The Game Players of Meridien Read online

  “The first time I came here, I chose veal sweetbreads. I’d never tried it and frankly, the idea of eating the thymus gland of a baby cow had always seemed revolting.” I smiled at the memory. “I figured that if I was ever going to give it a chance, this would be the right place.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “I loved it. I’ve ordered it every time, since.”

  She raised an eyebrow and gave me a grin. “Something I’ve never had, then,” she said.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” I rose from my seat and wandered slowly through the room toward a stairwell. I found the washroom, washed my hands and returned to my seat, sampling the air.

  They had been here, just as I hoped. They had sat at a large table near the entrance. I noted the video cameras discreetly placed along the ceiling.

  Perfect.

  The company was pleasant, the service impeccable, the meal exquisite. Jennifer ordered sea urchins, and though she frowned when she put the first, tentative bite into her mouth, she quickly breathed a sigh of relief and obviously enjoyed the meal.

  I enjoyed it too, though I had some difficulty following the conversation. I liked the way Jennifer’s eyes flashed in the candle light. I liked the way she looked. Jennifer laughed easily and seemed well versed on subjects ranging from sports to music to business affairs to government policy but I had other things on my mind. “So,” she finally said, “Am I boring you?”

  “What?” I felt myself blushing.

  “You’ve been picking at your food. You haven’t said very much and frankly, you look like you’re a million kilometers away.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I meant it. She deserved better than a companion who ignored her. I considered for a second. “One of my facilities was firebombed a few days ago. It’s been on my mind.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t know that. Tell me about it.”

  No point in keeping it a secret…She listened without saying a word until I finished. “No clues?” she asked.

  “No.” Not entirely true, but though I thought her intelligent and attractive, I didn’t know Jennifer very well, and some things were better kept to myself.

  “And nobody has declared challenge?”

  “Challenge has been declared. The principals have chosen to remain anonymous,” I said.

  “Is that allowed?”

  “It’s unusual but it’s not against the rules.”

  Her eyes skittered around the room, as if searching the corners. “Sort of puts a damper on the evening,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  She gave me a half smile. “I’ve had a good time, but maybe we should call it a night.”

  I sighed. “Very well.”

  We finished our meal and I drove her home in silence, feeling mild frustration. I had enjoyed her company. It wasn’t Jennifer’s fault that I was preoccupied. I didn’t expect an invitation up to her apartment and she didn’t give me one. She exited the car, seemed to hesitate and then leaned into the window. “Call me when you have things settled.”

  “I will,” I said.

  I watched while she walked inside the building and then I shrugged and drove back to Arcadia. I had things to discuss with the management.

  The manager seemed reluctant at first but it was a Guild issue. In this, I outranked him.

  They brought in the security disks and left me alone in a private office. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for: a party of eight men and three women had sat at two adjacent tables. They were all young. They had laughed and talked and seemed to enjoy the meal. I asked the manager to come back in.

  “Were you on duty that night?” I asked.

  He puffed his cheeks out, frowned. “Yes.”

  “Do you remember these people?”

  He peered at the screen. “Vaguely.”

  “Who made the reservation?”

  He pointed to one man, tall, dark haired, with a prominent chin. “That one.”

  “His name?”

  The manager consulted his ledger. “Derek Landry.”

  “What can you tell me about them?”

  He looked surprised at the question. “Nothing.”

  “Look at them,” I said. “They’re young and physically fit. They’re well dressed, but not quite in the latest fashion. They seem sure of themselves. This is not the first time they’ve walked into an expensive restaurant. They know each other. None of them look alike, so they’re probably not related. Friends, then, or at least colleagues.” A prosperous, professional hit team, I thought, but I kept that thought to myself. “Did they say anything?”

  The manager frowned. “Not to me; nothing aside from the usual introduction, not that I remember. They did have an accent, though.” He thought about it. “More than one accent, actually.”

  Something useful, I thought. Maybe. “Could you place these accents?”

  “I’m afraid not. We get a lot of people here from all over the world. We’ve even had some from other worlds.” He smiled. “The Empire consul dines here rather frequently. I didn’t pay them much attention.”

  I leaned back in my seat and considered the faces on the screen. The resolution was just a little too low for me to read their lips but the video could probably be augmented. “Please send in the wait staff, one by one. And make a copy of this recording. I’ll pick it up on my way out.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  The waitress was next. Her name tag said Selene Reynolds. She was young and pretty, with a strong jaw and black hair. Her eyes darted around the room before settling on my face, attentive and alert. They wouldn’t hire idiots at a place like this, I reflected. I waved my hand at the screen. “Do you remember them?”

  “Yes.” She gave a faint smile. “One of them tried to pick me up.”

  She really was very pretty, dark hair, dark, smoky eyes accented with just a touch of makeup. “I imagine that’s not uncommon,” I said.

  She grinned. “No.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Not much. He was polite about it. Most of them don’t push when you say ‘No,’ as long as you do it with a smile.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  Her eyes grew serious. “I didn’t hear much. They kept their voices low when I was around. A couple of comments about ‘doing the job’ and ‘going home.’”

