Joe shook his head. "I'm hanging onto this chair by the skin of my teeth as it is. Now, that was my own damn fault, I'm not going to quibble on that. But right now Patrick, I've got enough on my plate just trying to make sure this entire goddamn city doesn't crumble and turn into Detroit or something. I'd love to fight the Union, take them down and get another brick out of the wall that's holding this city back. But you know what I learned in close to twenty five years of being in politics?"
"What?" I asked, both angry and intrigued. Joe had never been this open with me before, and while not exactly a slimy politician, had played his cards pretty close to the vest. I wondered what had him so damn talkative, but decided I'd figure that out later.
"The wall that's holding the city back, it's part of a larger structure, one that steers and controls the raging river that is the will of the people. Now, some of those bricks you need. They're the flood gates, the channels that prevent damage. You go in there and start smashing the whole damn thing, pretty soon you're going to find yourself up to you neck in a raging torrent, and that same flood is going to be destroying the good bricks along with the bad, going hellbent for leather and sweeping everything, good and bad out of its way. So sometimes, we have to do these things slowly."
"And hope that the next generation who follows in our footsteps agrees with us and is better than we are," I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "And if they're not?"
Joe laughed and took a drink of his weight gain shake. "From what I see, young councilman, the generation following me is on the right track. You're making the connections you need to get things done. I know working around the Union isn't what you’d like, but if anyone can get it done, I suspect you and Tabby Williams can do it."
"Yeah," I said glumly. Joe looked at me askance, and I shook my head. "Nothing."
"All right. Well Patrick, I've got Bill Franklin coming in about twenty minutes, apparently one of his executive vice presidents recently blew his own head off, and now Bill wants me to look into the circumstances around his death. It might tie into your district, by the way. Know anything about a place called Mistress Blood's?"
"Yeah," I said with a shiver. I had met Blood once, and that was enough. "Hard core, and I mean illegally hard core, things went down there. Place had Confederation ties, and if I remember right, Illuysas Petrokias acted as Blood's patron. It got shut down about a month ago or so. From what I read, Blood got herself a fatal case of nine millimeter lead poisoning."
"I assume the local detectives aren't expending a lot of energy in finding her killer?" Joe asked. I shook my head.
"With what she was involved in, most of my district is counting it as chickens coming home to roost. She wasn't as bad as the top heads of the Confederation, but she was a sick, twisted woman. I don't even know what sort of crazy to classify her."
Joe nodded. "Okay, well, I'll talk with Bill. You want to sit in? You being the council member from The Playground and all."
“No thanks Joe, I have some Boy Scouts coming by my office at four. If you don't mind, I think I'll try and keep my soul at least somewhat clean for the rest of the day. Thanks for the talk."
"Let's do it again in about two weeks or so," Joe replied. "I'll have Hank get in touch with your new assistant… Gwen, right?"
"Yeah, Gwen. And that sounds just fine. Thanks again, Joe."
* * *
Mark
The night sky was cloudy, which helped as I made my way through the Park at nearly ten at night. Not the safest thing to do, but I wasn't worried. The Park was a lot better than in the old days, when it had been the realm of street gangs and the Confederation after dark. Now at least, the Confederation was out of it, and the street gangs were too busy seeing if they could get some more profitable turf for their activities. The junkie problem was still bad though.
Thankfully, I wasn't going too deep into the park, just over to the World War I Memorial, near the southwest entrance to the Park. I had my mask on, but the hood pulled up, and had skipped my tactical vest in favor of a belly holster for the one Glock that I was carrying.
My contact was late. The bells of the big clock started to toll, and I was still waiting. I was just about to move off when I saw the approaching shadow, and my contact arrived.
I didn't even know his name, just his handle. We had first met through a website that catered to so-called hacktivists, and eventually coming to know one another. On the website, he went by the screen name Captain Zappy. Who knew where he got that one from.
"Captain."
"Snowman," he said. "Nice to see you in person again."
"It's been a long time. Nice beard."
Zappy stroked his beard, which was a good eight inches long and pretty well kept. Last time him and I had been face to face, he'd been clean shaven. "Nice eye mask. Although I'd have gone with more of a domino mask than the whole Kato thing. That thing has to be hot as fuck in summer."
"We're coming into winter though. It'll help then. I've got something for you."
"Oh? Anything interesting?"