There were two other men in foreign-cut suits at the far end of the corridor. 'Funniest damn thing, man,' said Easy. 'Remember back at the meat locker when you and me, we first talked about the deal?'
'Well, the bitch had the place wired. Ain't that a scream? Heard every word of it. She's smarter than I thought.' By now, Jonny had stopped in his tracks and Easy was holding a Futukoro on him.
'I'll take you apart, man.' Easy reached behind Jonny, took his gun, then pushed him down the corridor. 'Nimble Virtue's got the stuff now. I had to give it to her, you know? Get back on her good side. It's not like I can go back to Conover.' The two men ahead (actually boys, Jonny saw; in different clothes they could have passed for Committee recruits with no problem at all), Jonny recognized the cut of their suits now. Like the Pakistani broadcaster on the restricted Link channel, long, almost knee-length jackets and baggy wide-waisted pants. Neo- Zoot, a current Arab style.
'Anyway, you've got to deal with her now,' Easy said. The Arabs never took their eyes off Jonny. The younger one, a handsome boy of about fifteen with black eyes and hair, gave him a wide feral smile and opened the door before him. 'Muchas gracias, boys,' said Easy, pushing Jonny through.
Inside, Nimble Virtue looked up, a tiny glazed tea cup poised before her lips. 'My goodness,' she said, her respirator sucking the words back down her throat. 'We have a visitor.' She sat behind an oversized desk constructed of opaque sheets of black glass supported by a frame of etched gold cylinders. An older man with salt and pepper hair was sitting across from her, also sipping tea and eyeing Jonny skeptically, as if contemplating the purchase of a used car.
'This is the man?' the gray-haired man asked Nimble Virtue.
He was quite handsome, with hard, angular features, long graceful hands and the easy manner of someone used to being listened to. His suit was of better material than those of the boys in the hall (he had the same restless dark eyes as the one with the feral smile), but the style and the cut were definitely Arab.
'Yes,' Nimble Virtue said, pouring more tea, her exoskeleton whirring softly under her kimono as she raised and lowered her arm.
Easy set Jonny's gun on the dark glass before her and leaned on an elaborate air purification system: ionizers, charcoal filter rigs, dehumidifiers. The room was very cold. Jonny thought of Nimble Virtue in the abattoir, the orbiting sandakan, unconsciously recapitulating her childhood in her office, constructing within it a low-key approximation of the frozen vacuum of space.
'So whose little doggie are you?' Jonny asked the Arab.
'Jonny!' hissed Nimble Virtue.
The Arab smiled, turned to Nimble Virtue and laughed. 'You were right. His mouth works much faster than his mind,' he said. 'Still, this is no problem. It is his presence we require, not his intellect.'
'You don't say. Who is this guy?' Jonny asked Nimble Virtue.
'Jonny, please,' she said. 'Sheik al-Qawi is a guest in my house. More than that, he and I have entered into certain business arrangements on behalf of the New Palestine Federation, of which he is a field representative.' The words were clear, but her inflection was sing-song. An act for the new money, Jonny thought. Helpless geisha- girl.
'I thought it smelled funny when I came here. That bad meat-political smell.' He looked at Nimble Virtue. 'You've finally found your place. You, Zamora, this clown, I hope you'll be very happy together.'
Nimble Virtue's hand came to rest on a squat lacquered box that stood open on its end near the far corner of her desk. 'Not political at all. Just the opposite,' she said. A single jar sat in each side of the ox. Embalmed things floating there, surrounded by dark purple velvet. Fetuses. Her unborn sons. 'Sheik al-Qawi made me a very generous offer for the acquisition of- what? — an artifact. A bauble. I am merely acting as his agent in this matter.'
'Right. And tell me those boys in the hall aren't hashishin,' Jonny said. 'These people consider going to the toilet a political act.'
'It's funny that you should raise the question of political philosophies, Mister Qabbala,' said al-Qawi, 'since yours seem rather vague.'
