It was not a difficult journey to Seahaven after all. Cerise got them back onto the flyway without incident—it was a left entrance and a long ramp that wasn’t always long enough, from the look of the dark stains on the concrete barriers where the ramp ended—and then dawdled in the slow lane, driving on manual just a few kilometers above the local minimum, until they reached the Seahaven turnoff. She switched to grid control then—no use annoying the local authorities or drawing attention to themselves before they had to—and let the grid take them back down to Eastman House.
They arrived a little after ten, turned the runabout over to the man on duty at the door—Cerise hesitated, just a little, but knew better than to do anything out of the ordinary—and made their way into the lobby. Trouble caught her breath, recognizing the man slumped on one of the low couches under the disapproving eyes of the staff, glanced instinctively backwards to see Bennet Levy emerging from the bellman’s cubicle beside the door.
“Cerise,” she said, and Cerise said, loudly, “Hello, Mabry.”
A big man, broad-shouldered and heavy-bodied, with a mass of greying, disreputable curls, turned away from the main desk and smiled, showing teeth. “Hello, Cerise. And this must be your—former partner.”
“Christ,” Levy said, not quite under his breath, and Starling, who had levered himself up off the low couch with unexpected grace, said gently, “I’m sorry, Vess, this is Treasury business.”
“I’m afraid not,” Mabry said. “I have authority in this country to make arrests, and I’m taking Ms.—Trouble—into custody as a material witness.” He eyed the Treasury agent shrewdly, added, “I’m sorry, John, but you’re chasing the wrong one.”
“You’ve made a deal,” Starling said, and Mabry nodded. Trouble, watching, couldn’t quite read the Treasury agent’s expression, thought for a moment she almost saw relief mingling with the chagrin.
“That’s right. And you can take it up with your superiors if you have any questions,” Mabry said. The words could have been hostile, but his relaxed tone and easy stance robbed them of much of the offense.
“You know we’ll have to, Vess,” Starling said.
“I know. But can we call a truce until you’ve settled it?”
“And you know I can’t do that, either.” Starling sighed, looked past Trouble to his partner. It was a speaking look, and Trouble barely restrained herself from turning to see Levy’s expression. “Give me your word you won’t leave the hotel until I’ve got my bosses’ reading, and I’ll let you get breakfast.”
“Done,” Mabry said, and, as Starling stared at him expectantly, added, “You have my word.”
It was all, in the end, unexpectedly civilized. Starling vanished into one of the shielded communications cubicles to call his superiors, while Levy, his face set into a stony mask of disapproval, followed them upstairs to Mabry’s room. There, Mabry ordered breakfast for them all, over Cerise’s polite and Trouble’s more definite protests, and they sat in silence, eating and drinking the near-infinite pots of coffee until at last Starling reappeared.
“Is it all arranged?” Mabry asked, and Starling shrugged.
“My bosses would appreciate some help with the eventual prosecutions—you understand, they don’t want to cause you trouble over jurisdictions, but this has been a stateside problem as well….”
He let his voice trail off suggestively, and Mabry nodded in perfect understanding. “My bosses are well aware of the value of international cooperation, John. I’m positive there will be no objection to my sharing any data I receive with you. Just so long as we are able to prosecute as well. One of the—incidents—comes under Singapore’s jurisdiction, you understand.”
In spite of herself, Trouble had to bite back the urge to whistle, and knew her eyebrows rose. Singapore’s cracker laws were some of the most stringent in the notoriously strict Asian Circle; trying a case there, with the kind of evidence Mabry already had—not to mention what she herself could supply—practically guaranteed not only a conviction but a definite prison term.
Levy made a noise that might have been approving, and Starling gave an appreciative nod. “We weren’t aware that Singapore had jurisdiction in any of the cases.”
Mabry smiled. “We only got the ruling thirty hours ago ourselves.”
“Good enough,” Starling said, suddenly brisk. “Then we’ll leave you to it, Vess. Good hunting.”
