The Lobster Place, New York City
2 pm
He was already there when I arrived, and smiled. "Glad you could make it. How's things?"
I smiled back, a little ruefully, as I carefully sat. I got my belly sliced, y'know. "Could be worse. I'm healing. Currently on light duties, though no-one's too sure of what that means in the Unit."
"Yeah, you should take it easy," he nodded, "New York needs you."
"I have to admit, Luigi, I don't know what to make of you," I admitted candidly. "You're unusually well-disposed towards cops, for a start. Definitely not your typical...you know."
He sighed. "Times are changing, my friend. The difference between me and, ah, others is that I know this and I know I must change with them. I came to know it a little over eight years ago." He paused. "On the 1st June, 2019."
I instantly recognised the significance of the date: Maria's birthday. He knew I knew.
He looked sombre. "Before her, my beloved wife gave me three fine strong sons, of whom I am proud. They work hard, in business or in school, to honour our family name. But then she came to me with the news that her fourth would be a girl. I laughed in delight and said that would make a nice change." We chuckled together, man-to-man. "She swatted me in that way she does, you have seen it." I grinned and nodded. "She told me that I was an idiota and that this would change everything for me; I nodded in all the right places and kissed her, thinking nothing more of it.
"But I did not know, did not truly understand, that she was utterly right.
"Not until my little girl opened her eyes and I saw the beauty of her," he murmured. "Francesca was right. In that moment my whole world changed. I changed. In that moment, I saw the old ways were crumbling. She was born in a time of instability, family feuds, business competition - not all of it fair - but I saw that there was a way out. I saw how businesses were changing, how there was much more transparency now." He barely smiled. "It's much harder to make a dishonest living now, and this will get worse as you and yours make progress. In a way, I saw the Unit coming...
"...so I made it happen."
"Do what?!" I couldn't help blurting.
He took a folder out of a briefcase and handed it to me. "These documents detail exactly where the start-up money for the Unit - all of it legitimate! - came from. There is a flash drive holding them in electronic form, too."
I hadn't been so stunned in decades. A Mafia boss had paid for a police unit?! But as I numbly scanned the documents, they all seemed genuine. Bernalli did have legitimate business interests, and the money trail was quite clear. "I...I see. But...why?" I had to ask.
"Because I saw that the Unit, or something like it, was inevitable," he answered. "In business a man learns to go with the flow or he is swept away. Organised crime is not what it was. But I knew I had to secure my daughter's future. I had to make this city safe for her. Bodyguards and guns are no longer enough. Changing the system was the only true answer. So I began moving funds, slowly, quietly, so my partners would not see until I was ready to tell them. That moment arrived last year.
"I was not so foolish or arrogant as to approach the Commissioner or the Senator directly, of course, for they would never have believed it and," he laughed, "who could have blamed them? An agent who told them his client preferred anonymity was all I needed."
"But...weren't you acting against your own interests?" I was baffled...because I could tell he wasn't lying.
"Not if those interests were changing, no," he shook his head. "I had noticed even before Maria's birth that my illegitimate interests were slowly losing ground compared to my legitimate ones. This is because the legitimate ones are more modern, more in keeping with our changing society. You have twelve years on me, surely you too have seen the way things are going." I nodded, still shellshocked. "A good businessman follows the market.
"But a better one anticipates. This is what I am doing."
The conclusion was obvious, if startling. "You're...going legit?"
"For Maria," he nodded. "If I do this, my only threats are of a business nature from competitors and for that I am well prepared. These threats will never place my little girl at risk. I swore to her as she suckled at Francesca's beautiful breast that I would change for her. I would change the way things were for her." He chuckled again. "Francesca swatted me anew and said, 'I told you so, idiota', and I accepted it because now I knew she was right.
"Even the Mafia have long recognised the necessity of a police force to keep law and order. A lawful, ordered society is a safer one, yes? So it must be for my little girl. Times are changing in your line of work also, as you know even better than I. For you, too, the old ways are no longer good enough." He shrugged. "Change is the way of life, and a man who does not see this is a fool. I am no-one's fool, my friend."
I couldn't help but chuckle at the best news I'd had since I was appointed Commander. Of course this did not mean Bernalli was going to hand over details of his illicit business concerns - I realised his people were probably hard at work sanitising them even as we tucked into a delicious lobster dish with a superb Chardonnay. I doubted we'd ever prove anything...and I was no longer sure it mattered all that much. If he went legit he was by definition no longer a police problem.
Naturally we would check all this, but I already knew what we'd find.
"My partners naturally protested at first, but it wasn't hard to prove to them that their profits would actually increase. Since that was their main concern, they dropped all objections and agreed. They, too, are not fools."
"And all because of one little girl," I marvelled. My voice softened. "She is beautiful, Luigi."
