His vision has to adjust from the sun outside before he sees Dutch. He has a book by John Milton by his side, but Rock notices the gun first, a Colt revolver laid across his lap.
"Rock. Is Hotel Moscow done with you?"
"Yes."
"Should I expect a favorable assessment from Balalaika?" He is looking hard at him.
"I don't know why not," Rock says. "Unless Hotel Moscow is involved with whatever is happening with the police."
"They are," Dutch says. "There was a shootout between the Serbs and the cops. I just got a call that Balalaika's supply sergeant was there too. Some rookie cop was so nervous about booking him that he accidentally shot Oleg. It was fatal."
"Oleg... was shot?" Rock had not planned for that.
"They also found a cop shot with a 9-millimeter Makarov round- the kind that only comes in Russian guns. Chief Watsap is keeping the rest of the details secret. Won't take a payout from anyone for the info."
"How about the injured Serbian mafia member?" Rock asks. "Was it Bogdan?"
"I don't have the full story. I'm just one man. A man with a lot of questions right now."
"Is that why your gun is out?"
"No," Dutch says, and decocks the revolver, even putting it back into its holster. "If you could get here in one piece, I won't need it."
"Were you expecting someone to come in the door trying to kill you?"
Dutch opens his book again but allows himself one last response to Rock. "I had suspicions. I'm just one man, Rock. There's only so much I can know. That's my defense."
Defense?
Dutch keeps his neutral tone. "That reminds me. I got a call from Lotton. He sounded pretty urgent. Does he owe you something?"
"Something like that. Did he give a number to call?"
"He said he was at home."
At home? After the kind of job he had given Lotton, Rock would have left town entirely, not return straight home where anyone could find him. Dutch gives no sign that he suspects something, but Rock still hesitates before picking up the phone and dialing the number for Shenhua's place.
"When did he call?" Rock asks as he waits for the call to go through.
"An hour ago."
A bad sign. Something had gone wrong, and he would be late figuring it all out. The phone rings six times. Rock counts each ring with a rising level of concern. When it is answered, the line is silent.
"Lotton?"
"Yes," The Wizard says, voice wavering. "Your task was completed, but there were certain... complications."
Dutch must be listening to his side of the conversation. Rock stops himself from looking over and asserts control over his body language.
"That sounds unfortunate," he says. "What happened? Anything I can help with?"
"They saw me," Lotton says. "I must escape this city under the cover of night. But before that, I need funds. The sable wings of freedom will not beat of their own volition."
The wire transfer to Lotton's account wouldn't be accessible to him yet. He needed cash to make an escape.
"I might be able to help you with that," Rock says. "Stay where you are. I'll be over soon."
He hits the receiver with his hand and gets ready to dial up Ronnie's office for a cash loan before Dutch speaks up.
"I'm surprised you didn't get his message when I left it."
"What?" Rock feels a twinge in his rib.
"You don't have a cell phone, so I called Hotel Moscow's office and told them Lotton was waiting for a call from you. I thought you were still handling our business with them." Dutch looks over his sunglasses. "That shouldn't have been a problem."
Balalaika had plainly dismissed him yesterday, but not told Dutch. Why? Why would they hold on to that information, unless...?
She had goaded him into action last night, tired of waiting for his collaborators. His finger settles on the redial button. Of all the ways for his plan to be discovered, the lack of a cell phone was the worst. He had a gun. Why not have a phone?
He gets Lotton back on the phone right away. "What happened? Tell me exactly."
"I traveled to the location you told me to," Lotton says. "There indeed were several men meeting there. Yet at the last moment, I had a change of heart. Instead of directly taking a life, I fired into the air to startle the men into shooting each other. Even still, I was spotted by a second group."
Rock had used the phone and a few halfway-convincing accents to arrange a meeting between the police and the Serbian Mafia regarding their refusal to pay bribe money. In Rock's script, the shootout would have slowly drawn the rest of the city in, a fire spreading from that one spark. Instead, the Russians had taken the initiative and burned themselves first.
From there, it was all unraveling. Lotton was easy to identify and thanks to Dutch, they knew he was in contact with Rock. It would be too simple for Balalaika to put the scheme together. Even worse, with Oleg dead, she would be coming for revenge. Even with the Police trying to prevent them, they could easily slip across town and kill him with the initiative.
"I need that money," Lotton says. "Already I can see the skies darkening from this window of mine, the-"
His next word is cut off by a grunt. Then Rock hears the thump of something heavy falling. He waits for a solid second, expecting Lotton to continue his little routine as soon as he's picked up whatever just dropped. But then he remembers Lotton's last words- he had been standing at his window, looking into the sky.
"Are you still there?"
