair.
Corneo puts the glass back down on the table. "Now clear out, both of you," he says. "I'm sick of your yapping."
Piotr opens the door to the hallway. Slavko rises straight away and walks out, flicking Piotr a nod as he leaves.
"Cousin," Mona hisses, "you're not seriously thinking about –"
"I said, piss off," the Don says. He sucks on the end of his cigar and blows smoke in her face.
Mona recoils, face scrunched up. Her hand is on the knife at her thigh. She leaps to her feet, snatches the Don's goblet off the table and hurls it at the floor. It shatters, the shards of glass bursting into the air and scattering over the tiles. Piotr's got the cold grip of his pistol under his palm. Mona doesn't even glance at him as she storms past.
Once she's gone Piotr shuts the door and turns to look at the Don. Corneo is hunched over in his chair, quivering like his whole body is made of jelly or something. For a second Piotr thinks something's very wrong, but then he realises: the Boss is laughing. Really cracking up. His laugh sounds sort of like a pig squealing. When he looks up his eyes are shining from wells in the fat of his face.
"That cousin of mine," he says. "She gets me every time. Like a barking dog."
Piotr tries to haul his mouth up into a smile, but he doesn't see how this is funny. Mona is dangerous and she acts irrationally. He saw it plenty of times, back when he was just another one of her thugs. Something would piss her off and next minute she'd be carving chunks off somebody's arm with that buck-knife. Not someone Piotr would go pissing off.
"Let's hope her bark's worse than her bite," he says.
The Don forms a grin around the cigar he's sucking. He takes it out of his mouth and says, "That's what I've got you for, ain't it, Pete? To put down the biting dogs."
"That's right, Boss."
"Yeah." Corneo looks like he's thinking. "Y'know, Pete, you ain't been yourself lately. Everything okay?"
Piotr feels suddenly naked. Is it that obvious? Truth is, he's been noticing himself changing for almost a year now. Ever since he kicked his salt habit. All his emotions have become sort of watered down, vague, and he just drifts through each day. The world's been looking more and more grey. Sometimes now he almost misses the salt, when he looks at the fading lines on his arm and remembers when at least he'd had something to live for.
"You getting plenty?" the Don asks.
Piotr can't think of anything to say. Truth is, he's not even interested in that stuff any more.
"When's the last time you visited my beehive? You head down there tonight, Pete. Tell 'em it's on me. My honeybees, they'll fix you up real good."
Piotr already knows that's not the problem, but he says, "Sure thing, Boss," and the Don says, "Good boy. Don't say I never did anything for you."
III.
That evening, like every evening, Piotr knocks off when Kotch shows up for the night shift, and he walks to the diner on Mueck Street to get fed. He's ordered the same thing so many times the waitress doesn't even ask what he wants, just brings him a beer once he sits down at the bar and a steaming bowl of noodles a few minutes later.
Tonight, like always, the diner is gloomy and the air inside is thick with the smell of burned meat. The noodles land in front of him glistening with grease, but Piotr doesn't care. Any food is good food. He loads in mouthful after mouthful, not speaking to anyone, not even really thinking about anything. Just eating.
Halfway through the bowl, he feels a tap on his shoulder. He spins around on his stool and Bones is standing there with his lips twitching over his teeth like he's not sure whether he should be smiling or not. He's picking at a salt-scab on his wrist.
"What is it?" Piotr asks. Bones must be pretty desperate for a hit; his face is the colour of old paper, he's sweating, mucous crawls out his nose. He's wearing three old coats but he still looks cold, shoulders hunched up by his ears. Most likely he's is just trying to beg some gil for his next hit, cashing in that old favour all over again.
The junkie slides his tongue around his lips and looks up and down the diner before saying, "Somebody's gonna hit the Don."
"Who?"
Bones says, "I don't know. I heard –"
Piotr puts on a sad smile and turns back to his noodles, shaking his head. Bones is going to have to come up with something better than that. People are always saying they're going to kill Corneo, become the new Don of Wall Market. Like it would be that easy. Not many of them even try, and so far nobody's pulled it off.