"I see so much of her mother in her," he said fondly, "but something in her eyes reminds me of me, and I am glad to see it. Already she has shown at school she is very bright. I intend to encourage her as a father should." He grinned. "Perhaps she will attend the Unit Academy one day!"
"Stranger things have happened," I grinned, and thought of Marie. Somehow he picked up on my thought.
"And our fiery little Streetcat, what is to become of her?" he wondered.
"She will be attending the Academy," I nodded.
"I would've thought she was too young, but...ah, I suppose you too are changing the world, eh?" he smiled knowingly.
"Luigi, I confess I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," I replied glibly. "Her records say she'll turn 16 on the very day the Academy accepts its next new intake. She'll be old enough. Just barely, but old enough."
"Mmm, what is that phrase the English are fond of...'that's my story and I'm sticking to it', yes?"
"Something like that," I nodded, and offered a toast. "To the Unit."
"May it ever Protect And Serve," he returned solemnly, and we clinked glasses (finest Gurasu crystal, I noticed).
Then Luigi looked even more serious. "There is one more thing I must ask, though I accept you may not be able to answer me. What of...them?"
I exhaled. It wasn't exactly a surprise that he would ask, or that he'd know; most likely at least one SWAT might've told him. "Well, that depends on the context:
"Is that bastard dead? Yes. I killed him myself.
"Are the others gone? Again, yes. They actually allowed Space Command to track them leaving, I reckon that was Swift Kill's idea.
"But...will they ever be back? Here or anywhere else on Earth?" I sighed deeply. "That I can't tell you, but only because I don't know. I tried to convince them that the danger of one of them being captured would increase as our technology gets better and we learn more about them, but..." I sighed again. "Dammit, Luigi, the powers that be - and I don't know who they are - reckon they've been coming for over 9,000 years, so what are the chances they'll stop now? I don't know. I just don't know. But one thing I do know:
"If they ever dare show their ugly faces in my city again, we will be ready for them. That's a promise."
I meant it. Luigi nodded slowly as he saw this. "I will accept that as a cast-iron guarantee, my friend. If they return, you will make them wish they had not."
"Damn straight," I growled.
New York City, Julie Lockwood Memorial Alley (newly renamed by the Mayor at the request of the Unit Commander)
Two nights later
"It's truly beautiful, Marie," I told her softly. Occasionally the Blues and the Unit forgot they were rivals and got together in bars and clubs. On one such occasion Maggie showed me the note she'd received, and said she was going to have it framed, as well as scanned and stored digitally; though I allowed not the slightest flicker of recognition to show on my face, I knew exactly who'd written it, of course. Marie's cursive penmanship was very distinctive, as she was left-handed.
And I totally agreed with the caption's sentiment, while being baffled as to how the hell she knew who Gerhard Richter was - or H.P. Lovecraft, for that matter. As for Don McLean and his beautiful 1971 musical tribute to Van Gogh, when had she ever heard that?
In a tricky operation, requiring exquisitely precise guidance software courtesy of Denny, we'd managed to manoeuvre a drone to take the tiniest possible sample from the letters in red on the caption, because I had a hunch that the red was not ink or paint, but blood, glazed to preserve it so the colour wouldn't fade or turn to brown as it dried.
I was right. It was Marie's. She had, quite literally, sworn on her own blood. I was glad of it; she'd decided not to succumb to grief and despair, but to live instead.
For Julie.
Her shrug was deceptively casual, but I knew better. "It was all I could do. Her folks buried them together, but they didn't know the baby's name." And after Julie's single, abortive attempt to introduce Streetcat to them, she was too proud to tell them, I knew.
"The system utterly failed them, Marie," I noted sadly. "I'm so sorry we couldn't help her, couldn't persuade her to let us help her."
"I know," she murmured. "Wasn't your fault. That bastard Mallory, he was the one to blame."
That statement changed my mind about something. If she was ever going to tell me, now was the time. "Who killed him, Marie?"
She made as if to speak, and stopped.
"Marie, part of the first stage of Unit training is to help our cadets put aside the past, so they can start with a clean slate and a minimum of baggage. Whatever you tell me, I will treat it as privileged information. That means I can never -"
"- use it in court or take action on it, I know," she surprised me. I hadn't thought she knew the terminology.
"So who did it?"
The answer didn't exactly surprise me. "I did." She looked defiant. "He deserved it, woulda got the same in jail!"
"That wasn't your call to make, Marie," I told her gently, though I knew she was right; at 15 Julie was legally a kid. Inmates hate child rapists.
Then again, so do cops.
"We have laws, courts, to make sure the right people receive the proper punishment. He was innocent until proven guilty..." Then a thought occurred to me. "Wait...oh, Marie, Julie lied to the Blues, didn't she? She did know who did it."
"Yeah, from his stink!" she spat. "Oh, yeah, she knew!"