Pressing the handset into his ear, Rock thinks he hears Shenhua rushing to the phone. She says something in her own language and Lotton responds with a groan. He coughs weakly and there is a clatter again as he drags the phone to himself.
"They got me," he says. His voice doesn't sound good, with his breath ragged and his words coming with gaps in between. Rock can hear Shenhua shouting for Sawyer elsewhere in their house.
"The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me," he says, and his throat is filled with blood that he clears out with hacking coughs.
Rock's memory intrudes on the moment- he knows the words exactly, reading it as a schoolboy in front of class, words of archaic English from the Bible. There must have been a source for all of Lotton's theatricality for years. It does not matter at all now.
Lotton goes quiet, even though Rock can still hear his labored breaths fading. There are people fighting somewhere near the phone, the roar of a chainsaw and the shouts of men, followed by gunshots. Then there's a loud explosion, and the line goes dead. The blast force is strong enough that dust shakes from the ceiling.
"Lotton? Lotton? Hey..."
But the line is dead. Dutch is on his feet in an instant, approaching the window with caution. "What is going on, Rock? Give me a straight answer."
The rules are clear: Being in the Lagoon Company means keeping neutrality. Dutch is past suspicion and suggestion now.
Rock can't focus on answering. The phone call is still going through his head. Lotton was dead. Poor, guileless Lotton, who had never quite fit in. The job he had been given was simple, almost like a prank, with the killing left to be done by others. Hotel Moscow made no distinctions, and now the Wizard was dead, sniped at his window. Shenhua and Sawyer were caught up in the storm that followed.
"I don't need you to tell me anymore," Dutch says. "This is bad."
As if to confirm his intuition, there is the sound of several vehicles approaching the building. They both listen to the high-performance engines of cars as they surround the warehouse. Hotel Moscow was moving to get the other person responsible for their dead man.
"It's fine," Rocks says. "I'll give myself up."
Dutch only shakes his head as he listens to the boots hitting concrete and the jangle of soldiers' gear. The warehouse is being surrounded. Soon all of the motion outside stops. Rock isn't dumb enough to go to the window and peek outside. Dutch crosses his arms, standing in the unseeable corner of the room away from the doors and windows.
The phone rings again, its familiar sound sharp through tense silence. Rock answers it on mechanical reflex. "Lagoon Company here."
He hears a cigar crackle as someone draws a long breath through it. Then she exhales slowly. "I have nothing to say to you. Give the phone to your boss."
Dutch strides right past Rock's outstretched hand and hits the speakerphone button. "We're both listening."
"Good," she says. "Your employee has cost me dearly, Dutch. Although we have a history of respect, we both know that insubordination has a cost."
"What sort of losses are we discussing?" Dutch asks. "Is this something we can pay back?"
"I don't know, Dutch. Do you think a person can buy a human life?"
"That's slavery," Dutch says, "But blood prices-"
"You can't afford it!" Balalaika shouts, and even Dutch halts at hearing it. "You couldn't even pay back one drop of his blood."
Dutch chooses silence as she regains her composure.
"No, there is only one thing I need from you. Hand your employee over to my men. Then I can promise you will not be responsible for his damages."
For an instant, Rock can feel his worth being weighed behind opaque shades- through firsthand experience, Rock has seen his boss resign his own involvement when the personal risk was too high, and there has never been a better time to abandon dead-weight.
Then Dutch leans closer to the receiver. "There's been a misunderstanding here," he says. "If the death of your man had been planned, I would leave him at your 'mercy'."
He takes another look at Rock. "But I have my doubts. Not to mention my own personal standards. Rock is still my responsibility."
"Do I have to remind you that I have surrounded your offices with my forces? This call is only a courtesy."
"Even so, I'm not giving him up," Dutch says. "For the time being, he is still my employee."
The call from her office has urgent voices in Russian cut in on it. Balalaika shushes them before saying "Last chance, Dutch. You have a single minute to decide." She hangs up by letting the receiver down gently.
"Don't get me wrong," Dutch tells Rock. "I don't think you have a lot of time left in my company, but my insurance covers you up until we've all signed off on your dismissal. And I still have 45 seconds."
The one thing Rock had always known about Dutch: he stands by his word. Even now.
There is a pounding at the door. The voice of Boris comes from the other side, Balalaika's second-in-command sent to solve the problem. "This can still be resolved," he says. He must have rehearsed his English.
He keeps pounding on the door. Then Rock hears the sound of his radio. Boris stops, and then walks down the stairs with slow, heavy steps. The soldiers accompanying him rush up. They're going to storm the building, Rock can tell. He imagines them counting silently behind the door.