Bones paws at him again, grabbing a handful of shirtsleeve. The junkie's eyes are wide, webbed with delicate red lines. "You know me, Pete," he says. "I don't make this shit up. I don't. I heard them, down on the street last night. My window's broken. Somebody broke it. Down on the street, I heard them say, Don's getting hit. Soon. Be ready. That's what I heard them say. Down on the street. I don't know who broke my window."
Truth is, Bones' story sounds like bullshit. Even if it is true, it's no use to anybody. Piotr says, "Get out of here, Bones. I'm trying to eat."
"Wait, there's more. I got more. You know me. I saw something else –"
"Piss off." Piotr tugs his arm out of the Bones' grip.
The junkie's eyes soften, go sad, and he looks down at his shoes. "I remember, you was just a skinny kid, he says. A skinny kid so dried out, so salt-sick he couldn't even get his ass to a pusher. Curled up in that old basement. A skinny kid. And I found you there and I took your money and I bought you salt, even though I was drying out myself. I was dry, Pete. I bought you salt and I didn't take even a pinch of it even though I was drying out. Because I knew you was going to die, Pete. I knew this skinny kid was going to die if I didn't buy him salt. If he didn't get a hit. That's why I bought for you and didn't take even a pinch of it. And then I cooked up the salt and loaded my own gear. Not even a grain for me. I had beautiful, clean gear, back then. That gear was – it was pristine. My own. I found a vein in that skinny arm of yours, and I –"
"Okay, Bones," Piotr says. The waitress is glaring down the counter at him. He reaches into his pocket and peels a couple of bills off the roll of gil he's got stuffed in there. "Sure am grateful for what you did back then," he says. "Like always." He holds out the money and Bones snatches at it the way a dog does when you toss it a treat.
This has to be the eighth or ninth time the junkie has called in that old favour. One of these days Piotr's going to have to teach him not to come begging, but for now it's easier to just pay him off. It's not like the gil matters. These days, Piotr's got more money than he knows what to do with.
"Thanks, Pete. Thank you. I knew you wouldn't let an old pal down," Bones says. He's picked the salt-sore on his wrist clean and blood is weeping down his hand, dropping off the end of his little finger. Bones says, "Y'know, I was telling you the truth. I really was, Pete. I heard what I said I heard. Through my broken window."
Piotr shakes his head. He's had about as much of the junkie as he can stomach, for one day. "Go get a hit, Bones," he says. "You've got the sweats."
Bones is smiling so hard his cheeks look like they're about to tear. You got it, he says, and then he turns and stumbles out.
Piotr turns back to his noodles but they've gone cold and anyway, he's been looking at Bones so long he really doesn't feel like eating. It occurs to Piotr that maybe it's good to have the junkie come around every once in a while, to remind him why he's better off clean.
"Who was that?" someone asks him. It's the waitress. Piotr realises that even though she serves him almost every day, he hasn't really looked at her before. She's a redhead, kind of young to be working in a place like this, and her nose is wrinkled up like she's smelling something nasty. Probably Bones. Piotr doesn't even know her name. Not that it matters.
"Nobody," he says. Then he slaps some gil on the counter and walks out.
IV.
The next day at lunchtime, the Don says, "Y'know what, Pete? I'm gonna eat out today."
"Sure thing, Boss," Piotr says. "I'll go get your carriage ready."
"No," the Don says. He grinds the charred stub of his cigar into an ashtray and gets to his feet. "I want to work my own two legs, see some faces. I don't see enough faces these days."
They leave the mansion and head downhill, Corneo waddling and Piotr looming at his heels, a tall shadow in his black coat. There are plenty of faces, mostly dirty and hollow, and they all stop to stare at the Don.
Piotr scours them all with his eyes, his right hand tight around the grip of a pistol. He's thinking about what Bones told him last night, wondering if maybe he sent the junkie away too quickly. You couldn't ask for a better chance to hit the Don than this. Anybody twitches, he'll put a bullet in their head. Show them all why people call him the fastest gun in the slums.
Why does the Don have to walk? He doesn't seem to realise the danger he's in, chatting away like they're strolling around the Sector Eight fountain. He's not – the fuck is that punk on the corner taking out of his jacket? Just a cigarette. Piotr breathes out, lets the strings of his muscles slip. He's got to relax a little.
