Willie stepped into the dark. The place was empty. He walked over to the ruddy, balding man wiping the counter and waited. The man looked up.
“Willie!” He grinned, showing a handful of rotting teeth. “Been a while, now.” The balding man spoke in pure Sangaree dialect, a combination of traditional accent and phrasing and a half-deliberate slurring of words that non-Sangaree dwellers claimed to find too hard to follow.
‘Too long, Sam.” He took one of the stools. “You seen my .gorgeous, intelligent kid sister?”
“Nah, but I seen Bemie. She went to Rafael’s to order me some supplies.”
“Shit. She gonna be long? I’m workin’ to a schedule.”
“You were workin’ to a schedule when you were five. Want me to tell her you were here?”
Willie considered. “Your link-station still up?”
“What else’ve I got that sets me apart from every other four-star restaurant?”
Willie grinned and went into the back, walking past the crates that hid the restrooms and the link. The compartment he’d grown up in with his sister had no link, and he knew it would please Bemie to have somebody deliver a message to her, as though she were some fine lady on the letterdecks. It’d cost him a good percent, but he wanted to minimize her anger when she found out what he had to say.
“This is for Bernadette Stockton, Eight Below Z, Compartment 32981.” He dropped the Sangaree speech and spoke in the clear, letterdeck accents he and Bemie had forced themselves to use at home. “Uh, Bern, this is Willie. I just got an assignment that’s going to keep me away from the neighborhood for a while. Nothing dangerous, but I’m going to have to miss some wedding rehearsals.” He winced, imagining her reaction when she heard that. “Uh, I don’t know when I’ll be able to get away from this thing. Please tell Jack I’m sorry, too. Take care of yourself and, I guess, good-bye … Uh, from your loving brother, who wouldn’t miss any rehearsals unless he had to. End of message.” He felt around in his pockets for some dollar coins. “Link, how much was that? Write it out in nice script.”
“Twelve-fifty,” said the link-station.
This was more than twice what he’d anticipated. He had enough to cover it, barely, but— “Piracy,” he muttered.
“It’s justified by maintenance costs,” said the link primly. “And considering that most of the link-stations in this neighborhood are too damaged to be fully operational—”
“Fine,” said Will, as he dropped in another handful of coins. You didn’t find links extending credit in this neighborhood either.
He walked out past the crates and back to the counter. “Your link’s a little mouthy,” he said.
“Ain’t mine, I just rent it.” Sam looked at Will speculatively. “Carter was in, this morning.”
“In here?”
Sam nodded. “Bemie was in the back. He wanted to talk to her. I had to call the guys to get him out.”
“He’s got nothing to say to her. She’s engaged to somebody else.”
“I told ’im. He didn’t wanna hear it. Figured I mention it to you, Willie. Bern might not.”
“Damn, I don’t have time to visit him, Sam; I got to be out of here in fifteen minutes. Look, you’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you? I’ll give you a number you can call to reach me, if you have to.” He ripped a strip off the bottom of his order and wrote the number of the City Guard Station at Seacum Street. “They can find me here, but you have to tell them it’s an emergency.”
Sam nodded. He accepted the paper with a solemn expression. Everybody knew Willie was in the Guard these days, but this was the first time he’d officially acknowledged it. Sam hesitated, then met Willie’s eyes. “No disgrace bein’ in the red jackets, son,” and then he stopped short, sensing at once that Willie didn’t want to hear it. Sam said, “I wish Carter’d join up, or do something. He’s a waste of space; it’s a shame that good people go off to work the radiation levels while that asshole keeps gettin’ missed. It’s the grace of God that Bemie finally sees through him, weasel that he is.”
Willie agreed that this was so. He said, “You’ll watch her good for me, Sam, won’t you?”
“I swear.” Sam folded the paper with exaggerated care and put it in his apron pocket. Willie smiled, a little sadly; they clasped hands for a minute, then he turned and wandered out into the day lights of Sangaree. When he reached the train, he pulled the red jacket back over his long arms, and went to go where nobody ever called him Willie.
“A disgraceful affair, but no more than what we expected.” Lord Cardinal Amo handed his leather case to his assistant, Hartley Quince, who accepted it without comment. “Men and women dining together, a liberal use of liquor—” He waved aside the functionary who would have guided him toward a covered chair. “Thank you, Luke, we’ll walk.”
Hartley Quince fell in beside him, still carrying the case. “Actually, sir, I must admit that the liquor consumed at the average gatherings of Opal males far exceeds that of Adrian’s table.”
“Really? Another reason to give thanks that I never attend those affairs.”
Quince smiled. “Opal bravos are not at their best when intoxicated.”
“They’re not at their best when sober. You know, I’m sorry I keep sending you off to these tedious functions in my place, Hartley. You’ve been a saint about it.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, sir.”
Amo’s mind drifted back to the complaints at hand. “Not that one enjoys sharing a table with a murderer and a demon, but you’ll find, Hartley, that I always go the extra distance for the sake of peace.”
“I know that, sir,” said Hartley, without a trace of irony. “I recollect the demon, but who was the murderer?”
“My boy! You don’t expect that Saul Veritie died of natural causes, do you?”
Hartley said slowly, “I understood it was a sickness that came
