"Semaline, sir," Sideburns said. "We just had a ping on Morgan's lockbox . . . no, sir, it was a girl. She claims not to know Morgan, that she taps bank lockboxes for a living."
He listened a moment, then looked at Alison. "Empty your pockets," he ordered. "Everything on the table."
Alison complied, laying out her set of keys, her makeup kit, her wallet, her small multitool, and her pen and notebook. Sideburns gestured to the keys, and Mustache picked them up and sorted quickly through them. He paused a moment at the one Alison had showed the Trin-trang, then continued on. "No bank keys here," he reported when he'd reached the end.
"How'd you open the box?" Sideburns asked.
"How do you think?" Alison retorted. "I picked the lock."
"Right in front of them?"
"I'm good at what I do."
"She says she picked it," Sideburns relayed. Again he listened a moment, then gestured to the wallet. Mustache tossed it to him, and he opened to the ID. "Alison Kayna," he read aloud. "No, sir, not to me."
He looked at Alison. "He wants to know if you do anything besides simple lock picking," he said.
Alison shrugged. "Sure. Combinations, time-beats, freeze-darks—pretty much the whole range."
"Let's find out." Sideburns glanced around, pointed at a half-curtained doorway leading to the cafe's back room. "There'll be a safe somewhere back there. You're going to open it."
Alison didn't miss a beat. "Oh, no, you don't," she said darkly. "I know how these little games work."
"What, you think we're cops?" Mustache scoffed.
"I'm not doing it," Alison said firmly, folding her arms across her chest. "And you try to repeat what I just told you and I'll flat-out deny it. You cops are all alike."
Mustache gave a theatrical sigh and dropped his hand to his side.
And suddenly there was a gleaming pistol six inches from Alison's face, pointed squarely between her eyes. "Listen to me, little girl," he said quietly. "You're, what, fifteen?"
"Fourteen," Alison managed between suddenly dry lips. In that single heartbeat she was back on Rho Scorvi again, fighting for her life.
"Do you want to live to reach fifteen?" Mustache asked. "The boss wants the safe open. You're going to open it."
Alison's pulse was thudding in her throat, her arms and legs starting to tremble, her stomach wanting to be sick.
Then, like a slap across the face, something slid subtly across her skin beneath her shirt . . . and in that instant, the terrible feeling of helplessness vanished.
Because she wasn't alone. She had Taneem. And if the young K'da female wasn't nearly as well trained as Jack's own poet-warrior friend, Alison had seen enough of Taneem's abilities to know the kind of help she would be in a pinch.
She took a careful breath, rubbing her shoulder gently as if massaging a stiff muscle. Taneem took the hint and subsided. "All right," she said. "For five hundred."
She had the satisfaction of seeing Mustache's eyes widen slightly. "What?"
"Five hundred," Alison repeated. "I know the law. If you pay me to commit a crime, it's entrapment and you can't charge me."
"This is not—"
"Give her the frinking money," Sideburns snapped.
Glowering, Mustache put his gun away and pulled out his wallet. "Two hundred up front," he growled, dropping the bills on the table in front of her.
"All right," she said, forcing calmness into her voice as she stood up. She'd convinced them—maybe—that she wasn't associated with Jack or Virgil Morgan. But cracking safes wasn't really her area of expertise, not like it was Jack's. The whole thing could still blow up in her face. "I'll need my tools."
Mustache gestured to the items scattered around the table. "Help yourself."
Alison picked up her multitool and makeup kit. On the other hand, she would bet heavily that her collection of gadgetry was a lot more impressive than anything Jack had.
The safe was in a tiny office, tucked away beneath a cluttered desk to the right of the kneehole. It looked to be a typical low-end device: standard tumblers, with probably only a single-stage hazer to block audio intrusion. "Well?" Sideburns prompted.
"Patience is a virtue," Alison reminded him as she opened her makeup kit and pulled out the slender powder case.
"What's that?" Mustache asked.
"It's powder and powder applicator," Alison said, throwing him a scornful look as she snapped it open. "Don't you know any actual women?"
"What's it for?"
"It helps cover skin blemishes and imperfections—"
"I know what it's supposed to be for," Mustache snapped. "What are you going to do with it?"
"With the powder?" Alison asked, unscrewing the mirror set into the case. "Nothing." Setting the case aside, she held the mirror by the edge and squinted through one of the pinholes in the back.
They were there, right where she'd expected: a trio of infrared lasers slicing invisibly through the space in front of the desk. "Got some pingers blocking access," she said, handing the mirror to Mustache.
He peered through the pinhole a moment, then handed it back. "Nice gadget," he said. "Must have set you back some."
"You just have to know where to shop," Alison said, setting down the mirror and pulling out her mascara tube. Unscrewing the bottom end, she wedged it into her ear. Then, being careful to avoid the lasers, she pressed the open end of the tube against the escutcheon plate beside the combination dial.
A soft hum of static issued from the earphone: the hazer she'd expected. She counted off the seconds as the tiny computer inside the tube analyzed the sound, patterned it, and phase-countered it.
Before her count reached thirty, the sound was gone. Single stage, all right. Leaning forward, again being careful not to brush the laser pattern, she got a grip on the dial and started turning.
Two minutes later, with the clicks from the tumblers as loud and solid as if the whole thing had been a basic training exercise, she had it.
"Careful," Mustache warned as Alison pulled the door open a couple of inches.
"I know," Alison assured him, stopping the door's swing before it reached the nearest of the laser beams. "I trust there's nothing in here you actually wanted?"
Mustache raised his eyebrows at Sideburns, who had been murmuring a running commentary on Alison's progress into the UniLink. "Go ahead and close it," Sideburns said. "We'll continue the conversation in the main room."
"Okay," Alison said when the three of them were back in the cafe proper again. "What now?"
"The boss is impressed," Sideburns said. "He wants to offer you a job."
Alison shook her head. "Sorry. I'm kind of booked at the moment."
"Interesting choice of words," Sideburns said, gesturing to the shoulder bag. "Considering we have some stolen property here with your fingerprints and DNA all over it."
Alison glared at him. "You said you weren't cops."
"We're not, but we don't mind turning scum like you over to them," Mustache said.
"Or you can listen to the boss's offer," Sideburns suggested.
"Like I have a choice?" Alison growled, suppressing a sigh. Jack had made it clear he didn't really want her on the Essenay. This was his big chance to get rid of her for good. "What's the job?"
"Basically, the same thing you just did," Sideburns said. "He wants you to open a safe."
"Where?"
"You'll see when you get there."
"Where?" Alison repeated. "I need to know up front how dangerous it's going to be."