"The Wutai Empire's lasted a thousand years, Pete," Corneo's saying. "A thousand years! Still counting, too. The Kisaragi Dynasty's been in charge the whole time. How did they do it? That's what the show was all about. The one I watched last night. Guy was saying how they made it so that all their boys – the nobles, we're talking here – were split into two groups. They were careful to make sure each group had an equal amount of power, influence and shit. That way, if either group started shit, rebellions and shit, the other one would all come down on 'em. I sat there thinking, Shit! That's fucking exactly what I do. I'm like one of them emperors, Pete. With Slavko and that cousin of mine."
They're on the flat now, and the streets are starting to jostle in on them, tea shops and restaurants with tables out on the street, junk stores, nightclubs with neon signs hanging dead over their doors. There's rubbish everywhere, dog shit, pools of last night's vomit soaking into the dirt. All kinds of nasty things are rotting in the gutter. People look up from their coffees to follow the Don's progress, and the crowds out walking part around him. Piotr glares at every individual.
"You going to give Slavko the muscle he wants?" Piotr asks, more to sound interested than because he really cares.
"I don't know, Pete," the Don says. "I really don't. That'd put things out of balance, see. That'd be letting him get away on me. It's like I'm walking two dogs, Pete. Real vicious mutts. I've gotta give 'em the same amount of leash. That way, they're always staring each other down, always scrapping. They won't even notice I'm there, holding the leash. But if one of 'em gets too far ahead, the one at the back's gonna to turn around and sink its teeth into my leg right away. It ain't easy walking these two dogs, Pete."
"That's right, Boss," Piotr says. A man leaning on an alley wall is watching them with the wrong sort of expression.
"You, though, Pete. You're a different sort of mutt. A loyal dog, the kind a man has to keep his family safe, or some shit. The kind that waits in the yard for him to come home."
Maybe a year ago Piotr would have been pissed off if the Don had called him a dog, but now all he feels is a kitten-scratch of annoyance which closes over right away. Truth is, that's pretty much all he is these days: a guard dog.
"I still remember the day they first brought you to see me," the Don is saying. "This half-starved street kid, a junkie, salt scabs on your arms and neck. You were what, fifteen? And still with that damn pusher's blood on your hands. Shit. They all wanted me to have you put down, but I saw something. Something in the way you looked at me, so I said, No. I'm gonna give this kid a gun. And I did. You remember what I said to you then?"
"Sure do, Boss. You said you were giving me something that was mine." Piotr remembers the day, too. The blood was starting to flake off his hands, and he was worried about getting it on the Don's carpet. Corneo was a different man, back then, before he let his appetites get the better of him. Cords of muscle wrapped all his limbs, and he sported a mane of tawny hair and a handlebar moustache. He's transformed so gradually that Piotr's hardly noticed. It's only when he thinks back to that day, to the Don, the undisputed king of Wall Market, picking his teeth with that big knife, that he realises just how bloated and rotten things have become in the past four years. He feels a little sad, a little disgusted, when he thinks of it.
"That's right," Corneo says. "I was giving you something that was yours. You remember that, Pete. I gave you them guns you're so fast with. I fucking made you." He looks strangely intense, and sets Piotr to wondering what's pissed him off. Then a girl walks past and the Don's face flops back into a grin.
"Shit," he says. "You see the ass on that one? This is why I gotta get out more. Oh boy."
V.
There's a man standing inside Piotr's place when he gets home that evening. A man in a suit, gazing out the window at the street below. He's a Woot with long hair tied back. Piotr eases one of his pistols from its holster and trains it on him.
"The fuck are you?" he says. Finding someone else in his home makes him feel a little violated, a little pissed off. This apartment is his place, his bolt-hole, somewhere he'll always be safe. Nobody comes here.
The man turns around, face empty, hands resting in his pockets. He's completely relaxed staring down the gun's barrel, doesn't even flinch or tense up. Not many people react like that when they see a pistol pointed at them. "Tseng," he says, holding out one hand like he actually expects Piotr to come over shake it. "Of the Turks."
"What do you want with me?" Piotr asks, stepping from the hall into his living room. He gropes behind him for the doorhandle, shuts the door while keeping his pistol trained on the Turk. He's trying to think of reasons why this Tseng guy is here, but he can't come up with anything. If Shinra wanted him killed, he'd be dead already. It's got to be something else.
