The store looked like any other cheap newstand, with rows of shelves, the magazines grouped by type from the harmless to the prurient, and a low box rack for comics. The ownership had only recently changed, so the facade hadn't yet taken on the grimy hopelessness of its neighbors. The glass was clean, the name on the window was unchipped and lacking no letters. Other than this, nothing marked it as anything but another struggling enterprise on the street.

Vicious knew better. The owners of this tiny storefront also owned the building behind it and the stores on either side of it, and the proprietors of the magazine stand were employed to do much more than sell a few magazines. There was little or no money in print media in this technological age, even in this neighborhood. Profit, here, came from the sale of weapons.

The plump, pleasant woman he could see behind the counter, along with her square-faced, handsome husband, were experts in the business of firearms. Long ago, they had become friends with a man who appreciated their particular field of interest. Mao Yenrai had risen in the ranks of one of the Martian syndicates to a point where he could afford to allow these two friends to play storekeepers, live in secret style, and stock and store an armoury for the syndicate's use. That was the man Vicious ultimately wanted to reach, and this was a good place to start.

Rafe had told him about the shop, and about the lucrative sideline of Henry and Anastasia Jacobs. He'd pointed it out casually one day, and when Vicious had given him a skeptical look, suspecting humor, Rafe said, Boy, a syndicate is like a snake under a box. You can't see it. You see the box, and it might be a plain one, or a fancy one. Either one, you pick it up, and there's the snake underneath, deciding whether you're worth biting or not.

Mao Yenrai and the Jacobses were members of the Red Dragons. Rafe had been working for the Dragons when he'd died. Rumor said Yenrai rewarded loyalty, so that connection was a possible edge, and Vicious knew needed every edge he could get. Besides, there was a kind of balance in his going to work for the last syndicate Rafe had worked for.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered inside, using the comfortably stoop-shouldered posture that let him pass unnoticed even with his unusual coloring. There were only two customers in the store, a little blonde girl and an old woman who was talking to Annie Jacobs. The little girl gave him a long, measuring stare with eyes that looked much older than her apparent years before turning her interest back to her fashion magazine. From the counter at the back of the store, the two female voices rattled on, Annie's sympathetic, the customer's determinedly cheerful. They were talking about the girl, he realized. Her parents had both died somehow, and this woman, her grandmother, had taken her in. Annie was gently teasing her, "And what do you think you're going to do with a girl her age, Sarah? She'll want to go places, and do things, in a few years. Parties, boys. How are you going to handle that?"

"I'll just have to find a way. I'll depend on her friends. Maybe trade with their parents, rides for some of my cherry cobbler. She'll make lots of friends. She always has, everywhere she's gone."

"It'll be a change for her, settling in one place after the way your son and his wife dragged her all over the planet."

"I'm not worried. She's a good girl, she'll learn to like it."

Annie gave a comfortable chuckle. "You'll spoil her rotten."

They were talking as if the girl wasn't there, although if Vicious could hear them, the girl, who was no more than a few feet away, could certainly hear them as well. Yet she kept on flipping casually through her magazine as if oblivious. Or as if she didn't care. With nothing better to do than wait, Vicious stared at her, curious. She glanced at him once more, dismissed him as being no threat, and went on reading.

The old woman slid off the stool at the counter with the exaggerated care of the frail and elderly. "Julie? Honey? Did you find one you liked?"

The girl set aside the magazine she was looking through and picked up another one, much bigger and more glossily expensive. "Yes, Granma. Can I have this one?" Her voice, like her eyes, was older than her years, low and calm, with none of the piping enthusiasm of the young.

Granma assured her she could have any one she wanted, Annie refused payment, insisting it was a gift, and the the old woman and the girl left contented, waving goodbye. Vicious waited through the whole routine, his impatience carefully tucked away where no one would see it. (Rafe: You ever watch a cat hunt a mouse, boy? Talk about patience. A cat'll stay in one position, perfectly still, for hours. Whatever it takes to make that mouse think it's not there, that it's just a lump in the ground. Then when it pounces, that damn mouse is totally fucking surprised. And dead. That's a good thing for you to learn to do. You got the knack.)

As soon as the door closed behind the pair, Annie Jacobs turned her eyes to Vicious, and her expression had changed completely. Gone was the pleasant smile and the warmth, to be replaced by a hard suspicion. "What are you here for? You aren't buying, that's for sure."

She didn't miss much, and one of her hands was hidden under the counter. He adjusted his opinion. He wouldn't underestimate her.

Strolling over, he hitched up onto the stool and rested his elbows on the counter. "I want to see the man in the back," he said.

She snorted. "There's no one in the back. Just a little storeroom with some of my stock."

"You're wasting my time and yours. I know what really keeps this place going."

"What keeps it going is a lot of hard work and not letting young vagrants hang around. Get out, or I'll call a cop."

"That's the last thing you'd do." Reaching under his coat, he pulled out the Colt, carefully, using two fingers, and placed it on the counter between them. "You may have seen that before."