  “Where was home?” The key question.

  She shook her head. “No idea. Not around here, though. They all had accents. They’re not local.”

  “Your manager noticed the same thing. He said that there was more than one different accent.”

  She frowned, considering. “There were at least two, maybe three. They were together but they don’t come from the same place, I’m sure of it.”

  Not stupid at all, I thought. “Are you Guild?” I asked.

  Her smile grew wide. “Since last August. I’m the first in my family to be chosen.”

  “Then why are you working here?”

  “I want to finish school. It’s either pay for it myself or have the Guild finance me. I’d rather not owe them the money.”

  “But you’re wasting time.”

  “Not really. I work three shifts a week. It doesn’t interfere with my classes and the money is good.”

  “Which Guild are you?”

  “Cereus.”

  “A good organization. They’ll watch out for you.” Cereus was well run and sound, if a bit stodgy for my tastes. I sat back and considered. This was all very well, but it wasn’t helping me with my problems. “Anything else you can add?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Thank you, then.” She nodded, rose to her feet and left.

  None of the rest were any help at all, their attention on the trays they carried, the food they placed on the tables and the time remaining until the end of shift. After an hour, I concluded that there was nothing else to be learned, picked up the recording at the front desk and made my
way home.

  Chapter 6

  “They’re careful,” Curtis said, his eyes fixed on the tape. We had blown up the images until they were crystal clear. At this magnification, we could read their lips but they weren’t saying much. Only once did any of them reveal something that might have been worth pursuing. A very young-looking man with a short beard and curling black hair sipped from his wine glass while a faraway look came over his face. He said, “This reminds me of the wines from my home village.”

  Derek Landry, or whoever he really was, gave him a hard look. “We don’t talk about our home villages.”

  The bearded young man looked embarrassed. “Of course,” he said. Their talk after that revolved around the food, tourist attractions and the physical attributes of the waitresses. I watched as one of them tried to pick up Selene, which curiously annoyed me. As she had said, she smiled and turned him down gently.

  “Not much help,” I said.

  Curtis paged through a folder of photographed pages, which I had copied from the sign-in book at the botanical garden. “The names will be phony,” Curtis said, “if they even bothered to sign.”

  “Run them anyway. Maybe they were stupid.”

  Curtis rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

  “Cheer up,” I said. “We know a lot more than we knew before.”

  Curtis grudgingly agreed. “If we publicize the faces, we might get a reaction,” he said.

  “We might not like the reaction. Let’s hold off. Run the names and the faces. And find out what wines they drank, the ones that might remind a sentimental hit man of his home village.”

  “Of course,” Curtis said.

  “Mr. Oliver?” It was a deep but faintly disapproving voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Guild Master Anderson would like to meet with you. Would this morning at ten o’clock be acceptable?”

  I had a meeting set up with a supplier, but my admin, Benedict, could handle it. “Certainly,” I said.

  “Thank you. We’ll see you then.” The phone clicked off.

  I had met Guild Master Anderson just once, at my induction ceremony. He had shaken my hand, given me a vague smile and presented me with a membership card and a pin. All very uplifting. He was said to be over three hundred years old, but nobody knew for sure. Certainly, he appeared in public more rarely than he used to, and when he did appear he seemed frail, but all attempts to oust him from the leadership had so far proven futile.

  I showed up at the appointed time and knocked on the door. A thin, querulous voice said, “Come in.”

  The office was large, with plush couches set against one wall and glass enclosed bookcases against a second. Guild Master Anderson sat behind a dark, wooden desk and peered at me from startling, light blue eyes. He gave me a thin smile. “Please sit.”

  I did so. I looked at him while he looked me up and down, saying nothing, and I found myself after a few moments growing annoyed. “You asked to see me,” I said.

  Finally, he nodded. “Yes. I’ve heard certain rumors. I wanted to give you a warning.”

  Interesting and curious. I was not expecting the Guild to help me, though it is not unusual to seek allies from among our fellow members. The Guild remains neutral unless the well-being of the Guild itself is concerned. All of us are responsible for maintaining our own position and if we cannot do so then someone stronger will take over. That is the way the game is played. “I’m listening,” I said.

  “The challenge has been issued and certified by the Guild but the challenging party has chosen to keep his identity secret. This concerns me. The rules for such a contest are vague. Naturally, we will refrain from getting involved, but as a co-investor in your most recent project, we cannot stand by and let Guild resources be damaged. You will keep us informed.”

  Fair enough. “You mean Sindara. What do you know?” I asked.

  “Your warehouse was attacked by a group that appears to be professional and well trained. That is all.”

  “A few days before the attack, I was given a warning to cease my activities in Sindara. I can only assume the two incidents are related.”

  He frowned, no doubt calculating costs and benefits. “We of course wish you well in all your endeavors, but if another organization takes over the project, they will assume your debt.”

  Or be at war with the Guild. Nobody in their right mind would want that. “I have evidence that the hit team is from outside Aphelion.”