"How much do you know about the department I work for?" Tseng asks him.
"You do Shinra's dirty work," Piotr says.
Tseng smiles, so quick Piotr almost misses it, his mouth twitching at the corners and then falling flat again. "That's correct," he says. "Officially, we're tasked with recruiting members for the SOLDIER programme, but we have many other duties. In essence, our job is not so different to yours. We keep Shinra safe from its enemies."
Piotr's still got his pistol up. He holds it straight out from his shoulder, tipped on its side. "Okay," he says. "That doesn't explain why you're in my house."
That smile flickers on the Turk's face again. Like he's spotted a joke nobody else can see. "I'm here because we think you have skills that would be of use to us," he says. "We've heard you're the fastest gun in the slums."
"So they say. You need somebody hit?"
"Not at the moment. I'd like to offer you a position in our department."
The gun almost drops out of Piotr's hands. He definitely wasn't expecting that. It doesn't make any sense. Shinra is the law, and their soldiers are supposed to keep the streets safe. Don't these people realise what he does, who he works for?
"Look," he says. "You guys know I'm a criminal, right? I murder people. That's how I've paid my bills for the past five years."
"That doesn't matter. Not to the Turks. It's almost a point in your favour. We need people who won't hesitate to do whatever's necessary on missions."
"What's in it for me?"
Tseng shrugs. "The pay's good," he says. "You'll get to travel, get out from under the Plate. The work is exciting. Hard, but exciting. You'll be doing something different with each day."
Truth is, it does sound sort of appealing. Piotr tries to imagine himself pulled out of the muck of Wall Market, cleaned up, put in one of those suits. It's pretty hard to picture. But even if he wanted to take up the offer, he couldn't. Corneo would hunt him down, bail him up someplace, leave his body for the rats in the sewer. Just like Sergei and Iago.
"I don't expect an answer immediately," Tseng says. "Here's my card. Call me when you've made a decision." He crosses the room and hands Piotr a slip of paper. Piotr examines it, letting the pistol drop to his side. It's just a white rectangle with a number printed on it.
He hears the door shut and looks up. Tseng is gone.
Piotr tosses the card on the kitchen counter, holsters his pistol, shrugs off his coat and lets his body sink into the couch. Air passes through his lips. His heart beats a few times. Right from the start, he'd known that once you got into this game, you were in it for life. It's a real shame he doesn't feel like playing it any more.
The PHS in his pocket vibrates. Shit. He just wants to close his eyes and let sleep carry him, unthinking, a few hours closer to death. But he takes out the phone and looks at the message. It reads: Need to have words with you. About the Don. Come to Miseo's at nine. Mona.
Piotr suddenly remembers what Bones told him at in the diner. Maybe Mona's found something out, too. He hauls himself back up off the couch and starts pulling his coat back on. It occurs to him that he could just go to bed, pretend he never got the message, just deal with whatever happens. Be so much easier to just sleep and forget about it.
He'd be a terrible bodyguard if he did that. He's got a job to do, he's going to damn well do it. Else, what is he? What good's a guard dog that doesn't sniff around a little?
VI.
Piotr strides through the neon blur of Wall Market at night, moving through clumps of shambling drunks, whores sprouting from the footpath, scrawny street kids who eye his pockets. It's Friday evening and everyone's out. Bass music thumps out of the nightclubs and bruises the air.
He walks a few blocks from the main drag, until he's not far from the Wall. There's Miseo's, spilling light and laughter and cigarette smoke out into the quiet square it occupies. The sight of it dredge up memories from the old days, back when Piotr was just another one of Mona's boys. Before the Don had picked him for a bodyguard. He'd spent his nights here, drinking, smoking, gambling on cards, talking shit. Creeping into the gloomy back room to squat in around a lighter and a spoon, pushing the salt into his veins and lying back, eclipsed. When he got clean, the rest of it stopped too; he'd realised how pointless it all was. Now he wonders if anything really has a point, if you look at it properly.
Inside, the place hasn't changed in the year since Piotr was last here. The same haze of cigarette smoke is draped over the same scatter of tables and stained rugs. That same flamboyant bartender flits around behind the bar. Mona's thugs are the only ones who ever come here, but boy do they drink. That barman gets worked like a dog.
