2005-01-22 - 12:11 a.m.

9:35 AM

Gonzo Chang walked, or rather shambled, into the Ghost of a Chance and shook his head.

“Christ,” he said as he approached the bar. “Isn’t there law that questionable joints like this are supposed to be closed during daylight hours?”

Levi the bartender, a skinny Brit. wearing a battered Arsenal rugby shirt, a Silk Cut drooping from his lips, walked up. “Like you would know what a questionable joint is, mate. Living in Disney-fucking-Singapore all these years.”

Gonzo smiled as he lit up a cheroot, the smell of the tobacco strong and sweet. “Just get me a pint.”

Levi poured and slid the glass across the countertop to Gonzo, sliding the crumpled bills back in return. Looking down, as if studying the grain, he commented almost to himself, “You know, we get an interesting crowd in here, changes with the time frame. Kind of a corporate breakfast club, right about now, though I certainly wouldn’t trust first glance with these snakes.”

“And I see my breakfast date is here. Cheers, mate.”

Gonzo made his way to a far corner table, nodding to a few of the other patrons sitting around. He smiled at the cute Chinese girl serving drinks. Levi was right: all suits and sunglasses and discreetly obvious bulges under their coats. He sat down and the man across smiled. He was a suit like the rest, but also an albino, dead white skin, and his smile was less a sign of human warmth than of a predator showing its fangs.

“You must be Gonzo. A pleasure.” A slick, false warmth and corporate killer issue plastic smile. Gonzo decided to play it off.

“And you are?”

“Snake.”

“Yeah. Okay. Listen, a realistic name would probably be just as effective in hiding your identity, and certainly less dorky than trying to come up with a cool alias.”

The plastic smile never faltered. “I just want to show that I’m cool. Its something of an honor to meet ‘the Great Gonzo.’”

“Save the flattery. I’ve heard it already today and from someone a lot prettier. You put the word out to Colmar in Bremen that you were looking for some custom iron.”

“Yes. Custom AND cold. Built to order and totally untraceable in the unlikely event the proper authorities ever get their hands on it.”

“What are we looking at here?”

“I want 20 to 30 kill kits: pistols, assault rifles, man portable rotary miniguns. Maybe even a crew served light cannon I can bolt onto a pickup. I want semi and full auto on all of the guns that can take it, and, of course, all the bells and whistles you can cram on. Plus I want armor. The best in tactical fashion. You are, after all, the Calvin Klein of killers.”

“An order that big, you should go to your friendly neighborhood syndicate. Or corp.”

“I don’t want third rate Eurasian shit that fell off the back of a truck in Chechnya or Outer Mongolia. And I don’t want any yuppie bureaucrat to ream my ass over red tape. But most importantly, I want Gonzo gear.”

“This shit’s going to take some time to put together. Assuming I agree.”

“Your timeframe is cool with me.”

“And we haven’t even talked about the cost.”

“I’m on an expense account and I don’t really like my boss so we can negotiate. Write down a number that you think is reasonable.”

Gonzo pulled out a battered notepad and scrawled an absurd amount, sliding it across the table to ice. The smile never wavered. He didn’t even look at the paper. “You know, I heard a little story about you.”

Gonzo kept his face neutral. “Yeah?”

“I heard that you never left Singapore. Or more to the point, that you couldn’t leave Singapore. Something a about a bounty on your head from several large megacorporations. Enough so that you’d be the most hunted man in the world the moment you stepped off of that rock.”

“Did you hear why?”

“I don’t know. Never got past the part about how much you’re worth. In yen. In dollars. And in galleons. PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!”

Gonzo stayed frozen in place as Snake continued to smile. He flipped the lapel on his suit coat and showed a small snake pin on the inside of the lapel. Slytherin.

“You muggles are so stupid.” Snake stood up from the table and then froze as a massive hand cannon was pressed against his forehead. Holding the other end of the gun, Ginzo smiled back.

“How…?”

“I’m wearing curse breaker armor. After all I am the Calvin Klein of armorers.” He pulled the trigger and blew a hole in Snake’s head you could beat a bludger through. “It’s part of why the bounty on my head is so damn high.”

The rest of the bar seemed to take little notice as Gonzo let the body drop on the table, leaning over only to pull off the snake pin from the dead wizard’s lapel. He walked back to the bar where Levi was calmly smoking and pointing one of those evil looking European military shotguns at a pair of suits, one mage and one troll. Snake boy’s backup undoubtedly. He hadn’t noticed them when he walked in, which meant they (especially the troll) had been wearing pretty good glamours. But he’d also counted on Levi to watch his back in case of any nasty surprises.

