He got around it slow enough. “You remember when we was with Cold T’Jinj?” He asked. I nodded.
“You was pretty handy with all kind of ships those days,” he said. “You used to run the stuff up into the Nebula, right?”
“Me, Quiet Con and some more guys.”
“Yeah. But now Quiet Con is liquidated and most of the other guys too. Maybe. Or anyway, they are nowhere around to find. Probably none in New Bayou.”
“You might find somebody if you hunt through the McCoy Quarter.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “But I want the best and that leaves only you. Damn it Jon, this was a lucky night for both of us, hey?”
I couldn’t see my luck because all it got me that meeting so far was a few touches from the good old days, some names for the past and less credits in my wallet after paying Liam’s drinks. But I let it go.
“How would you like to make a million credits, Jon?”
I picked my vape from the table, stuck it in my breast pocket and started to get up. When the Liams of this universe start talking like that, it’s time to get out.
“Wait,” Liam was saying. “Wait a while Jon. Please sit down my friend, take it easy and let me show you…” And with one hand he was trying to pull me back into my chair and with the other he was pawing at his pocket, he sounded as if he was getting ready to cry.
I felt sorry for him so I sat down again.
He got whatever it was out of his pocket and sat there looking at me as if he wasn’t sure yet if he should show it to me. Then a kind of helplessness took over his face and he slumped back in his chair.
“I got to let you in on it, Jon,” he said. It’s the only way I got, the only way I know. You want let an old friend down, will you Jon?” his voice was shaking.
“Liam, don’t give me that old friend crap,” I said in a quiet voice. “For some reason you got a use of me or in your drunken mind you think you have. Now let’s put it on the line and see how it looks.”
“Okay,” he said. “I need a pilot who can handle any boat and knows the nebula as the back of his hand. There is enough dough in it and we can both get rich. You think I was lying about the million, but it’s on the level.”
I said nothing for a bit, just sat there looking straight in his eyes and trying to find I don’t know what. Truth is so rare in these short of places.
“Look, I don’t know what this is,” I said in the end. “But I know that there are running boats all around the Nebula. I know if they are running smoke, Garelan prostitutes. Spices. Perhaps some other kind of aliens. Perhaps viruses. I don’t want anything to do with all that shit. Find yourself another boy.”
He shook his head. “It ain’t none of those things,” he said. “It’s as big as all these things but… and that’s the best part of it, Jon, it ain’t outside the law.
I looked at him, he must be lying. “All right. Get to it,” I said.
And he pushed his hand across at me and spread something on the table.
A piece of leather, old and beat-up with all the blood and life gone out of it. It was covered with cuts and lines of some kind and burns. I looked closer and the lines started taking form. It all began to look like a kid’s drawing of the drainage system of the Nebula North on the edges of the 6DR85 system and on a corner of all the twist and cuts there was an X.
Read all Blood Bayou chapters in order, HERE!
Thanos' Pulp Fiction 