"Alda Mikels? Is he the one you deal with."
"I told you, I don't know names-"
Coren shifted in his chair, leaned on his forearms over the small table. "I asked, is that who you deal with?"
Damik moved back. He studied Coren with narrowed eyes for several seconds. Finally, he shook his head. "Mikels is in jail-how could he do anything with baleys? Look, Coren, that's as much as you get-"
Coren sat back. "Let's see, besides the Managins, you were part of the Campaign for Terran Rights-they were the ones who shut down the vats feeding Calcubay District several years back. About the time you were an active member, under the name of…" Coren looked upward in mock concentration. "Ah, I remember. You called yourself 'Damil Bruller: Then there was-"
"Enough."
"What's the problem, Brun? No one can hear us." Coren gestured at his hemisphere.
"How big a file do you have on me?"
"Big enough. Come on, Brun, I don't have any desire to ruin your life. This has nothing to do with you. I just need to know how to find the people who would have had oversight on the last shipment of baleys out of Petrabor that you so innocently arranged. Seriously, who do you deal with? Who helps you afford real pork?" Coren took his own fork, reached across the table, and delicately worked loose a small piece of the gravy-soaked meat. He popped it into his mouth and smiled. "Very good."
"You don't need to know that."
"I'm afraid I do, " Coren said flatly.
Damik let out a long, low breath-nearly a growl. "Two people come see me to arrange things: a woman named Tresha, and a man named Gamelin. At least, that's what she calls him. He never speaks-I assume he's just muscle, he's big enough. "
"Tresha what?"
"The bank is closed for the day."
Coren studied Damik's eyes, then shrugged. He picked up his hemisphere and dropped it back into his pocket.
"You don't ever come talk to me again, Lanra," Damik warned. "We're done."
"Oh, I wish I could promise that. I really do." Coren smiled. "Enjoy the rest of your meal." Coren entered a bar down the corridor from the restaurant, ordered a drink, then went into the restroom. He shrugged out of his jacket, pulling it inside out, changing it from a dark green to a light blue. He broke a small vial in his hands and smeared the thick liquid through his hair, which turned black in less than a minute. He washed his hands before returning to his drink.
Damik walked by a few minutes later. Coren gave him several meters before he sauntered after him.
Damik went through the motions of surveying for a tail, but Coren suspected that his skills were long unused and inadequate. Within two intersections, Damik stopped looking behind him, and picked up his pace.
Coren followed him to a high speed walkway that carried them south into the vast financial district that filled a lot of the area between Baltimor and D.C. He got off after ten kilometers and used a public comm. Coren counted off two minutes, twenty seconds. Damik left the booth and skipped across the accelerating lanes to continue south.
Another ten kilometers. Coren took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Damik had apparently decided no one would follow him from here and never bothered to do another survey. Coren moved closer out of contempt, as if to dare Damik to recognize him, but the man never glanced back.
Damik got off in a warehouse sector. He descended three levels, to a home kitchen, and took a position leaning against one massive pillar. He stood out in this T-class area and drew a lot of odd looks, but he remained where he stood, feigning ambivalence.
Coren turned his jacket out again, slung it by one finger over his shoulder, and skirted the edge of the kitchen till he found a table recently vacated. He sat down before the remains of a late, vat-based dinner, the rich yeast-and-grain aroma thick in his nostrils. He gripped the nearly empty glass of beer and pretended to be enjoying the last of it, keeping Damik in the corner of his field of vision.
About ten minutes went by before anyone approached Damik. An older man in an innocuous black jacket and gray pants came up to him. Coren slipped his optam out, adjusted its range, and waited. Just before Damik and the old man were about to turn away, Coren smoothly raised the device and recorded them.
They moved away from him. The last Coren saw of them, the old man put his arm around Damik's shoulders and patted him in an incongruously paternal manner.
Seven
Coren swallowed a painblock. The throbbing along his neck and shoulder began to ebb. He did not want to take the time to see his doctor, though he knew he should-he still did not know how badly he had been injured in Petrabor.
He crossed the avenue to the open arcade. Shops alternated with private offices along both sides. Coren breathed in the mingled smells of several restaurants and food vendors. At this hour he saw few people. Later, the place would be as crowded as it had been during the height of the last shift.
The door he sought turned out to be plain blue bearing a small nameplate: RW ENTERPRISES.
The image he had recorded of the older man matched quickly to a name-Ree Wenithal-and the company he owned. The public record contained a brief description and little else: a general import-export firm specializing in textiles, licensed eight years ago, with Ree Wenithal listed as sole owner. No recent police reports, at least not in the last three years.
Coren had nearly paid a second visit to Brun Damik after his cursory check of Wenithal's company-what was their connection? Then he found the one detail that had brought him directly here: Wenithal had been a cop.
Coren pressed his fingers to the nameplate.
"Yes?" a polite voice asked.
"Coren Lanra to see Mr. Wenithal."
"Do you have an appointment, Mr. Lanra?"
"No, but I think he'll want to talk to me. I was given his name by a mutual acquaintance: a man named Damik."
Coren waited.
"Very well, Mr. Lanra. Please come in."
The door opened.
At the end of a short hallway, he passed under an arch into a wide, brightly-lit office area. Coren counted eight people working at desks.
A door at the rear opened and a neatly-dressed man with thin, pearl-white hair came toward him-the same man he had seen meet Brun Damik. He seemed tall from a distance but as he neared, Coren saw that it was an illusion: the man walked and carried himself as if he stood a head taller than anyone else.
"Mr. Lanra?" He extended a hand. "I'm Ree Wenithal. How may I help you?"
"A little of your time, a few questions."
Wenithal smiled and waved Coren in the direction of his door. Coren keyed the little hemisphere in his pocket.
The office was dark, expensively furnished with heavy chairs and sofas and polished woodwork. The desk was cluttered with disks and papers. A suit hung from the handle of a closet door to the right. Another sheaf of papers lay beside a half-full cup of coffee on an end table by an upholstered armchair that still held the imprint of its recent occupant.
Coren turned at the sound of the door clicking shut.
Wenithal's left hand was in his jacket pocket.
"There are easily four other ways to leave this office beside the way you came in," Wenithal said matter-of-factly.
"Do I need to know any of them?"
"I suppose that depends on what you have to say." His eyes narrowed. "You used a name I know to get in here. But I don't know you. "
"But you know my type."
"TBI?"
"Special Service."
"But not anymore. You've gone private. "
"It happens from time to time."
"Who do you work for now?"
"Rega Looms."
Wenithal's face showed a moment of confusion. Then he grunted, took his hand from his pocket, and went to his desk. "Drink?"
"No, thank you."
Wenithal poured a glass for himself and added ice, moving carefully, methodically. "So," he said, turning to Coren, "what does Mr. Looms want with me now?"