One of Us (16 page)

While I was on their blind side I moved quickly to the far end, the door just a twenty-yard sprint away. But the gunfire from the handguns was more sporadic now, a couple of more cops down: I knew that if I ran now, the guys in the suits would hear me. Maybe at first they'd wanted me handed over, but at the moment they didn't seem to be making any major allowances for my safety.

Not to mention that the rounds fired by the remaining cops would be heading straight in my direction.

I teetered, locked in position like a sprinter at the start of a race, not knowing what to do. In the end I crept forward until I was over halfway there, but did it too slow. Two of the shooters turned and saw me. I froze, barely three running strides from temporary safety: looked at another way, a million miles.

And then somebody ran into the room from the bar, already spraying fire from a semiautomatic. It was too dark to see the runner's face, but I knew it had to be Deck, bless him. He found me immediately, grabbed me by the neck, and swung me toward the door without saying a word. I didn't need a second invitation. I ran like hell.

It felt like an hour since the hacker had been shot, but it could only have been a couple of minutes. The Cafe was in utter chaos—a melee of shadows scared out of their minds by the racket of the gun battle. Men and women were trying to clamber down from the terraces, scrabbling over each other, falling, fighting. I felt a fraction safer when I was in the middle of the bodies, but found myself being carried toward the outer door. I tried to resist, knowing that I had to try to find Laura and then go back and help Deck, but the pressure of other people's fear was too strong. Dustpans of wide eyes, open mouths, hair—and an endless shout of terror from all around me, seeming to get louder and louder until it was almost tangible, something else pushing me forward. It was as much as I could do to keep myself upright and avoid being trampled to death.

I couldn't even turn my head until the crowd burped out of the Cafe and onto the street: half the people falling, the rest running straight over those who fell as they obeyed a deep instinctual need to be on the East Coast for a while. I stayed on my feet—barely—and got far enough from the door to turn around. The doorway looked like everybody had been told the devil was turning a blind eye and if they could get out of hell in the next five minutes, they'd go free.

I had to go back. Fuck Laura, I had to find Deck. Hopefully he would have stayed in the room only long enough to cover me, but there'd been no sign of him behind me on the way out. He hadn't abandoned me, and I couldn't do it to him—but there was no way I could swim against the tide of bodies crashing out into the pavement. I was trying to remember if there was another entrance to the Cafe, when I saw him, in the second row of the next wave of people tumbling out of the door. His hand was on Laura's head, keeping it down: His own head was up, watching the angles, working out the lines of least resistance. I shouted, and he looked over and saw me. He fought his way through the mass, elbowing people out of the way—the only person in the crowd with the presence of mind to head in a consistent direction.

"Christ," I said as they made it. "Am I glad to see you."

"Wholly mutual, as always," Deck replied. "But now I really think we should go."

Laura was panting, her green dress torn in three places. "You coming with us?" I asked her.

"Hell yes," she gasped, shock wobbling her up out of drunkenness.

"How the hell did you do that?" I asked Deck as we ran down the wharf toward the car.

"Do what, man?" Deck said, turning his head to scan the mess outside the Cafe. People still jammed the exit. We had a few minutes before the men in suits could hope to make it out, even if they started firing.

"Find Laura again, and get out so quick?"

"What are you talking about?" Deck asked, slowing as we reached the car. His face was slick with sweat, a long scratch bled down one cheek. "I stuck with her, like you told me in the note."

I turned, looked at Laura. Her face said Deck was telling the truth. She asked: "What happened in there?"

"Your hacker snitched me," I said. "But the cops don't know about the connection to Hammond. Then guys in suits turned up. With big guns."

"The guys?" Laura looked very afraid.

"Yeah. Four of them, which at least explains how they could be in two places at once. They told the cops to hand me over."

Deck stared at me, frowning. "So how the hell did you get out?"

"Someone killed the lights—everyone started firing at each other. I got near the door, was just about to get whacked, and then in came some other guy, slung me out of the way. I thought it was you."

"No. Sorry, man, it should have been, but it wasn't."

