She looked her visitors up and down, unimpressed. “Well, whadda you want?”
“A human concierge,” Moses whispered. “This place is even more primitive than it initially appeared. Where is your palace?”
“Quiet, brassbrain.” Manz raised his voice to address the old woman. “You have a boarder here named Kohler Antigua? Older man, lean, ex-spacer?”
The woman chuckled, an uncomely rasping. “Didn’t think ya wanted a room, by the looks of you. Who wants ta know? The old fart’s a friend o’ mine, an’ not just ’cause he pays his rent on time.”
The adjuster reached into a jacket pocket and produced a universal credit chit. It would fit any credit processor on or off the world. With ceremonial deliberation he laid it on the counter, denomination side up so she could read it. Her eyes glittered, and the chit disappeared into regions best left unfathomed somewhere deep within the voluminous dress.
“Huh! Whadda ya want me ta do, vape ’im?” She grinned, exposing a lunar landscape of decrepit molars and decaying bicuspids. “Friends cost more, and I factor you can pay, by the looks o’ you.”
“We don’t want to hurt him, or have him hurt. We just want to ask him a few questions.”
She squinted hard at him. “Guv’mint?”
“No … by the looks o’ us. He does board here, doesn’t he?”
“Yah, sure. Keeps to himself, mostly. Biggest liar on the continent. He ain’t here now. You’d likely find him around the corner, two blocks north. In the Dead Sonnet Pissers, by the looks o’ it. You sure you ain’t gonna kill ’im? I’d like to know so’s that if you are I can let his rooms.”
“I told you; we just want to ask him a few questions.”
“Well, I reckon that’s good, by the sound o’ it. Hard to find boarders who’ll cough up the rent on time without havin’ to be threatened.”
So disagreeable did Manz find the proprietress that he couldn’t bring himself to thank her. With Moses and the Minder in tow, he got out of there as fast as he could. She followed them with her eyes, fingering the credit chit sequestered beneath her dress.
Despite the crumbling, desperate appearance of the neighborhood, no one tried to murder, jack, or otherwise interfere with their progress as they made their way to the establishment named by the concierge. Maybe Moses’ presence discouraged would-be troublemakers. More likely it was Manz’s calmness and unmistakable air of self-confidence. Killers in the wild instinctively identify and shy away from potentially dangerous prey. The reactions of human predators are not that very different from those of their fellow toothed mammals.
The Dead Sonnet Pissers showed the only lights on the street, a scrawl of lambent xenon tubing behind a heavy thermalite grill. The xenon needed refreshing, and the “A” and “N” in the sign kept winking in and out. Cheap holos of cheaper young women wearing tired smiles and little else bracketed the narrow, recessed entrance.
Moses rolled to a stop. “To all outward appearances, a decidedly lower-class establishment.”
“You should care. Think of the potential opportunities for ‘research.’” Manz put out a hand and pushed through the self-sealing door membrane.
Beyond the privacy screen was an unexpectedly energized world of noise, sweet smoke, angry laughter, and music. Vast quantities of air freshener pumped through the climate-control system suppressed the natural aroma of the place. Those patrons he could make out through the purposefully dim light were far better dressed than he had anticipated.
There was crystal here, unexpected and surprising, even if most of it was flawed, cracked, and rife with imperfections. It trailed from clothes and comments, glasses and the gleamings in the eyes of men and women with too much money and not enough time.
With Moses trailing behind and the Minder hovering nearer his head than usual, he sourced through the tinted smoke in search of the man surnamed after an obscure Caribbean island. In the course of his quest he bumped up against slumming couples, nattily attired statistic-ridden traveling businessfolk, independent entrepreneurs of both sexes selling similar intangibles, a synoptic top-to-sewer selection of Juarez el Paso’s criminal subculture, and a sizable number of uncategorizable individuals whose reasons for patronizing an establishment like the Dead Sonnet Pissers were not immediately apparent.
Glancing over a shoulder caught him a glimpse of the menu. That a place like this served food at all was startling enough. That the list of offerings should be as elaborate and sophisticated as it was he found more surprising still. Prices were commensurately grotesque.
No one paid him the least attention. Patrons ogled and joked with the waiters and waitresses, who in no wise resembled the tired dogs pictured on the fading lobby cards that flanked the entrance. Stimulants of every imaginable type were freely purchased, exchanged, and utilized.
Attention was focused generally but not exclusively on the small stage. Manz watched as, in a hover cage powered by a concealed industrial-strength version of the device that elevated his Minder, two ripped and obviously experienced couples performed a complex ménage à qua to the cheers and whistles of those customers seated in the front rows.
There were two walk-up bars, one plated in brass, the other in chrome. Brazen testament to the establishment’s prosperity, a human bartender sauntered over to see to his needs.
“Something for you, sir?” The adjuster had to look hard to make sure it was a man and not a humaniform.
“Sakura fizz, not too bright.” Machinelike, the man moved off to have his hermetic way with dispensers and ice.
Manz scanned the crowd, occasionally sparing a glance for the stage. The two couples were good, but not up to the standards of a high-class club in Amsterdam or Delhi. On the other hand, they were doing things that might have exposed them to official prosecution in a more respected venue.
“Three-five.” The bartender had slipped up wraithlike behind him. Manz passed over his card, waited while the man processed the charge and returned it to him. He made sure it was the right card. Places like this weren’t above trying to pull the occasional switch. The waiter grunted in surprise at the size of his tip and promptly adopted a more respectful mien. Being in the insurance business, Manz understood its value.
The coupling contortionists on stage were winding up their acrobatics when a commercially zoned human waitress closed in on him. No doubt her radar had picked up a signal from the bartender. Black hair and olive skin reflected the prominent Hispanic heritage of the region.
Without waiting for an invitation she appropriated the seat next to him, on the side away from the Minder and Moses. A second girl began to home in on the other seat, received a feminine but steely look from the one who’d got there first, thought better of her intentions, and beat a pensive retreat.
“Buy me something sweet to sip, muscles?” Her voice was naturally low and husky. She smelled of citrus, rose hips, liqueur, and sweat.
Manz hardly spared her a glance. Instead he passed her a chit like the one he’d bestowed on the crone of a concierge, only larger. Much larger.
Though she strove to affect an air of seeming indifference, her pupils dilated noticeably as she inspected the denomination before depositing it in her cleavage. His attitude and wordless straightforward reaction had completely disrupted her traditional, practiced approach.
“Well, we know what we want, don’t we? When do you want to leave? It’s early yet, but I don’t mind. My registration’s on twenty-four-hour call.” She snuggled close. Moses watched intently, much to Manz’s annoyance.
“I don’t want to leave at all.” His attention remained focused on the stage because that was what would be expected of him, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “I don’t have the time. But I could use a little information.”
She jerked back as though his jacket had suddenly caught fire. “Oh, shit. Are you a cop? I’m all paid up with the union, jerkoff, and I’ve got my tax receipt and health card on me. So you can’t charge me with nothing.”
“Simmer down. I’m just a concerned citizen.” He smiled, but it wasn’t reciprocated.
Looking bored and already searching the crowd for her next potential client, she rested one elbow on the smooth cold metal bartop. “You brayed and you paid. It’s your time, mister. Ask away.”
“I’m looking for an old ex-spacer, probably but not necessarily in difficult straits. Name’s Kohler Antigua. Antigua, like the island.”
She blinked. “Like the what?”
