Prescott looked dubious. “Shall I post someone outside?” she queried, with a hard glance at me. Bancroft shook his head.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
Prescott left, looking dubious, while I struggled not to admire Bancroft’s cool. He’d just heard me say I was happy to go back into storage, he’d been reading my body count all morning, and still he thought he had my specs down tight enough to know whether I was dangerous or not.
I took a seat. Maybe he was right.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I said evenly. “You can start with Ryker’s sleeve, and go on from there. Why’d you do it, and why conceal it from me?”
“Conceal it?” Bancroft’s brows arched. “We barely discussed it.”
“You told me you’d left the sleeve selection to your lawyers. You were at pains to stress that. But Prescott insists you made the selection yourself. You should have briefed her a bit better on the lies you were going to tell.”
“Well.” Bancroft made a gesture of acceptance. “A reflexive caution, then. One tells the truth to so few people in the end, it becomes a habit. But I had no idea it would matter to you so much. After your career in the Corps, and your time in storage, I mean. Do you usually exhibit this much interest in the past history of the sleeves you wear?”
“No, I don’t. But ever since I arrived, Ortega’s been all over me like anticontaminant plastic. I thought it was because she had something to hide. Turns out, she’s just trying to protect her boyfriend’s sleeve while he’s in the store. Incidentally, did you bother to find out why Ryker was on stack?”
This time Bancroft’s open-handed motion was dismissive. “A corruption charge. Unjustified organic damage, and attempted falsification of personality detail. I understand it wasn’t his first offence.”
“Yeah, that’s right. In fact he was well known for it. Well known and very unpopular, especially around places like Licktown, which is where I’ve been the last couple of days, following the trail of your dripping dick. But we’ll come back to that. I want to know why you did it. Why am I wearing Ryker’s sleeve?”
Bancroft’s eyes flared momentarily at the insult, but he really was too good a player to rise to it. Instead, he shot his right cuff in a displacement gesture I recognised from Diplomatic Basic, and smiled faintly.
“Really, I had no idea it would prove inconvenient. I was looking to provide you with suitable armour, and the sleeve carries—”
“Why Ryker?”
There was a beat of silence. Meths were not people you interrupted lightly, and Bancroft was having a hard time dealing with the lack of respect. I thought about the tree beyond the tennis courts. No doubt Ortega, had she been there, would have cheered.
“A move, Mr. Kovacs. Merely a move.”
“A move? Against Ortega?”
“Just so.” Bancroft settled back into his seat. “Lieutenant Ortega made her prejudices quite clear the moment she stepped into this house. She was unhelpful in the extreme. She lacked respect. It was something that I remembered, an account to be adjusted. When the shortlist Oumou provided me with included Elias Ryker’s sleeve, and listed Ortega as paying the tank mortgage, I saw the move as almost karmic. It dictated itself.”
“A little childish for someone your age, don’t you think?”
Bancroft inclined his head. “Perhaps. But then, do you recall a General Maclntyre of Envoy Command, resident of Harlan’s World, who was found gutted and decapitated in his private jet a year after the Innenin massacre?”
“Vaguely.” I sat, cold, remembering. But if Bancroft could play the control game, so could I.
“Vaguely?” Bancroft raised an eyebrow. “I’d have thought a veteran of Innenin could scarcely fail to recall the death of the commander who presided over the whole debacle, the man many claim was actually guilty by negligence of all those Real Deaths.”
“Maclntyre was exonerated of all blame by the Protectorate Court of Inquiry,” I said quietly. “Do you have a point to make?”
Bancroft shrugged. “Only that it seems his death was a revenge killing, despite the verdict handed down by the court, a pointless act, in fact, since it could not bring back those who died. Childishness is a common enough sin amongst humans. Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge.”
“Perhaps not.” I stood up and went to stand at the door of the conservatory, looking out. “Well, then don’t feel that I’m sitting in judgement, but why exactly didn’t you tell me you spent so much time in whorehouses?”
“Ah, the Elliott girl. Yes, Oumou has told me about this. Do you seriously think her father had something to do with my death?”
I turned back. “Not now, no. I seriously believe he had nothing to do with your death, in fact. But I’ve wasted a lot of time finding that out.”
Bancroft met my eye calmly. “I’m sorry if my briefing was inadequate, Mr. Kovacs. It is true, I spend some of my leisure time in purchased sexual release, both real and virtual. Or, as you so elegantly put it, whorehouses. I’d not considered it especially important. Equally, I spend part of my time in small-scale gambling. And occasionally null-gravity knife fighting. All of these things could make me enemies, as indeed could most of my business interests. I didn’t feel that your first day in a new sleeve on a new world was the time for a line-by-line explanation of my life. Where would I expect to begin? Instead, I told you the background of the crime and suggested that you talk to Oumou. I didn’t expect you to take off after the first clue like a heatseeker. Nor did I expect you to lay waste everything that got in your way. I was told the Envoy Corps had a reputation for subtlety.”
Put like that, he had a point. Virginia Vidaura would have been furious, she probably would have been right behind Bancroft, waiting to deck me for gross lack of finesse. But then, neither she nor Bancroft had been looking into Victor Elliott’s face the night he told me about his family. I swallowed a sharp retort and marshalled what I knew, trying to decide how much to let go of.
“Laurens?”
Miriam Bancroft was standing just outside the conservatory, a towel draped around her neck and her racket under one arm.
“Miriam.” There was a genuine deference in Bancroft’s tone, but little else that I could determine.
“I’m taking Nalan and Joseph out to Hudson’s Raft for a scuba lunch. Joseph’s never done it before, and we’ve talked him into it.” She glanced from Bancroft to myself and back. “Will you be coming with us?”
“Maybe later,” said Bancroft. “Where will you be?”
Miriam shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Somewhere on the starboard decks. Benton’s, maybe?”
“Fine. I’ll catch you up. Spear me a kingfish if you see one.”
“Aye aye.” She touched the blade of one hand to the side of her head in a ludicrous salute that made both of us smile unexpectedly. Miriam’s gaze quivered and settled on me. “Do you like seafood, Mr. Kovacs?”
“Probably. I’ve had very little time to exercise my tastes on Earth, Mrs. Bancroft. So far I’ve only eaten what my hotel has to offer.”
“Well. Once you’ve developed a taste for it,” she said significantly, “maybe we’ll see you as well?”
“Thank you, but I doubt it.”
“Well,” she repeated brightly. “Try not to be too much longer, Laurens. I’ll need some help keeping Marco off Nalan’s back. He’s fuming, by the way.”
Bancroft grunted. “The way he played today, I’m not surprised. I thought for a while he was doing it deliberately.”
“Not the last game,” I said, to no one in particular.
The Bancrofts focused on me, he unreadably, she with her head tipped to one side and a sudden wide smile that made her look unexpectedly child-like. For a moment I met her gaze, and one hand rose to touch her hair with what seemed like fractional uncertainty.