Optional Retirement Plan

Chapter 2

2

“Qinlao’s part of it,” Tony says without further ceremony. “But only part.”

I knew it. I subcontract a high-profile job, and the principal calls me to his office. But no, that doesn’t make sense either. The job was done. Maya Qinlao is dead, and her faction none the wiser as to who did the deed, so far as I know. Still, I feel the need to defend myself.

“I don’t kill women. You know this.” You’ve known it for over thirty years, and still you gave me the job is what I want to say. But I have my role to play here, too. Protocol to follow. Right now, that’s being a respectful hireling. If Junior weren’t in the room, I’d be a little more what-the-f**k.

Tony nods. “That assignment should’ve gone elsewhere anyway. That’s not what this is about. Not really.”

“You’ve been blowing about business,” says Junior. He’s still seeing how Daddy’s suit fits. “Talking to the wrong people about the wrong shit.”

I just look at him. I hope my face shows what’s in my head. Which is, what the hell are you talking about?

“What’d you have for breakfast this morning, Eugene?”

I hate it when people use my given name. It makes me sound like an accountant. Tony knows this. He’s also the only one I tolerate it from.

“What?” My brain is stumped. What the hell kinda question is that?

“Me? I had eggs and an English muffin,” he supplies, trying to prime the pump maybe. “The eggs were just the whites, of course. Heart health and all that.”

He’s got me off kilter with the non-sequitur. Another strategy, I think. But I learned a long time ago—embrace the reality in front of you and run with it.

“Oatmeal.”

Tony grunts. Like he’s half jealous I can stomach eating healthy. “And dinner last night?”

“Protein pack and a scotch and a beer,” I say, faster this time, running with it. “Why the sudden interest in my diet, Tony?”

“Can’t we get to the point?” Junior asks. “Two weeks ago at The Slate. Remember that?”

Not really. I go to The Slate on a regular basis. They have cheap scotch there.

“I go there regular,” I say. Tony has a look on his face aimed at Junior that says This generation has no sense of decorum.

“Yeah? Remember talking to Tick Marion?”

Honestly, I don’t. My eyes roam the room. Tony’s smile of welcome from earlier is long gone. My gaze comes to rest on the weapons sitting on the five-hundred-pound English oak desk in front of me. I look quickly away. I don’t want to send the wrong signal.

“Maybe,” I say, still searching for the memory. Sometimes, I have a lot of scotch at The Slate. It’s cheap.

“That’s the problem,” Tony says, cutting off Junior’s next comment. “And it’s not the first time.”

I take a breath. Looking at Tony’s unhappy face, I see a tubeship coming straight for me. “Not the first time for what? Drinking with Marion?” I’m starting to get irritated. Screw protocol.

“Talking out of turn,” Tony says quietly. It’s that muted tone, the restrained way he talks more than anything else that makes my spine tingle. Like there’s no harm, no foul, just fact. Like there’s nothing left to argue about. I’d’ve felt more at ease if he’d grabbed one of my guns off the desk and pointed it at me.

“You’ve been blowing everywhere,” growls Junior. “For six months, from what we hear.”

What the hell’s the reboot talking about? My mouth is like an iron gate that’s rusted shut. I’ve never been a squawker. But looking at Tony just shows me that sad expression again.

“Word’s out, Stacks.”

Shit. Tony used my preferred name.

“What word?”

“That you’ve got the Oldtimer’s,” Junior says. Even he’s subdued when he says it.

Double s**t.

“That’s a load of crap,” I say. “Who’s spreading it? Tony, Maya Qinlao was a job you should’ve never assigned me.” Screw protocol. “You know—”

“It’s not the outsourcing of the hit,” says Tony, leaning forward. “It’s the talking about it after.”

“I didn’t say a word to anyone. Whoever says I did is a goddamned liar.”

“Tick Marion says you did.”

“He’s a goddamned liar.”

The charge hangs in the air. Even Junior has the wit to keep his mouth shut and let silence rule the room.

“I don’t think so.” Tony’s voice is quiet again, patient. And he isn’t known for his patience. He’s trying to be nice.

Shit, s**t, and s**t again.

“You know this business better than anyone,” he says. “I can’t have a c***k in the armor. SynCorp is a jungle the size of the solar system. The factions work together, but it’s always tense, everyone angling for an edge over everyone else. Survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed. All that crap you already know.”

I sit there. I’m hearing the words, but I’m not getting it, not yet. I just see that tubeship at the end of my tunnel vision getting bigger, coming straight at me.

“Here’s how it’s gotta be. It’s Friday. I’ll give you three days to get things in order. Take care of whoever you care about. Then, come Monday, it’s off to Planitia Prime.”