The soldiers do not attack. Instead, Rock hears gunfire from somewhere further away. A spray of bullets punches holes through the corrugated metal walls of the warehouse. He dives onto his stomach but the gunfire echoing in the street outside is not aimed for him. Dutch, too can crouch behind his armchair in relative safety. The Russians are the target.
He can tell the difference between the weapons now- he recognizes the different sounds as the ambush turns into a battle. The rifles of Hotel Moscow gather themselves into one group, while their enemy fires from an elevated position across the boulevard. He hears both sides shooting rifles at each other in brief exchanges.
Dutch crawls towards his shelf where he has been saving a single bottle of Ardberg Reserve. Just as he reaches an arm up to grab it, a stray bullet from outside comes through the window and shatters the whiskey bottle entirely.
His hand freezes in place, then settles to the ground. "You'll have a lot to answer for after all this is over."
"Won't we all?" Rock says. He rolls to his back and fishes his pack of cigarettes out. Somehow all of the gunfire is calming him.
"You could look more concerned," Dutch says. "You caused all of this."
The shooting is sporadic, loud bursts of noise that come between shouts of the Russians as they move around and behind the warehouse, each covering the retreat of the other. It must not be the police, who wouldn't know how to pull off an ambush. The sound of the rifles resembled Group X's, but Angel must be the last person expected to attack Hotel Moscow.
"They sound like G3s, don't they?"
"It has to be your master, then," Dutch says. "Mister Chang and the Triad, coming to pull your chestnuts out of the fire."
"He isn't the one backing me."
There's a rather small list of potential supporters and Rock watches Dutch consider them all in his head. He settles on the last option, the United States government.
"Oh, hell," he says. "Of all the choices..." Dutch frowns. "There's no question about it, Rock. You're off my team for good now. I've got no room for cronies."
"That's fine, but I'm just using them."
That makes Dutch smile wryly, shaking his head. "They all say that. You just don't realize it yet: you can't ever make that arrangement work for you. That's what happens when you reach for a higher power."
Rock takes his cigarette out of his mouth. "What do you mean?"
"You were in some deep trouble and you reached out to God," Dutch says. "That's cool, maybe you even knew that you were opening up a one-way connection. But you probably didn't realize that this wasn't one of those Shinto gods you get back home- you don't just make your offering, do a little ritual, and go home. You're in Church now, Rock, and you're not leaving, ever."
He says this like he has seen it all before. The fighting is tapering off outside, but other sounds are starting up from even further away—new conflicts. As long as they're both trapped here, Dutch will have his say.
"The God you prayed to is the one from the Old Testament, Rock. He asks and you obey, it won't matter how heinous a thing he wants. That kind of God doesn't ever work for you. Have you ever heard of Abraham? Anyone might end up under the knife when God calls the shots."
"But I wouldn't-"
Dutch shakes his head. "Oh, you can disobey an order from God, that much I'll admit. But that makes you an apostate, homo sacer, an outlaw." he turns wistfully to his shattered bottle of whiskey. "Roanapur is filled with people who once believed in something. So you see how much it annoys us to see someone like you coming back the other way, so eager to get into Church, ready to ruin our last hideout from God and His all-seeing eye."
Dutch generally refrains from sharing that much of his opinion, but this situation is special. Obviously, the war has started in distant parts of the city, but it's quiet enough nearby that Rock can rebut.
"But what about everything that happens here? The trafficked women and children, the people being killed? What about all of the darkness that comes from here? Don't you hate it?"
"Your naivete is showing, Rock. Everything that happens in Roanapur is happening in a hundred other cities and towns." He sits up, shaking his head. "Where do you think those Vampire Kids came from? 'Darkness' is everywhere."
Rock watches him pick pieces of glass out of their carpet as he speaks. He is bothered more by Rock and his lost bottle of expensive whiskey than the explosion of gang warfare outside.
"I should have realized your personal morality was incompatible with our professional ethics. Maybe I could have had Balalaika leave you in Japan."
Judging by the relative quiet, Boris' unit of Russians has retreated successfully, but neither of them will risk looking outside. Dutch has exhausted everything he's had to say.
"What are your plans after this?" Rock asks.
"Whatever it is, it'll be three times harder without Hotel Moscow backing me."
"Sorry."
"Don't say it when you don't mean it."
Their awkward silence ends only when they hear someone coming up the stairs. Rock freezes and Dutch gets his gun ready. There is a light knocking on their door. "Mr. Chang sends his regards, and wishes to add that he owes you nothing now." The feet rush back down.
Rock lifts his head. "The Triad beat Hotel Moscow?"
"The Russians retreated here," Dutch says. "That isn't the same thing as the Triad 'winning'."
At least they had given up on seizing him. That was good enough for the moment. He's still wary of approaching the windows to see what's outside. He checks his watch. Sunset will be upon them soon.
