Kumiko would remember the alley always: dark brick slick with damp, hooded ventilators trailing black streamers of congealed dust, a yellow bulb in a cage of corroded alloy, the low growth of empty bottles that sprouted at the base of either wall, the man-sized nests of crumpled fax and white foam packing segments, and the sound of Sally’s bootheels. Past the bulb’s dim glow was darkness, though a reflected gleam on wet brick showed a final wall, cul-de- sac, and Kumiko hesitated, frightened by a sudden stir of echo, a scurrying, the steady dripping of water. . . . Sally raised her hand. A tight beam of very bright light framed a sharp circle of paint-scrawled brick, then smoothly descended. Descended until it found the thing at the base of the wall, dull metal, an upright rounded fixture that Kumiko mistook for another ventilator. Near its base were the stubs of white candles, a flat plastic flask filled with a clear liquid, an assortment of cigarette packets, a scattering of loose cigarettes, and an elaborate, multiarmed figure drawn in what appeared to be white powdered chalk. Sally stepped forward, the beam held steady, and Kumiko saw that the armored thing was bolted into the brickwork with massive rivets. »Finn?« A rapid flicker of pink light from a horizontal slot. »Hey, Finn, man . . .« An uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice . . . »Moll.« A grating quality, as if through a broken speaker. »What’s with the flash? You still got amps in? Gettin’ old, you can’t see in the dark so good?« »For my friend.« Something moved behind the slot, its color the unhealthy pink of hot cigarette ash in noon sunlight, and Kumiko’s face was washed with a stutter of light. »Yeah,« grated the voice, »so who’s she?« »Yanaka’s daughter.« »No shit.« Sally lowered the light; it fell on the candles, the flask, the damp gray cigarettes, the white symbol with its feathery arms. »Help yourself to the offerings,« said the voice. »That’s half a liter of Moskovskaya there. The hoodoo mark’s flour. Tough luck; the high rollers draw ’em in cocaine.« »Jesus,« Sally said, an odd distance in her voice, squatting down, »I don’t believe this.« Kumiko watched as she picked up the flask and sniffed at the contents. »Drink it. It’s good shit. Fuckin’ better be. Nobody shortcounts the oracle, not if they know what’s good for ’em.« »Finn,« Sally said, then tilted the flask and swallowed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, »you gotta be crazy. . . .« »I should be so lucky. A rig like this, I’m pushing it to have a little imagination, let alone crazy.« Kumiko moved closer, then squatted beside Sally. »It’s a construct, a personality job?« Sally put down the flask of vodka and stirred the damp flour with the tip of a white fingernail. »Sure. You seen ’em before. Real-time memory if I wanna, wired into c-space if I wanna. Got this oracle gig to keep my hand in, you know?« The thing made a strange sound: laughter. »Got love troubles? Got a bad woman don’t understand you?« The laugh noise again, like peals of static. »Actually I’m more into business advice. It’s the local kids leave the goodies. Adds to the mystique, kinda. And once in a while I get a skeptic, some asshole figures he’ll help himself to the take.« A scarlet hairline flashed from the slit and a bottle exploded somewhere to Kumiko’s right. Static laughter. »So what brings you this way, Moll? You and,« again the pink light flicked across Kumiko’s face, »Yanaka’s daughter . . .« »The Straylight run,« Sally said. »Long time, Moll . . .« »She’s after me, Finn. Fourteen years and that crazy bitch is on my ass. . . .« »So maybe she’s got nothin’ better to do. You know how rich folks are. . . .« »You know where Case is, Finn? Maybe she’s after him. . . .« »Case got out of it. Rolled up a few good scores after you split, then he kicked it in the head and quit clean. You did the same, maybe you wouldn’t be freezing your buns off in an alley, right? Last I heard, he had four kids. . . .«