Matthew said nothing. Carl saw Stefan Nevant’s lupine grin, rubbed at his eyes to make it go away.
“Look, Matt, thanks—”
“Matthew.”
“Sorry. Matthew. Thanks for the check on Norton, ’kay? Talk to you soon.”
He hung up. Tossed the phone on the bed and got rapidly dressed in the least used and bloodied garments from among his limited wardrobe. He let himself out of the hotel room, paused briefly on his way past Sevgi Ertekin’s door, then made an exasperated noise in his throat and stalked on. He waited ten impatient seconds at the elevator, then stiff-armed the door to the emergency stairwell open instead and went down the steps two at a time. Crossed the lobby at a fast stride and went out into the city. He walked a single block to get the feel of the evening, then flagged down an autocab.
The interior was low-lit and cozy, an expansive black leatherette womb with slash-narrow views to the passing street. In the gloom on the front panel, an armored screen blipped into life and showed him a rather idealized female driver interface. Generic Rim beauty, the classic Asian-Hispanic blend. Pinned dark hair, a hint of a curl in it, chic high-collar jacket. Something of Carmen Ren in the features and the poise, but machined up to an inhuman perfection. The voice was an Asia Badawi rip-off.
“Good evening, sir. Welcome to Cable Cars. What will be your choice of destination this evening?”
He hesitated. Sutherland, he knew, would not have been impressed with this.
Sutherland’s on fucking Mars.
“Just take me somewhere I can get in a fight,” he said.
Switched off and careless from jet lag, long sleep, and yesterday’s combat, he never noticed the figure on the corner that watched him leave the hotel, or the nondescript teardrop that slid out from parking on the opposite side of the street and dropped into the traffic behind his cab.
CHAPTER 41
Dougie Kwang’s week had been shaping up for shit ever since it started, and tonight didn’t look any better. He was three games down to Valdez already, stalking the angles of the table, pumping violent, crack-bang shots to take his mind off it all. The technique—if you want to call it that, he fumed—mostly just rattled the balls in the jaws, and they sat out more often than he sank them. He knew his anger was the exact reason he was losing, but he couldn’t shake it loose. There was too much else gone to shit around him.
Wundawari’s shipment never made it through MTC in Jakarta; Wundawari herself was now banged up in an Indonesian jail on trumped-up holding charges until some scummy Seattle-based rights lawyer she used could wire across and get her out. The money was gone. Write it off, the Seattle guy advised drily down the line, what you maybe claw back from the Maritime Transit guys in compensation, you’re going to be paying me in fees. Dougie might have called him on that one, but Wundawari wouldn’t do the time, and both he and Seattle knew it. She was too soft, came from Kuala Lumpur money and a whole crèche of spoiled-brat connections down in the Freeport. She’d pay whatever Seattle wanted.
On the street, things were no better. Alcatraz station were coming down hard and heavy all over the fucking place, big-ass RimSec interventions at levels those guys mostly didn’t bother with. He still couldn’t find out why. Some shit about a factory raft bust last night and the fallout, but none of his few bought-and-paid-for touches inside the RimSec machine ranked high enough to know any more than that. More importantly, they were too fucking scared of Alcatraz to risk sniffing around any closer. End result was, he couldn’t move shit anywhere north of Selby or west of the Boulevard, and even in the yards at Hunter Point, he was getting heat he didn’t need. And the border had been sticky for fucking months now, none of the gangs he knew could get more than the odd fence-bunny across, mostly straitlaced white girls out of the Dakotas who took fucking forever to break in and even then didn’t play too well to popular demand.
Mama was still coughing. Still wouldn’t take her fucking pills.
Now Valdez was lining up in the wake of another too-hard-too-fast fuckup, two spots floating nice and loose over open pockets, clean backup angles everywhere, and then the eight-ball doubled into the side, one of Valdez’s favorite cheap trick shots, he’d do it with his fucking eyes closed if he wanted. Another fifty bucks. He’d—
But Valdez frowned instead and lifted his chin off the cue. Got up and came around the table to Dougie, eyes narrowed.
“Hey, pengo mio. You say Elvira wasn’t working tonight?” He nodded across the gloom to the bar. “Because if that ain’t work, then you got a problem.”
So Dougie slanted a glance across the gloom to where Valdez was looking, and like the rest of it wasn’t fucking enough, here’s Elvie on her stool with her back to the bar, elbows down and tits cranked out in that red top he bought her back in May, legs making all kinds of slit-skirt angles on the frame of the stool, and all for this big black guy draped over the next stool and just looking her over like she’s fruit on some Meade Avenue street stall.
Too fucking much.
He hefted the cue up one-handed through his own grip, half a meter down from the tip where it thickened, reversed his hold, and carried it low at his side across to the bar. Elvira saw him coming, made that dumb fucking face of hers, and stopped gabbing. Dougie let the silence work for him, came on a couple more steps and locked to a halt a meter and a half off the black guy’s shoulder.
“That’s a mistake you’re making, pal,” he said, breathing hard. Anger slurred through his tone like smeared paint on a cheap logo. “See, Elvira here isn’t working tonight. You want some cheap fucking pussy, you’d better come around and see her another fucking day. Got that?”
“We’re just talking.” The black guy’s tone was low and reasonable, almost bored. Weird fucking accent as well. He didn’t even look at Dougie. “If Elvira’s not working, I guess she’s free to do that, right?”
Dougie felt the weight of the day come down on him like demolition.
“I don’t think you’re paying attention,” he told the guy tightly.
And then the black guy did look at him, a sudden switch so his eyes collected Dougie’s stare like third base snapping up a low ball out at Monster Park.
“No, I am,” he said.
It stopped Dougie dead in his tracks, knocked him back and kept the cue at his side, because at some level he couldn’t quite nail he knew this guy was actively looking for what came next. It felt like a skid, like ice under his wheels when he least expected it. He knew he had to keep going, no one much in the place tonight but Valdez was watching, so were the barkeep and a couple of others, whatever went down, street feed would have it out to everyone by morning, he had to fuck this guy up, but the ground under his feet had shifted, was no longer safe, he couldn’t fucking read this guy or what he’d do.
He tightened his grip on the cue.
“Try to hit me with that thing,” said the black man softly. “I will kill you.”
Dougie’s heart kicked in his chest. He felt the rage flicker, overstoked, held too long, suddenly unreliable. Tiny, rain-drip voice of caution in the gap. He drew breath, forced the knowledge down.
“Door’s over there,” he said. “Just walk the fuck away.”
“My feet are tired.”
So Dougie just swung that fucking cue like he’d always known deep down he’d have to. Lips peeled back off a snarl and the shaky lift of the held-too-long adrenal surge.
Situation like that, what else was he going to fucking do?
Even as the fight bloomed, Carl could feel the small seep of disappointment at the back of it all. This swaggering low-grade gangster in front of him, a little more spine than most pimps maybe, but in the end no competition, no real threat.
Yeah, like you expected anything else out here, black-walled bunker bar in a derelict neighborhood on the edge of an all but fully automated navy yard. Not like he hadn’t discussed it carefully enough with the autocab, walked the deserted streets for long enough looking. Face it, soak, this is exactly what you’ve been prowling for. This is what you wanted. Enjoy.