I sat down next to the Old Boy inside the booth. Estella sat down next to me and started playing with her ring.
The bartender swung by a moment later, setting a beer in front of Scorsby. She then looked questioningly at us.
“Scotch whiskey,” I ordered.
“I’ll have a pina colada, extra ice.” Estella said, “And a double cheese burger, med rare. Oh and a water.”
The bartender nodded and wandered off.
Scorsby took a slow sip of his beer, closing his eyes as he did so, then set it down. “Now that hits the spot.”
“Long day?” Estella asked, leaning back and idly helping herself to a nearby bowl of peanuts.
He nodded and chuckled. “You could say that. Too much work for this old man.” He sighed and took another sip. “Running around is young man’s work. Retirement is starting to look nice these days.”
Estella nodded, crunching noisily on a peanut.
I slugged my arm across the old boy’s shoulder camaderie-like, “You old boy sure got more juice than that. Retirement will bore the teeth out of you.”
He chuckled. “Eh, you’re probably right.” He took another drink, this time nearly finishing off the mug. “So, what about you and your crew? What have you been up to? Last time you came by, it sounded like you had a lot going on”
“We always have, that’s how it goes in this business.”
The bartender came back with the drinks, plus a second beer for Scorsby. She left with a quick, “the burger will be out in a few minutes.” Scorsby nodded and grinned, finished his first beer, and took up the second. “Isn’t that the truth.”
“You know that Jessica gal you brought to the scene last time? How did you come to know her? Just curious, you know.” I figured it’s a natural enough opening.
A silence before he said, “She helped me out a few times. She’s quite the surgeon, miracle worker. Too bad about what happened.”
“Oh?”
He stared into his beer, lost in thought. “Yeah. She killed someone, you know. It’s got to be rough, measuring your worth by the lives you save, and knowing that one death on your conscience will never be paid for.”
“Hmmm…” I said by way of comment.
“I mean, it was self-defense. Don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way. Any one of us would have done the same.”
“What happened?” Estella prompted him.
He took a drink. “I don’t think I’m near drunk enough to get into that one. How about we talk about something a little less depressing for now. Remember that arsonist you were looking for a few years ago? The one with the fire power who thought he was possessed?” Off he went into other stuff. I nudged Estella.
Estella smiled, tapping her ring. “Yeah, he was a little unhinged, thought that fire was burning inside him and he needed to lure it out with bigger blazes.”
Scorsby laughed. “Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about the case with the fertilizer thief! That was the stinkiest case I think I’ve ever seen. But you had that one solved a lot fast than I could have.” He finished off his fourth beer and wiped his mouth. “Be right back,” he sauntered off towards the restroom.
“He’s claming up on Jessica. Where we go from here?” I asked Estella.
She pondered the question a long moment, “I think we start by buying him a round of something harder, maybe that scotch you’re drinking, have them leave the bottle, then keep topping him off as we talk, maybe work back to it by talking about vigilante justice? Jess said he was blackmailing her, he must feel its a way to make her pay for a her alleged crime, so we just talk about seeing justice done even when it’s morally gray, we could use that sleaze ball we brought back to the bar you shot as a nice example, maybe get him to open up more.”
The bartender wandered over and put another beer down. “More scotch?” she asked me.
“Two more.” I told her.
Estella watered down her own drink and topped it off with more ice after the bartender left.
Scorsby came back right when the bartender brought over the new drinks. He sat down, took a swig of his beer, then saw the extra drink. “This for me?”
“Thought you might like to try a new flavour, it’s quite good, what they got here.” I told him.
He smiled, took a sip. Smiled again. “Where were we?”
“Talking about old bounties,” Estella grinned. “We recently had a tricky contract to deal with some trouble makers that were sabotaging some locals farm equipment on this back water village.” She gestured to me to continue the tale.
“There was this baldy, you wouldn’t know by his looks, but he’s slippery as they came. No guts but gonna pull a trick on you whenever he sees the barest chance. Finally shot him in the leg.”
He looked serious. “He have a partner? Another bald guy. One fat, one skinny?”
“You actually know them?”
“Yeah, I know them. Been on my ‘todo’ list for awhile tracking them down. But I’ve always had other stuff come up. You give me the details, I could get you a split on the bounty money”
Estella grinned broadly. “That sounds pretty nice!”
“So they were pulling all that sabotage? I heard that was going on.”
“Yeah, it was to cover up a smuggling ring.”
“Really? Smuggling?” He shook his head, finished off the whiskey. “Well, that makes sense with those two, but I can’t see how sabotage would help at all with hiding smuggling. You sure that’s what it was about?”
“Well, it was to cover up this abandoned factory on the outskirt of town. That’s where they drop off deliveries.”
“But wouldn’t that make them more noticeable? I mean, would you have caught on to the smuggling if they hadn’t been sabotaging stuff all over?”
“Well, we got onto the factory cos they kidnapped one of our crew and we tracked her down there.”
Scorsby shook his head. “Bad mistake on their part. Your crewmember alright?”
“Yeah, we got there in time.”
“That’s good. You know, we’ve got to look after our own.” He looked particularly somber as he said that.
“Crew is like family.” Estella raised her glass in a toast.
“Anyway, you can strike off both off your list. I shot the fat one before an angry mob could cut him up via farm machinery for causing a local to die in this way and the other two gals got the other one..”
“You know, we do some bad things in this business, for all the right reasons” He said it quietly, almost mumbled it, as if he had said his thoughts aloud.
“You gotta do what you do.” I nodded.
“It’s funny you mentioned the doc earlier. Been on my mind since you brought it up, though I try not to think too much about it.” He finished off what was probably his 6th beer and wiped his mouth.
I leaned forwards, waiting to hear his next words.
“She’s a good doctor. Great at saving others. But not so much herself.” Not what I was waiting for, but I guessed that was just the preamble.
“She got in some trouble, and this was before I knew her. Caught the attention of some very bad people.” Now I felt like we were getting somewhere.
“There was a video… well, she killed someone. Self defense, but it was how she did it that got all that attention going. And I came across it, saw some bad things were about to happen to her. And I… well, I did something I’m not proud of.”
Estella had turned the ring partly the other way but nodded at him to continue.
“I didn’t have a lot of options… and I couldn’t allow her to be used the way they were going to use her.”
“How she did it… what did she do exactly?” I probed the Old Boy.
“Did it? You mean murder someone?”
“Murder?! You said it was self defence before.”
“It was… remarkable. I guess maybe her power works both ways? Because she took a life with a touch. And the look on her face… it was terrifying. Well, she went well past self defense. I like to tell myself that’s what it was, but in fact it was nearly cold-blooded murder.”
“That kind of power, no way was she going to be able to practice again. She’d like end up… well, I’m not drunk enough to talk about that either. So I did what I could. Pulled some strings, put her out of view of some very dangerous people, and kept her out of the spotlight. And gave her chances to make up for what she did.”
The Old boy shook his head and wrapped up the talk. “I think maybe I’d prefer going back to the office and putting my head back into my sisyphean tasks than thinking more about this. I appreciate the drinks, but maybe next time we can pick some more pleasant topics.”
“Would those dangerous people by chance be a certain corporation?” Estella asked hesitantly.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I think I need to go.” He got up, a little unsteadily, and started heading for the door.
“Looks like we are all done here.” I said to Estella.
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