“Right, “Gonzo said, tossing the badge to the human wizard. “Go back and tell Lucius that if he wants me then it’s going to take more than some third rate wannabe Voldemort.”

The troll and the mage seemed to bristle, almost as if they were planning to attack, see if they could finish the contract. Levi caught it and shook his head. “Ah-ah, my sons. I’d look over my shoulder before you try anything shitbrained.”

Both turned slightly and the Chinese cutie was there, a wand in her hand aimed dead at them

“Nancy’s an ex-auror and she tends to curse unforgivably, if you catch my meaning. Now, run rabbits run.”

The two backed out of the bar slowly. When they left, Nancy holstered her wand and went back to filling drink orders. Levi put the gun away and lit a fresh smoke. The rest of the bar patrons went on about their business. Everybody knew you didn’t try to take someone out at the Ghost but every now and again, people needed reminding why.

“This should cover the clean up and my tab,” Gonzo said, dropping a sheaf of bills.

“You couldn’t have just skipped this meet if you knew it was a trap?”

“I had to know who was trying to whack me. Got a decent idea now. Plus I get to send a message, discourage further attempts.”

“How’d you know he wasn’t going to go for the death spell right away?”

“I’m worth more alive. I guess it’s for torture value. We cool?”

“Sure. Everyone knows you don’t give up the ghost at the Ghost unless it’s through natural causes.”

“Or else you get cursed by a witch bar girl or shot by the ex-SAS bartender.”

“Counts as natural causes to me.”

10:48 AM

Suki was bored. Doing this corp work bored her. She wanted to go street racing. She wanted go shoot some monsters. She wanted to find some cute, stupid rent boy in a club and fuck her brains out on him and then kick him out of bed when he broke. She really wanted pot but Vittoria was having none of it.

“Okay,” Vittoria continued. “So we’ve got a confirmation that Quentin Holte and Achlis will be here next week to prepare for the expedition into Jotunheim. Hopefully they won’t have to cancel again. I’ve gotten Actionhero’s information on the Hammer of Thor ready, and it has a list of the things they might need but it might not hurt to consult a Planetary Guide or The Action’s Atlas on Jotunhiem. What do you think?”

“Huh? Yeah. And ask Gonzo about it. He built the weapons the Boss took the last time he went there so he would know about the gear. Hey, you know I could go to Jotunheim with the two of them and help out. Maybe even pilot that airship we bought off of Heph.”

“No, you can’t Suki. They’re going to be gone at least a month, maybe more. Time works weird on that plane. And you have that Corporate Council dinner next week too.”

“Not another one of those fucking things.”

“Yes, another one of those fucking things. You should get used to them because tomorrow Padriag’s campaign manager is coming by and he wants to talk about fund raising. I think he wants you to use the CBC dinner to get the ball rolling on the contributions, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’ve also gotten a packet drawn up on possible places to hold a fundraising dinner and meet and greet for the campaign when Padraig makes his first swing into the City.”

“Christ, when do you find the time to do all of this?”

“I only sleep an hour a day, an hour and forty five minutes if it’s a weekend. Anyway I wrote up some smart programs to help with the bookkeeping and things. However, this does bring me to a point. I was wondering if we could bring on some additional help, full time.”

“Huh? Hey, when I was Girl Friday, I didn’t have any help!”

“Yes but all you did was keep the cars running, get high, and have sex. Now we actually have to do work.”

“Fine,” Suki grumbled. “Who do you have in mind?”

“I was going over the files the Invisible College sent over.” Vittoria noted the blank look on Suki’s face. “For the internship? The one Actionhero promised Dean Mahoney? And I ran across a great candidate: Ursula Ryder. Do you know her?”

“Huh? No. Hell no. All of those Invisible College types are weird.”

“Well, she’s an expert librarian and occultist, as well as a ‘data angel.’ And, it seems, a champion surfer. Personally I think she’d take the job just to get the run of the library, which would be great since I don’t think anyone’s bothered organizing the place in over a decade.”

Suki looked up and blinked. “We have a library?”

“Of course. The entire fourth floor. We’ve got over a thousand books, quite a few of them rare first editions and God knows what else. I think it was started in the ‘20s or ‘30s by Doctor Savage when he owned this building.” Vittoria looked at Suki. “You didn’t know we had a library?”

“Hey, before I was CEO, all I did was keep the cars running, smoke pot, and have sex.”

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