“Thank you,” Mabry said, and shut the door firmly behind them.
“Singapore,” Cerise said, after a moment. “Who’s the complainant?”
Mabry smiled placidly at her, poured himself another cup of coffee. “KMS.”
“That won’t hold,” Cerise said.
“Probably not,” Mabry agreed. “But it would be nice if it did.”
Trouble watched them warily, not sure she liked the cold-blooded discussion—it was a fellow cracker they were talking about, and, no matter how dangerous newTrouble had become, personally and generally across the nets, it was still unnerving to hear them plotting his effective demise.
“So you’re Trouble,” Mabry said, after a moment. “I’m Vesselin Mabry.”
“So I gathered.” Trouble kept her voice neutral, was remotely pleased with the effect.
Mabry smiled. “So. You’ve agreed to help me find newTrouble. Can I ask why?”
“Does it matter?” Trouble answered, and managed a smile to take the sting from the words.
“Probably not,” Mabry agreed, still placid. “As long as I get him.”
Trouble frowned again, and Cerise said hastily, “I assume we’re free to do as we please now, Vess?”
“Do you have the information I want?” Mabry asked.
Trouble did not bother to hide her sneer.
Cerise said, “Ah. You wouldn’t be threatening me, would you, Vess?”
“No threat,” Mabry said, and contrived to sound hurt by the accusation. “But I would like to know.”
Trouble glanced at Cerise, saw the other woman’s head tilt in an all-but-imperceptible nod. “We’re waiting to get it.”
“When?” Mabry asked.
“That I can’t say,” Trouble answered. “We have a bunch of inquiries out, and it just depends on who talks to us first.”
“Treasury may have made some people a little wary,” Mabry said, not without bitterness.
“Or pissed off enough to talk,” Cerise said.
“One would hope so,” Mabry said.
“The first thing that I want to do,” Trouble said, “is get some clean clothes—I assume my belongings are still back at the hostel?”
Mabry shrugged.
“If not,” Cerise said, with a sudden, malicious grin, “we can have some serious fun getting them back.”
Trouble smiled in spite of herself. “Speak for yourself. But then I can check in with some people.”
“And I can talk to the nets,” Cerise agreed.
Trouble’s grin widened. “Going to go looking for Silk?”
“Not for that,” Cerise said, and sounded suddenly grim.
“Silk,” Mabry said, and there was something in his voice that made both women look curiously at him. “What do you know about Silk?”
“Cerise knows a lot more than I do,” Trouble said.
Cerise shrugged, frowning at the sudden intensity of Mabry’s stare. “I—met Silk on the net a while back. She and I had an extremely brief fling. But I think she knows newTrouble, and I owe her a bad turn, so…I thought I’d make some hard inquiries into her connections.”
“‘Her’?” Mabry said, and laughed suddenly, without humor. “The Silk I knew—know of—was a boy.”
Cerise quirked a smile at him, trying to choose her words carefully beneath the careless tone. “So you got hustled, too.”
“Not me,” Mabry said, still with a tight, unfriendly smile. “Max did.”
“So which is it, I wonder?” Cerise said. There was no use in being embarrassed; sex and gender confusion was one of the hazards o
f the nets, something a few people enjoyed exploiting while most of the net tried to minimize the inevitable mistakes. Even so, she felt a brief, unwanted flash of something between annoyance and shame: bad enough to be hustled, she thought, but by a boy?
Mabry shrugged. “I admit, I don’t really know. Except that he—she?—is an accomplished bitch, any way you care to name. I should like to have words with him—her.”
Trouble looked at Cerise, wondering just what Mabry meant, how much of a threat he intended. Cerise looked back, lifted one shoulder in a fractional shrug. Who knows? her expression said, and Trouble repressed a sigh. The last thing they needed was for some personal vendetta of Mabry’s to screw up what already promised to be a very tricky deal.
