"Not my type." Tomcat sighed. "You're a lovely girl, but..."
"I understand." She stood up. "Light skin, dark hair, standing in front of the Emporium."
"Wearing a holo jacket. Drinking coffee—Blue Galaxy-coffee bulb."
"Got it."
The target was taking a long damned time on the toilet. Too long. Long enough that Gao Ikpeme was getting worried. But Catrone was wearing a damned evening suit; there was no way Ikpeme could have missed seeing that come out of the can.
He slid one leg down and lifted the other to rest it—then damned near jumped out of his own skin as a tongue flickered into his ear.
"Hi, handsome," a sultry voice said.
He whipped around and found himself face-to-face with a pretty well set up redhead. Keeping in fashion, she wore damned near nothing—a halter top and a miniskirt so low on her hips and so high cut that it was more of a thin band of fabric to cover her pubic hair and butt.
"Look," the redhead said, leaning into him and quivering, "I just took some Joy, and I'm, you know, really horny. And you are just my type. I don't care if it's in one of the restrooms, or in a changing stall, or right here on the damned floor—I just want you."
"Look, I'm sorry," Gao said, trying to keep an eye on the corridor door and failing. "I'm meeting somebody, you know?"
"Bring her along," the woman said, breathing hard. "Hell, we'll be done by the time she gets here. Or he. I don't care. I want you now!"
"I said—"
"I want you, I want you, I want you," the woman crooned, sliding around in front of him and up and down, her belly pressing against the world's worst erection. "And you want me."
"Geez, buddy, get a room," one of the shoppers said in passing. "There're kids here, okay?"
"Quit this!" Gao hissed. "I can't go with you right now!"
"Fine!" The woman raised one leg up along his body and rocked up and down. "I'll just... I'll just..." she panted hoarsely.
"Oh, Christ!" Gao grabbed her by the arm, darted into the store, and managed to find a more or less deserted aisle for what turned out to take about six seconds.
"Oh, that was good," the girl said, pulling her panties back into place and licking her lips. She ran her hands up and down his jacket and smiled. "We need to get together again and spend a little more time together."
"Yeah," Gao gasped, rearranging his clothes. "Christ! I've got to get back out there!"
"Later," the hooker said, waving fingers at him as he practically ran to the front of the store. There. She didn't even have to feel bad about the two hundred credits. Quickest trick she'd ever turned, too.
Gao looked up and down the mall corridors, but the target was nowhere in sight. He could have come out while he was off-post, but... Damn. Nothing for it.
Gao walked across the mall and down the corridor into the bathroom. There was nobody in sight inside. Feet in one of the stalls, though.
He pushed on the door, which slid open. There was a drunk sprawled all over the toilet; it wasn't the target.
Oh, shit.
He walked back out into the main passageway, hoping that maybe the target had just stepped into a store or something. But, no, there was nobody in sight.
He frowned for a moment, then shrugged and pulled out his pad. He keyed a combination, and shook his head at the person who appeared on the screen.
"Lost him."
Catrone tapped at his pad as if scrolling something and leaned into his earbug.
"I dunno, he went into the can. I watched it the whole time... No, I don't think it was a deliberate slip, I just lost him... Yeah, okay. I'll try to pick him up at the hotel."
Catrone consulted a directory, but the number the tail had called was unlisted. He could countertail him, and see what turned up, but that was probably useless. He'd have at least a couple of cutouts. Besides, Thomas Catrone had things to do.
Tomcat walked to a landing stage and caught an airtaxi across town. The taxi was driven by a maniac who seemed to be high on something. At least he cackled occasionally as they slid under and over slower cars. Finally, the cab reached Catrone's destination—a randomly chosen intersection. He paid in chips, some of them from the unfortunate citizen in the mall bathroom, and walked two blocks to a public access terminal.
He keyed the terminal for personal ads, and then placed one.
"WGM seeks SBrGM for fun lovin and serious crack romp. Thermi. ThermiteBomb@toosweetfortreats.im."
He did a quick check and confirmed that there were no identical ads on that site.
"Please pay three credits," the terminal requested, and he slid in three credit chips.
"Your ad in Imperial Singles Daily is confirmed. Thank you for using Adoula Info Terminals."
"Yeah," Catrone muttered. "What a treat."
He took the public grav-tube back to the hotel and sat by the window, watching the city go by. Even at this time of night, all the air-lanes were full, with idiots like that taxi driver weaving up and down and in and out of the lanes. The tubecars moved between the lanes, drawing their power from inductive current and surrounded by clear glassteel tubes, rounding the buildings three hundred meters in the air. You could see into windows, those that weren't polarized or curtained. People sitting down to a late dinner. People watching holovid. A couple arguing. Millions of people stacked in boxes, and the boxes stretching to the horizon. What would they think if they knew he was going past, with what was in his head? Did they care that Adoula was in control of the Throne? Did they want the Empress restored? Or were they so checked out that they didn't even know who the Empress was?
He thought about something someone had told him one time. Something like most men aren't good for anything but turning food into shit. But the Empire wasn't the Empress, it was all those people turning food into shit. They had a stake, whether they knew it or not. So what would they think? Anyone who tried to rescue Alexandra was risking a kinetic strike on the Palace, but just the civil disorder which would follow a successful countercoup would make all of those millions of lives about him a living hell. Air-lanes jammed, tubes grounded, traffic control shut down...
He got out of the tube at a station a few blocks from the hotel and let himself in the back way. He'd dumped all the remaining credits from the target, along with the jacket and beret, in a public incinerator chute.
Sheila was sitting up in bed watching a holomovie when he walked into the suite. She raised one eyebrow at the way he was dressed, but he shook his head and took off the clothes. They, too, went into the incinerator. It was a room incinerator, moreover. This was a classy place that probably normally had staff-pukes and their bosses staying in its suites. It was as secure as anything he was going to find, and there probably wasn't anything incriminating on the clothes, anyway. But better safe than sorry.
He climbed into bed with his wife and laid an arm over her shoulder.
"How was the opera?"
"Great."
"I don't see how anything can be great that's all in a foreign language."
"That's because you're a barbarian."
"Once a barbarian, always a barbarian," Tomcat Catrone replied. "Always."
"Catrone was as clear as he could be that he won't help," Roger said. "And that the senior members of the Association aren't going to help, either. They're sitting this one out."
"That is so totally... bogus," Kosutic said angrily.
They'd come to the warehouse to "check on resupply." The restaurant was doing even better than Roger had hoped, almost to the point of worry. Even an interstellar freighter could carry only so much Mardukan food, and they were running through it nearly twenty-five percent faster than he'd anticipated. If he sent a ship back, now, for more goods, it might get back in time, but he doubted it. Fortunately, the Mardukans and their beasts could eat terrestrial food, and he'd been substituting that for the last few days. It didn't have all the essential nutrients they needed, though. The Mardukans were suddenly on the reverse side of what the Marines had faced on Marduk, but without Marine nanites which could convert some materials to essential vitamins.