Nightside City

"You believe what you want," I said, "but Nakada doesn't think it's a scam. She still doesn't want the word spread, though, so we drew up a little agreement-I keep quiet, and she leaves the squatters alone. That's all. That's all I asked for."

He went back to that disbelieving stare.

"Hsing," he said, "I think I believe you. But if it's true, I've got to ask what the hell is wrong with you, passing up a chance like that!"

"I don't work that way." Then I exited the call.

I half expected him to call back, but he didn't, so I didn't have to explain it any further.

It was all clear to me, plain and simple. I'm a detective. I was then; I am now. I find things out. I sell people information. I keep quiet when I'm paid to.

But I'm not a blackmailer. Nakada hadn't hired me to find out anything, so she couldn't pay me to keep it quiet.

I'd stolen that information from her, because I needed it for my client. Information isn't like most property-you can steal it from someone without them ever knowing it's gone, and without depriving them of it. There's no law of conservation of information. You can multiply it from nothing to infinity.

But it was still Nakada's information. I had no right to spread it any further than I had to. If I took money from her to shut me up, I'd be stealing it.

And yeah, this is all hypocritical as hell. I did blackmail her, when I made her leave the squatters there. I'm not above selling information that isn't mine. I'm not above a little quiet blackmail. I do what I need to survive.

But I try and keep my self-respect. I try to stay inside my own limits. They aren't the limits the law sets, but they're limits. Sayuri Nakada had enough problems, what with her blind belief in the gritware Orchid and Lee were peddling her. I couldn't see taking her for all she could afford; that was too cold, too sharp for me.

Nakada hadn't done anything to me.

And there's another, more pragmatic point. Blackmailers tend to have a short life expectancy. What I'd taken, she could afford. It was no problem. We could draw up a nice, clear, binding contract without ever saying what I was selling her, and she could be pretty sure that I wouldn't come back for more.

But if I'd gone for money, how could she know that? What good would a contract be? People get illogical when money comes into the picture. She might worry about whether I'd come back for more, whether people might trace my money back to her and wonder what I'd done for it-any number of things, until one day I was back on the dayside, or maybe in a ditch somewhere with pseudoplankton growing on my tongue.

And she hadn't done anything to me.

If it had been Orchid or Lee or Rigmus, if they had Nakada's sort of money, things might have been different. They owed me, just as I still owed Mishima. But I knew how much they had tucked away, and it wasn't enough to tempt me yet. I knew that if I took all of it, they'd find a way to get me-they'd be cornered, and cornered vermin aren't reasonable about these things. If I left enough for them, there wouldn't be enough to be worth the trouble.

I don't know, maybe there would. If I took a piece off the top of all eight shares, I could put together my fare off-planet-but I'd have eight bitter enemies, all of them also bound for Prometheus.

I don't know. I didn't sit down and work out all the ups and downs. I went by instinct, same as I usually do, and I didn't blackmail anyone.

But I didn't know how to explain that to Mishima.

He didn't call back. I didn't have to explain anything.

I did have something to do, though. I'd done my job; it was time to get paid. Zar Pickens owed me a hundred and five credits.

Reaching him by com was clearly hopeless. I called a cab.

Chapter Twenty

The West End stank. I hadn't really noticed it before, but it stank-an ugly, organic smell, a composite of a hundred different things.

Sunlight sparked from the tops of the towers, brighter than ever, and I winced at the sight of it.

I reached the address Pickens had given me; the signaller was out, so I knocked on the wall and shrieked, "Anyone home?"

An overweight woman leaned out a window. "Whad-daya want?" she shouted back.

"I'm looking for Zar Pickens," I said.

"Well, you won't find him here," she said. "He moved back east about two days ago, after he got his job back. Those machines they got to replace him couldn't take the work and all broke down. What did you want him for?"

"He owes me money," I said. "Or someone does."

She looked down at me. "Hey, you're that detective he hired, aren't you?"

"Yeah," I said. "Carlisle Hsing, that's me. And I did the job, too. I found out who bought this place, and I have a contract that says you stay rent-free until sunrise-when I get my money."

She stared. "Well, shit," she said. "I don't have it."

"Who does? Where can I get it?"

"Shit, I don't know." She ducked back in, then popped back out. "But hey, thanks for taking care of it!"

I knew, right then and there, that I was going to get stiffed for the bill-at least until Orchid and Rigmus came around again, which I had already made sure they weren't going to do.

I wasn't about to go back to them and say, "Hey, boys, one more rent run, please, so I can collect my fee." They'd have laughed themselves sick. Hell, they'd have gone, and I'd have gotten my money-but it wasn't worth it. I wasn't going to let them know I got stiffed.

I walked on, prowled on, really, cruising through the West End talking to squatters.

Nobody knew where Pickens was. Nobody knew anything about my fee. Nobody knew anything.

I gave it about ninety minutes, then said the hell with it and called a cab and went home.

I ran Pickens through the city directory and got an address. I put through a call.

He answered.

"Hello, Mis' Pickens," I said.

"Oh, hello, Mis' Hsing," he said, and I could see he was nervous.

"I've got a contract on file here that might interest you. It's an agreement not to evict squatters from property in the West End."

He looked even more nervous, and it took him two tries to say, "What's that got to do with me?"

"Mis' Pickens," I said. "This is what you hired me to get. I got it. You owe me a hundred and five credits."

"Not me," he said. "Hey, Hsing, it's not me. I'm not even out there anymore. I'm working again; I've got a room here in the burbs where the sun don't shine. I'm no squatter."

"You're the one that hired me, though."

"No, lady, I'm not, either. I was the messenger, that's all."

"Yeah, well, then let me give you a message, messenger. I've got what you wanted. I damn near got killed getting it, and it's cost me one hell of a lot more than the lousy hundred credits you gave me as a down payment. Somebody owes me some money."

"Hey, Hsing, it wasn't me, I swear it. Look, I'll go back out there when I've got a free off-shift; I'll tell them, and they'll pay, all right?"

"Oh, right," I said, and I exited.

I figured I might get money a few hours after dawn, if I was lucky. I was mad as hell, and just to a

Com charges. Cabfare. Drinks at the Manhattan. Medical bills. The cost of one spy-eye. The cost of the bullet I used to shoot it down.

I didn't know how to figure the cost of that murdered cab, the one that was weathering away on the dayside, since it had owned itself. But at least, by god, no matter how lousy I felt about it, that wasn't really my fault. I put it in a separate category, off to the side.

That muscle I'd borrowed from Mishima hadn't come free, I was sure. I estimated what I owed on that.