On that day, Niko happened to round a corner in time to see Gruen’s fist connect with the nose of a burly Scavenger. It was a well-known street fighting tactic to temporarily stun an opponent by smacking his nose so badly blood would spurt out, giving you a moment’s edge to land a knockdown to finish it quickly. Niko knew the Scavenger only by his street name, TMan, and had traded a few items with him in the past. He also knew TMan wouldn’t let a bloodied nose stop him. And Gruen wasn’t much of a fighter with that one weird eye.
Niko always carried a heavy iron pipe. He walked toward the gathering crowd slowly, the way a guy walks when he knows he can overpower the situation. He didn’t want to kill anyone. It was crucial to end a fight before the Detainers got wind of it and everyone was hauled away to the camps. Some of the bag of loot Gruen carried was his, too, so he had a financial motive. Still, Niko liked to keep his sectors as clean as possible. Which is to say his unofficial sectors. He patrolled them as diligently as any Protector. Of course, he paid off the uniformed thugs on a schedule as regular as any mortgage.
Niko circled behind TMan as his arm went back, fist clenched, to take a swing at Gruen. Whack. He clubbed him a solid one on the back of the head. Still holding the pipe as TMan wheeled around to see what had hit him, Niko was ready to flatten him full in the face. But the guy’s knees buckled, and he went down in a heap at Niko’s feet.
“Stomp him!” yelled the others. “Kill him. He’s a rat anyway. Destroy the rat.”
Niko held up a hand to shut them up before the Detainers showed up. He knelt down and felt for a pulse. Feeling the slight throbbing, he stood again.
“Get out of here before you get hauled away for an illegal gathering,” he said in a low, authoritative voice. They hurried off, leaving TMan on the ground where he was beginning to moan softly as he came back to life. He would crawl away soon enough, back to his hovel to nurse his wounds and prepare for the next street fight.
As soon as they were gone, Niko led Gruen into the doorway of a nearby one-story building with no windows left and a door hanging on bent hinges. There they divided what Gruen had been protecting in the bag hanging from his belt.
“You had a good day,” Niko told him.
“Unit ten raided a warehouse outside The Perimeter. They paid off the guards. Cost them plenty, but it was worth it. Look here. I got a watch.”
Gruen showed off the watch on his wrist. Niko whistled softly. “Nice one too,” he said.
“Hey,” Gruen whispered, “you notice anyone following you? I got this creepy feeling of someone dogging me every time I meet up with you.”
Niko shook his head. “No, man. No one’s watching me. I’m real careful about that. Anyway, who would care about me?”
Gruen shrugged and tied the bag onto his belt. He stuffed his take into a flat pouch he kept in a kind of holster he’d created inside his faded jacket.
“You never know,” he cautioned Niko. “But I got a definite feeling about this. Just watch out. Might be we’re not paying off the right people. Or spreading enough around.”
He sneaked a look outside the doorway before stepping back into the street, which was empty except for a scrawny cat sniffing at a drain.
“Got a bead on something that could be big. I’m not saying it is, but it could be. Only getting it is risky. Nothing I could handle. But you . . . Meet me in the third quadrant over by that big pile of old bricks. It’s near where those same Scavengers hang around.”
“Okay.” Niko nodded. “But I doubt they’ll try this again. They’re a bunch of low-life cowards most of the time.”
He waited until Gruen was out of sight before he also left the shadowy doorway and turned toward the Tower of David over in The Ring. He never walked on the streets without being aware of his surroundings. The faint scent of meskitta smoke came to him as he passed an alleyway where a scrawny dog pawed a piece of garbage. Niko glanced at the dog and then saw the toes of highly polished black shoes that looked new and expensive protruding from a corner.
Darkness would envelop the city soon, and Niko wanted to get home. But he thought about what Gruen had said. Was someone following him? If so, he had to know who and, more important, why. So he veered into the alley, fingers clenched around the iron pipe, eyeing the dog that now pawed a crumpled cardboard box.
Meskitta scent was heavy now, sweet and musty. He held the pipe firmly in case he had to strike fast. And then, as he advanced deeper into the alley where anything might happen, from the shadows a man appeared, his hands up, two fingers holding the meskitta cigarette, a bemused smile on his face, an expensive-looking, carefully pressed suit that matched the shined shoes covering his trim frame.
Niko sized him up quickly. He looked—how did Niko think of it?—pampered.
“I give up.” The man stepped forward. He was grinning broadly now.
There wasn’t much to joke about in Niko’s daily life. So he didn’t respond to the teasing. And the man kept coming toward him, his hands raised, his face in shadow, the meskitta trailing a slender stream of smoke above his head.
“Here.” The man opened his jacket with one hand. “Have at it. Whatever I’ve got. It’s yours. Go ahead.”
“I’m not a thief,” Niko said, but he kept hold of the pipe.
“Of course you are,” the man said, and dropped his arms. He took a last puff on the meskitta. “We’re all thieves at the right price. I have nothing against stealing.” He shrugged and dropped the stub to crush it underfoot, then looked up and smiled at Niko. “What’s your price?”
“What do you want?” Niko relaxed a bit. He looked down at the pipe as if considering whether to let it drop.
“You can keep hold of it, if it makes you feel safer,” the man smiled again. “Although, if you decided to slam my head in, you’d find yourself in trouble like you can’t imagine. But we all take chances, don’t we?”
“Why are you tailing me?”
“Am I? Or did you just happen to find me in this alley?”
“You don’t look like the kind of guy who hangs around in alleys. Especially in this part of town. So, yeah, you’re following me.” Niko wondered if he was one of those older men. The ones who like teenage boys. And when the man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a slim wallet, Niko backed up.
“Not interested,” Niko said. “Go on back to your mansion and leave the streets to the rest of us. You’ve got enough already.”
Niko turned to go, but the man was on him like a hungry wolf. He took hold of Niko’s shoulders, pressing him to turn back so they’d be facing each other. And then he grabbed the pipe before Niko realized what was happening. He tossed it far back into the alley and spun Niko around, and the grin was gone. The man had a tight grip, a weight trainer’s grip, the kind of grip that was foolish to resist.
“Listen, I know who you are and how you live. I’m on your side. I won’t tell you why or how, but I’ll be around. And one day, you’ll come to me and I’ll help you.”
With that, the man let go of Niko with a little shove. He handed Niko a card and said, “Come see me here,” and walked quickly out of the alley.
Too stunned to react quickly, Niko exited the alley just in time to catch a glimpse of the man sliding gracefully into the back seat of a long, black car. Niko had never seen one like it before. The door slammed, and the car pulled away rather fast. Niko marveled at the car and wondered about the man. He looked at the card which read simply Huston. There was also a number with an address in The Compound.