Lacey glanced at them, then took a step toward a near-by canvas shanty. Four patrons were drinking from mugs and arguing with the blocky bartender. The woman behind Lacey tapped him on the shoulder. In the dim light she had seemed to be carrying a short bamboo cane. It was in fact a length of steel reinforcing rod.
“Where you going, buddy?” she demanded.
Lacey’s tongue touched his lips. “Look, I got in a little trouble—” he shrugged one shoulder in the direction he had come—”topside. Thought I’d—”
“Says he’s a mole, sure enough, Mooch,” the woman cackled to the leader of the approaching trio. “He thinks he is.” Then, “Watch him, he’s got a knife.”
“Does he?” said Mooch. He was taller than Lacey and his broad shoulders supported arms so long his hands dangled near his knees. Mooch’s bare torso sagged over his belt. Despite the fat, the muscles were there as well, and the many scars suggested how they had been used. “Funny, I got one too.” He caressed the hilt of a long bread knife thrust bare between his belt and waist-band. Slung across Mooch’s back was a gunpowder weapon whose magazine protruded over his right shoulder.
“Let’s see your knife, boy,” the burly man ordered flatly. The two men with him tensed. Lacey heard a whisper of metal as the woman moved behind him.
The Southerner’s tongue touched his lips again. Very carefully, he brought the little weapon from its concealed pocket and handed it to Mooch. The bigger man turned the hilt over as he inspected it, looking for the mechanism. His thumb and forefinger accidentally squeezed together on opposite sides near one end. The blade shot out and nicked his palm. Mooch cursed, swapped ends of the knife, and snapped the blade off with a sideways flick of his thumb. He let the pieces clatter to the ground. A drop of his blood splashed on them.
“Cute,” the leader said. More to the others than to Lacey, he added, “Bill’s coming, I buzzed soon as Angel here whistled . . . but I don’t guess he’ll mind if we see what this mole’s got on him.”
“Bet you thought you could just come Undergound and nobody’d think twice, hey?” said one of Mooch’s henchmen, a twisted black in a caftan.
Lacey felt himself edging backward even though he knew the woman was there with the steel rod. “Christ, there’s a million people come down here each week,” he stammered.
The black laughed and spun the chain in his hands as if it were a short jump rope. “Sure, but you wanna stay, you wanna be a mole. And we got word to watch out for moles for a while. Well, you may stay at that.”
“Turn your pockets out,” Mooch said.
Lacey obeyed without protest. He handed the burly man his stylus and his wallet with $32 and a Class IV bank card. Mooch frowned. “Where’s the rest?”
“Look, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Lacey whined. “I didn’t make any plans.”
“Strip,” Mooch ordered. His right hand was flexing on the hilt of the bread knife.
Again Lacey obeyed, folding his jacket and laying it on his neatly-arranged boots. Mooch snatched it up. He squeezed it into a tight ball to see if anything crinkled or poked within. Nothing did. He dropped the sheer fabric to the ballast and stepped on it.
Lacey swallowed but said nothing. He took off his trousers. The fresh scrape was a scarlet pennon on his thigh. He wore no underclothing. Mooch took the trousers from him, wadded them, and dropped them on the jacket. Then he punched the Southerner in the stomach.
Lacey kept his feet for the first few blows. He knew that however punishing the big hands might seem, the boots would be worse once he was down. His bare buttocks touched the concrete wall. The next side-thrown fist slammed him to the ground.
In his scanner helmet, Lacey had seen every form of mayhem humans could inflict on one another. Years before he had been beaten himself by the experts of the Red Team that had arrested him for rape. He kept his fists pressed against his eyes and his knees high up to protect his groin. It wasn’t enough, but it was all there was to do. The pain lessened after a boot drove his head back against the concrete. Then all Lacey’s nerves seemed to be coated in honey.