“Which was about?”

“I do not know. An attempted kidnapping? They wished to harm Rez? To abduct the idoru’s peripheral? It was handled with amazing clumsiness, but Blackwell says that is the earmark of the Kombinat… Is that the word, ‘earmark’?”

“I don’t know,” Laney said.

“ ‘Hallmark’?”

“You don’t think Blackwell’s going to cut our toes off, if we do this?”

“No. We are employed by a Lo/Rez shell corporation—”

“Paragon-Asia?”

“—but Blackwell is employed by the Lo/Rez Partnership. If Rez tells us to do something, we must do it,”

“Even if Blackwell thinks it endangers Rez’s security?”

Yamazaki shrugged. Past his shoulder, through the van’s rear window, Laney could see Shannon trundling the gray module they’d unloaded from the rear of Kuwayama’s Land-Rover. It was twice the size of the black ones that Arleigh used.

He watched Shannon push it past the orange barricades.

36. Maryalice

Not yelling, please,” said the one who held her, and then he took his hand away from her mouth.

“Where is it?” Eddie’s pale eyes.

“There,” Chia said, pointing. She could see the ragged edge of blue and yellow plastic sticking up out of her open bag. Then she saw that Maryalice was asleep on the pink bed, curled up with her high-heeled shoes still on, clutching a pillow to her face. The top of the little fridge was covered with empty, miniature bottles.

Eddie took a black-and-gold pen from his coat pocket and went to the bag. He bent over it and used his pen as a probe, moving the plastic aside so he could see. “It’s here,” he said.

“Is there?” The other hand was still holding Chia’s shoulder down, where she sat on the carpet.

“This is it,” Eddie said.

“Stay putting.” The hand left her shoulder and the man, who must’ve been kneeling behind her, got up and joined Eddie, peering into Chia’s bag. He was taller, and wore a tan suit and fancy Western boots. Big bones in his face, his hair a lighter blond than Eddie’s, a reddish, crescent-shaped birthmark high on his right cheekbone. “How you are being sure?”

“Jesus, Yevgeni…”

The man in the tan suit straightened up, looked at Maryalice, bent to pull the pillow away from her face. “How is your woman sleeping on bed in this room, Eddie?”

Eddie saw that it was Maryalice. “Fuck,” he said.

“You are telling us girl and your woman, is ‘incidental.’ You are telling us they meet on plane, is only accident. Is accidentyour woman is here? We do not likeaccident.”

Eddie looked from Maryalice to the man—he must be Russian– to Chia. “What the fuckis this bitch doing here?” Like it had to be Chia’s fault.

“She found us,” Chia said. “She said she knew somebody at the cab company.”

“No,” said the Russian, “weknow somebody at cab company. Is too much incident.”

“We’ve got it, okay?” Eddie said. ‘Why do you want to complicate things?“

The Russian rubbed his cheek, as though the birthmark might come off on his hand. “Please consider,” he said. “We are giving you isotope. You want to know is isotope, you can test. You are giving us this.” He poked the sharp toe of his cowboy boot into the side of Chia’s bag. “How are we sure?”

“Yevgeni,” Eddie said, very calmly, “you must know that deals like this require a certain basis of trust.”

The Russian considered that. “No,” he said, “basis not good. Our people trace this girl to big rocker band. What is she working for, Eddie? Tonight we send people to talk to them, they fall on us like fucking wolfs. One man I am still losing.”

“I don’t work for Lo/Rez!” Chia said. “I’m just in the club! Maryalice put that thing in my bag when I was asleep on the plane!”

Masahiko groaned, sighed, and seemed to go back under. Eddie still had the stungun in his hand. “You ready for another jolt?” he asked Masahiko, super-tense and angry.

“Eddie,” Maryalice said from the bed, “you ungrateful piece of shit…” Sitting up on the edge of the bed with her cigarette lighter held in both hands, pointing it straight at Eddie.

Eddie stiffened. You could see something run through him, freezing him there.

“Some basis,” said the Russian.

“Jesus, Maryalice,” Eddie said. “Whered you get that? You got any idea how illegal that is, here?”

“Off a Russian boy,” she said. “Exit-holes the size of grapefruit…” Maryalice didn’t sound drunk, exactly, but something about the look in her reddened eyes told Chia she was. Some very scary kind of drunk. ”You think you can just use people up, Eddie? Use ’em up and throw ’em away?” She used the toe of one shoe to get the other off, then used her toe to get the first shoe off. She stood up in her stocking feet, swaying just a little bit, but the gun-shaped lighter stayed straight out from her shoulders, the way cops did it on television.

Eddie still had the stungun in his hand. “Make him throw that black thing away, Maryalice!” Chia urged.

“Drop it,” Maryalice said, and it seemed to give her pleasure to say it, something she’d been hearing people say on shows all her life, and now she was getting to say it herself, and mean it. Eddie dropped it. “Now kick it away.”

That’s the other half of the line, Chia thought.

The stungun wound up a few feet from Chia’s knee, beside her goggles, which were upside down on the carpet, still cabled to her Sandbenders. She could see the twin flat rectangles on the opaque lens-faces, simple video units; if Zona went to Chia’s systems software and activated those, now, she’d get a bug’s-eye view of Maryalice’s stocking feet, Eddie’s shoes, the Russian’s cowboy boots, and maybe the side of Masahiko’s head.

“Ungrateful,” Maryalice said. “Ungrateful shit. Get in that bathroom.” She came around so the lighter was pointing at Eddie and the Russian, but with the open bathroom door behind them.

“I know you’re upset—”

“Shit. Shit goes in the toilet, Eddie Get in the bathroom.”

Eddie took a step backward, his palms up in what he probably thought looked like an appeal to reasonableness and understanding. The Russian took a step back too.

“Seven fucking years,” Maryalice said. “Seven. You weren’t shit when I met you. God. You and that uppity-mobile talk. You make me sick. Who paid the fucking rent? Who bought the meals? Who bought you your fucking clothes, you vain piece of shit? You and your uppity-mobile and your image and you gotta have a smallerfucking phone than the next guy because I’m telling you, honey, you sure as fuckdon’t have a bigger dick!” Maryalice’s hands were shaking now, but really just enough to make the lighter look even more dangerous.

“Maryalice,” Eddie said, “you know I know everything you’ve done for me, everything you’ve contributed to my career. It doesn’t leave my mind for a minute, baby, believe me, it never does, and all of this is a misunderstanding, baby, just a rough patch on the highway of life, and if you will only just put down that fucking gun and have a nice drink like a civilized person—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Maryalice screamed, at the top of her lungs, the words all run together.

Eddie’s mouth snapped shut like a puppet’s.

“Seven fucking years,” Maryalice said, making it sound like some children’s charm, “seven fucking years and two of ’em here, Eddie, two of ’em here, and flying back and fucking forth for you, Eddie, and coming back. And it’s always light, here…” Tears came, streaking Maryalice’s makeup. “Everywhere. Couldn’t sleep for all the light, like a fog over the city… Get in the bathroom.” Maryalice taking a step forward, Eddie and the Russian taking one back.

Chia reached over and picked up the stungun, she wasn’t sure why. It had a pair of blunt chrome fangs on one end, a red, ridged stud on one edge. She was surprised at how little it weighed. She remembered the ones the boys at her school had made from those disposable flash-cameras.