Mabry said, “The trouble with Silk wasn’t just that he likes being an obsession, or that Max was well and truly obsessed there for a week or so. But he talked Max into doing him a favor Max shouldn’t even have listened to, and very nearly got Max involved in some very dirty security work. Which came close to costing Max his license—the license that I put my neck on the line to get for him.”
“Ah,” Cerise said, and looked at Trouble. “Max has gone into security work, consulting. I didn’t know if you’d heard.”
“I’d heard something,” Trouble said. That explained a lot, right there: if Silk had hustled Helling, and then used him to get codes or other information—well, she thought, if it had been my lover, I’d want to see his ass kicked, all right. I can’t blame Mabry. And if his reputation is on the line as well…
“So, Cerise,” Mabry said, and forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, “if you can get Silk to give you anything, especially if you can make him—her, whatever—look like the bitch it is, I would personally enjoy seeing it. But I’d be very careful.”
“I intend to be,” Cerise said. “I certainly intend to be.”
11
Somewhat to Trouble’s surprise, her room was still available, and Valentine was not nearly as hostile as Trouble herself would have been, faced with Treasury on her doorstep. The room had been searched, of course—there had been at least a hint of a warrant, Valentine said, shrugging—but nothing seemed to be missing, for which Trouble, at least, was grateful. She took a second shower and found fresh clothes, then checked the machine setup. She ran the programs she had left set mostly as a matter of habit, checking for searches in her own working volumes. Nothing showed, which meant only that Starling, at least, was good at his job. The thought was depressing; she shoved it away, and crossed to the window to stare out into the dusty street. Seahaven looked pretty much as usual, though she wondered what the Parcade would be like, if Treasury had been its usual self the night before. She stood for a moment, watching a trio of older women making their way along the sidewalk, jackets with The Willows’ logo slung over their shoulders. They looked tired, moved as though they had been working all night, feet in low-heeled shoes scuffing against the paving.
Trouble sighed, went back into the bathroom for her medical kit. She carried stimulants—what cracker didn’t, for the long nights on the net, designer drugs that didn’t interfere with perception—and she found the tube after a few moments’ search, swallowed two of the tiny pink pills, and washed it down with the dregs of her coffee. Then she collected her keys and the important components of her machine—she wasn’t leaving that behind, not again, no matter how much protection Mabry had promised—and started down the stairs, heading for the Parcade.
The Parcade was quieter even than she had anticipated, half the storefronts still metal-shuttered even though opening time had come and gone. There were fewer people than usual loitering in the arcade doorways or waiting under the shadow of the boardwalks’ awnings, and most of them, Trouble guessed, would belong to Tinati’s goon squad. One of them stared after her for a long moment, and she braced herself, waiting to be thrown out again, but the man said nothing, in the end. Trouble kept walking, feeling the stare between her shoulder blades, was glad when she reached the entrance to Blake’s shop. It was open—it was hard to intimidate Mollie Blake—but the girl behind the counter had been reinforced by a tall, skinny black man. He didn’t move as Trouble came into the showroom, but his attention sharpened visibly. Trouble nodded politely, careful to include both of them in the gesture, and said, “Is Mollie around?”
The girl said, in a colorless voice, “Just a minute.” She reached under the counter, touched controls, and reached for the thin wire of the mike, bringing it in front of her mouth. “Boss? Trouble’s here.”
The response was inaudible, of course, but the girl grinned suddenly. She controlled herself in an instant, but there was still a certain amusement in her voice as she went on. “Boss says you should go straight up.”
The guard moved silently to open the door, and Trouble saw the sudden bulge of muscles under his skin. Blake didn’t skimp on her security, she decided, and was grateful that he hadn’t been ordered to toss her out on her ear. She started up the stairs, heard the second door open above her, and looked up to see Nova silhouetted in the doorway.
“You sure live up to your name,” she said, and moved back out of the way.
Trouble stepped past her, into the sudden pleasant light of Blake’s loft. The worktable was lit this time, and there was a device eviscerated on the working platform, sectioned into neat, unrecognizable pieces. Blake looked up, stood, stretching.