"Well, who the hell was it?" Laura demanded, on the edge of hysteria.

I just shook my head.

"Doesn't matter," Deck said, glancing back at the Cafe again. "Light a candle: Of all the weirdos running around, at least one of them is on your side. Meantime we've got to get out of here."

"So let's get in the car."

Deck shook his head. "The cops will know your registration. Maybe the other guys, too. I'll take the car, hide it somewhere. You and Laura get lost."

"But what happens if they catch you?"

Deck shrugged. "I'll just say I boosted the car. We're not known associates: never worked together."

I looked along the wharf. The entrance to the Wharfland subway station was in sight. "But where do we meet?"

"At mine. If I'm not back, let yourself in." He reached into his jacket, pulled out his gun, and gave it to me. "Don't use this unless you feel like it."

I unlocked the trunk of the car, took the dream receiver out, then handed the keys to Deck. "Try to keep at least two wheels on the ground at all times," I advised.

Deck drove off fast. I ran to the entrance to the subway, Laura puffing along behind. A couple of guys were hanging around the stairs, peering up toward the bedlam at the Cafe, and in the distance I could hear the sirens of approaching black-and-whites. "What's happened up the Cafe?" one of the men asked.

"Bizarre food-poisoning incident," I said, pulling Laura past them and down into the station. On reflex we reached our index fingers out toward the ticket machines; I snatched Laura's hand back just in time.

"What now?" she snapped.

I reached for cash. "We finger the payment, they're going to know exactly where we went." Then I remembered my wallet was empty. "Shit—you got any money?"

Her face fell. "My handbag was in the car."

We ran back up the stairs, hung a sharp left, and sprinted over the bridge. A squad car zipped past us going the other way, but there were so many people running in the streets, it looked like a spontaneous civic fun-run had broken out—albeit one with no clear sense of direction—and none of the cops gave us a second glance. I headed down a side street where I knew there was an ATM. They'd be able to find out I withdrew money from there, but the cops knew I was in the area anyway. It was better than telling them exactly which train we were on.

The ATM was working. They generally are these days, after the banks got serious and installed antipersonnel devices to make short work of anyone who tried to rip them off. I jammed my finger in the slot and got ready to bark instructions.

"Statement of account, is it?" the machine said immediately rather stealing my fire.

"Tempting, obviously, but no. What I want is two hundred dollars."

"Request denied," the machine said, and the slot pushed my finger out again. I frowned, then pushed it back. "You again," the machine said. "What do you want now?"

"My money," I said, "and don't shit me around this time."

"Who's shitting?" it replied. "Your account's empty, loser. Piss off."

My finger was shoved back out again, and all the lights on the ATM snapped off.

I turned away, the ringing sound in my ears getting louder as I realized what had happened.

Laura looked at me anxiously. "What's wrong?" 

"My money's gone," I said.

"HAP, MAN, shit—how you doing?"

"Very bad," I said. "Let us in and then lock the fucking door."

Vent stepped back with a little bow, and I shoved Laura in ahead of me. Three locks shot home—and I felt nearly safe.

It had taken us over an hour to get across to the Dip from the ATM, slogging down back streets and trying not to be seen. After a while the sound of sirens started to fade, either because the situation back at the Cafe was resolving itself, or because every cop in the area was already there. I hoped it was the latter. Laura was silent most of the way, as if she were thinking about something. What it might have been I have no idea, and I had enough worries of my own. She kept pace a couple of yards to the side, the little girl who walked by herself.

The Dip is an enclave built in one of the canyons that run through the west side of Griffith. Escalator at each end, streetlights and power, but otherwise left natural and funky. Built into the walls of the canyon are little stores and dives, accessible by ladders. Most are delis, bars, and specialty bookstores: Vent's isn't.

Vent is Tid's younger and more disreputable brother. He's lankier, better-looking, and better-connected, and I've never seen him eat chocolate encased in a hard candy shell. His cave, if you know about it and he lets you in, is a treasure trove of illegality.

"Beer?" he asked.

"No," I replied. Then: "Yes."

