Hard Rayne : A Cyberpunk Spy Thriller (Hard Rayne: A Cyberpunk Spy Thriller Book 1) by T. Allen Diaz

Author:T. Allen Diaz [Diaz, T. Allen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackened Shield Entertainment
Published: 2021-04-14T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-five

The old man opened the backdoor of his business. I hadn’t been sure he would. He could not have liked me being here at this hour and coming to the backdoor implied much. “What do you want?”

Not as flowery at 3:00 am. “Help. Help I can pay for.”

I held out the pimp’s wad. He glanced at the money and squinted past them at me. “No IGC this time.”

“I’m keeping a low profile.” He passed an amused glance at my dress, and I said, “I haven’t been entirely successful.”

“So it would seem.” The old man opened the door and let me enter. The room was small and crammed with boxes marked in Chinese script. We passed through a door into a small, neat office.

“Very nice,” I said.

“It serves.” The old man sat on a stool by a workbench. “Now, what can I do for you?”

I kept my feet. “Some more hardware. A—medical reference.”

The old man frowned. “Still relying on your wits, rather than your benefactor?”

“Let’s just say my benefactor isn’t very beneficial at the moment, and I need someone I can trust.”

“Trust? You don’t know me.”

“Neither does anyone else I work with.”

“And if there’s a bounty? You trust me enough to keep my silence?”

“Not really, but you’re my best chance.”

The old man chuckled and motioned to my dangling extremity and the spot of blood on my stolen jacket. “Well, come sit by the bench here and let me look at that arm.”

“You practice medicine?”

“No, but I’ve patched up wounded before.”

I understood. “You’re a veteran.”

“I’ve served in different capacities over my life.” He leaned over the pressboard counter and studied my stolen clothes. “Where did you get these?”

“They were lying on the sidewalk.”

He shot me an incredulous glance and removed the jacket with care. “Through and through,” he said. “It still bleeds.” I winced at his touch, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I can patch this, but you’ll need to see a real doctor.”

“You have someone in mind?”

“Yes,” he said, “but first things first. Let me help you with the bleeding and close the wound. When did this happen?”

I flinched at another probe. “Last night.”

“Liu Zhang Wei didn’t get to be Fu Shan out of kindness.” He smiled at my confusion. “This isn’t such a large community. Liu Zhang Wei brokers all the Jade Boy contracts on behalf of the Shan Chu, especially to outside contractors.” The needle passed into my skin.

I managed to fight off this flinch by gritting my teeth. “So, why use foreigners in the first place?”

The old man smiled up. “Why have you turned to a man you don’t know?” He pulled the suture tight and started again.

I winced. “Because … he doesn’t have anyone he can trust.”

“And,” Kim added from behind the old man, “he can kill you without consequence.”

The old man smiled and started another loop. “Something like that.”

The needle passed through my skin, and I looked at the old man. “Is there a power struggle between Liu and Wu?”

“The powerful are never faithful.”

“That would have been nice to know before taking this damned job.

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