Footsteps rush up the back entrance to the boat launch. Dutch turns just as the door is kicked in and Revy bursts in, guns drawn. The two of them are looking down each other's barrels.
"Here for your man, Revy?"
"Yeah," she responds. "We still good?"
Dutch lowers his revolver. "His employment is done. I'm sorry to say it, Revy, but I can't keep you on either if you go with him."
"Well, he's not going solo," she says. "It's fucked out there."
Dutch gestures to the pot of coffee. "How about an exit interview? I don't have any idea what's happening out there."
"Alright." She holsters her guns, but the clasps are kept undone.
"Balalaika made the first move downtown, but the Triad was ready. All those police checkpoints are slowing down the Russians, and the Triad is fucking swarming with gangsters from back home. Everyone picked their side right away."
"Who is with the Russians?" Rock asks. "The Serbians? Nuevo Laredo?"
"Yeah, the Serbs, at least," Revy says. "They're not that far from here, holed up in neutral territory and shooting anyone out on the street."
"But Angel isn't out there?"
"I don't know," she shrugs. "I didn't find anyone who saw any Mexicans. And the tourists don't know shit about who is doing what."
"Did you hear about Lotton?" Dutch asks.
"Who's that?"
"The man who stayed with Shenhua and Sawyer."
"Shenhua? Did something happen to that bitch?" Revy asks, setting her cup down. "She lives right next to the Russians..."
"Lotton died," Rock says, the words strange in his ears. "I think I heard them fighting after that, but I don't know."
"How long back?"
He closes his eyes and tries to remember. "Maybe an hour"
"Fuck. That's before the shit hit the fan downtown." Then she realizes something. "How the fuck do you know?"
"He knows because he started it," Dutch says. "We all should have seen it coming. I guess you knew, too."
"Yeah," she says. "He just was calmer than I expected last night if he had this all planned out."
"I didn't," he says. "It was just supposed to be the police and the Serbs involved- Oleg wasn't supposed to be there and Lotton wasn't supposed to be caught."
Revy stands up. "Jesus, Rock, it doesn't matter what your fuckin' intentions were. We need to get you to Church. If you sit around here, anyone can snatch you for a bounty. Even Mr. Chang might sell your ass if it got the Ruskies out of the city." She yanks him to his feet.
Rock plots the path to the Church out in his head. "We'd have to go right through the middle of the fighting." Going directly north through the city would be going straight between the two sides.
"We're taking the short way.' She means east, to the rocky trail that went up the steeper side of the hill. It was far slower, a real hike through broken terrain.
"Right through Serbian territory?"
She grins. 'Yeah, all the way through."
"I knew you were crazy, but damn." Dutch sits back, crossing his legs. "Good luck, then."
"Thanks," Revy says. "If I ever see you at the Yellow Flag again... the first round is on me."
"Sure," Dutch says. "If either of you see Benny out there, tell him to get over here. I want to wait out this trouble in some other port."
Outside, Rock sees the beachfront street being guarded by a mix of Triad men and police officers. The two groups don't mingle, but they are cooperating enough to have each other's flanks.
Revy ignores them as she advances along the street. She must have already made their acquaintance. "I saw wops out by downtown, too. The action is too goddamn hot over there. We'll take the east road instead and keep you in one piece."
The air feels heavy as they walk, even though the breeze has already started picking up towards night. In the beachside cafes and bars, the tourists are pressed flat against the ground. Already, there is a corpse with a bloody tablecloth draped over it, probably a new arrival who got caught at the wrong time. Rock and Revy keep moving.
They reached a line of sandbags and armed men, rifles pointed forward. Revy is surprised to see Chief Watsap there. The chief is not happy to see her. "Just what I needed on a day like this..."
Revy waves her hand. "It's nothing bad. We just gotta get through."
Watsap snorts. "Get through? Thats the Russian side across from us. They have snipers!"
"Not right here they don't," she says. "Or else you'd already be dead. They shoot fuckin' commanders first.
"Suit yourself," Watsap says. "It's not like it's against the law to go walking in a bad place. But I'm not paying anyone if your pencil-pusher there gets hit, okay?"
"Not even the girls expect you to pay, Chief. You're that much of a cheap-ass."
Then she vaults over the sandbags, Rock climbing over them much slower. They cross the wide avenue in front of them and head north along the line of shuttered stores for a while before turning into an alleyway.
They take a break in the darkness of the alley and the sun finishes dipping below the hills to the West. The distant rattle of the fighters downtown does not let up for a moment. They both listen to the echoes, sheltered by the two buildings on either side of them. Then she goes to the corner and takes a look around.
"We're in," she says. 'Now comes the good part."