“Yeah, maybe they’ll even find out about the unofficial surgery this sleeve had before I arrived.”
“That bitch. She’s going to—”
“You’re in no position to be making threats,” I said mildly. “In fact you’re in no position to do anything except answer my questions and hope I believe you. Who told you to tag me?”
Silence, apart from the game coverage from the set on the wall. Sullivan stared sullenly at me.
“All right, I’ll make it easy for you. Simple yes or no. An artificial called Trepp came to see you. Was this the first time you’d had dealings with her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
With measured anger, I backhanded him hard across the mouth. He collapsed sideways against the wall of the booth, losing his hat. The conversation of the young men in silk stopped abruptly, then resumed with great animation as I cut them a sideways glance. The two old women got stiffly to their feet and filed out through a back entrance. The Caucasian didn’t even look up from his holoporn. I leaned across the table.
“Warden Sullivan, you’re not taking this in the spirit it’s intended. I am very concerned to know who you sold me to. I’m not going to go away just because you have some residual scruples about client confidentiality. Believe me, they didn’t pay you enough to hold out on me.”
Sullivan sat back up, wiping at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. To his credit, he managed a bitter smile with the undamaged portion of his lips.
“You think I haven’t been threatened before, Kovacs?”
I examined the hand I’d hit him with. “I think you’ve had very little experience of personal violence, and that’s going to be a disadvantage. I’m going to give you the chance to tell me what I want to know here and now. After that we go somewhere with soundproofing. Now, who sent Trepp?”
“You’re a thug, Kovacs. Nothing but—”
I snapped folded knuckles across the table and into his left eye. It made less noise than the slap. Sullivan grunted in shock and reeled away from the blow, cowering into the seat. I watched impassively until he recovered. Something cold was rising in me, something born on the benches of the Newpest justice facility and tempered with the years of pointless unpleasantness I had been witness to. I hoped Sullivan wasn’t as tough as he was trying to appear, for both our sakes. I leaned close again.
“You said it, Sullivan. I’m a thug. Not a respectable criminal like you. I’m not a Meth, not a businessman. I have no vested interests, no social connections, no purchased respectability. It’s just me, and you’re in my way. So let’s start again. Who sent Trepp?”
“He doesn’t know, Kovacs. You’re wasting your time.”
The woman’s voice was light and cheerful, pitched a little loud to carry from the door where she stood, hands in the pockets of a long black coat. She was slim and pale with close-cropped dark hair and a poise to the way she stood that bespoke combat skills. Beneath the coat she wore a grey quilted tunic that looked impact resistant and matching work trousers tucked into ankle boots. A single silver earring in the shape of a discarded trode cable dangled from her left ear. She appeared to be alone.
I lowered the Philips gun slowly, and without acknowledging that it had ever been trained on her she took the cue to advance casually into the restaurant. The young men in silk watched her every step of the way, but if she was aware of their gazes, she gave no sign. When she was about five paces from our booth, she gave me a look of enquiry and began to lift her hands slowly out of her pockets. I nodded, and she completed the movement, revealing open palms and fingers set with rings of black glass.
“Trepp?”
“Good guess. You going to let me sit down?”
I waved the Philips gun at the seat opposite, where Sullivan was cupping both hands to his eye. “If you can persuade your associate here to move over. Just keep your hands above the table.”
The woman smiled and inclined her head. She glanced at Sullivan, who was already squeezing up to the wall to make space for her, and then, keeping her hands poised at her sides, she swung herself elegantly in beside him. The economy of motion was so tight that her pendant earring barely shifted. Once seated, she pressed both hands palm down on the table in front of her.
“That make you feel safer?”
“It’ll do,” I said, noticing that the black glass rings, like the earring, were a body joke. Each ring showed, X-ray like, a ghostly blue section of the bones in the fingers beneath. Trepp’s style, at least, I could get to like.
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Sullivan blurted.
“You didn’t know anything worth a jack,” said Trepp disinterestedly. She hadn’t even turned to look at him. “Lucky for you I turned up, I’d say. Mr Kovacs doesn’t look like someone ready to take ‘don’t know’ for an answer. Am I right?”
“What do you want, Trepp?”
“Come to help out.” Trepp glanced up as something rattled in the restaurant. The waiter had arrived bearing a tray with a large teapot and two handleless cups. “You order this?”
“Yeah. Help yourself.”
“Thanks, I love this stuff.” Trepp waited while the waiter deposited everything, then busied herself with the teapot. “Sullivan, you want a cup too? Hey, bring him another cup, would you. Thanks. Now, where was I?”
“You’d come to help out,” I said pointedly.
“Yeah.” Trepp sipped at the green tea and looked at me over the rim of the cup. “That’s right. I’m here to clarify things. See, you’re trying to hammer the information out of Sullivan here. And he doesn’t know fuck all. His contact was me, so here I am. Talk to me.”
I looked at her levelly. “I killed you last week, Trepp.”
“Yeah, so they tell me.” Trepp set down the tea cup and looked critically at her own fingerbones. “’Course, I don’t remember that. In fact, I don’t even know you, Kovacs. Last thing I remember was putting myself into the tank about a month back. Everything after that’s gone. The me you torched in that cruiser, she’s dead. That wasn’t me. So, no hard feelings, huh?”
“No remote storage, Trepp?”
She snorted. “Are you kidding? I make a living doing this, same as you, but not that much. Anyway, who needs that remote shit? The way I figure it, you fuck up, you’ve got to pay some kind of tab for it. I fucked up with you, right?”
I sipped my own tea and played back the fight in the aircar, considering the angles. “You were a little slow,” I conceded. “A little careless.”
“Yeah, careless. I got to watch that. Wearing artificials makes you that way. Very anti-Zen. I got a sensei in New York, it drives him up the fucking wall.”
“That’s too bad,” I said patiently. “You want to tell me who sent you now?”
“Hey, better than that. You’re invited to meet the Man.” She nodded at my expression. “Yeah, Ray wants to talk to you. Same as last time, except this is a voluntary ride. Seems coercion doesn’t work too well with you.”
“And Kadmin? He in on this as well?”
Trepp drew breath in through her teeth. “Kadmin’s, well, Kadmin’s a bit of a side issue right now. Bit of an embarrassment really. But I think we can deal on that as well. I really can’t tell you too much more now.” She shuttled her glance sideways at Sullivan, who was beginning to sit up and pay attention. “It’s better if we go someplace else.”
“All right.” I nodded. “I’ll follow you out. But let’s have a couple of ground rules before we go. One, no virtuals.”
“Way ahead of you there.” Trepp finished her tea and started to get up from the table. “My instructions are to convey you directly to Ray. In the flesh.”