coffee. Then she collected her keys and the important components of her machine—she wasn’t leaving that behind, not again, no matter how much protection Mabry had promised—and started down the stairs, heading for the Parcade.
The Parcade was quieter even than she had anticipated, half the storefronts still metal-shuttered even though opening time had come and gone. There were fewer people than usual loitering in the arcade doorways or waiting under the shadow of the boardwalks’ awnings, and most of them, Trouble guessed, would belong to Tinati’s goon squad. One of them stared after her for a long moment, and she braced herself, waiting to be thrown out again, but the man said nothing, in the end. Trouble kept walking, feeling the stare between her shoulder blades, was glad when she reached the entrance to Blake’s shop. It was open—it was hard to intimidate Mollie Blake—but the girl behind the counter had been reinforced by a tall, skinny black man. He didn’t move as Trouble came into the showroom, but his attention sharpened visibly. Trouble nodded politely, careful to include both of them in the gesture, and said, “Is Mollie around?”
The girl said, in a colorless voice, “Just a minute.” She reached under the counter, touched controls, and reached for the thin wire of the mike, bringing it in front of her mouth. “Boss? Trouble’s here.”
The response was inaudible, of course, but the girl grinned suddenly. She controlled herself in an instant, but there was still a certain amusement in her voice as she went on. “Boss says you should go straight up.”
The guard moved silently to open the door, and Trouble saw the sudden bulge of muscles under his skin. Blake didn’t skimp on her security, she decided, and was grateful that he hadn’t been ordered to toss her out on her ear. She started up the stairs, heard the second door open above her, and looked up to see Nova silhouetted in the doorway.
“You sure live up to your name,” she said, and moved back out of the way.
Trouble stepped past her, into the sudden pleasant light of Blake’s loft. The worktable was lit this time, and there was a device eviscerated on the working platform, sectioned into neat, unrecognizable pieces. Blake looked up, stood, stretching.
“So,” she said. “Was this your way of convincing me I ought to hurry?”
“Not likely,” Trouble said, electing to take the question at face value. “Caused me more trouble than that’s worth, and probably annoyed Tinati on top of it. I don’t need that grief, too.”
“Nobody needs that kind of grief,” Nova said from the doorway. “We had to hire his security this morning, just to prove our goodwill.”
Blake ignored her. “I’m surprised you’re still walking around this morning.”
Trouble took a deep breath. “I made a deal,” she said flatly. “Not with Treasury.”
“Oh?”
That was Nova again, and Blake said, “Shut up, will you? Or say something useful.”
Trouble went on as though there had been no interruption. “This is a multinational problem, Mollie. Interpol has an interest, and their guy has a good name—Cerise knows him, for one, and Max Helling. And he deals with it under the Conventions, not Evans-Tinsdale.”
Blake nodded. “What exactly is the deal?”
“I give him newTrouble, he gets Treasury off my back,” Trouble said. “And before you say anything, Mollie, remember, I asked the nets. And off the nets, too. And I’m not going to go down for the sake of some punk kid who’s a stranger to me and most of the net.”
“I know you did,” Blake said.
Nova said, “It’s been a little weird on the nets. When were you last on?”
Trouble glanced at her, unable to read the odd smile on her broad face, and shrugged. “It’s been, what, fifteen hours? Maybe twenty.”
Nova’s smile widened. “You’ve got friends coming out of the woodwork, sunshine, and not just the worms, either. A lot of people were real pissed that it was you got shopped, and not the kid. That Sasquatch, whoever he is, he’s lying low, and there hasn’t been a whiff of newTrouble.”
“I’m flattered,” Trouble said. “But I could’ve used that help a little earlier.”
Nova shrugged, still grinning, and Blake said, “Be that as it may—” She stopped abruptly, tried again. “I am not particularly pleased with the situation, either. It’s—you might say it’s very bad for business, in more ways than one, and the sooner the Mayor realizes that, the better for him. So: you were right, Trouble, I have done business with your pretender. Walk-in business—he lives around here somewhere. The word is, he lives in one of the secure complexes up north of the highway interchange, I don’t know which one. But I’m sure you can find that out easily enough.”
Trouble nodded, her thoughts already racing ahead. “The ones on the headland, you mean?”
“Those are the ones,” Blake agreed.
“Fucking expensive place to live,” Trouble said. The kind of security, electronic and real, that those slim buildings provided for their tenants didn’t come cheaply; when you coupled that with luxury flats, full services, and proximity to The Willows and its direct air link to most of the coast, and then added in a very limited number of available spaces— rents would be in the thousands-per-month, and buy-in would be in the millions.
“I know,” Blake said. “And no, I don’t know where he gets the money.”
Nova gave a nasty laugh, and Blake glared at her. Nova subsided, and Blake looked back at Trouble. “What my partner is trying to say is, he’s a kid—newTrouble, I mean. Really a kid, maybe seventeen, eighteen, something like that. And he is very pretty, if you like them sweet-faced and skinny.”
“Sounds like a chicken-hawk’s dream,” Trouble said.
“That could be it,” Blake agreed, “someone paying to keep him, and him cracking on the side.”
“No other way he could afford it,” Nova muttered, and when Blake turned on her, she spread her hands. “Look, Moll, there’s no way he could afford that, even cracking— even if he was selling what he steals. Just no way. Someone’s got to be paying his bills.”
Blake shook her head. “Your mind’s in the gutter—”
“Except when it comes out to feed,” Nova said.
Blake looked back at Trouble. “He doesn’t feel like a hustler. He’s a cocky punk, but not in that style. And no, before you ask, I don’t know how else he could afford a Headlands apartment. But he doesn’t act like a hustler.”
“Thanks,” Trouble said, turned her head to include Nova in the glance. “I appreciate your help.”
“You and yours didn’t leave us much choice,” Blake said, but she was smiling. “Good luck.”
“I hope you get the little bastard,” Nova said, sweetly, and held open the door.
“So do I,” Trouble said, and went back down the stairs to the shop, and out into the sunlight of the Parcade.
