Then it was gone, and there was only Bancroft, moving to seat himself and setting the powder spray aside on an adjacent table. He looked up and waited to see if I would sit down as well. When I did not, he steepled his fingers and frowned. Oumou Prescott hovered between us.
“Mr. Kovacs, I am aware that by the terms of our contract I agreed to meet all reasonable expenses in this investigation, but when I said that, I did not expect to be paying for a trail of wilful organic damage from one side of Bay City to another. I have spent most of this morning buying off both the West Coast triads and the Bay City police, neither of whom were very well disposed towards me even before you started this carnage. I wonder if you realise how much it is costing me just to keep you alive and out of storage.”
I looked around at the conservatory and shrugged.
“I imagine you can afford it.”
Prescott flinched. Bancroft allowed himself the splinter of a smile.
“Perhaps, Mr. Kovacs, I no longer wish to afford it.”
“Then pull the fucking plug.” The martyrweed trembled visibly at the sudden change in tone. I didn’t care. Abruptly, I was no longer in the mood for playing the Bancrofts’ elegant games. I was tired. Discounting the brief period of unconsciousness at the clinic, I had been awake for over thirty hours and my nerves were raw from the continual use of the neurachem system. I had been in a firefight. I had escaped from a moving aircar. I had been subjected to interrogation routines that would have traumatised most human beings for a lifetime. I had committed multiple combat murders. And I had been in the act of crawling into bed when the Hendrix let Bancroft’s curt summons through the call block I’d requested, quote,‘in the interests of maintaining good client relations and so assuring continued guest status’. Someday, someone was going to have to overhaul the hotel’s antique service industry idiolect; I had weighed the idea of doing it myself with the Nemex when I got off the phone, but my irritation at the hotel’s enslaved responses to guest-holding was overridden by the anger I felt towards Bancroft himself. It was that anger that had stopped me ignoring the call and going to bed anyway, and propelled me out to Suntouch House dressed in the same rumpled clothes I had been wearing since the previous day.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Kovacs?” Oumou Prescott was staring at me. “Are you suggesting—”
“No, I’m not, Prescott. I’m threatening.” I switched my gaze back to Bancroft. “I didn’t ask to join this fucking No dance. You dragged me here, Bancroft. You pulled me out of the store on Harlan’s World and you jacked me into Elias Ryker’s sleeve just to piss Ortega off. You sent me out there with a few vague hints and watched me stumble around in the dark, cracking my shins on your past misdemeanours. Well, if you don’t want to play any more, now the current’s running a little hard, that’s fine with me. I’m through risking my stack for a piece of shit like you. You can just put me back in the box, and I’ll take my chances a hundred and seventeen years from now. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and whoever wants you toasted will have wiped you off the face of the planet by then.”
I’d had to check my weapons at the main gate, but I could feel the dangerous looseness of the Envoy combat mode stealing over me as I spoke. If the Meth demon came back and got out of hand, I was going to choke the life out of Bancroft there and then just for the satisfaction.
Curiously, what I said only seemed to make him thoughtful. He heard me out, inclined his head as if in agreement, then turned to Prescott.
“Ou, can you drop out for a while. There are some things that Mr. Kovacs and I need to discuss in private.”
Prescott looked dubious. “Shall I post someone outside?” she queried, with a hard glance at me. Bancroft shook his head.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
Prescott left, looking dubious, while I struggled not to admire Bancroft’s cool. He’d just heard me say I was happy to go back into storage, he’d been reading my body count all morning, and still he thought he had my specs down tight enough to know whether I was dangerous or not.
I took a seat. Maybe he was right.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I said evenly. “You can start with Ryker’s sleeve, and go on from there. Why’d you do it, and why conceal it from me?”
“Conceal it?” Bancroft’s brows arched. “We barely discussed it.”
“You told me you’d left the sleeve selection to your lawyers. You were at pains to stress that. But Prescott insists you made the selection yourself. You should have briefed her a bit better on the lies you were going to tell.”
“Well.” Bancroft made a gesture of acceptance. “A reflexive caution, then. One tells the truth to so few people in the end, it becomes a habit. But I had no idea it would matter to you so much. After your career in the Corps, and your time in storage, I mean. Do you usually exhibit this much interest in the past history of the sleeves you wear?”
“No, I don’t. But ever since I arrived, Ortega’s been all over me like anticontaminant plastic. I thought it was because she had something to hide. Turns out, she’s just trying to protect her boyfriend’s sleeve while he’s in the store. Incidentally, did you bother to find out why Ryker was on stack?”
This time Bancroft’s open-handed motion was dismissive. “A corruption charge. Unjustified organic damage, and attempted falsification of personality detail. I understand it wasn’t his first offence.”
“Yeah, that’s right. In fact he was well known for it. Well known and very unpopular, especially around places like Licktown, which is where I’ve been the last couple of days, following the trail of your dripping dick. But we’ll come back to that. I want to know why you did it. Why am I wearing Ryker’s sleeve?”
Bancroft’s eyes flared momentarily at the insult, but he really was too good a player to rise to it. Instead, he shot his right cuff in a displacement gesture I recognised from Diplomatic Basic, and smiled faintly.
“Really, I had no idea it would prove inconvenient. I was looking to provide you with suitable armour, and the sleeve carries—”
“Why Ryker?”
There was a beat of silence. Meths were not people you interrupted lightly, and Bancroft was having a hard time dealing with the lack of respect. I thought about the tree beyond the tennis courts. No doubt Ortega, had she been there, would have cheered.
“A move, Mr. Kovacs. Merely a move.”
“A move? Against Ortega?”
“Just so.” Bancroft settled back into his seat. “Lieutenant Ortega made her prejudices quite clear the moment she stepped into this house. She was unhelpful in the extreme. She lacked respect. It was something that I remembered, an account to be adjusted. When the shortlist Oumou provided me with included Elias Ryker’s sleeve, and listed Ortega as paying the tank mortgage, I saw the move as almost karmic. It dictated itself.”
“A little childish for someone your age, don’t you think?”
Bancroft inclined his head. “Perhaps. But then, do you recall a General Maclntyre of Envoy Command, resident of Harlan’s World, who was found gutted and decapitated in his private jet a year after the Innenin massacre?”
“Vaguely.” I sat, cold, remembering. But if Bancroft could play the control game, so could I.
“Vaguely?” Bancroft raised an eyebrow. “I’d have thought a veteran of Innenin could scarcely fail to recall the death of the commander who presided over the whole debacle, the man many claim was actually guilty by negligence of all those Real Deaths.”
“Maclntyre was exonerated of all blame by the Protectorate Court of Inquiry,” I said quietly. “Do you have a point to make?”
Bancroft shrugged. “Only that it seems his death was a revenge killing, despite the verdict handed down by the court, a pointless act, in fact, since it could not bring back those who died. Childishness is a common enough sin amongst humans. Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge.”