Free Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap by Steven Campbell

They might as well get some money
for it, no questions asked.”
    “What about for
the middle man?” he asked.
    “Ten percent.”
    “Ten percent of
‘big’?” he asked skeptically.
    “It’s a lot.
Trust me. Someone is going to get rich. Also, maybe you can give me some ideas.
I’m looking for a woman—”
    “Aren’t we
all,” he cut in.
    “I know about
when she came on station and I’m looking through check-in and quarantine. What
else should I be trying?”
    “What’s she
look like?”
    “Disguised,
maybe.”
    “What’s her
line of work?”
    “I don’t know
if she’s working at all. Maybe an assassin. Maybe nothing.”
    “She got any
money of her own?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “How much does
it pay to find her? As much as the other one?”
    “Not even
close.”
    “Then I say you
better find another job. It’s a big city. Especially since the corporations
have cut the city into pieces. You can’t search those areas easily. And she
could be lying in the bathtub in some flop in Deadsouth and no one would ever
know.”
    “Yeah.” It did
seem like a hopeless assignment when put that way.
    Just then we
heard some shouting and scuffling and then a full-on fight broke out behind us.
Fists flying and noses breaking. Must have been eight guys going at it.
    I had never
seen a real fight in the Gentleman’s Club. This was where people came to get
away from fights. The food was bad and expensive and it cannot be overstated
how poorly the place smelled.
    This was the
last refuge of the gangs. The corporation soldiers didn’t come here. They were
too good for this place.
    I watched the
guys fight and couldn’t help but think it looked like a bunch of wild animals
fighting over the last scraps of food after they had lost their natural
habitat.

CHAPTER 11
     
    “Hank, I need
your help, man,” Bronze’s face came on my tele looking concerned.
    “What’s wrong?”
I asked.
    “I need you to
double date with me.”
    I hardly
considered that an emergency.
    “I didn’t think
you had a tele,” I said.
    “I don’t, it’s
Qindol’s. Isn’t she pretty?” He held the tele up to her and the woman smiled as
if she were not very comfortable with the situation.
    “Why do you
need me?”
    “I don’t know
anyone else and they said they knew you. There’s two of them.”
    “I’m at the Gentleman’s
Club. I need to go home and shower.”
    “Fine, we’ll
meet you at your place. Where do you live?”
    “One. One. Hank
Block.”
    Bronze stared
at the tele.
    “Are you
serious? Is that named after you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Wow. You are
without a doubt the coolest person I have ever met! Guy has his own street! We’ll
be right there.”
    Hey, a date.
When’s the last one of those I was on? I finished my sandwich because I didn’t
want to be hungry on a date when I suddenly remembered:
    “Damn!”
    I jumped up and
ran as quickly as I could through the cafeteria, knocking three guys out of the
way.
    If I ever
wished I was faster it was now.
    I was bouncing
my feet on the train ride home hoping they were coming from Deadsouth in which
case I would get there before them. When I finally showed up, there were two
women, Bronze, Toby, and my toilet waiting outside my apartment building. The
women looked none-too-happy.
    I had put my
toilet outside because without the water and chemical flow, it dried out and
started to stink up my apartment. So I did like the plumber said and put it
outside—though I didn’t use it of course. The dead body was harder to explain.
    I hurried up,
in my bare feet, smelling of the Gentleman’s Club with an autocannon as a
sidearm.
    Bronze hugged
me like I was his long-lost brother.
    “This is too
much. Are you like the king of Belvaille or what? Is this whole street yours?”
    “No one lives
here. It’s not that I own it.”
    The women were
huddled together and whispering and glancing like they were trying to figure the
safest way out.
    “I can explain
this stuff,” I