Fact is Sammy Sal said, smearing dirt from his cheek with the back of one long hand, Ive decided to kill Ringer. And the truth, yknow, it makes you free
Ho Chevette said, you musta pulled a tag over 456 today.
I did, dear, do that thing. All the way up, in a dirty freight elevator. A slow dirty freight elevator. And why?
Cause Ringers graved his tag in their brass, Sal, and their rosewood, too?
Eggs-ackly, Chevette, honey. Sammy Sal undid the blue and white bandanna around his neck and wiped his face with it. Therefore, his ass dies screaming.
and must begin, now, to systematically sabotage the workplace Fiona X said, or be branded an enemy of the human race.
The door to the dispatch-pit, so thickly stapled with scheds, sub-charts, tattered Muni regs, and faxed complaints that Chevette had no idea what the surface underneath might look like, popped open. Bunny extruded his scarred and unevenly shaven head, turtle-like, blinking in the light of the corridor, and glanced up automatically, his gaze attracted by the tone of Fiona Xs sound-bite. His expression blanked at the sight of her mask, the mental channel-zap executed in less time than it had taken him to look her way. You he said, eyes back on Chevette, Chevy. In here.
Wait for me, Sammy Sal she said.
Bunny Malatesta had been a San Francisco bike messenger for thirty years. Would be still, if his knees and back hadnt given out on him. He was simultaneously the best and the worst thing about messing for Allied. The best because he had a bike-map of the city hung behind his eyes, better than anything a computer could generate. He knew every building, every door, what the security was like. He had the mess game down, Bunny did, and, better still, he knew the lore, all the history, the stories that made you know you were part of something, however crazy it got, that was worth doing. He was a legend himself, Bunny, having Kryptod the windshields of some seven police cars in the course of his riding career, a record that still stood. But he was the worst for those same reasons and more, because there wasnt any bulishitting him at all. Any other dispatcher, you could cut yourself a little extra slack. But not Bunny. He just knew.
Chevette followed him in. He closed the door behind her. The goggles he used for dispatching dangled around his neck, one padded eyepiece patched with cellophane tape. There were no windows in the room and Bunny kept the lights off when he was working. Half a dozen color monitors were arranged in a semicircle in front of a black swivel armchair with Bunnys pink rubber Sacro-saver backrest strapped to it like some kind of giant bulging larva.
Bunny rubbed his lower back with the heels of his hands. Disks killing me he said, not particularly to Chevette.
Oughta let Sammy Sal crack it for you she suggested. Hes real good.
Its cracked already, sweetheart. Whats wrong with it in the first place. Now tell me what were you doin over the Morrisey last night. And it better be good.
Pulling a tag Chevette said, going on automatic, the way she had to if she were going to lie and get away with it. Shed been halfway expecting something like this, but not so soon.
She watched as Bunny took the goggles off, disconnected them, and put them on top of one of the monitors. So how come you never checked back out? They call us on it, say you went in to make a delivery, they scanned your badges, you never come back out. Look, I tell em, I know shes not there now, guys, cause I got her out Alabama Street on a call, okay? He was watchiag her.
Hey, Bunny Chevette said, it was my last tag, my ride was down in the basement, I saw a freight el on its way down, jumped in. I know Im supposed to clock out at security, but I thought theyd have somebody on the parking exit, you know? I get up the ramp and theres nobody, a cars going out, so I deak under the barrier and Im in the street. I shoulda gone back around and done the lobby thing?
You know it. Its regs.
It was late, you know?
Bunny sat down, wincing, in the chair with the Sacro-saver. He cupped each knee in a big-knuckled hand and stared at her. Very un-Bunny. Like something was really bothering him. Not just security grunts pissing because a mess blew the check-out off. How late?
Huh?
They wanna know when you left.
Maybe ten minutes after I went in. Fifteen tops. Basement in theres a rat-maze.
You went in 6:32:18 he said. They got that when they scanned you. The tag, this lawyer, they talked to him, so they know you delivered. He still had that look.
Bunny, whats the deal? Tell em I screwed up, is all.
You didnt go anywhere else? In the hotel?
Uh-uh she said, and felt this funny ripple move through her, like shed crossed some line and couldnt go back. I gave the guy his package, Bunny.
I dont think theyre worrying about the guys package Bunny said.
So?
Lookit, Chev he said, security guy calls, thats one thing. Sorry, boss, wont let it happen again. But this was somebody up in the company, IntenSecure its called, and he called up Wilson direct. Allieds owner. So I gotta make nice with Wilson and Mr. Security, I gotta have Grasso cover for me on the board and naturally he screws everything up
Bunny she said, Im sorry.
Hey. Youre sorry, Im sorry, but theres some big shit rentacop sitting behind a desk and hes putting fucking Wilson through about what precisely did you do after you gave that lawyer his package. About what kind of employee are you exactly, how long you mess for Allied, any criminal record, any drug use, where you live.
Chevette saw the assholes black glasses, right where shed left them. In their case, behind Skinners Geographics. She tried to lift them out of there with mind-power. Right up to the tar-smelling roof and off the edge. Put those bastards in the Bay like she shouldve done this morning. But no, they were there.
That aint normal Bunny said. Know what I mean?
You tell em where I live, Bunny?
Out on the bridge he said, then cracked her a little sliver of grin. Not like you got much of an address, is it? Now he spun himself around in the chair and began to shut the monitors down.
Bunny she said, whatll they do now?
Come and find you. His back to her. Here. Cause they wont know where else to go. You didnt do anything, did you, Chevy? The back of his skull showing gray stubble.
Automatic. No. No Thanks, Bunny.
He grunted in reply, neutral, ending it, and Chevette was back in the corridor, her heart pounding under Skinners jacket. Up the stairs, out the door, plotting the quickest way home, running red lights in her head, gotta get rid of the glasses, gotta Sammy Sal had Ringer braced up against a blue recyc bin.
Worry was starting to penetrate Ringers rudimentary view of things. Didnt do nuthin to you, man.
Been carvin your name in elevators again, Ringer.
But I dint do nuthin to you!
Cause and effect, mofo. We know its a tough concept for you, but try: you do shit, other shit follows. You go scratching your tag in the clients fancy elevators, we hassle you, man. Sammy Sal spread the long brown fingers of his left hand across Ringers beat-to-shit helmet, palming it like a basketball, and twisted, lifting, the helmets strap digging into Ringers chin. Dint do nuthin! Ringer gurgled.
Chevette ducked past them, heading for the bike-rack beneath the mural portrait of Shapely. Someone had shot him in his soulful martyrs eye with a condomful of powder blue paint, blue running all down his hallowed cheek.
Hey Sammy Sal said, come here and help me torment this shit-heel.
She stuck her hand through the recognition-loop and tried to pull her handlebars out of the racks tangle of molybdenum steel, graphite, and aramid overwrap. The other bikes alarms all went off at once, a frantic chorus of ear-splitting bleats, basso digital sirennioans, and OUC extended high-volume burst of snake-hiss Spanish profanity, cunningly mixed with yelps of animal torment. She swung her bike around, got her toe in the clip, and kicked for the street, almost going over as she mounted. She saw Sammy Sal, out the corner of her eye, drop Ringer.