Altered Carbon

“So instead you vent yourself on prostitutes?”

The thin smile returned. “I am not proud of myself, Mr. Kovacs. But you do not live this long without accepting yourself in every facet, however distasteful. The women are there. They satisfy a market need, and are recompensed accordingly. And in this way I purge myself.”

“Does your wife know this?”

“Of course. And has done for a very considerable time. Oumou informs me that you are already aware of the facts regarding Leila Begin. Miriam has calmed down a lot since then. I’m sure she has adventures of her own.”

“How sure?”

Bancroft made an irritated gesture. “Is this relevant? I don’t have my wife monitored, if that’s what you mean, but I know her. She has her appetites to contend with just as I do.”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

“Mr. Kovacs, I am many things, but I am not a hypocrite. It is the flesh, nothing more. Miriam and I understand this. And now, since this line of questioning doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere, can we please get back on track. In the absence of any guilt on the part of Elliott, what else do you have?”

I made a decision then that came up from levels of instinct way below conscious thought. I shook my head. “There’s nothing yet.”

“But there will be?”

“Yes. You can write Ortega off to this sleeve, but there’s still Kadmin. He wasn’t after Ryker. He knew me. Something’s going on.”

Bancroft nodded in satisfaction. “Are you going to speak to Kadmin?”

“If Ortega lets me.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning the police will have run whatever satellite footage they’ve got over Oakland this morning, which means they can probably identify me leaving the clinic. There must have been something overhead at the time. I don’t suppose they’ll be at their most co-operative.”

Bancroft permitted himself another of his splintered smiles. “Very astute, Mr. Kovacs. But you need have nothing to fear on that count. The Wei Clinic—what little you left of it—is reluctant to either release internal video footage or press charges against anyone. They have more to fear in any investigation than do you. Of course, whether they choose to seek more private reprisals is, shall we say, a more protracted question.”

“And Jerry’s?”

A shrug. “The same. With the proprietor dead, a managing interest has stepped in.”

“Very tidy.”

“I’m glad you appreciate it.” Bancroft got to his feet. “As I said, it has been a busy morning, and negotiations are by no means at an end. I would be grateful if you could limit your depredations somewhat in future. It has been costly.”

Getting to my feet, just for a moment I had the traceries of fire at I

Someone else was paying.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Fell Street station was an unassuming block done out in a style I assumed must be Martian Baroque. Whether it had been pla

Inside, stained light from a window and a peculiar calm fell on me simultaneously. Subsonics, I guessed, casting a glance around at the human flotsam waiting submissively on the benches. If these were arrested suspects, they had been rendered remarkably unconcerned by something and I doubted it would be the Zen Populist murals that someone had commissioned for the hall. I crossed the patch of coloured light cast by the window, picked my way through small knots of people conversing in lowered tones more appropriate to a library than a holding centre, and found myself at a reception counter. A uniformed cop, presumably the desk sergeant, blinked kindly back at me — the subsonics were obviously getting to him as well.

“Lieutenant Ortega,” I told him. “Organic Damage.”

“Who shall I say it is?”

“Tell her it’s Elias Ryker.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another uniform turn at the sound of the name, but nothing was said. The desk sergeant spoke into his phone, listened then turned back to me.

“She’s sending someone down. Are you armed?”

I nodded and reached under my jacket for the Nemex.

“Please surrender the weapon carefully,” he added with a gentle smile. “Our security software is a little touchy, and it’s apt to stun you if you look like you’re pulling something.”

I slowed my movements to frame advance, dumped the Nemex on the desk and set about unstrapping the Tebbit knife from my arm. When I was finished, the sergeant beamed beatifically at me.

“Thank you. It’ll all be returned to you when you leave the building.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when two of the mohicans appeared through a door at the back of the hall and directed themselves rapidly towards me. Their faces were painted with identical glowers which the subsonics apparently made little impact on in the short time it took them to reach me. They went for an arm apiece.

“I wouldn’t,” I told them.

“Hey, he’s not under arrest, you know,” said the desk sergeant pacifically. One of the mohicans jerked a glance at him and snorted in exasperation. The other one just stared at me the whole time as if he hadn’t eaten red meat recently. I met the stare with a smile. Following the meeting with Bancroft I had gone back to the Hendrix and slept for almost twenty hours. I was rested, neurachemically alert and feeling a cordial dislike of authority of which Quell herself would have been proud.

It must have shown. The mohicans abandoned their attempts to paw me and the three of us rode up four floors in silence broken only by the creak of the ancient elevator.

Ortega’s office had one of the stained glass windows, or more precisely the bottom half of one, before it was bisected horizontally by the ceiling. Presumably the remainder rose missile-like from the floor of the office above. I began to see some evidence for the original building having been converted to its present use. The other walls of the office were environment-formatted with a tropical sunset over water and islands. The combination of stained glass and sunset meant that the office was filled with a soft orange light in which you could see the drifting of dust motes.

The lieutenant was seated behind a heavy wooden desk as if caged there. Chin propped on one cupped hand, one shin and knee pressed hard against the edge of the desk, she was brooding over the scrolldown of an antique laptop when we came through the door. Aside from the machine, the only items on the desktop were a battered-looking heavy-calibre Smith & Wesson and a plastic cup of coffee, heating tab still unpulled. She dismissed the mohicans with a nod.

“Sit down, Kovacs.”

I glanced around, saw a frame chair under the window and hooked it up to the desk. The late afternoon light in the office was disorientating.

“You work the night shift?”

Her eyes flared. “What kind of crack is that?”

“Hey, nothing.” I held up my hands and gestured at the low light. “I just thought you might have cycled the walls for it. You know it’s ten o’clock in the morning outside.”