The International Businessman Read online

  Chapter 6

  Tats also had a lot on his mind. As darkness neared, he prepared to do the unthinkable. The stories of his father’s alcohol abuse had served as a strong deterrent to that particular substance, and from what he had seen of many of the Smokeless Green addicts, that was also not a substance with which he desired a relationship.

  Yet as the evening went from dim to dark—the moon alone providing some luminary guidance—the utter state of his non-preparation began to weigh upon him heavily. He was a city boy through and through and had never so much as camped outside a night in his life.

  The only weapon he had on him was a medium-sized dagger (he hadn’t had time to look for the means of concealing his sword), and he didn’t feel the dagger would help him much in a fight against more than one or two people. He had no idea what to expect in terms of highwaymen or other malefactors, but he preferred to take his chances wide awake, rather than risk being roused from a peaceful slumber to see a grinning devil with a knife held to his throat.

  But the problem was he was getting tired. Very tired. He was beginning to have trouble making sense of the lines on the map. There was a main road that had brought him from Sivingdel to some unimportant town called Ringsetter. He had passed that at around 3 p.m. About an hour after that he had passed a weathered sign written in both Seleganian and probably Sodorfian (though his Sodorfian was extremely weak) welcoming him to Sodorf.

  After that, however, he found that the “road” began to stretch the proper meaning of the term. Even in daylight, he had found any hint of the road to be faint at best. In places, it was just a matter of the grass growing a little less thickly there. And in the forests, it was sometimes a matter of the trees being just a little less crowded together in the area that was presumably the path.

  But when it became dark, it was becoming more and more challenging to discern the pathway, and his increasingly heavy eyelids weren’t helping matters much.

  He had heard that if taken in small amounts Smokeless Green could function a bit as a performance booster, even though most preferred to take it in large doses and mix it with alcohol so that they could party all night long. He had an idea, from what he had seen, of how much the usual dose was to get high. He wondered what would happen if he just took a really small portion of that.

  As his eyelids drooped again, he decided the debate was over. He brought Valiant to a halt (he had already decided on the horse’s name) and took out the sack that carried the merchandise for his sister—which was no easy task, as it was fairly well hidden inside his saddle bag—and pulled off just the slightest pinch from one of the bulbs. He then rubbed it together with his fingers until fine sand-like grains fell onto his palm.

  It looked to him like a small amount compared to what most people took to party, so he went ahead and sniffed it. He felt nothing at first and began wondering what all the fuss was about with this stuff anyway.

  Then it him like an avalanche against a small cabin at the base of a large hill covered with boulders. The sensation nearly knocked him off his horse, so unexpected was the rush. He felt all of his thoughts sharpen and all of his energy levels go from near depletion to the top of the scale and then about a mile above it.

  There were no droopy eyelids now, and he began to wonder how he could have ever thought it difficult to notice the traces of wagon wheels, horses’ hooves, and boots. He dug his knees into Valiant’s side, ready to prod him on, but found he got less than the enthusiastic response he had been hoping for.

  He figured that if he could handle the quantity he had just had, his horse could handle at least twice that, given his size. He prepared the dose, dismounted, and gently stroked the stallion’s neck while simultaneously lifting his palm towards Valiant’s nostrils. Valiant, perhaps thinking it was food, quickly lapped it up.

  Tats wondered if the effect would be considerably weaker that route, but he had little time to give the subject a proper analysis because he suddenly noticed Valiant shudder and then start to fidget uneasily. He realized then that he better mount fast, or he would be on foot with lots of energy but no horse.

  He jumped on Valiant and dug his knees in, and this time he got more than the response he was looking for. He had to lean down tight towards Valiant’s neck to avoid being thrown off. It seemed Valiant had gotten the general idea of his master’s aim, which was to follow the treaded-upon ground, and Valiant soon proved himself more than his master’s equal in this regard.

  He burst into a full gallop, and Tats noticed with satisfaction that he was keeping towards the path.

  This gave Tats the ability to begin thinking about another matter, something that had been in the back of his mind ever since this morning. When Chalky had seen him riding along on a horse, he had said, “I’ll get one better,” and while he said it in his usual good-natured tone, he seemed to detect malice in his stare, something that went beyond mere jealousy over the horse. Perhaps jealousy of Tats’ position as second-in-command in the gang, and perchance jealousy over his secret mission.

  This made Tats aware of a daunting fact. He had vouched for Chalky (as well as Crabs) when Mr. Brass made it known to him that Chalky’s name had rolled out of that worthless slug Stiches’ mouth as one of five traitors in the gang. Now, he was beginning to repent his voucher. The very day after Sam had been slain, Chalky had begun mentioning some wholesalers from Sam’s old organization that they ought to approach to make them customers.

  There was nothing wrong with that as far as business was concerned, but just how did Chalky so quickly become aware of who these wholesalers were? Stitches had said Chalky was on Sam’s payroll. Tats supposed there was a benevolent interpretation, which is that now that Sam was dead it would be impossible for him to be Sam’s agent, and if he had been Sam’s agent in the past perhaps he had repented of this mistake and was now just trying to use his old connections to help the gang move product faster.

  And furthermore, who could blame him for having worked for Sam during the long period where Mr. Brass barely showed his face around the junkyard and they needed a new supplier? And who could justly expect him to come forward and announce that he had been previously working with Sam once Mr. Brass took over the gang as its official leader?

  Perhaps those acts could be justified, but what if he had continued to work for Sam even after Mr. Brass took over? That would be a different story. And it was precisely what Stitches had accused him of. But even if it had been wrong then, there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with him utilizing his prior contacts now. After all, surely expansion was the goal. His current mission seemed to prove that. So, if Chalky wanted to utilize his prior contacts for the benefit of the gang, what was wrong with that?

  What was wrong with it was that if Chalky had continued to work for Sam even after Mr. Brass took over that meant he had betrayed him once. And he who betrays once will betray again. He suspected that, if he even breathed a word of this to Mr. Brass, Chalky would be deader than a doornail within twenty-four hours. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted that on his conscience, especially since it was possible Chalky might have just been good at snooping on Sam’s gang.

  But if you keep your suspicions to yourself . . . ?

  If he did that, Mr. Brass might end up getting assassinated, after which that ambitious Chalky would likely take over the gang and probably kill Tats just for spite, if his look today had been any indicator of what he thought about his superior rank.

  Or, Mr. Brass might come to this conclusion separately and then think Tats a traitor and co-conspirator for not having come forward with this information. That could also bring death. Then and there, he made a snap decision. He would tell Mr. Brass just the bare facts, and it would be his job as leader to decide what to do about it.

  As for now, he decided he would be better off focusing on his current mission and forgetting about Chalky. Right now, he had bigger fish to fry.