“So,” she said. “Was this your way of convincing me I ought to hurry?”
“Not likely,” Trouble said, electing to take the question at face value. “Caused me more trouble than that’s worth, and probably annoyed Tinati on top of it. I don’t need that grief, too.”
“Nobody needs that kind of grief,” Nova said from the doorway. “We had to hire his security this morning, just to prove our goodwill.”
Blake ignored her. “I’m surprised you’re still walking around this morning.”
Trouble took a deep breath. “I made a deal,” she said flatly. “Not with Treasury.”
“Oh?”
That was Nova again, and Blake said, “Shut up, will you? Or say something useful.”
Trouble went on as though there had been no interruption. “This is a multinational problem, Mollie. Interpol has an interest, and their guy has a good name—Cerise knows him, for one, and Max Helling. And he deals with it under the Conventions, not Evans-Tindale.”
Blake nodded. “What exactly is the deal?”
“I give him newTrouble, he gets Treasury off my back,” Trouble said. “And before you say anything, Mollie, remember, I asked the nets. And off the nets, too. And I’m not going to go down for the sake of some punk kid who’s a stranger to me and most of the net.”
“I know you did,” Blake said.
Nova said, “It’s been a little weird on the nets. When were you last on?”
Trouble glanced at her, unable to read the odd smile on her broad face, and shrugged. “It’s been, what, fifteen hours? Maybe twenty.”
Nova’s smile widened. “You’ve got friends coming out of the woodwork, sunshine, and not just the worms, either. A lot of people were real pissed that it was you got shopped, and not the kid. That Sasquatch, whoever he is, he’s lying low, and there hasn’t been a whiff of newTrouble.”
“I’m flattered,” Trouble said. “But I could’ve used that help a little earlier.”
Nova shrugged, still grinning, and Blake said, “Be that as it may—” She stopped abruptly, tried again. “I am not particularly pleased with the situation, either. It’s—you might say it’s very bad for business, in more ways than one, and the sooner the Mayor realizes that, the better for him. So: you were right, Trouble, I have done business with your pretender. Walk-in business—he lives around here somewhere. The word is, he lives in one of the secure complexes up north of the highway interchange, I don’t know which one. But I’m sure you can find that out easily enough.”
Trouble nodded, her thoughts already racing ahead. “The ones on the headlan
d, you mean?”
“Those are the ones,” Blake agreed.
“Fucking expensive place to live,” Trouble said. The kind of security, electronic and real, that those slim buildings provided for their tenants didn’t come cheaply; when you coupled that with luxury flats, full services, and proximity to The Willows and its direct air link to most of the coast, and then added in a very limited number of available spaces—rents would be in the thousands-per-month, and buy-in would be in the millions.
“I know,” Blake said. “And no, I don’t know where he gets the money.”
Nova gave a nasty laugh, and Blake glared at her. Nova subsided, and Blake looked back at Trouble. “What my partner is trying to say is, he’s a kid—newTrouble, I mean. Really a kid, maybe seventeen, eighteen, something like that. And he is very pretty, if you like them sweet-faced and skinny.”
“Sounds like a chicken-hawk’s dream,” Trouble said.
“That could be it,” Blake agreed, “someone paying to keep him, and him cracking on the side.”
“No other way he could afford it,” Nova muttered, and when Blake turned on her, she spread her hands. “Look, Moll, there’s no way he could afford that, even cracking—even if he was selling what he steals. Just no way. Someone’s got to be paying his bills.”
Blake shook her head. “Your mind’s in the gutter—”
“Except when it comes out to feed,” Nova said.
Blake looked back at Trouble. “He doesn’t feel like a hustler. He’s a cocky punk, but not in that style. And no, before you ask, I don’t know how else he could afford a Headlands apartment. But he doesn’t act like a hustler.”
Trouble and her Friends Page 30