I turn my right ear a little toward Tony. I’m not sure I heard him right. “The medical retirement facility? Are you—”

“We’ll take care of you, Stacks. How many times have you saved my life? Hell, if it weren’t for you during the Cassandra coup, we’d all likely be dead, Tony Junior included. The Company would’ve been lost. The faction doesn’t forget. We’ll take care of you right. That’s why I’m giving you three days.”

The room is silent. Except for my breathing. That’s gotten louder.

“Tony, I don’t know what Marion’s said or anyone else. Clearly, the kid here’s telling you stories—”

“Hey, watch your mouth, old man,” says Junior. Whatever sympathy he was showing earlier for his pop’s sake is gone.

“If you’d had the SCI installed,” says Tony, shaking his head. His tone says it’s something he’s repeated a hundred times to himself in rehearsal. “Would’ve caught it a long time ago.”

“If I had the implant, I’d’ve been what was caught a long time ago. And you’d likely be dead.”

“Are you threatening my father?” asks Junior.

“No, you reboot, I’m reminding him of something he ought to remember on his own!”

Truth be told now, I’m not sure what the hell I was doing. Feeling the walls close in is what I remember. Flailing around like a fish on land.

“Stacks—”

“I’ll look into it,” I say. “Maybe it’s not too late to—”

“Oldtimer’s is preventable, with the SCI,” Tony says. “Like just about everything else. Once it takes hold, though—”

“I don’t have goddamned Oldtimer’s Disease!”

Tony sits back in his chair.

I put up a hand. Time to dial it back.

“Tony, I’m in my fourth decade with the Taulke Faction. I’ve been loyal—”

“Now you’re reminding him of stuff he does remember,” Junior says in his best bully’s tone. “He just said that. Remember?”

Pop and I both give Three-point-one a look that shuts him up. He’s not ready for that suit yet, the entitled little s**t.

“If you just want me to bow out, all you gotta do is say the word.”

“It’s not that simple.” That sad expression that seems carved on Tony’s face says he wishes it were. I see more than lines and skin. I see memories of girls rushed out the back and me lying on top of him while the shots are flying overhead. I see jokes shared and propriety damned. I see this isn’t a discussion so much as a notification.

Then it hits me. There’s no Planitia Prime in my future. It’s a fantasy Tony’s spinning, as if it’s something I’d buy, even though I know better. Even though he knows I know better. Tony just can’t bring himself to say it. That’s something, at least, something honorable I oughta appreciate. At that moment, though, I’m not feeling much of anything but shock.

I throw a glance Junior’s way. He’s busy reacquainting himself with his own fingertips. Busy, like Mary was busy. I hear the wall breathe behind me, then Strunk’s heavy lope on the Martian marble.

“Three days.”

I nod, which seems like the right thing to do. I clear my throat. “I’d like my weapons back.” You know—protocol.

“Pops, I don’t think—”

“Take ’em,” Tony says. He looks over my head and I hear the whisper of fabric on flesh. Strunk’s crossed his arms again. I’m aware of this, register it tactically, but I have no intention of harming Tony. I get it. Business is business. If what he says is true … but if it is, then I really am forgetting and running my mouth. “Take ’em and we’ll make the reservation for you three days hence. A couple of days and you’re at the Prime. Then, it’s paradise.”

Tony winces at the last bit. Slip of the tongue, that.

“Right,” I say. Being blindsided is starting to pass. The weight of the Taulke Faction, of the whole Syndicate Corporation, settles onto my shoulders. I manage to stand up and reach for my weapons … slowly … and put them where they go. “Nothing like retirement to calm a man’s mind.” I don’t know where that comes from, but it’s what I say.

I share a final look with Tony. He knows I know. If a syndicate boss, a man who runs the solar system, who’s damned more people to death than most plagues, can show a broken heart in his face, I think Tony might be showing it. That’s something, at least.

“Come on, Eugene,” Strunk says, no doubt relieved he’s in on the end of the joke. “I’ll walk you out.”

“You do that, d**k,” I say, eyeing him. Yeah, I’m coming back to myself now. The shock has almost completely passed. I slip into the old calm, when time slows down and my ears hear things before my eyes see them.

Strunk escorts me to the vator past a busy Mary. She takes a moment away from screen searches to wipe something out of her eye. Maybe she has a kind thought for me after all. As I pass King T, I spare my fellow old fossil a glance, wondering what his last thought must’ve been millions of years ago, before the sediment laid o’er him.

Kill or be killed.

Survival strategies don’t get much simpler.