When he looks around at all the faces, Piotr recognises just about everyone. Some he's even worked with, a year or two back. Most likely they're starting to recognise him, too, and to wonder what he's doing here. He picks out Mona on the other side of the room and heads towards her. She's planted in a booth with four others, and arguing furiously with one of them. As Piotr gets closer, he hears her yelling:
"Three aces? Three fucking aces? Where'd you get three aces, up your sleeve? I can't believe this. You'd really try to cheat your own boss? What, I don't pay you enough?"
That's something else that obviously hasn't changed. Mona was never happy to lose, at anything. She shuts up when she spots Piotr standing at the open end of the booth.
"You wanted to see me," he says.
Mona's face splits into a grin. "That's right, Pete. I did." The thugs around her slip away, leaving fans of cards scattered on the table, and Mona slides out of the booth and straightens up, looks Piotr in the eyes. She's almost as tall as he is, and lean as a guard hound. Slapping him on the shoulder, she says, "Come out back. Someone I want you to meet."
Piotr watches Mona wind through the tables of muscle, and he finds he's kind of envious of her boys as they laugh and drink and talk. They've got it so damn easy, chasing pleasure like they do. Kidding themselves that it's enough to live for.
He finds himself thinking of the Turks' offer. If he was seeing new stuff every day, doing jobs that really made a guy work for his money, would he feel like each day was worth living through again? Would he feel like he was really part of something, not just a group of thugs with shared interests? Maybe he'll call Tseng and ask him.
But what's he thinking of that for? Right now, he's got a job to do, and he's got to concentrate on it. There's only one way to find out what kind of game Mona's playing, and that's to go after her.
The light dims out back but edges of it gleam on the rows of glass bottles that cover the shelves. When Piotr pushes past the door, Mona's sitting down at a table with another man he doesn't recognise. The stranger's not dressed like someone from Wall Market – no big collar, no piercings, no braids in his slicked-back hair. He's too tanned for a slum-dweller as well.
"Piotr, Clement," is all Mona says. With one boot she pushes a chair out from the table. Piotr sits on it and looks this Clement guy over. The stranger lets his body hang like most people who are quick with a gun. He looks amused when he meets Piotr's eye. "You must be the bodyguard," he says. His mouth twists into a sneer. "The fast gun. You don't look all that."
Piotr shrugs and doesn't rise to the bait.
Mona looks at Clement. "Tell him what you told me."
"All right. Long as he can keep up. So: I'm from out Costa del Sol way. People over there pay me to take care of nasty situations for them. I don't mind nasty, see. Matter of fact, you might say nasty's my specialty. But lately I had a close call with the law, and – "
" – Does he really need to know this?" Mona cuts in. "Get to the point."
"Fine," Clement says. He pulls in his limbs and leans forward over the table. "Point is, I came here to lay low, maybe pick up some work for your boss or somebody like him. But guess who the first person to come along fixing to make use of my services is? That Slavko guy you got running the pushers down here. He tells me he needs somebody for a private job, somebody from outside Wall Market. Somebody 'discrete'. Now, I ain't been here long but I've worked out the lay of the land, and I figured there might be more in this for me if I went to Mona. So I told him I wasn't interested in 'discrete'. And here I am."
Bones' words from the previous evening drift back to haunt Piotr's ears. Shit. He should have taken the junkie more seriously.
"When did this happen?" he asks Clement.
"Yesterday."
"Did Slavko tell you what the job was?"
"Nope. We only got as far as 'discrete'."
"Ain't it obvious?" Mona says. She's got her knife out and is paring down her fingernails again. "He's going after Corneo. Bastard's sick of being the number two man around here."
Piotr thinks about it. Maybe Slavko did want the Don dead - who knows what went on in that big skull of his? But this seemed like a weirdly rash way to go about it, for such a careful man. "Could be you he's after," he tells Mona.
"After me? You kidding? No offence, Pete, but I'm better protected than the Don is. I've always got a few of my boys with me. You think Slavko's stupid enough to go after me with one guy?"
She's got a point. "Either way, we've got to tell the Don," Piotr says.
