'Won't hurt to look,' Toni said.
He shrugged.
The last of the D.C. police were gone, but there were four of Net Force's agents still there. A man on each entrance to the house, one in a car across the street, one standing by the sliding glass door. They'd stay with Alex until they got this sorted out.
Toni felt a surge of anger she had to hold on to. Whoever this person was, she — or he — was going to be sorry if Toni got to them before anybody else did.
'You okay?'
'Yeah. It was just such a surprise, seeing this nice little old lady from my neighborhood ready to knock my head over the left-field wall.'
'I bet.'
'I've seen her around for at least a week.'
'So did the agents on your door during the protocol watch. This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment thing. You were being stalked.'
He shook his head. 'Because I sit in Steve Day's chair. This woman probably had something to do with that.'
'Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind.'
'Well. Take that stick into the lab.'
'I can stay around if you want.'
'No, go back to work. I'm all right.'
She left, reluctantly, and the image of Alex standing there petting the little dog stayed with her as she drove back toward HQ.
Johnny the Shark stood in front of Ray Genaloni's desk with a sheet of paper in one hand.
'Okay, what?'
'This just came from our guy in the D.C. cop shop,' Johnny said. 'I thought you'd like to see it first thing.'
Genaloni took the paper, put on his reading glasses and looked at it.
Before he got six words into it, Johnny said, 'Seems some woman tried to kill the Commander of Net Force.'
Genaloni looked up from the paper, over the top of the reading glasses. 'Tried?
Johnny held both hands up in an I-dunno gesture. 'This is what our guy in D.C. sent.'
Genaloni read the paper. It was a copy of an incident report, and it was lean, not much to it. And it didn't look as if the cops were gonna stay on it, either; the feds had kicked them out.
Genaloni shook his head. A woman. He couldn't believe it. He'd talked to the Selkie on the phone three, four times, had never had a clue — she'd sounded like a man. A woman. That bothered him more than that she'd tried the hit and missed. And that bothered him more than a little. What if they caught her? What if she kept some kind of records, linking him to her?
He'd worried about this before, of course, but not really. The Selkie had always delivered. There was a lot of money to be made and it wouldn't serve him — no,
'We got some computer geeks on the payroll, right?'
'Some of the best.'
'Put ‘em to work. I want them to run down the Selkie. Find her — if it really is a her.'
'And after we find her?'
'Nothing. Just find her. I'll decide what I want to do once you get that part done.'
Johnny nodded and left. Genaloni looked at the fax sheet. This whole thing with Luigi and the feds was a fuckup. He didn't like any of it, and it was getting worse. Maybe it was time to cut his losses and tighten up. Find Luigi and put him away, in case he'd said anything he shouldn't have. Find the Selkie, put her away. Take care of the guy she'd tried to kill himself, no loose ends anywhere.
Jesus. He didn't need this kind of crap. The damned road to legitimacy was going to be knee-deep in blood, the way it was looking right now.
Jesus.
Jay Gridley downshifted from fourth to third, enjoying the Viper's muscular rumble as it slowed for the off- ramp to the right. He pulled to a stop at the light, waited for a couple of trucks to go by, then turned right onto the surface street.
Welcome to New Orleans.
He'd heard a rumor he had to check out, that there was some kind of rascal going down, a chunk of money being rerouted, and the fingerprints on the deal were invisible. Might be the guy he was looking for.
He idled at another traffic signal, and while waiting for the light to change, glanced at the newsstand on the comer. The hardcopy papers and magazines wilted under the heat and high humidity, covers drooping flaccidly. There was one of those big colorful maps pasted on the kiosk:
A headline caught his attention. He waved at the vendor, held up a dollar and pointed at the paper he wanted. The man next to the stand stepped into the street, took Jay's money and handed him the paper.
The headline said: THAI PRIME MINISTER DIES IN CRASH.
The vendor didn't offer any change.
Gridley had time to scan the first paragraph before the light turned green.
Apparently Prime Minister Sukho had driven his car off a bridge. He'd been alone at the time. A freak accident.
His widow had no comment.
Gridley blew out a sigh. Well, well.
The traffic was bad in the Crescent City, the roads jammed with locals and tourists coming to visit, to see the river, taste the spicy foods, maybe take in a strip show on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. When you visited an officially sponsored city-site in VR, you had to live with the RW local conditions, and even in October, the heat and dampness were oppressive here.
The place he was going was called Algiers, and it was not the best of neighborhoods, despite years of trying to renew the district. He had done a little research on it, enough to know he wanted to get in and out quick. His Viper would move fast enough to keep him ahead of a lot of trouble, but it wasn't a tank. He depended on his speed and skill, and so far, he'd been able to outrun VR thugs, but even an expert could get trapped in a dead end.
He wove his way through narrow streets, keeping a careful watch on the other traffic. He also watched with care the pedestrians who lounged on corners, drinking beer from long-necked bottles or unknown liquid from pints hidden inside little paper bags. In this section of town, most of the faces he saw were dark, or at least swarthy, and none of them looked kind.
He saw money being exchanged for small baggies or vials, saw women dressed in short skirts and hooker heels leaning against bus benches or in the lee of bar doorways, watching for potential customers.
Even in VR, Gridley wanted no part of these women.
He glanced down at the directions he'd gotten. Another turn, a right, and he was on a street barely wide enough for two cars. Ahead was the branch of the Bank of Louisiana he'd come to find, what looked like a trailer without wheels, set in front of a lot full of building rubble.
Parked in front of the bank branch was a shiny new metallic-blue Corvette convertible with the top down, the motor running. A man came out of the bank in a hurry. He looked young, but he moved old, wore a nice suit, and he carried a briefcase in one hand. He would have passed for a customer, a businessman — except he was wearing a mask.
He looked up, saw Gridley, and ran for the Vette. He threw the briefcase into the passenger seat as he opened the driver's door and jumped into the car.
