the other.
The newcomer was out of place at the scene of a gang war. The way Angel described him, the gene-techs that designed him were at least as advanced as the ones who produced Nohar's stock. That made the canine Pakistani or Afghan. Nohar had a bad feeling that he had met this canine before.
Angel described a dog with the domestic veneer removed. The canine was lean and had a shaggy gray coat, prominent snout, green eyes. He stood about two meters and massed about 100 kilos. Angel said he looked mean enough to take a bite out of a manhole cover.
'He had a raghead accent. Walked right to Terin— the white one—and asked, 'Is the roof cleared?' Ain't going to forget him. You could smell my people getting whacked up topside, and I smell him when he passes me. He was getting off. The blood was turning him on something fierce.
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'She calls him Hassan, Hazed, Hazy—something like that.'
Damn it, it was Hassan. The same morey who oiFed Nugoya. Nohar shook his head. What the hell did a small-time pimp and a gang war have to do with Daryl Johnson and the franks running MLI?
'There's this mother of arguments between Terin and the pooch. The raghead is blowing my shot, standing right in front of me—' 'What were they arguing about?'
'Fuck if I know, Kit. Term's pissed for some reason, like the dog is treading on her territory. She also rants about her best people being dragged otf to the four corners of the country—hell and gone, she said. Dog's frosty, though—think he's got the handle on the Zip's supplier, guns and drugs. Terin can mouth off, but not do much. Pissed her good.
'After blowing off steam, she leads him up. There goes my shot. I might've written myself off to get Terin, but I wasn't about to give it up for two goons. I laid it low. Not that I wasn't tempted when they tossed Hernandez out a window, but not much I could do. I waited them out, hoping for another shot at Terin. Didn't happen.'
Nohar was sitting on the floor across from Angel. Cat, half wrapped in the shirt, had tired of his game and had come to rest by Nohar. Angel was chugging her third liter of water.
'They caught up with you.'
'Inevitable. They knew all of us. Snatched me by surprise—five to one, they like that kind of odds—up the Midtown Corridor. Wasn't in Moreytown so my guard was off. Was last Thursday—end of the month— the day after Vixen bought it.'
Nohar remembered the burning Subaru and the dead foxes, both Wednesday.
Angel was still talking. 'Surprised they didn't vanish me then and there.
Upset I'd survived, more upset I had been at the tower when the raghead dog showed—
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someone saw me book outta there an' told the Zips. Terin wanted to know if I had told people, told her to fuck off. Pissed her good. Took me back to the tower an' pumped me with flush. Someone calling the shots said look like an O.D. That really pissed Terin. I could tell she wanted to off me painful. MustVe been Friday when they left me. What day is it?'
'Sunday.'
Angel yawned and stretched out on the couch. She barely filled a third of it. 'Well, I'm getting some real sleep.'
She fell asleep instantly.
They should have pumped another into her—but that would have looked like murder—and they were trying to make it look like an O.D.
Why? Because she'd seen the canine?
Again, what the hell did Zipperhead have to do with Daryl Johnson?
Nohar had a nasty thought—another morey uprising?
He shuddered at the idea. He'd been through that once already, when he was in the Hellcats. His own father had been shot, deservedly, by the National Guard.
'Don't let it be a political killing,' Nohar whispered to Cat.
The express mail people had left a message for him. He'd have to come pick up his package of ID replacements, they didn't deliver to his neighborhood.
Nohar let Angel sleep when he went out. Once he got most of his wallet replaced, Nohar realized there was nothing for his guest to eat. Nohar did some hasty shopping down by the city end of Mayfield Road, around University Circle,
Then, now that he had a card-key replacement, he stopped at his office.
The Triangle office building was a crumbling brick structure that was still trying to fight off the advancing FORESTS OF THE NIGHT US
decay from Moreytown. The brick looked like a patchwork from the many attempts to remove graffiti. It was getting dark, and the timers had yet to turn on the lights inside. There was just enough light to give Nohar a slight purple tint to his vision. He climbed the stairs in the empty darkness. Nobody else was around this late on a Sunday.
His office lived in the darkness at the end of a second floor hallway. It didn't even have a number to distinguish it. The door was simply a fogged-glass rectangle with a basic card-key lock. Nohar ran his key through the lock and the door slid aside with a slight puff of air.
The room was barely big enough to hold Nohar, even though it only contained two items of furniture— a comm that was a few generations out of date, and a file cabinet that was older than the building it lived in. Nohar knelt down and punched the combination on the padlock that held the bottom drawer shut. 'Comm on.'
There was a slight change in the quality of light in the room as the screen activated. This comm was mute, the synth chip had burned out a decade ago. He made sure the forwarding list was up to date, and got a bit of a surprise in the mail—a note from Stephie Weir. She'd found his listed number. It had been forwarded to his home comm while he was out. He played her message.
'Nohar, I need to talk to you. Can we meet for lunch tomorrow at noon? I'll be at the Arabica down at University Circle.'
That was it. At least the joint she picked for the meet wasn't adverse to moreys. Although Nohar wasn't a great fan of coffee or coffeehouses, the college crowd seemed a little more tolerant.
He wondered what she wanted.
Nothing more interesting on the comm, so he opened the file drawer. It was nearly filled by a dented aluminum case, about a meter long by a half wide.
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The electronic lock on the case had long been broken, and there were scorch marks on that side. There was a painstaking cursive inscription on the lid that contrasted with the ugly functionalism of the box itself. The inscription read, 'Datia Rajasthan: Off the Pink.' He pulled his father's case out of the drawer. The lock had been broken for nearly a decade, ever since Datia Rajasthan had been gunned down by a squad of National Guardsmen. Nohar'd gotten it a few weeks later when he split the Hellcats.
Nohar opened it. The seal was still good. The lid opened with a tearing sound as the case sucked in air and released the smell of oil. Nohar looked at the gun. The Indian military had manufactured the Vindhya 12-millimeter especially for their morey infantry. A pink's wrist couldn't handle the recoil. It was made of gray metal and ceramics, surprisingly light for its size—the barrel alone was 70 centimeters long. The magazine held twelve rounds. There were three magazines in the case, all full. A dozen notches marred the composite handgrip.
He held up the gun and cleared it, checked the safety, and slid a full magazine in. The magazine slid home with a satisfying solidity. The Vindhya was in perfect condition, even after ten years of neglect. The weight was seductive in his hand.
Nohar had practice with guns before it was a felony for a morey to own a firearm, but he had never even taken this one out of its case.
There were two holsters in the drawer. He left the combat webbing and removed the worn-leather shoulder holster. Nohar had never worn it, but he tried it on now. It fit well, comfortably, and that disturbed hun.