Mona shakes her head and sets her knife down on the table. "Don't you know what Corneo's like, these days? If we tell him, he'll piss around, put off deciding what to do about it. Even a day's delay could give Slavko his chance. It won't take him long to find someone else to do it - plenty of guys like Clement floating around Wall Market."
"So, what? We hit Slavko? That's what you're saying?"
"Tonight. What, you don't agree?"
Something about this doesn't feel right. They're moving too quickly. But Piotr can't fault Mona's thinking, so he says, "No. It makes sense. Who's taking care of it, then? You going to send some of your boys?"
"You trying to weasel your way out of this one, boy?" Clement says, smearing Piotr with his slimy gaze.
Mona's grin is sharper than her knife, and Piotr feels like it's skinning him. "Might look a little too convenient if the hit comes from my boys, don't you think? After all, you're the Don's bodyguard, ain't you?"
Piotr can't argue with that.
VII.
When Piotr reaches the landing outside Slavko's place, he puts his ear to the apartment's door to try and figure out if there's anybody inside. He can't hear anything, so he turns the handle, eases the door open so a seam of light runs down its side. Door unlocked, lights on – somebody's definitely home. He slips his right hand under his coat to eases out a pistol, then noses the gun through the door and follows it into the room.
He's in a living space, nice and open, with lots of polished wood on the floor. He can see right through to the kitchen, but no sign of Slavko, or anyone else. A hissing noise reaches his ears, and it takes him a second to figure out that somebody's taking a shower. He stalks the sound to the bathroom, then creeps around the rest of the apartment, checking all the rooms are empty. When he's sure they are, he returns to the living room and plants himself in the middle of it, both guns pointed at the bathroom door.
He's standing there when spots the journal. It's laid open on a desk in the room's far corner, a pen laid across its pages. Piotr can't resist taking a look. Keeping one gun trained on the bathroom, he walks across the room and flicks through the pages. He only has a couple minutes to skim through what's written there, but in that time he learns some interesting things. The result being, when Slavko emerges from the bathroom wreathed in steam and wrapped in a white towel, Piotr doesn't squeeze the trigger.
The big man freezes when he sees Piotr's gun, and for just a moment shock cracks his stony expression. "Who squealed?" he says.
"Guy called Clement."
"Arsehole."
"Take a seat," Piotr says, pointing at the couch with one of his guns. Slavko crosses the room to lower himself onto the cushions. Piotr sits on the opposite couch and shows him the end of both pistols. "I've been reading your journal."
Slavko shrugs. He's pieced his stone-face back together. "That so?"
"I've got a few questions."
"Shoot."
"You're deserting?"
"Yeah."
"How come?"
"This game, man. It eats you up. Look at the Don, look at how it's just – just devoured him. He's gone, the man we all knew. I'm almost gone too. I know I look big, but really I'm just a skeleton. I gotta get out of Wall Market, put some meat back on these bones."
Piotr can certainly sympathise with that. After all, this game's made a meal of him, too. "What did you need a guy like Clement for?" he asks.
"Well, we both know the Don ain't going to tolerate me leaving. You've seen how he deals with deserters – shit, you've done it for him. I figured the only way out is to make the Don think I'm dead. So I was trying to hire a guy to pretend to shoot me. It's all in the journal."
Piotr stops to think. Slavko's plan sounds like a pretty desperate one to him. But then, it's becoming clear that he's looking at a desperate man. In a way, he's jealous of Slavko. At least the guy's trying to pull himself out of the Wall Market scene, not letting himself sink further in to it.
But what did this mean for the Don's safety? Someone was out there still, hunched in some slimy bar, planning a hit. Or maybe Bones had been lying, after all.
"So, what now?" Slavko says. "You going to shoot me?"
"For deserting?" Piotr shakes his head. He flicks on his pistols' safety catches and tucks them back into their holsters. Killing Slavko wouldn't sit right. After all, wasn't the guy just doing what Piotr himself dreamed of doing? "Way I see it, my job's to protect the Don. You leaving ain't a threat to Corneo."
"But you were going to."
"Somebody's planning to hit the Don. Mona thought it was you."
"'Course she did," Slavko says. He pauses and for a moment his forehead falls into deep furrows. "Shit, maybe I can use this. You tell Mona, tell the Don that you did it. That I'm dead. I'll pay you."
"How much?"