She'd tensed when she'd seen the sheen of the gun, and she didn't relax when it was out of his hand. "If you're trying to rob me, you're going about it in a funny way," she said dryly.

"Look at it," he said.

"If you're trying to sell, this isn't a pawn shop, either."

"Just look at it. You may have seen it before."

She picked it up, not clumsily like an amateur, but with a good firm grip, checking that it was loaded with a mere flicker of her eyes. Then those eyes widened, and she looked back to him, a smile blooming. "I thought I knew you! You're Rafe's Little Spook, aren't you?"

"People used to call me that." He held out his hand for the Colt.

She put it in his palm, friendly now. "Everybody wondered where you disappeared to, when he died. I'm sorry, kid. We all liked him."

"Yeah." He put the Colt back in its place, hiding the anxiety he'd felt when it had been in her hands. The gun was the only thing he valued.

"So what are you here for?"

"I told you, to see the man in the back."

"And I told you, there is no man there. Just a storeroom."

"I want a job."

"Does this look like the kind of place that needs help?"

He never saw the signal, even though he was watching for it. He only saw her expression suddenly change again. "Tell you what, kid. I can give you a job - cleaning out that storeroom. Want to take a look at it?"

"Sure."

With a kind of rough sympathy, she said, "Are you sure about that? That storeroom is such a mess, you might never come out again."

"I'll take my chances."

"You'd better give me that toy to hold, then. You can't trust anyone in this world."

"So why should I trust you?"

"No reason at all. It's just another of life's decisions, Spook."

"My name is Vicious."

She made an inelegant noise, then looked at him speculatively. He handed her the Colt again, watched her hide it in a panel behind the counter, and followed her into the back.

As he expected, he was met by two men and thoroughly searched. His other weapons were all taken away, and he never saw them again, which later made him grateful to Annie for protecting Rafe's Colt from that fate. The men weren't gentle, and he had a few bruises by the time they dragged him to the back of the storeroom. He was knocked down to keep him from knowing how to open the hidden door, and it was swinging open by the time he got to his feet again. He memorized the faces of the two. He'd deal with them later, when he was in a better position to strike.

His first glimpse of a syndicate executive might have been disappointing, if he hadn't been taught by Rafe. They don't have horns and a forked tail, boy. Don't let the words fool you. Lots of nice words, they've got, but when you come right down to it, dig down past all the honor and the power, the syndicates are all about money. And half of them look like damned accountants. Don't let that fool you, either. This one looked exactly like Vicious thought an accountant should, right down to the hunched position behind a scarred old desk and the little wire-framed glasses sliding down his nose. He was on a phone, a genuine antique, listening to someone and saying nothing. Then he hung the unit up and looked at Vicious, and his mouth smiled, but his eyes were expressionless, like black buttons on a doll's face. "Rafe's Little Spook," he said, sounding pleased. "Who would have thought you'd show up here?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

One of the bodyguards raised a hand to strike him, and Vicious stared at him, waiting. But the man behind the desk held up a hand. "Why don't you let me ask the questions, kid, and you just answer, and we'll get along a lot better. Why are you here?"

"Looking for a job."

"But why with us? You live in Tiger territory."

They know where I live? "I live wherever I want."

"That's not an answer."

"Rafe liked doing business with the Dragons. He said they paid best, and kept their word."

"He was working for us when he died."

"I know that."

"You don't have any thoughts about getting revenge for it?"

"Would Rafe?"

The man stared at him a moment in silence, and then another smile crossed his face, a genuine one this time. "We have a real tough application form for you to fill out. But I have a feeling you'll do just fine. Go out the front of the store and wait. A car will come and get you. And Vicious - leave the gun with Annie for now. I'll let you know when you've earned the right to carry it."

The Red Dragons "application form" was several weeks of training and torture. The average amount of time it took someone to "apply" was five weeks; Vicious finished in three, with a new respect for the organization of the syndicate, but a diminished opinion of the men who worked for it. They were loyal, but none of them were the equal of Rafe. Not even close. He came out feeling superior, but he kept that feeling off his face and out of his attitude. He was only 16, and with no experience as far as the Dragons were concerned, so for now, a low profile was best. He didn't resent it. Rather, he planned to use it. Rafe had told him, Don't look to no one to take you seriously until you've got some years and inches on you. Most people are stupid, they don't see past the surface. You can use that, fool 'em. But you let it get to you, then you've lost the game. Vicious had no intention of losing any game.

That included his first real assignment as a Red Dragon. He was given a simple drop. Carry a payment to a certain location, exchange it there for a package, and drop that off in a bus station locker. Simple. But he knew better, again from Rafe. I don't know why, but a lot of guys think their first assignments are going to be a cakewalk, like the syndicate's going to ease them in. Bunch of shit. The first assignments are like evolution, boy. You know what I mean? In evolution, ol' Mother Nature throws everything she's got at a species. If it makes it, she knows that species is fit to live. If not, then it dies out, and no harm done. That's what the first year or so of being a syndicate man is like. They want to know who's fit enough, smart enough, to be allowed to work for them. They don't want to have to babysit anyone. Every guy's got to pull his own weight. The first assignments, they weed out the good men, the survivors, and kill all the rest without the syndicate having to waste any bullets.

