Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy(43)

“I know,” he said. He was still staring at the table, mortified.

I looked around at the empty restaurant.

“What, are the waitresses all gone?” I asked irritably.



Garm’s big meeting the next day was convened in the Belvaille Athletic Club, the exclusive establishment that only catered to bosses.

There was a very strict unwritten rule that thugs went to the Belvaille Gentleman’s Club and bosses went to the Belvaille Athletic Club, with no violence tolerated in either. It had been like that forever. You could sit down and have a drink next to a guy you had been fighting with an hour ago.

I shouldn’t have been allowed in since I wasn’t a boss, but these were bad times and it was the only building where the bosses all felt safe together. No personal bodyguards were here—Garm had provided security.

I showed up late because I felt like showing up late. I walked up to the club and there were at least twenty military personnel stationed around. And they weren’t being lazy, they were alert. Everyone was nowadays.

I actually had to give my name and ID to enter.

“Ah, my friend, good to see you,” Tamshius said. “You are looking well.”

There were about a hundred bosses in the room. It was pretty incredible. You could turn Belvaille into a respectable place in two seconds if you had a grenade.

There was statuary and crystal and artwork and brilliant metals on every square inch. However, unlike many bosses’ private establishments, the Athletic Club was refined. Subdued. It was the Old Money of Belvaille. It might well pass for a high-end country club on a respectable planet instead of being a haven for criminals. Bosses come and go, but the Athletic Club was eternal.

The Belvaille Gentleman’s Club, by contrast, was primarily where you ate, drank, bitched about work, and watched sports. It also had a perpetual, indescribable stench that clung to you long after you left the building.

“Nice of you to show up,” Garm said icily. I knew she hated me keeping her waiting, especially since she had to entertain a bunch of chauvinist lawbreakers who disliked her in principle because she was a cop—though not a very good one.

The bosses were all spread around the cavernous room sitting in luxurious chairs. A thirty-foot table was meant to be the center of the meeting, but most bosses had pulled their seats away in order to get as much space as possible. Even facing apocalypse they were catty and distrustful.

I walked up to the table and others slowly came closer as well.

“Good, let’s start,” Garm began. “We…what’s that on your head?” she said to me, surprised enough to interrupt her speech.

“A bullet,” I replied coolly. I had not removed it since yesterday. I was just going to wait until the skin popped it out. It was a good conversation starter if nothing else.

Everyone at the table was staring at me. I kept nonchalant. Besides, any facial movements threatened to squeeze out the bullet like an overripe pimple. Yup, I kill alien robots and get shot in the face. Big deal.

But then I looked over and saw Zadeck. He was trying to use the other bosses as camouflage.

“What the null is he doing here?” I yelled. The balls on that guy.

Garm looked around. She was obviously clueless as to the situation.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out my shotgun. The fifty bosses that had been at the table soon became five, the rest taking cover in a decidedly un-boss fashion.

At this, about a dozen soldiers who had been positioned in inconspicuous areas rushed forward with their rifles out.

“Put it down!” one of them screamed.

“Hold it. Hold it,” another said.

“I got a shot,” said one with a young voice who obviously didn’t know me.

“Hank, come on,” said a reluctant guard, who obviously did know me, “you’re making this difficult.”

“What are you doing?” Garm shouted. She got in front of me and forced my shotgun to the side. Now the last bosses at the table finally moved as my barrels swung across their positions. I wasn’t able to aim with Garm twisting my arm around, and she’d apparently had some real combat training because she did it with relative ease, despite me being vastly stronger than her. She just redirected my exertions.

“Zadeck put a hit on me. That’s how I got this souvenir,” I said, pointing towards my forehead.

Garm seemed surprised at this news, glancing over her shoulder briefly.

“Everyone here has grievances with each other, Hank. You know that. We all have to put them away for the time being for the greater good.”

“I’m not a boss. I’m me. And when someone shoots me, I shoot them back. And we see which of us dies first.”