Read Online Galaxy Blues by Allen Steele - Free Book Online

to think of it, did they even have lawyers on Coyote? A few days ago, I would’ve hoped not—at least not by the standards of the Western Hemisphere Union, where one is guilty until proven innocent—but cooling my heels in a jail cell, I found myself praying for someone who had a better grasp of colonial law than I did.
    I was still trying to figure out whether or not to plead guilty to whatever I would be charged with when I heard the cell-block door swing open. Two pairs of footsteps came down the corridor, and I sat up on my bunk. Okay, this would be my solicitor. I hoped that his sheepskin hadn’t been mail-ordered from Earth.
    Then the Chief stopped in front of my cell, and with him was a short, rather pudgy middle-aged man with a shaved head. He looked familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place him.
    â€œHere he is, Mr. Goldstein.” Chief Levin nodded in my direction. “Sorry, but I can’t let you in. Rules…”
    â€œQuite all right, Chris. So long as we can talk.” Goldstein looked around. “Of course, if I could have a place to sit…”
    He cast a look at the Chief, and Levin turned and walked away. Goldstein waited patiently, the fingers of his left hand absently playing with the crease of his tailored trousers. Wearing a tan linen suit, a red silk scarf hanging loose around his thick neck, he was easily the best-dressed man I had yet seen on Coyote. Which wasn’t saying much, because everyone I’d met so far was a blueshirt or a proctor. Nonetheless, this person practically smelled like money. Had to be a lawyer…and yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen him before.
    Chief Levin returned with a straight-backed wood chair that he’d found somewhere. “You’re too kind,” Goldstein said, as the proctor placed it in front of my cell. “That will be all for now, thanks.” He raised his right hand to the proctor, and I caught a brief glimpse of green paper neatly folded within his middle and ring fingers. The Chief shook Goldstein’s hand, deftly causing the colonial to disappear, then he vanished as well.
    Goldstein waited until the cell-block door slammed shut, then he turned to look at me. “Ensign Truffaut,” he said, favoring me with a broad smile. “So good to see you again.”
    â€œI’m sorry, but…”
    â€œOf course we have.” Smoothing the back of his trousers with his hand, he sat down in the chair the Chief had brought him. “Can’t blame you if you don’t remember me, being rather preoccupied at the time. Mr. Heflin is very efficient in his duties, don’t you think?” A sly grin. “But perhaps that lump you delivered to the back of his head will teach him not to mistake efficiency for attention to detail.”
    It was then that I recognized him. The passenger who’d emerged from his first-class cabin aboard the Lee just in time to see the chief petty officer escort me to the bridge. Goldstein nodded, his grin growing wider as I gaped at him.
    â€œAh, so…now you know.” Goldstein reached into a pocket of his jacket, produced a pair of thick brown cigars. He offered one to me; when I shook my head, he shrugged and put it away. “If you hadn’t been exposed,” he continued, “I might have come over to ask if you wanted a poker game to pass the time.” He used a pocket guillotine to clip the end of his stogie. “Then again, if I’d done that, I might have taken your cover story at face value…that you were a gentleman by the name of Geoffrey Carr, and nothing more interesting than that.”
    â€œSorry to disappoint you.”
    â€œDisappoint me?” An eyebrow was raised as a gold-plated lighter was produced. “Far from it. In fact, you may be the answer to a problem I have. And I may be the answer to yours.”
    XVI
    I didn’t know quite what to say to that, so I simply waited as he