'Sorry I didn't catch you, Nohar.' There was a smile on Harsk's face and Nohar couldn't decide if it was ironic or sarcastic. 'I thought I'd tell you that another little red light is flashing by your name. The DEA computer has this 'thing' about large cash transactions. Ten thousand dollars? The Fed is curious, and so am I. We're watching you, so—on the off-chance the cash is legit—remember to withhold your income tax.'
That was damn quick, even for the Fed. The DEA must have a tap on the ATM down the street. It was irritating, but not that surprising. Harsk knew he was clean, but he'd let the Fed wonder just out of a sense of perversity. The comm was asking if he had a reply,
'Yes. Record,' Noharcleared his throat, 'Harsk, don't call back until you have a warrant. End. Mail. Reply.'
Nohar closed his eyes and clawed the back of the couch. He told the comm to play the earlier message without really paying attention to it. He wasn't looking directly at the screen when he heard a husky female voice.
'Raj?'
'Pause!' His eyes shot open and he turned to look at Maria Limon. The call had come in close to two in the morning, during his meet with Nugoya. In the pressure of the moment, Nohar had forgotten to call Maria and cancel their date—
This wasn't the first tune either. Nohar had a sinking feeling.
She was at a public phone. He could see the streetlights behind her. There was a frozen shimmer on the screen where the lights were reflecting off the black
fur under her whiskers. Apparently the Brazilians had FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
45
been more creative with their moreaus. She'd been crying. Nohar doubted his tear ducts could be triggered emotionally.
Maria's golden eyes, her pupils almost round, seemed to level an accusation at him.
Cat tilted his head and gave Nohar a curious look.
'Replay.'
Static, then Maria's face reappeared on the screen. Nohar watched as one delicate black hand wiped away the moisture on her cheek. The hand fell and she looked directly at Nohar.
'Raj? I'm sorry about this. I should have the guts to face you, but I can't. You'd say something and we'd end up shouting at each other, or fucking each other— or, God help me, both—I can't do this anymore. I still care for you, but if we keep seeing each other, I won't—' Maria's voice broke, and more tears came. Maria was a strong person. Nohar had never seen her cry before. 'Good-bye, Raj, I have to leave while the memories are still worth something to me.'
Maria's face vanished as she broke the connection.
Nohar felt like someone had just kneed him in the balls, and he was feeling his stomach drop out just before the pain came.
They had known each other for only two months. It shouldn't have been a surprise. He had been expecting something like this all along. She was right. Cat must have sensed some of his agitation, because he started butting his head against Nohar's face and licking his cheek. Cat stopped after a few seconds and regarded Nohar with his head cocked to one side. Cat's expression seemed to be asking him what was wrong.
Nohar stayed quiet for a long while before he told the computer to put the message into permanent storage. He tried to call Maria, but her comm was locking out his calls. Maria would want a clean break. He could probably talk her out of it once, maybe twice, more. She didn't want him to.
He spent a few moments in relative silence, strok-
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ing Cat and listening to the high-frequency hum of the comm.
Instead of turning the comm off, he called up Maria's message, and paused it. He paused it where the claw on the index finger of her right hand had caught a tear. The small sphere of liquid was nestled between the hook in her claw and the pad on her finger. It refracted the unnatural white of the streetlight behind her, causing arcs of light to emerge from one golden half-lidded eye.
It was the kind of image that made Nohar wish he had a scrap of romance in his soul.
CHAPTER 4
After a while, Nohar decided he had better things to do than stare at Maria. 'Load program. Label, 'Log-on library.' '
'searching . . . found.'
'Run program.'
Maria's face disappeared as the computer started the access sequence. It showed the blue-and-white AT&T test pattern as it repeatedly buzzed the public library database, waiting for an open data channel. It was close to prime time for library access. It took nearly fifteen minutes for the comm to lock onto the library's mainframe.
Even when the Cleveland Public Library logo came up, there were a few minutes of waiting. The screen scrolled messages about fighting illiteracy, and how he should spend his summer reading a book. Nohar knew that a few thousand users on a clunky time-sharing system at the same time tended to slow things down, but it still seemed the delay was directed at him.
He shifted on the couch, trying to become more comfortable. Waiting always made him aware of his tail.
Two minutes passed. Then, with a little electronic fanfare, the menu came up—though you couldn't quite call the animated figure a 'menu.' The library system called their animated characters 'guides.' The software was trying too hard to be friendly. It verged on the cute.
The 'guide' facing him on the screen wore a sword
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strapped to his side, and was in the process of contemplating a human skull when he seemed to notice No- har's intrusion. The effect was spoiled by a glitch in the animation. A rolling blue line scrolled up and down the screen, shifting everything above it a pixel to the left. Nohar sighed. He had no desire to spend his time with a manic-depressive Dane. Especially after that call from Maria.
He spoke before the prince had time to object. 'Text menu.'
The only library 'guide' he liked was the little blonde human girl, Alice.
The text menu came up and the first thing he did, despite Smith's admonition to start with Johnson, was to conduct a global search for information on Midwest Lapidary Imports. He wanted some sort of handle on his client's employer, which was also the home of the alleged suspects.
There was only a fifteen second pause.
The computer came back with the report, 'Three items found.'
Nohar shook his head. Only three? With a global search? That meant there were only three items in the entire library data base that even mentioned MLI.
Nohar played the first item and got a newsfax about diamond imports, legal and illegal. The focus on the article was how hard it was to keep track of the gems. It had a graph that dramatized the divergence between the gems known to have come into the country, and those known to be in circulation. In the last fifteen years, a hell of a lot more gems had been in circulation than could be accounted for. It was, in fact, causing a depression in the diamond market.
The article blamed the Fed and new smuggling techniques. The least likely smuggling method Nohar read about was casting the diamonds in the heat-tiles on the exterior of a ballistic shuttle. Midwest Lapidary was only mentioned peripherally in a list of domestic diamond-related companies at the end of the article.
FORESTS OF THE NtGHT
