Read Online Sweet Justice by Neil Gaiman - Free Book Online

good. On that basis I need the full co-operation of the Brit-Cit Judges.’
    Chief Judge Jones got up, revealing himself as quite overweight, something that Hershey had never seen in a Judge before. He stared out of the window. The lights of Brit-Cit flickered and twinkled beneath them.
    ‘I take it that I will get that co-operation, sir?’
    Jones didn’t look at her. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You do, and you don’t. It’s not that we don’t want to give you all the help we can. But you’re a Mega-City One Judge. And this is Brit-Cit. We do things differently here.
    ‘I’m assigning you to Judge Armour. You two can work together on this case. You can use Brit-Cit Justice Department Facilities. But while you’re here you take orders from Armour. And from me. And none of this charging into places, Lawgiver blazing, damaging property and putting the wind up our citizens! You aren’t in Mega-City One now, lass.’
    ‘No,’ said Hershey. ‘I can see that I’m not.’
    ‘Right then,’ said Chief Judge Jones. ‘That’s all that needs to be said then. Good luck.
    ‘Just remember. We’ve got a saying over here. Softly softly catchee perp . Right then. Good morning.’
     
    TV NASTIES
     
    Clute had done five years in an Iso-Cube when he was twenty. The hologram of him taken then showed Hershey a weasely little man, short, prematurely balding, with little cherubic lips.
    Since then he had been on the move. Severian Clute was just one of the half-dozen names he had used, a minor confidence man and compulsive liar who had informed on the Brit-Cit underworld just enough to keep in circulation. No record of sugar dealing until six weeks back, when he had left his job handling transit passengers at the Space Port, abandoned his apartment, and gone underground.
    There were no leads as to his current whereabouts.
    Hershey sat in her hotel room, and reviewed the files again and again, hoping to pry some clue from Clute’s shifty little face, from the list of dates and places. No go. She paced the room. Flipped on her communicator.
    ‘Armour? Hershey here. Got anything?’
    ‘’Fraid not. I’ll contact you as soon as I have.’
    She sighed. ‘I can’t sit around forever! I’ll go nuts!’
    ‘I’ll call you as soon as there’s any word. Really, in the meantime why don’t you watch the box?’
    ‘Huh?’ Why couldn’t the man speak in English?
    ‘The television. Armour out.’
    Hershey activated the television, flipped the channels. BCB1 was showing a historical drama about the Second Elizabethan Era. A woman named Thatcher – played by a remarkably attractive young actress – whom Hershey took to be the Chief Judge of that period, was riding her horse down a freeway, in company with an army of punk rockers.
    ‘ If Hitler is to be defeated, ’ she told her troops, ‘ we must declare this to be The Summer of Love! ’
    Hershey flipped channels.
    ‘ Don’t move perpy, ’cos I am the Law! ’ shouted a wild-eyed young man. There was a burst of canned laughter. ‘ It’s Dudd! ’ said someone. ‘ Don’t talk to me about crime in Brit-Cit. I left my bicycle by Tony Hancock Block last week, and when I got back that evening it was still there! ’ ‘ The bicycle? ’ ‘ No, blah-face! The Block! ’ More hysterical laughter.
    Hershey thought seriously about heading down to Brit-Cit Broadcasting and arresting the lot of them. Instead she turned the television off.
    ‘Be a good citizen,’ a recorded message implored her. ‘Please destroy your television set now. Support local obsolescence.’
    Hershey had never destroyed public property in her life. She walked to the far side of her hotel room, took out her Lawgiver, and fired at the TV set.
    Her communicator crackled.
    ‘Hershey? It’s Armour here–! What’s that noise? I thought I heard a shot!’
    ‘It’s just the television,’ she explained.
    ‘Oh gosh – it sounded so real! Anyway, one of our Judges thinks he may have a lead. Meet you