"And that," I had to point out, "is exactly why she should have told them - because they would've pulled him in for questioning, taken a DNA sample, and he wouldn't have been free then to rape another woman two months later! Every rape victim owes it to his next victim to do her best to stop him! That's why we cops push so hard to obtain evidence, because it's not just about her!"
"We...we didn't think of that," Marie admitted in a very small voice.
I sighed. "I know. You were just kids. It's an adult's job to think things through like that, because we can, based on our experience."
"She was a virgin," Marie whispered, "at least with...with men...before he...and he hurt her...she was bleeding, between her legs, when we found her...I had to make him pay..." Dear God, what a way for a teenage girl to pop her cherry, I thought sadly.
Again, I changed my mind about asking her something. I had a sudden, very strong impression that she wanted me to ask. "You and Julie were lovers, weren't you?" Her tiny nod came as no surprise. "I'm sorry."
Marie accepted a comforting hug as I'd hoped she would. And at long last, after much, much too long, she let it all out, sobbing, grieving for her friend and her love.
We stood there, under Julie's beautiful portrait, right on the spot where she died, for nearly an hour. Finally Marie cried herself out, raised her head and, to my complete surprise, kissed me briefly. "Thanks, Kelly. I...I needed that," she admitted.
"We all do sometimes," I nodded, "and you're very welcome. All part of the job," I added with a mischievously official air, and she surprised me again by giggling. It was lovely to hear.
She'd be okay now, I knew. She could now accept Julie's death and move on as she should, get on with her life and make something of herself.
Denny had done us proud with his artful data manipulation; Marie Julie Simpson (her new middle name was Violet's idea) was now officially an orphan and ward of the state, officially just short of 16, and I was certain she'd pass the admission exam to the Unit Academy. She'd accepted the idea with great enthusiasm and was looking forward to it; Candy had offered her a spare room and the run of her apartment while she was in training. She'd happily agreed to pay nominal rent by working part-time for Tino, who was helping out by paying her nearly full-time rates. He's a good guy - solid, as they say on the street.
"Where did the gun go?" I asked for the sake of closure, both hers and mine.
She shrugged. "We sneaked into Kohler on West 22nd, threw it into a steel bath."
Very smart of them. The powder, wooden grip and any plastic would burn away; the gun itself would melt into the rest of the alloy, impossible to separate or retrieve; and any DNA would of course be vaporised by the heat. There would be a tiny amount of lead contamination from the bullets, but probably too low a level to be detected.
Marie added, "I don't know where No Change got it, and we could only afford three bullets. But three were enough. One for...for Julie, two for Mallory."
In other words, not even lead contamination because the gun was unloaded. The .357 had vanished as thoroughly as anything ever could, and without the murder weapon it'd be virtually impossible to make charges stick even if I had any intention of bringing them...which I didn't. What did it matter now? What would it achieve, sending such a talented girl to jail, wasting all that potential? Where was the justice in that? No.
"Okay," I told her, "no more questions about that. It's past. I want you looking to the future from now on, and I shall expect to see only your best effort, you got that?"
She looked askance at me, and suddenly the old Streetcat was briefly back, maybe she'd never left. "What are you, my dad?"
I laughed, and she grinned. But something in her eyes said: Damn, I wish you were...
I wished I could've been, too.
But if I couldn't be her dad, I could be her friend. And her mentor.
Now I was looking forward to her recruitment. I had a feeling we were both in for a hell of a lot of hard work...
...and a hell of a lot of fun, too.
CODA
The yautja vessel Hard Meat's Bane
Just passing Barnard's Star for astral fix, 6 light-years from Earth
Soon they would enter th'oka-tre, Starsleep, as the process of suspended animation between stars had come to be known. But before then, Swift Kill knew, there was a matter to discuss.
He could count upon Gk'redan, Hard Head, to be unreasonable. That was a given, as sure as sunrise on a living world. Br'ukel, One Blade (so-called because he eschewed the standard two-blade wrist gauntlet) would listen with wisdom and patience. Like Swift Kill, he was nearing Elder status, if not yet Wise Elder. The others would likely be evenly divided in their opinions.
The one Hunter aboard ship whose actions he could not predict - and, being no fool, would never presume to try - was Da'dkui-di, her name being the feminine form of 'large knife' - for she was that rare thing amongst yautja: a female who craved not suckers but the Hunt. Not for her the staying at home rearing young. She was huge even for a female, and strong. His rod rose involuntarily at the thought of her size and strength. Any male so foolish as to approach her with mating in mind would be well advised to do so equipped with a burner if he had not already earned her favours.
Taking a male's gonads was the least she was known to do in her fury on being approached uninvited. There were tales of one who had been found ripped bodily apart - and without any weapon.
Swift Kill believed it.
