The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

Rojo’s cafe was on the building’s second floor, with the entrance and sign—The Sacred Heart—near the mouth of the alley down which Moden had walked to reach the garage behind. A dozen locals were present in the single small room, two families with children as well as individual adults. The food odors were piquant and wonderful.

The girl who shuttled plates from the serving window was in her early teens and strikingly beautiful. “My daughter, Annunciata,” Esteban said proudly. “Nunci, I want you to meet Master Sten Moden!”

The girl dropped into a curtsy, though she carried a serving plate in either hand and there wasn’t, Moden would have thought, space enough for her knees to dip as they did.

The patrons of The Sacred Heart sat at a single table supported on six pillarlike legs. The table was of native wood with a subtle grain, polished by use into an attractive brazen patina. Seating was on the pair of full-length benches. There was barely enough room between the cafe’s walls and the ends of the table for patrons to edge by to the side away from the door—the side from which Nunci served.

“Rosaria!” Esteban called. A woman, older and much fatter than Annunciata, stuck her head out of the serving window.

The mechanic gestured to the cafe’s patrons, all of whom were staring at him and his huge companion already. “Everyone! This is our great good friend, who repaired the aircar which had me tearing out my few remaining hairs. Rosa, your special chicken and rice for our guest—and plenty, he has the strength of ten men and no doubt he eats like ten!”

“Well, I’ll be able to do justice to the meal,” Moden said. The undoubted virtues of Hathaway House didn’t include the cooking of Master Hathaway, who attempted that task.

Esteban led the Frisian to the open seat in the center of the table, facing the door. Moden’s knees straddled the table’s central leg. There was a general shifting and good-humored discussion to create a second place into which Esteban squeezed himself.

Pito popped out of the door to the kitchen and presumed living quarters, carrying a basket into which he dropped dirty dishes. They were plastic and crude, locally pressed from exterior sheeting.

Esteban whispered in his daughter’s ear. She passed the message to her mother at the window and received two small glasses with a bottle of ruby liqueur, three-quarters full.

“From my father-in-law’s farm,” Esteban said as he poured. “That’s where we get the food as well.”

Annunciata reached past to put a serving platter, not a normal dish, of chicken with rice and a variety of heavily processed vegetables on the table before Moden. “Grandpa Mordechai won’t grow gage,” she said. “He says people must eat, mustn’t they?”

“To your health!” Esteban said, raising his glass.

“And yours,” the Frisian responded. He jostled the neighbor on his right in grabbing his glass. The liqueur was thick, almost a syrup, with a fruity flavor. Not unpleasant, and there was enough alcohol to bite the back of Moden’s tongue.

“Both syndicates have been after Mordechai,” Esteban said with a frown. “L’Escorial pushed him off his old farm, so he terraced a hillside that nobody claimed. I helped, the whole family helped, and his neighbors too. He’s stubborn. I agree with him, but I worry.”

The food was delicious. “Have things gotten worse recently with the sides arming?” Moden asked through a bite.

“No, no,” Esteban said. “Since so many of the gunmen came here to Potosi, there’s fewer left to bother the farmers. Most of the farms grow food for themselves, but they grow gage too for one syndicate or the other. So that they’ll be protected.”

A family got up to leave. The wife paid Rosaria with three separate credit chips. From the prices chalked beside the serving window, the five dinners totaled less than ten pesos—one and a half Frisian thalers. The citizens of Potosi didn’t have easy access to credit terminals which could have combined the small amounts into a single chip for convenience.

The outer door opened. The chatter stilled. Three men wearing blue shouldered in. All carried powerguns: a pair of sub-machine guns and the third man festooned with four separate holstered pistols as well as a selection of knives.

Esteban stood up, awkwardly since he had to step over the bench to do so. Citizens—his neighbors—slid to either side, half-crouching toward the ends of the room.

“Gentlemen,” Esteban said, “this is not a bar. I’m sure you’ll find better entertainment elsewhere.”

The leader of the Astra gunmen appeared to be the man with the pistols. “You got a red sign downstairs,” he said. “We thought we’d check the place out.”

“The sign is the sacred heart of our lord Jesus Christ!” Rosaria blurted from the serving window. “We have nothing to do with L’Escorial here!”

“Nunci,” Esteban said in a low voice. “Go help your mother in the kitchen.”

“She stays,” ordered an Astra. He wagged the muzzle of his sub-machine gun to emphasize the point.