A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online

Kinoshita for a long moment, until the smaller man looked away and ordered a cup of coffee to hide his uneasiness. Nighthawk remained silent, lost in thought, for a long time. Finally, when Kinoshita was sure he had fallen asleep, he spoke.
    "There's no sense chasing him all across the Frontier. I have no way of knowing who he's going to go after and in what order, so I'm always going to be a step behind him. And even if I guess right and get to a planet first, what am I going to do— sit around and let some killer murder more victims to make sure Jeff shows up?"
    "Then what are you going to do?"
    "If I'm not going to search the galaxy looking for him, the alternative is to bring him to me."
    Kinoshita looked puzzled. "How?"
    "I'll send him a message."
    "How can he respond if you don't know where to send it?" asked Kinoshita.
    "He'll respond to this one," said Nighthawk with absolute certainty.

7.

    Night had fallen on New Barcelona. Five small moons made their way across the cloudless sky at varying speeds, and their light caused the stately minarets and towers of Cataluna, the largest city on the planet, to cast eerie shadows that seemed to be constantly moving. The streets were narrow and twisting, lit only by the ever-changing moonlight.
    Cataluna was a beautiful city, but like many other beautiful things its beauty was only skin deep. And hiding beneath the beauty like a cancer was the District.
    The District had begun life, centuries earlier, as the city's red light district, zoned and mandated by the government so as to keep the less salubrious aspects of life on the Inner Frontier from spreading to the more respectable areas. It wasn't long before the authorities stopped patrolling the District, and shortly thereafter they simply refused to set foot in it. Word got out, of course, and soon the brothels were the least of the enterprises to be found there. Black marketeers for the entire star cluster set up shop openly. Stolen goods from a thousand worlds were stored and fenced in the shops and cellars of the District. Human and alien drug dens abounded. Anyone on the run from the law could find safe haven in the District. There was nothing you couldn't buy there at competitive prices, from a sexual partner (regardless of gender or even species) to an alphanella seed to a murder.
    "Are you sure we have to do this?" asked Kinoshita nervously as they approached the outskirts of the District.
    "I'm sure I have to," replied Nighthawk calmly. "You do what you want."
    "But why will he come here?"
    "Because it's been two centuries since a policeman or a bounty hunter entered the District. It's off limits. When he hears what's happening, he'll come. If he's got a wish list of ten men in the Cluster, half of them are here at any given time."
    "If you know it, he knows it too," said Kinoshita. "And yet he's never been here."
    "We have different agendas," said Nighthawk. "And he would have come here sooner or later."
    "What makes you think so?"
    "Because I was preparing to come here more than a century ago when I contracted the eplasia ."
    "But he's not you," noted Kinoshita. "Not like Newman is."
    "He's the best at what he does," answered Nighthawk. "And that's what the bounty hunter who shows his face here has to be."
    "Then what makes you think you'll be alive five minutes after we enter the District?" demanded Kinoshita. "Don't forget—he's forty years younger than you."
    "Yeah, but I'm forty years smarter." He stopped to light a smokeless Altairian cigar. "It's like sports. A phenom comes up with all the physical gifts imaginable, so he uses them and excels. After a few years he loses half a step, or he gets slowed by some injuries—but along the way he's studied the game and started using his brain and his experience, and even though his skills have started eroding, he's actually better at his job."
    "So you're saying you're better than Jeff?" said Kinoshita dubiously.
    Nighthawk shrugged. "Who knows?" Suddenly he smiled.