"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 annoy myself still more I ran up an account on the case.
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.
Even without the cab, without the eye, without the medical bills, it came to a lot more than two hundred and five credits-and I'd only gotten a hundred on account.
With everything figured in, cab and all, it was almost half a megabuck.
I was sitting there staring at that when the com beeped. I punched, and the screen tucked the figures down at the bottom, out of the way, and showed me Sayuri Nakada.
"Hello, Mis' Nakada," I said, hiding the fact that I was seriously puzzled and a good bit worried by the sight of her. "What can I do for you?"
She didn't bother with any polite preliminaries. "Who the hell is this man Mishima?" she demanded.
"Jim Mishima?" I asked.
"That's the one," she agreed. "He says he's your partner."
I saw it all pretty clearly. I hadn't blackmailed her, so Mishima had decided to take care of it himself.
"We aren't exactly partners," I said, "except maybe on a trial basis. I owe him a lot of money-a lot of money, and other debts as well. I agreed to work it off as his partner, but we haven't settled the details. Why?"
"He knows about that business we discussed," she said.
"Yeah, I know," I told her. "He tapped my com."
"You didn't tell him?"
"Not intentionally."
"Look, Hsing, if it's that easy to tap your com, maybe you ought to do something about it. I thought we had a deal."
"We do," I said. "I'll take care of it; I've already cleared everything out of active memory. Mishima got to it before I did that, and I'd let him work on my security because of this partnership thing. The information's safe now-at least on my system."
"Yes, and what about his?"
"What about it?"
"Are you going to clear it out?"
"No," I said. "I can't. I'm sorry."
"You said-look, is he your partner or isn't he?"
I blinked, and considered that. "No, he isn't."
"You don't feel any special attachment to him? He's not under your protection?"
That was an odd way of putting it, I thought. "I owe him a lot," I said.
I knew that wasn't what she was after. I knew what she had in mind.
"That's all?"
I hesitated, but finally I said, "That's all."
I knew what I was doing-but Mishima had brought it on himself. He should have known better. He'd gotten involved uninvited again, and this was once too often.
I knew, back when I got that skimmer at the Starshine Palace, that Mishima made mistakes, didn't always see the obvious.
I owed him, but that didn't make me his keeper. I wasn't responsible for his mistakes.
And I'd never asked him to come out looking for me or pay my medical bills.
"That's what I wanted to know," she said, and I caught her just before she exited.
"Hey," I said. "I won't stop you; you do what you need to. But please, remember that I owe him, and that I can't pay a debt to a memory."
She looked at me out of the screen, then nodded. "I'll try," she said.
Then the screen blanked for a second, and the numbers from the bottom surged up to fill it again.
I erased them. I didn't want to think about it.
The thought of warning Mishima crossed my mind, but I decided against it. Nakada wouldn't appreciate it-and he'd brought it on himself. I'd warned him, and he'd said he could take care of himself. Here was his chance.
The thought of calling the cops also crossed my mind; after all, I had plenty of evidence against Orchid and Rigmus, and enough against Lee and the others to at least start an investigation.
I decided against that, too. I wasn't feeling suicidal. I knew that if I ever brought the cops into it, with Nakada on the other side I'd have the deck stacked against me. And most of my com evidence about the scam Orchid and Lee were running on Nakada had been acquired illegally. If I ever turned it over to anyone, I would be signing my own reconstruction order.
And this doesn't even mention that the casino cops work under an IRC service contract.
So I didn't call the cops, about Mishima or anything else.
It was much later, when I was eating a bowl of rice and considering bed and staring at the negative balance in my primary credit account, that the com beeped again.
I touched, and 'Chan appeared.
"Carlie," he said. "I thought you ought to know. Big Jim Mishima's been arrested."
"What's it to me?" I asked.
"Oh, come on, Carlie," he said. "Don't give me that. I was there in the hospital. I saw you when he bought you in."
"All right," I said. "Who's arrested him? What's the charge?"
"The casino cops picked him up for cheating, at the New York. A security unit broke his jaw, and the management has him under heavy privacy seal. I hear that as victim's privilege they want to wipe his memory and files for the last ten days."