The Jigsaw Assassin by Catherine Asaro

Author:Catherine Asaro
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, Crime & Mystery, Space Opera
ISBN: 9781982191962
Google: -zGxzgEACAAJ
Amazon: 1982191961
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2022-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

“I work on crew,” Angel said. “All day. I listen.”

“Good.” I passed her a decanter of ice water. We were sitting at the table in the dining room of the townhouse, eating dinner. She and Ruzik had been starving when I arrived home, but they had hesitated to take anything from the kitchen. “People talk in front of you, yah?” I asked. “Think you not ken.”

Angel stared at the decanter I’d given her, then looked up at me. “Need filter?”

“Water here all good. Not poison. Not make sick.”

She sat holding the decanter while the condensation dripped onto her plate.

Ruzik, in the chair next to her, gave an exasperated grunt. “Pour! Or give.”

She exhaled and filled her glass with water. “This for rich slicks.”

“For everyone,” I said. “Lot of water here.”

She gave me a skeptical look, then handed Ruzik the decanter.

“We should talk in Flag,” Ruzik said. “I’ve been practicing with people.”

“Today?” I asked. “I thought you were going to pretend you didn’t know Flag.”

He gave me a guilty look. “People stopped at my table in the kava shop.” He motioned as if writing. “They want me to sign my name for them.”

For flaming sake. “You were giving people your autograph?”

“Au-to-graph?” Angel made the word a joke.

“Write name,” Ruzik explained, as if this ranked among the most bizarre practices of city slicks. “I didn’t put my name. I put Dust Knight.”

“Good.” I blanched at the thought of them giving their names. My Undercity roots went too deep. “So did either of you notice anything interesting today?”

“Not sure,” Angel said. “People talky all the time. Most of it not big.” She paused. “I mean, most of what they talk about with one another doesn’t seem important.”

“Yah,” I said. “We call it small talk.”

“Very small,” Angel said.

“Did anyone talk about the bombing?” I asked.

“Everyone. They think people called Progs did it.”

“Everyone believes that?” It bothered me. No one knew yet about the lead that pointed at the Templars, so why assume the Progs did it when the Royalists supposedly took credit? “The Progs said they didn’t do it. Don’t people know that?”

“Not believe.” Angel shrugged. “Not trust Progs.”

“I only talked to a few people,” Ruzik said. “They thought the Royalists set the bomb.”

“Did anyone talk about the Traditionalists?” I asked. “They’d call them Trads.”

Angel smirked. “Men on crew not like Trads.”

“No one I talked to mentioned them,” Ruzik said. “They called themselves Modernists. They said the ‘Mods should distance themselves from the entire mess.’”

“So they don’t think the Mods had any connection to the crimes?” I asked.

He grimaced. “They didn’t seem to think the Mods had any connection to anything.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sometimes it seems that way.”

“Lot of people around co-op,” Angel said. “Many watch.”

“Yah,” Ruzik agreed. “Some sat in the kava place where I eat.”

Angel regarded him with curiosity. “These kava people just give you food?”

“For credits.” He glanced at me. “I give them the ‘credit number’ thing. They take.”

“Is good,” I said. “Majda pays.” The credit line the Majdas provided more than covered our expenses.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.