Vent opened a door set into the wall of the store and pulled out three beers. He handed one to Laura, who unscrewed the cap immediately and started chugging. "You going to introduce me to your lady friend?"

"Laura, Vent: Vent, Laura," I said. "And she's not my lady friend. Look, Vent, I need some stuff, and then we have to go."

With a smile: "Always the way. Hap my man, back in the good old days. Thought you'd straightened out, though. Ain't seen you in a coon's age."

"I had, more or less," I said. Laura had wandered a little way down the cave, and was peering at all the drawers built into the walls. Quietly: "A certain woman's put some pretty major kinks back into my life."

"They have that tendency." Vent nodded sagely. "Hence I get my kicks in vr these days. So, what are you looking for?"

"Money," I said. "Temporary liquidity problem, and I need a twenty-four-hour loan. A thousand." Actually I just needed fifty bucks, enough to keep us going until I could get on the Net, but asking for that little would have been a clear signal that something was very wrong in my financial life.

Vent shook his head. "Cash I can't do. Just made some major buys. Can let you have a finger."

"Shit." Overkill—and illegal in its own right. "That'll have to do."

Vent opened the fridge again, reached down to a lower shelf. Straightened up with a sealed bag. "Very fresh," he said. "One of the things I just acquired." He slit the tape at the end of the bag and pulled it out: the index finger of a Caucasian male, with a small device fastened on the severed end.

"How safe?" I asked, aware of Laura staring at us.

"Very," Vent said. "My friends cased the gentleman before he passed away. No one's going to miss him for days. Or find him, given where they hid the body."

"What the hell is that?" Laura asked. I told her. The finger of a dead man with a usable bank account, kept alive by a plasma generator. In other words, about two days' use of money belonging to someone who wasn't going to miss it. She blanched, and turned away.

"Anything else?"

"Cigarettes, while I'm here." As Vent fetched them, I tried to predict what else I might need, but came up blank. Then I remembered a thought from Ensenada: "Got any coincidences?"

"Only three," he replied. "And they're pretty small."

"The way things are, anything's a help," I said. "And I'm going to have to owe you on all this."

"Okay," he said, and opened a drawer. He pulled out a vial and a hypo. "I don't know about quality—there's no label. So if you get sick, don't blame me." He spiked the bottle and drew the liquid up into the syringe while I rolled up my sleeve. Then he stuck the needle in my vein and injected the serum. There was a brief feeling of coldness and then everything felt the same again. Doesn't work for everyone; luckily it does for me.

I finished the beer, threw the bottle in the trash. "So how much do I owe you?"

"Give you the fate shot for four hundred, finger for the standard rate—one hundred fifty percent of the money available. Cancer sticks thirty bucks."

"Less my discount, right?"

Vent laughed, winked at Laura. "That Hap," he said. "Always had that great sense of humor."

WE GOT TO DECK'S just before eleven. After we left Vent's, I went straight to an ATM and stuck the finger in the slot.

Laura acted pissed. "Are you really going to use that thing?"

"Got any other suggestions?" I snapped. "It's either that, or we go on welfare until I can get back onto the Net."

She looked away.

The dead guy was named Walter Fitt, and he had close to four thou in the bank, which meant the finger was going to cost me six. Vent's suppliers would have checked before passing it on to him. I took out a hundred cash, and made a note of the account number and bank code.

The cash got us on the subway until it ended at the Griffith wall at Barham Gate. I took an oblique approach up to the tunnel, and saw what I expected: two cops doing security checks on everyone who wanted to leave. I didn't have much of a plan, but it turned out I didn't need one. Just as I was deciding that we might have to turn back and try some of the other exits, a guy in the line ahead suddenly bolted. As one of the cops chased after him, his colleague just waved the rest of us through. I felt pretty blessed as we walked quickly out of Griffith, until I realized this was probably just the first of the co-incidences coming through. Useful and timely, but not exactly earth-shattering—and now I had only two left. There's no way of telling when or how coincidences will click in: You just have to take your chances. Even fate shots take their timing from the vicissitudes of fate.