'That's because they don't exist,' Jonny said. He checked his watch. The passing of time had begun to weigh on him. Sumi was back on the hill. He thought of the second virus moving through her blood, waiting there like a time bomb. 'You know, you guys slay me. Corporate types. Politicos. If I put a bullet through your fat face right now, they'd have you in a vat in ten minutes. And they'd keep you there till they could clone or construct or repair a body for you. That's the difference between your people and mine. We don't get a second chance. We're just dead.'
The sheik brightened. 'Then you are political!' he said. 'Those are not the sentiments of an amoral man. Your manner and the company you keep bespeak a strong sense of purpose, even if you refuse to name it.'
'Look pal, I'm just here to pick up some dope-'
'But surely you must agree that the imperialist forces now at work in Tokyo and Washington must be shown that plotting against the peoples of other sovereign nations cannot be tolerated.'
'You want to deal or not?' Jonny asked Nimble Virtue. She turned her eyes up at him, still doing her little-girl act. 'Not now,' she said.
'Then I'm out of here.' Jonny headed for the door. Easy had his gun at the back of Jonny's head before he had taken two steps. 'Hey, just a joke. I'd love to stay.' al-Qawi stood and slammed his fist down on Nimble Virtue's desk. Her hand moved reflexively to the case containing her sons, steadying it. 'I cannot believe such behavior,' the Sheik yelled. 'That you can make jokes in the face of the hideous conspiracy in which your government is embroiled. That you, yourself, are a part of.'
'Jonny-san,' Nimble Virtue purred, 'what Sheik al-Qawi is referring to are diabolical plans hatched by certain war-loving officials in Tokyo and Washington to launch a sneak attack against the united Arab nations and bring about a terrible third world war.'
Jonny looked at the two of them. He almost smiled, certain he was being gas-lighted. Nimble Virtue was not above setting up such a game just to confuse him and drive up the price of Conover's dope.
However, there was something in al-Qawi's manner, a weariness around the eyes that was either very good acting or genuine anxiety.
'Do you actually have the drugs?' Jonny asked.
'Yes,' right there, said Nimble Virtue, pointing to a spot on the floor before a screen inlaid with mother-of- pearl cranes.
'Let me see it.'
'No!' shouted al-Qawi. 'No more drug talk. As a man of god, I cannot permit it.' His long hands cut the air in tense, rapid bursts. 'Thanks to the good work of Madame Nimble Virtue, my trip to this sickening city has been a short and fruitful one. As you may have inferred, sir, you are the artifact I came here to find.'
He pushed a finger in Jonny's face. 'Mister Qabbala, it is my duty and honor to arrest you in the name of the New Palestine Federation and the people of all oppressed nations everywhere.'
'Great. Swell.' To Nimble Virtue, Jonny said: 'Did you sell this idiot my dope?'
'Do not play the fool with me, sir!' shouted al-Qawi. 'Surely even you cannot endorse so mad an adventure as your government's alliance with the extraterrestrials!'
Jonny looked at the Sheik, blinked once and inadvertently scrambled the resolution of the exteroceptors' pixel display. When the Sheik's face came back, it had been reduced to a moving matrix of black and sand-colored squares. Easy Money sniffed loudly from his interferon inhaler. 'I'll tell you exactly what I told the last lunatic that tried to tie me to the Alpha Rats: I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!'
'I do not believe you. I have studied your records, however. You live in the drugged ignorance of a man with a heavy burden,' al-Qawi said. 'It may interest you to know that the New Palestine Federation has intercepted a series of communiques between broadcast stations in southern California and the moon. We now know that using you as a go-between, your eastern masters plan to link forces with the Alpha Rats (as you callthem) and launch a sneak attack on Arab territories simultaneously from the Earth and the moon.'
'Look, I've heard this moon-man song before,' said Jonny wearily. 'The last time it was about dope. Now it's war. Why don't you people get your stories straight?' He shook his head, finally correcting the pixel display. Easy Money was behind him, sniffing and laughing to himself.
'What's your story? You suddenly develop a political conscience?'
Easy shrugged, the hand with the gun resting by his side. 'Don't ask me. You're the one hangs out with anarchists.'
'I am, Mister Qabbala, prepared to offer you a deal,' al-Qawi said.
