“Come on up with us and freshen up, honey,” Maryalice said.
‘You look wrecked.”
“I have to port,” Chia said. “Find my friend I’m staying with..
“Easy enough,” Maryalice said, sliding across the velour and opening the door. Eddie got out the driver’s side, taking the bag with the Nissan County sticker with him. He still didn’t look very happy. Chia took her bag with her and followed Maryalice. They all got into an elevator. Eddie pressed his palm against a hand-shaped outline on the wall and said something in Japanese. The elevator said something back, then the door closed and they were going up. Fast, it felt like, but they just kept going.
Being in the elevator didn’t seem to be improving Eddie’s mood.
He had to stand right up close to Maryalice, and Chia could see a lit
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75 tie muscle working, in the hinge of his jaw, as he looked at her. Maryalice just looked right back at him. “You oughta lighten up,” Maryalice said. “It’s done.”
The little muscle went into overdrive. “That was not the deal,” he said, finally. “That was not the arrangement,”
Maryalice lifted an eyebrow. ‘You used to appreciate a little innovation.”
Eddie glanced from Maryalice to Chia, then, quick, back to Maryalice. “You call that an innovation~”
‘You used to have a sense of humor, too,” Maryalice said, as the elevator stopped and the door slid open. Eddie glared, then stepped out, Chia and Maryalice following. “Never mind him,” Maryalice said. “Just how he gets, sometimes.”
Chia wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this definitely wasn’t it. A messy room jammed with shipping cartons, and a bank of security monitors. The low ceiling was made of those fibery tiles that were hung on little metal rails; about half of them were missing, with wires and cables looping down from dusty-looking shadow. There were a couple of small desk lamps, one of them illuminating a stack of used instant-noodle containers and a black coffee mug filled with white plastic spoons. A Japanese man in a black meshback that said “Whiskey Clone” across the front was sitting in a swivel chair in front of the monitors, pouring himself a hot drink out of a big thermos with pink flowers on the side.
“Yo, Calvin,” Maryalice said, or that was what it sounded like.
“Hey,” the man said.
“Calvin’s from Tacoma,” Maryalice said, as Chia watched Eddie, still carrying the suitcase, march straight through the room, through a door, and out of sight.
“Boss looks happy,” the man said, sounding no more Japanese than Maryalice. He took a sip from his thermos cup.
“Yeah,” Maryalice said, “He’s so glad to see me, he’s beside himself.”
“This too will pass.” Another sip. Looking at Chia from beneath 76 William Gibson the bill of the meshback. The letters in “Whiskey Clone” were the kind they’d use in a mall when they wanted you to think a place was traditional.
“This is Chia,” Maryalice said. “Met her in SeaTac,” and Chia noticed that she hadn’t said she’d met her on the plane. Which made her remember that business with the DNA sampling and the hair-extensions.
“Glad to hear it’s still there,” the man said. “Means there’s some way back out of this batshir.”
“Now, Calvin,” Maryalice said, “you know you love Tokyo.”
“Sure. Had a place in Redmond had a bathroom the size of the whole apartment I got here, and it wasn’t even a big bathroom. I mean, it had a shower, No tub or anything.”
Chia looked at the screens behind him, Lots of people there, but she couldn’t tell what they were doing.
“Looks like a good night,” Maryalice said, surveying the screens.
“Just fair,” he said. “Fair to middling.”
“Quit talking like that,” Maryalice said. “You’ll have me doing it.”
Calvin grinned. “But you’re a good old girl, aren’t you, Mary-alice?”
“Please,” Chia said, “may I use a dataport?”
“There’s one in Eddie’s office,” Maryalice said. “But he’s probably on the phone now. Why don’t you go in the washroom there,” indicating another door, closed, “and have a wash. You’re looking a little blurry. Then Eddie’ll be done and you can call your friend.”