Going Going Gone by Jack Womack

Author:Jack Womack [Womack, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780575132368
Google: Gm61ZDrjTqAC
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2013-04-28T12:00:00+00:00

SIX

»You’re working up a sweat, Walter,« Bennett said. »Taking too much of something?«

»Yeah. You.«

We hooked up in a gloomy knock’emback called the Expressway Bar, down at 40th and Eighth, just below the last Manhattan exit ramp before the Robert Moses Bridge. At my demand Martin arranged a meet and greet when he hit town the next Monday. As punishment, though, he showed up with his dopey sidekick; and while he’d left Hambone and Chuckles back in the swamp, Sartorius hitched a ride as well. I hadn’t wanted to let those louts in on anything I had to say but there was no getting out of it, and it wasn’t long before I understood why.

»What is it, Walter?« Martin asked. From the moment he parked himself he sounded peevier than usual; he hadn’t given himself the usual close shave that morning, and a faint five’o’clock darkened his dome. Whole time he sat there he tapped out a semblance of a beat with his fingers against the top of the table – he’d lived too long in DC to have any sense of rhythm left.

»Before I go any further with this you’ve got to fill me in on

what the long-term goal is.«

»With what?«

»With Jim Kennedy. What’s the master plan?«

Sartorius sipped his coke and tried on a variant sneer. His expression made me wonder if he’d slipped a blood sample of mine under the microscope and didn’t like what he saw crawling. Bennett looked unnervingly calm, as if he were already in on the joke. Martin was sweating, though it wasn’t hot. »Family reunion,« said the weasel. »Leave it at that, Walter.«

»Why is this bothering you now?« Martin asked, his voice raw. Sounded like he’d been up three nights in a row preaching.

»Always bothered me,« I said. »I’m just being more upfront about it.«

»Treat it like all your assignments,« he said. »Drive in the nails and don’t worry about what you’re building.«

»My brothers, mayhap you don’t get me. What I’m saying is, if you don’t tell me what I’m doing, I’m not going to do it.«

Sartorius held his fork tightly, as if ready to spear out my eyes, but he didn’t budge an inch. Bennett cracked his knuckles. »What’s the matter, Walter? Turn over a rock and find your conscience?«

»You can’t quit, halfway through the assignment,« said Mar-tin.

»Look, I was squeezed into this assignment, it didn’t fit me –«

»You let yourself be squeezed.« He had nothing to add; I didn’t like the way he wasn’t looking at me when he spoke to me. That’s never a good sign. I couldn’t get why he acted like he was almost taking his cues from Benny. »Walter, you didn’t answer my question. Why is this starting to bother you now,

when it’s never bothered you in the past?«

»You know as well as I do this isn’t the usual gig,« I said. »Generally, I don’t have to see who the joke gets played on. Jim’s family may be straight out of Charles Addams but he himself isn’t hurting anybody –«

»Not presently,« Bennett said.

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