"Enough. You're going to need proof, though." Slavko twists at a plain gold band on his finger until it slips off, and sets it on the coffee table between them. "My wedding ring. Corneo knows what it means. I'll need it back, though, you hear?"
"Fine." Truth is, Piotr's not doing it for the money. Helping Slavko is an act of rebellion, rebellion against the Don, against the whole Wall Market scene. When you peel back all the posturing, everyone down here's just looking out for themselves. Helping somebody else - that's breaking the rules. Piotr can't remember the last time he did anything just to help someone. "But you've got to tell me one thing."
Slavko leans back into the couch and folds his huge arms. "What's that?"
"In your journal, you keep talking about 'Mister Green'. Who is he?"
"Mister Green? He supplies us with the material we cook into salt. Why do you want to know about him?"
"Just curious. Your journal says he's with Shinra."
"That's the truth. See, vita profusumide – salt – is a chemical by-product of converting Mako into electricity. I ain't even going to pretend to understand how it all works. Point is that Shinra's got tonnes of the stuff. In the old days, we used to bribe the reactor workers to sneak us out a few barrels, and we'd cook them into salt. But then, about six years back, some Shinra suit realised it was actually good for the company to have the slums up to their eyeballs in the stuff."
"How'd they figure that?"
"Well, think about it. What does a junkie care about? Politics? Socio-economic disparity? Freedom of speech? Environmental destruction? None of that. All a salt-junkie thinks of is where their next hit's coming from. Shit, you should know. The only person they're a threat to is whoever comes between them and their fix. This Shinra suit, whoever he was, realised that junkies are the best kind of citizens the slums can have. So the company looked around for the guy in the best position to move salt around, maximize the number of users. At that time, Corneo was the guy.
"That's the mob's big secret. All the product we push, the product that sustains the whole operation, comes right from Shinra. Shinra made the mob, made the Don. But it also owns them. The Don has to do whatever the company says, or the supply dries up, and it all comes crashing down. That is some fucking politics for you, right there."
Piotr's heart is rattling in his chest. He can't believe what he's hearing – surely something is going to snatch this away for him. "You're saying the Don can't touch anything Shinra?"
"Not if he wants to stay the Don."
And just like that, Piotr's spotted his way out.
IX.
The next day Piotr walks to work in the sodden cold of a Wall Market morning. Grey light seeps in from under the sides of the plate, but it's a kind of limp light that carries no heat and turns everything the colour of ash, as though the night's excesses have burnt out the whole Sector. He passes old ladies pegging out their washing, kids huddled together in alleyways, stray dogs turning over piles of trash. Everything he sees disgusts him. He's going to be glad to see the back of this place.
So close, now. All he has to do is meet his promise to Slavko, and then he'll call Tseng and be out of here. But there's still plenty of things that could go wrong. Piotr's actually a little scared, now that he wants something. He tries to think of the last time he felt scared by something, but nothing comes to mind.
Mona's waiting for him at the door to the Don's manion, her fingers drumming on the handle of her knife. "You get it done?" she asks as he approaches.
Piotr nods, pulls Slavko's ring out of his pocket and holds it up.
Mona flashes her teeth. "Just like old times, huh? I can always count on you. Let's go tell Corneo."
She's bought it. Piotr tries to tamp down his relief, not let it slip through to his face.
Mona hold the mansion's door open and Piotr steps through. He only has time to snatch an impression of stone floors and spastic candlelight before hands grab at his arms and a fist rams into his gut. All the air is driven from his lungs, his knees give out and the floor leaps up at him. Somebody's feeling around under his coat for the guns, and Piotr lashes out at them and tries to get back on his feet. A boot hacks at his gut and lays him out on the floor again. They've got the pistols now.
"I knew you'd go down easy," says a familiar taunting voice. Piotr manages to turn his head and sees Clement, towering over him with a gun in his hands and his lips peeled back in a sneer.
Mona crouches over him and starts patting down his pockets. "Now, Pete. You understand that this ain't anything personal, don't you? It's just part of the game. You got dealt a bad hand." She pulls out Slavko's ring and turns it over in her hand. "Just like our buddy Slavko, right?" She straightens up and says, "Okay, get him up."
