There was more crashing.
“Fire the thrusters!” River cried.
“River, no!” said Simon. “Put the cleaver down. Don’t wave it around like that.” To Zoë he said, “I have to go. I think she might do something to Kaylee and Inara if I don’t stop her.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, Shepherd Book’s just walked in. Thank God.”
Book’s voice said, mock-sternly, “Taking the Lord’s name in vain, son?”
“Sorry, preacher,” said Simon. “Can you see to River? You’re good with her.”
“I am when my hair’s tied back, at least. Who are you talking to on the comms? Is it Zoë?”
“Yes,” said Simon.
“I’d like a word with her, if I may. Pass me the handset. Zoë?” Book’s warm tones fell on Zoë’s ears like honey. There was something about the preacher — an aura he had — that put you at ease. He managed to remain unruffled in even the most trying circumstances. He was a living, breathing argument in favor of the spiritual life. “I infer, from what I’ve overheard, that Mal has gone missing.”
“That’s right.” Zoë said. “He went out of Taggart’s to meet Hunter Covington alone. Now he’s gone and I can’t find hide nor hair of him.”
“Then perhaps I can bring you some succor in that regard. I’ve just come from the bridge. Your husband reports that not five minutes ago Guilder’s called. They want their loaner shuttle back. Our shuttle has been picked up.”
“Huh,” said Zoë.
“Is that not good news? The captain has collected the shuttle. He’ll be here shortly, you and Jayne can join us, we can take off, River will quieten, all will be well.”
“Yes, it’s just… If Mal’s taken the shuttle, why didn’t he let me know? Sure, we’re having comms difficulties, but it seems like at the very least he’d do is try to get in touch, especially since he could have used the shuttle’s link, which has to be working better than his own. Also, he could have come back for me and Jayne at the bar after his meeting with Covington. Why go straight to Guilder’s without us? It just isn’t like him.”
Not to mention the “Strawberries” distress signal, she thought.
“Anyway,” she went on, “wasn’t his plan for Kaylee to make sure the repairs were complete before we paid and turned the loaner in?”
“Now that you put it like that, it doesn’t seem to add up, does it?” Book said.
“Listen, Shepherd, would you do me a favor and go to Guilder’s? Check out if it really was Mal took the shuttle. Take along a picture of him and have them verify he was the one.”
“I think I can manage that.”
“Meantime, I’ll keep looking for him around these parts. I’m thinking if I head back to Taggart’s, there’s a chance things will have cooled there. If Mal isn’t aboard the shuttle and everything is in fact okay, it’s a good bet he’ll go back to try to find us the last place he saw us.”
“Cooled?”
“Yeah, the situation got a little hairy. Bit of a dustup.”
“What happened?”
“Jayne happened.”
“Say no more. I’ll contact you as soon as I have any further information, Zoë.” Book cut the connection.
Zoë was clutching at straws, she knew it. Eavesdown Docks was a vast, sprawling place, crammed with people, many of them transients passing through. The odds of her finding Mal just by wandering around looking were close to nil. The odds of him returning to Taggart’s were also pretty low. Her suspicion was that the meet with Hunter Covington had somehow gone badly wrong and that if Mal was aboard the shuttle that had taken off from Guilder’s, he wasn’t there willingly. In the absence of any other plan, though, Taggart’s it was. You never know, she might get lucky.
Lucky? Zoë said to herself as her damaged leg sent up a fresh protest of pain. She and luck had been barely on nodding terms these past few years, not least since she’d thrown in her lot with Mal as his second-in-command. The one undeniably good thing to come out of her signing on with the crew of Serenity was meeting its pilot. Hoban Washburne was hardly the handsomest man in the galaxy, nor the best built, nor even the bravest. He suited her, though. He was funny and wise and loving. He respected her and deferred to her, but without being a pushover. She and Wash were a perfect fit.
As she neared Taggart’s, Zoë saw that the fight had indeed run its course, as she’d hoped. A couple of hover ambulances had arrived and were taking on board the people most badly injured in the brawl. A paramedic was kneeling beside the man she and Jayne had tossed through the window, tending to him.
She was about to venture back into the bar when her gaze lit upon a familiar figure. It was the man in the ten-gallon hat and mustard-yellow duster, the one who had passed Mal the note to go outside. He was loitering on the sidewalk some distance from Taggart’s, looking on with a bemused detachment. A matchstick was clenched between his teeth and he rolled it back and forth in contemplation.
Zoë approached him with as much casualness as her injured limb would allow. She had her Mare’s Leg cocked and ready.
“Hey, pal,” she said, lodging the barrel of the gun in the small of the man’s back.
“Whoa there,” Yellow Duster said, raising both hands and looking over his shoulder. “Take it easy.” He squinted. “I know you?”
“Come with me.”
“Well now. Beautiful lady like you, that’s an invitation I’d gladly accept, whether or not you had a gun in my back. So what say you drop the firearm?”
“Not a chance.” Zoë ground the Mare’s Leg harder into his spine. “Please don’t think I won’t hesitate for one moment to fire.”
“With all these folks around?”
“I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid.”
“I believe you,” said Yellow Duster. “And in this part of town, chances are they wouldn’t bat an eyelid either. All right, you got me. I’ll come quietly.”
She steered him towards the alley she had scoped out earlier when she’d first realized Mal was missing. Halfway along, beside some overflowing garbage bins, she halted. Scavenging animals— rats, dogs, raccoons — had been through the bins, and trash was strewn across the alley in reeking mounds.
“Turn round,” she ordered.
Yellow Duster did as told. “What now?” he said, grinning around the matchstick. “I drop my pants?”
“You should be so lucky. All I want from you is talk.”
“I can do much better things with my mouth, you give me the chance.”
Zoë resisted the urge to clobber him. “You gave a note to someone tonight, in the bar,” she said.
“Did I?”
“Don’t even try to lie. I saw you. The man you gave it to is a friend of mine.”
“So?”
“So what happened after?”
“What do you mean? All I did was drop off a note I never read. Something go sideways?”
She scrutinized him. Yellow Duster had clearly mastered the art of the poker face. She said, “My friend is missing.”
“That’s too bad. But I promise you, I had nothing to do with it. I was paid to take the note into Taggart’s — half up front, half afterwards. I was given a description of the fellow I was supposed to hand it to. Your friend matched the description. I slipped him the note, and he didn’t seem surprised to receive it, so I knew I musta had the right man. After that, I left.”
“Who gave you the note in the first place?”
“Some guy.”
Zoë leveled the Mare’s Leg at Yellow Duster’s crotch. “You can be more specific than that.”
The man tried to maintain his cocksure air, but the matchstick drooped in the corner of his mouth, somewhat giving the game away. “Never knew his name. Never asked. Somebody offers me good coin for a simple job, I say ‘yessir’ and keep the questions to zero.”