"It went all right," I said, trying to think how I could put my concerns.
"What did you get?" he asked.
"What do you mean, what did I get?" I said.
"I mean, what did you get from Nakada?" he said. "How much did she pay you to keep quiet?"
"She didn't pay me anything," I said. "She just agreed to leave the squatters alone."
He stared at me for a minute. "Listen, partner," he said. "I don't want to get this relationship off to a rough start. Let's just keep the bugs and glitches to a minimum. Let's not hold out on each other, okay?"
"Sure," I said. "I'm not holding out."
"Oh, get off it, Hsing," he said. "You went there with all the details of this scam, with everything you needed to prove to Sayuri Nakada's old man back on Prometheus that she's a complete idiot, and you came away without a buck? You expect me to believe that?"
It was my turn to sit back and stare for a minute.
"All right, Mishima," I said. "Suppose you tell me how you think it ran."
He gave me a look like I'd just offered to buy his firstborn child at an offensively low price.
"All right," he said. "I think you went in there and told Nakada that she was being taken, that Orchid and Rigmus and Lee were running a scam on her that had made her look like a complete fool. I think she probably suspected it all along-I mean, the whole thing is so obviously too good to be true. I think you mentioned that her greatgrandfather might be interested in knowing what she'd been doing with her money. I think you suggested that you might tell him, if the circumstances arose. I think she took the hint and asked what it would cost to be sure the circumstances never arose, and I think that the two of you dickered out a specific amount. Since she was a pro once, I suppose it wasn't all that much, but half of it's mine, Hsing. Now, how much was it?"
I shook my head. "You've got it wrong, Mishima. Right from the start."
"Then you tell me how it went," he demanded.
"You tell me something first," I said. "How'd you know it was all a scam?"
He paused, and I could see he was thinking back and realizing that I'd never told him that. He could say he figured it out for himself, but he was awfully damn sure that I knew it was a scam.
I guess he decided on the truth.
"I tapped into your com," he said.
"Hey, partner," I said. "Wasn't that a sweet thing to do! Hey, what rare trust between partners we have here!"
"Come on, Hsing," he said. "You were busy. We're partners. You owe me. I just saved us some time and argument."
"I'll tell you, Mishima," I said. "I don't think the team of Mishima and Hsing is going to make it. Sorry about that."
"Oh, come on," he said. "Give me a break!"
"I will," I said. "Don't worry. I know what I owe you. I just don't think that this partnership will run. I'm not going to screw you over if I can help it, Mishima, but I don't think I can work with you, either. I'm telling you that right now, up front."
"Hell," he said. "Just forget the partnership, then. I don't need you. But you owe me, Hsing, so tell me what you got from Nakada."
"I did tell you," I said. "Hey, how is it you didn't manage to listen in at the breakfast bar? Then we wouldn't be arguing about it."
I was being sarcastic, but Mishima took me seriously. "Nakada had privacy fields up," he said. "Those floaters of hers were loaded. I couldn't get anything through. And those three gritheads I loaned you didn't bother to try and hear; they figured I'd get it all from the machines. Even Jerzy."
"That the one with the chrome face?" I asked.
He nodded.
"You know," I said, "maybe they heard and just didn't want to tell you, figured it wasn't your business."
He spat, offscreen. "Don't give me that," he said. "Of course it's my business, and those three work for me. They didn't hear. You did."
"Right," I said. "And I told you what I got."
"So tell me again, and maybe add a few details," he said.
I nodded. "I'll do that," I said. "First off, you started off well with your little guessing game. I did tell Nakada the scheme was a fake. But you got her reaction wrong. She didn't believe me. Didn't believe a word, thought that I was the one running a con on her, trying to cut her out of the deal. They've got her clipped down tight."
"Oh, come on," he said. "Don't give me that shit."
"True," I said. "I swear it. Put it on wire, on oath, on stress-triggered plague test, I tell you she did not believe me."
"Hsing, nobody is that dumb!" he insisted.
"You ever met Nakada?" I asked. "She isn't exactly dumb, but she only believes what suits her. Stopping the sunrise suits her right down the line, and she wasn't taking any argument, so I didn't argue."
"That's crazy," he insisted.
I just shrugged.
It wasn't all that crazy, but he couldn't see it. He was Epimethean, like me-except maybe without as much imagination. I could dream about stopping the dawn, but to him, the sunrise was inevitable. He'd lived with it all his life. The idea of stopping it was just gibberish, like turning off gravity. He didn't realize that Nakada looked at it differently. To her, cities were permanent things, and the idea that this one was going to fold up and die, and that there was no way to stop it, was anathema.
The truth lay somewhere in between, I was pretty sure. With time and money and competent people, Nightside City could probably be saved-but it wasn't worth what it would cost. It would be one of the biggest engineering projects of all time, up there with the terraforming of Venus, but with only a city for payoff instead of an entire planet. A bad investment-but not unthinkable.
"You believe what you want," I said, "but Nakada doesn't think it's a scam. She still doesn't want the word spread, though, so we drew up a little agreement-I keep quiet, and she leaves the squatters alone. That's all. That's all I asked for."
He went back to that disbelieving stare.
"Hsing," he said, "I think I believe you. But if it's true, I've got to ask what the hell is wrong with you, passing up a chance like that!"
"I don't work that way." Then I exited the call.
I half expected him to call back, but he didn't, so I didn't have to explain it any further.
It was all clear to me, plain and simple. I'm a detective. I was then; I am now. I find things out. I sell people information. I keep quiet when I'm paid to.
But I'm not a blackmailer. Nakada hadn't hired me to find out anything, so she couldn't pay me to keep it quiet.
I'd stolen that information from her, because I needed it for my client. Information isn't like most property-you can steal it from someone without them ever knowing it's gone, and without depriving them of it. There's no law of conservation of information. You can multiply it from nothing to infinity.
But it was still Nakada's information. I had no right to spread it any further than I had to. If I took money from her to shut me up, I'd be stealing it.