  “Really? That might create problems. A foreign entity might not be as fastidious regarding the rules as our own citizens.” He pondered for a moment before he smiled thinly. “As I said, keep us informed.”

  My brother Jimmy (half-brother, actually, since our mother’s first husband died when Jimmy was very young and our father adopted him when my parents married) looked like a larger, stockier version of me, with reddish brown hair, green eyes and a lopsided smile. He was seven years older and seemed to feel that his seniority awarded him both superior wisdom and a responsibility to look out for my welfare, which I patiently indulged.

  Jimmy owned a café called Paradiso. That evening, I dropped by. Two of my guys drove me over but didn’t come inside since Paradiso had its own security staff. The head guard, whose name was Jarred, gave me a small nod as I walked in. “Has there been any trouble, lately?” I asked him.

  He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “No. Should we expect any?”

  “I’m not sure.” I hesitated. “Maybe.”

  He sighed. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s hope not,” I said. “Jimmy around?”

  “In the bar.”

  I found my brother sipping a drink. “Dougie,” he said. “Try this.”

  I looked at it warily: tall, pink and fruity, with a little umbrella stuck through a cherry and a slice of orange draped across the top of the glass. “Don’t call me Dougie,” I said.

  He grinned. “Yeah, yeah.”

  He held the glass out to me and I cautiously sipped it: sweet and fruity, with an underlying tang that I couldn’t identify. A warm, mellow glow spread out from my center down to the tips of my fingers and toes. The colors in the room grew brighter, the music seemed to slow. “Whoa,” I said.

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I peered down at the glass. It seemed to pulse. “What’s in it?”

  “A distillation of native fruits, barely compatible with terrestrial biology. Mildly hallucinogenic.” He poured another for himself from a pitcher and sniffed it, his nostrils dilating.

  The glass seemed to shrink and then enlarge in my hand. “I don’t think that I can afford to be impaired right now. Too many things are happening.”

  “It will wear off in a minute.” He gave me a questioning look. “Something I should know?”

  “You might say that.” I took a deep breath and told him.

  “Oh, crap,” he said.

  I glumly nodded.

  “I’m not Guild,” Jimmy said. “I don’t want to be.”

  I understood his feelings and he understood mine. Our parents had also resisted Guild membership. Jimmy and I had agreed to disagree on this issue. “Yeah,” I said. “Hopefully, this won’t affect you. It shouldn’t.”

  “So, what do you plan to do about it?”

  “I plan to find them,” I said.

  “And then what?”

  “Take appropriate action.” I shrugged and forced a smile onto my face. “Whatever that might be.”

  Jimmy shook his head, said nothing and filled a mug from a tap at the bar. He slid it in front of me. “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem.” Jimmy frowned. “I’ll be right back. The guy down at the end wants a re-fill.”

  “Sure.”

  Jimmy ran a solid, respectable establishment. His drinks were served cold and he never shorted his customers. Above the bar hung a small painting of our parents, both having died two years before in a car crash. A series of holographs below the ceiling displayed the latest figh
ts and war games. Jimmy’s menu was small but well chosen, and if you were a steady customer and gave them enough notice, the kitchen could make almost anything you wanted on special order. It was a homey, comfortable place, a place to while away a few hours with friends or family and feel welcomed. The food was a lot simpler than the place I had taken Jen Mallet to, Arcadia, but just as good, in its way, and much cheaper.

  I really did not want my troubles to involve my brother. I stared at the painting of our deceased parents, took a deep breath and felt a slow, burning anger start to build inside me because three of my erstwhile assailants had just walked into the bar.

  I turned around and leaned back against the counter and pretended to sip from my drink.

  One of them sat down at a table near the entrance. Another leaned on the opposite end of the counter and the third was flirting with a waitress midway between. Wherever I went in this room, one of them would be close. They were aware of me. I could see it in the way they kept me centered between them. Hell, I could smell it, the excitement, the adrenaline that filled the room with its scent. Soon, I thought, soon they would close in.

  You weren’t supposed to involve family and civilians were to be kept out of it. Those were the rules.

  I guess they were playing by different rules.

  Jimmy had finished drawing his customer’s drink and was walking back toward me on the other side of the bar. “So, Jimmy, you remember what I said about trouble?”

  Jimmy raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “Really?”

  “Don’t get involved,” I said.

  Jimmy sadly shook his head and reached under the bar. When his hand came up it wasn’t holding a weapon so I figured he must have pushed an alarm button of some kind.

  Better to keep the element of surprise and it might as well be now.

  I looked toward a table on the far side of the room, widened my eyes and smiled as if I recognized the corpulent man sitting there. I grabbed my beer and started toward the table.

  The guy talking to the waitress was a little over average height, broad shoulders, fit. He tracked me with his eyes as I came close but otherwise made no move. As I passed by, I turned, threw the beer in his face then hit him over the head with the stein. He grunted and went down but his head was harder than I had figured. He rolled away, blood streaming down the side of his face and jumped back up.