He had seen her tear into kainde amedha as if they were less than nothing. She scorned the pyode amedha, "too small and soft," she scowled. But as was the way with females, she was too smart not to know her own limits; when a male in sincere admiration had once declared she could surely battle a kainde amedha queen alone, such was her might, she laughed, effortlessly kicked him so hard he flew across the room and answered, "Fool! Not even I am so formidable! Close, though, I grant you!"
All, including the fool (with what breath he could spare!), laughed heartily at her jest, knowing from that last that she genuinely appreciated the sentiment and had taken no true offence. Da'dkui-di was what she was and could be no other. Would be no other.
It was hard to imagine who or what would best her in combat. He could only dream of what she would be like as a mate. No yautja even knew if she had ever mated. None dared ask. Not even Swift Kill.
"I call for discussion," he rumbled at last. The others turned to him in respectful attention, including Da'dkui-di.
"That, for you, is rare," she observed mildly - or as mildly as she was capable of. "You are one for direct action as a rule."
"True. It is the Way."
"It is the Way," all affirmed.
"But even for us, times can change and we must change with them."
"That is wisdom," Br'ukel nodded, clacking his mandibles in respect as he said it. Others nodded and clacked also.
Da'dkui-di frowned. "But...on the strength of the speech of but one? Pyode amedha, at that?"
For once, Swift Kill noted, she did not speak of oomans in a disparaging tone; her question was one of genuine curiosity. She wished to know his thinking in this matter.
He fully intended to enlighten them all. For he knew, as many of them did not, of the oomans' attempts to do what Young Blood's Final Prey had said others of his kind were attempting: to capture a yautja and thus steal the Hunters' knowledge. No other Soft Meat race had ever dared try it. The thought of capture, incarceration, was worse than death. Any yautja faced with such a prospect would activate the tch'da-rek, the Black Warrior's Door, the self-destruct, before he would allow that to happen.
The Wise Elders had studied the records of the previous attempts and had concluded the danger was minimal, insignificant. But somehow Swift Kill could not bring himself to believe that. With every encounter, every Hunt, the oomans learned more. Already they had a version of the new alloy, and would surely improve it given time. He remembered his own warning to Young Blood about underestimating them; was it possible the Wise Elders were doing so?
He hoped he was not being too arrogant in believing that it was.
"Come, Sa'shak-ssa," Da'dkui-di urged softly, "share your thought. What is the Path here?"
Sa'shak-ssa, 'Swift Kill' in the ooman tongue, sighed. "I...I believe the Wise Elders are mistaken. I believe what the Final Prey said, that there is a danger. I do not say we should heed all his words; Blooded warriors go to the Blue World, that is the Way. But...perhaps...the Way might change...if there were no other choice." He shook his head. "One thing even a newborn would understand: the oomans must not acquire our weapons.
"They would become a danger to us and to themselves, for they still know war. We progressed beyond war long ago, turning instead to the Hunt, and wise indeed our ancestors were to do this, for it saved us from self-destruction; but they are younger and so have not, not yet.
"But they never will, if they succeed in these attempts. One cannot succeed if one does not try, that is wisdom even a newborn should know. But if one tries and fails in his task, what should one do?"
"Try again," Da'dkui-di answered, "and again, and again, if the task is worth the effort, until one either succeeds or dies. That, too, is wisdom all should know. It is not unreasonable, I suppose, to suggest oomans know this also," she graciously allowed. "It took them not long to learn the ways of building from us in the Cold Land on the Blue World, and they were even younger then." She brooded. "You may be right."
It was rare for Da'dkui-di to agree with a male on anything, and so the others listened keenly, even Gk'redan. "But," he pointed out, "it is still the Wise Elders who must decide on this matter."
"At last, the Hard Head has had a little sense knocked into it!" Da'dkui-di chuckled, but for once her intent was not mockery. "No, Brothers of the Hunt, I do not mock, for Gk'redan speaks truly. But it is our words which will inform them, and so our words must be true, that the Wise Elders can thus speak the True Path." A human might have said 'garbage in, garbage out'.
"Sa'shak-ssa says there is a danger. I agree." She growled knowingly, "If you find yourself agreeing with me merely because I am Da'dkui-di, I advise you to stay silent. Agree with me only if that is what you truly feel in your heart," she warned them. "Lie in this and I shall send you to the Black Warrior myself!" This was no idle threat and all knew it. Several warriors agreed with her nonetheless, and she seemed convinced of their sincerity.
Others did not, while showing the proper respect that was her due - not as a female, not even as Da'dkui-di, but as the warrior she was.
The final count was in Swift Kill's favour: the majority were agreed, there was a danger. The Wise Elders must be made to see.
"And I believe there can be only one Path here," he finished, "and that is:
"On the next Hunt, a Wise Elder must journey with them!"
The shipwide howl of approval might almost have been heard on Earth.
The End (?)