Now he stood hidden at one end of an alley, like any one of hundreds he'd explored when escaping from the orphanage, and because he was familiar with all the sounds and smells of an alley like this one, he knew he wasn't alone there. He didn't hear, see or even smell anything suspicious, but he knew anyway. The lack of rats scampering would have told him, even if his instincts didn't. He'd been dropped off weaponless, told that this was a friendly situation. But these parts of town yielded many weapons, and his hands found them in the shadows and hid them in the pockets of his coat.

At the other end of the alley, his contact appeared soundlessly, a boy several years younger than him, carrying a bundle wrapped in paper and tied with twine. As agreed, he came halfway into the alley, then, not seeing Vicious, sat on an overturned crate and lit a cigarette, the package in his lap. Vicious stepped from the shadows, and the kid jumped, the dim light from the street reflecting from a blade in his hand. Then he relaxed. "They said you had white hair, and I didn't believe it." He gave a short laugh. "You got the woolongs?"

Vicious slid the card from his pocket, handed it over, and accepted the package. All very simple. The kid trotted off, but Vicious didn't pick up the package. Instead, he turned to meet the enemy he expected.

There were only two of them, both with their weapons drawn. Vicious put on an expression of stunned stupidity. "What...? What is this?"

"Go on out of here, leave those receipts, and you won't get hurt. It's that easy, kid."

"But I'm supposed to bring them... I mean..."

His confusion allowed them to move closer. "We know what you mean. Tell your bosses you were outnumbered. It's true enough."

Vicious backed, pretending fear, until the crate was between him and the men, his hands going into his pockets. As he thought, their attention was more on the package than on him, although only one of them actually glanced at it. They took another step forward, and now they were within reach.

In one movement, Vicious pulled both hands from his pockets and leaped toward them, using the crate as a springboard. His left hand flung dog shit into the face of the nearest man, and his right arrowed toward the neck of the other. The broken bottle in his fist plunged deep into flesh, and the gush of blood that erupted told Vicious he'd hit his target and would have nothing to worry about from that man.

The first man, cursing, had dragged the stinking muck from his eyes and was turning toward Vicious, leading with his weapon. A well-placed kick didn't dislodge the gun from the man's hand, although he fired reflexively, the silenced weapon making a sound like a stifled spit, the bullet sending dust and shards from the nearest wall. The second man was staggering, and Vicious dodged behind him as the gun spat again, the flash as bright as sunlight. The split second before the twice-killed man fell, Vicious again reached into his pockets. His right hand threw two eggshells to one side, and in the moment the gunman's eyes followed the white movement, Vicious' right hand struck with the short piece of pipe, breaking the fingers around the butt of the gun. Gun and pipe both went flying in different directions.

The crack of bone didn't bring a scream, only a curse, but the man had more guts than brains. He stupidly plunged to the side, reaching for the gun with his good hand. Vicious leaped and kicked in a movement Master Sam had taught him long ago. His extended toes hit the man's ribcage with all Vicious' weight behind them, driving broken bone into the lungs. The man staggered, his hand coming up instinctively to shield the hurt, and Vicious caught his wrist, twisted, broke the arm, and then drove an elbow to the base of the skull. The man fell like a stone. Stepping lightly back, Vicious picked up his package and left for the bus station.

As soon as he walked in, Annie put up the "Closed" sign, staring at him wide-eyed. "What the hell did you do, kid?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, go on through, they're waiting for you."

As before, two men were there to search and escort him, but this time no effort was made to hide the secret of the latch that opened the inner door. That was either very good or very bad. The man behind the desk had company, a reedy man with long dark hair and hooded eyes, slouched casually on one corner of the desk, lighting a cigarette. He was the one who spoke. "I heard you killed someone yesterday."

"Two, I thought."

"No, the other one lived. Why didn't you finish him? You had two guns laying right there."

"That wasn't part of my job. I was told not to overstep my bounds, just do the job. I did."

"You were also told never to kill anyone without sanction, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Yes? That's it, just yes?"

"Yes."

"The penalty for doing that is not a pretty one."

"I know."

"And that doesn't worry you?"

He shrugged. "I had to kill the guy to make it out of that alley alive. If you want to punish me for that, I can't do anything about it."

The two older men looked at each other. The man behind the desk said, "I told you, Kito."

"You weren't kidding. Tell Annie." Kito stubbed out the cigarette and rose from the desk edge in a rolling, casual movement that reminded Vicious strongly of Rafe. "You're with me, kid," he said. "Can you work in a team, or do I have to beat that into you?"

"I don't know," Vicious answered honestly.

"Come on, then."

In the store, Annie waited at the front, ready to let them out. As they passed her, she reached into a pocket in her skirt, pulled out Rafe's Colt, and handed it to Vicious. Vicious couldn't help a smile as the familiar weapon came back to his hand and the man named Kito didn't even glance his way.

He was in.

Continue with Prelude, Part Ten.

Return to Fanfic Main Page

Return to Wild Horses