He let his voice trail off suggestively, and Mabry nodded in perfect understanding. “My bosses are well aware of the value of international cooperation, John. I’m positive there will be no objection to my sharing any data I receive with you. Just so long as we are able to prosecute as well. One of the—incidents—comes under Singapore’s jurisdiction, you understand.”
In spite of herself, Trouble had to bite back the urge to whistle, and knew her eyebrows rose. Singapore’s cracker laws were some of the most stringent in the notoriously strict Asian Circle; trying a case there, with the kind of evidence Mabry already had—not to mention what she herself could supply—practically guaranteed not only a conviction but a definite prison term.
Levy made a noise that might have been approving, and Starling gave an appreciative nod. “We weren’t aware that Singapore had jurisdiction in any of the cases.”
Mabry smiled. “We only got the ruling thirty hours ago ourselves.”
“Good enough,” Starling said, suddenly brisk. “Then we’ll leave you to it, Vess. Good hunting.”
“Thank you,” Mabry said, and shut the door firmly behind them.
“Singapore,” Cerise said, after a moment. “Who’s the complainant?”
Mabry smiled placidly at her, poured himself another cup of coffee. “KMS.”
“That won’t hold,” Cerise said.
“Probably not,” Mabry agreed. “But it would be nice if it did.”
Trouble watched them warily, not sure she liked the coldblooded discussion—it was a fellow cracker they were talking about, and, no matter how dangerous newTrouble had become, personally and generally across the nets, it was still unnerving to hear them plotting his effective demise.
“So you’re Trouble,” Mabry said, after a moment. “I’m Vesselin Mabry.”
“So I gathered.” Trouble kept her voice neutral, was remotely pleased with the effect.
Mabry smiled. “So. You’ve agreed to help me find newTrouble. Can I ask why?”
“Does it matter?” Trouble answered, and managed a smile to take the sting from the words.
“Probably not,” Mabry agreed, still placid. “As long as I get him.”
Trouble frowned again, and Cerise said hastily, “I assume we’re free to do as we please now, Vess?”
“Do you have the information I want?” Mabry asked.
Trouble did not bother to hide her sneer.
Cerise said, “Ah. You wouldn’t be threatening me, would you, Vess?”
“No threat,” Mabry said, and contrived to sound hurt by the accusation. “But I would like to know.”
Trouble glanced at Cerise, saw the other woman’s head tilt in an all-but-imperceptible nod. “We’re waiting to get it.”
“When?” Mabry asked.
“That I can’t say,” Trouble answered. “We have a bunch of inquiries out, and it just depends on who talks to us first.”
“Treasury may have made some people a little wary,” Mabry said, not without bitterness.
“Or pissed off enough to talk,” Cerise said.
“One would hope so,” Mabry said.
“The first thing that I want to do,” Trouble said, “is get some clean clothes—I assume my belongings are still back at the hostel?”
Mabry shrugged.
“If not,” Cerise said, with a sudden, malicious grin, “we can have some serious fun getting them back.”
Trouble smiled in spite of herself. “Speak for yourself. But then I can check in with some people.”
“And I can talk to the nets,” Cerise agreed.
Trouble’s grin widened. “Going to go looking for Silk?”
“Not for that,” Cerise said, and sounded suddenly grim.
“Silk,” Mabry said, and there was something in his voice that made both women look curiously at him. “What do you know about Silk?”
“Cerise knows a lot more than I do,” Trouble said.
Cerise shrugged, frowning at the sudden intensity of Mabry’s stare. “I—met Silk on the net a while back. She and I had an extremely brief fling. But I think she knows newTrouble, and I owe her a bad turn, so… I thought I’d make some hard inquiries into her connections.”
“‘Her’?” Mabry said, and laughed suddenly, without humor. “The Silk I knew—know of—was a boy.”
Cerise quirked a smile at him, trying to choose her words carefully beneath the careless tone. “So you got hustled, too.”
“Not me,” Mabry said, still with a tight, unfriendly smile. “Max did.”
“So which is it, I wonder?” Cerise said. There was no use in being embarrassed; sex and gender confusion was one of the hazards of the nets, something a few people enjoyed exploiting while most of the net tried to minimize the inevitable mistakes. Even so, she felt a brief, unwanted flash of something between annoyance and shame: bad enough to be hustled, she thought, but by a boy?
Mabry shrugged. “I admit, I don’t really know. Except that he—she?—is an accomplished bitch, any way you care to name. I should like to have words with him—her.”
Trouble looked at Cerise, wondering just what Mabry meant, how much of a threat he intended. Cerise looked back, lifted one shoulder in a fractional shrug. Who knows? her expression said, and Trouble repressed a sigh. The last thing they needed was for some personal vendetta of Mabry’s to screw up what already promised to be a very tricky deal.
Mabry said, “The trouble with Silk wasn’t just that he likes being an obsession, or that Max was well and truly obsessed there for a week or so. But he talked Max into doing him a favor Max shouldn’t even have listened to, and very nearly got Max involved in some very dirty security work. Which came close to costing Max his license—the license that I put my neck on the line to get for him.”
“Ah,” Cerise said, and looked at Trouble. “Max has gone into security work, consulting. I didn’t know if you’d heard.”
“I’d heard something,” Trouble said. That explained a lot, right there: if Silk had hustled Helling, and then used him to get codes or other information—well, she thought, if it had been my lover, I’d want to see his ass kicked, all right. I can’t blame Mabry. And if his reputation is on the line as well…
“So, Cerise,” Mabry said, and forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, “if you can get Silk to give you anything, especially if you can make him—her, whatever—look like the bitch it is, I would personally enjoy seeing it. But I’d be very careful.”
“I intend to be,” Cerise said. “I certainly intend to be.”
Chapter Eleven
SOMEWHAT TO TROUBLE’S surprise, her room was still available, and Valentine was not nearly as hostile as Trouble herself would have been, faced with Treasury on her doorstep. The room had been searched, of course— there had been at least a hint of a warrant, Valentine said, shrugging—but nothing seemed to be missing, for which Trouble, at least, was grateful. She took a second shower and found fresh clothes, then checked the machine setup. She ran the programs she had left set mostly as a matter of habit, checking for searches in her own working volumes. Nothing showed, which meant only that Starling, at least, was good at his job. The thought was depressing; she shoved it away, and crossed to the window to stare out into the dusty street. Seahaven looked pretty much as usual, though she wondered what the Parcade would be like, if Treasury had been its usual self the night before. She stood for a moment, watching a trio of older women making their way along the sidewalk, jackets with The Willows’ logo slung over their shoulders. They looked tired, moved as though they had been working all night, feet in low-heeled shoes scuffing against the paving.
Trouble sighed, went back into the bathroom for her medical kit. She carried stimulants—what cracker didn’t, for the long nights on the net, designer drugs that didn’t interfere with perception—and she found the tube after a few moments’ search, swallowed two of the tiny pink pills, and washed it down with the dregs of her