Hands grip the back of Piotr's coat and haul him to his feet, start dragging him through to the Don's dining room. He doesn't try to fight them; first he's got to figure out just what the hell's going on. Mona seems to believe Slavko really is dead, so why's she come after him? The answer hits him as hard as the boot to his gut: she's the one Bones heard them talking about. With Slavko and him dead, there's nobody to come between her and the Don. Corneo will be the next one she takes down.
The Boss is eating breakfast when they get Piotr through the doors to the dining room. When he looks up and sees what's going on, Corneo freezes mid-chew, a strip of bacon still dangling from his mouth.
"The hell's going on?" he asks.
"Piotr here's just killed Slavko," Mona tells him. She sets Slavko's ring beside Corneo's plate. "We've heard he's coming for you next, cousin."
"This true, Pete?" the Don asks. The crest of hair on his scalp is still wet from the shower, splattered on his scalp like a blonde insect. He looks a little deflated, almost like he's been hurt.
"Slavko's dead," Piotr says. "He was going to desert. But I'm still on your side."
The Don's mouth wrenches into a cruel smirk, and for a moment he looks just like he used to. "That why you've been looking so hard into those rumours, huh? The ones about me getting hit?"
What the hell is the Don talking about? Piotr can't figure it out.
"Y'know, Pete, I paid that junkie to come tell you my days were numbered. He never heard anything. It was me. I was testing you. I knew you were up to something; you ain't been yourself. I sent Bones to make sure you still knew what your job was. But you ignored him, Pete, and now I know why. Guess you're just like all the other dogs, after all."
For the first time in a long while, Piotr is truly mad. They've all been using him – Mona, Slavko, the Don – using him as a tool in their game. A pawn. Well, he's sick of being used. It's time to show them that he can play just as well as they can.
He starts thinking about how this is going to go down. The two guys holding his arms are both packing heat. The thug on his left has a pistol down the back of his pants, and on his right the boy's wearing one inside his jacket. Mona and Clement are off to the Don's left, maybe four metres away. Clement's got another pistol strapped to his hip, but it looks like all Mona's got is her knife.
"Shoot him," the Don says.
Piotr lifts his left leg and brings his heel down on the toes of the guy holding his left arm. The thug yells out, and in the moment his grip slackens Piotr jerks his arm free, lifts the pistol from his guard's waistband. He pops a blind shot over his shoulder and behind him the other guard screams and something warm splashes the side of Piotr's face. He folds his arm around the left-hand thug's neck and turns him so his body takes two of Clement's shots. Then Piotr shoots Clement in the head. He lets go of the thug's neck and the guy collapses. Mona's knife comes spinning towards him but he ducks and it clatters against the back wall. He shoots Mona in the leg and she goes down screaming.
Piotr crosses the room and squats over Mona as she worms around on the floor, grunting like an animal. "You better believe this is personal," he spits. Then he puts the pistol next to her head and squeezes the trigger and her blood starts pooling on the floor.
Piotr reclaims his pistols from Clement's body and then goes to see Corneo. The Don is crouched under his table, his chin still slick with bacon-grease. He's shaking. As Piotr helps him back to his feet, he says, "Shit, Pete. What the hell is going on?"
"She wanted you dead, Boss," Piotr tells him.
The Don's mouth hangs open, his moustaches drooping around its edges. "My own cousin..." His jaw snaps shut and he squints at Piotr. "You got any proof?"
"Afraid not, Boss. But if I wanted you dead, I could shoot you now, no problem. But I'm not going to."
Piotr pulls the pistols out from under his coat and hands them to the Don, stock first. Corneo takes them and stares at them like he's never seen a gun before. Piotr takes the chance to palm Slavko's ring off the table.
"What's this?" the Don says.
Piotr shrugs. "I'm giving them back. Going to get myself some new ones. Shinra issue. Be seeing you."
The Don is speechless as Piotr leaves, stepping over the cold, outstretched limbs, the puddles of glossy blood. But just as Piotr reaches the door, he yells, "I fucking made you! I own you! I'm the Don! Get back here."
Piotr slams the door on him. He's heard enough of the Don's shit for one lifetime. Right now, he has to make a phone call.
A/N: This is probably the most challenging fic I've written. I really struggled with getting the plot across, so I hope it's not too weird and incomprehensible.
Thanks for reading!