“I got people in Singapore, Tokyo connections in Shinjuku and Asakuza, and they’ll go down, understand?” he lied, his hand on the shoulder of her black jacket. “Five. Five minutes. By your clock, okay?” “Not what I’m paid for.” “What you’re paid for is one thing. Me letting some tight friends die because you’re too literal about your instructions is something else.” “Bullshit. Tight friends my ass. You’re going in there to check us out with your smuggler.” She put a booted foot up on the dust-covered Kandinsky coffee table. “Ah, Case, sport, it does look as though your companion there is definitely armed, aside from having a fair amount of silicon in her head . What is this about, exactly?” Deane ‘ s ghostly cough seemed to hang in the air between them. “Hold on, Julie. Anyway, I’ll be coming in alone.” “You can be sure of that, old son. Wouldn’t have it any other way.” “Okay,” she said. “Go. But five Minutes. Any more and I’ll come in and cool your tight friend permanently. And while you’re at it, you try to figure something out.” “What’s that?” “Why I’m doing you the favor.” She turned and walked out, past the stacked white modules of preserved ginger. “Keeping stranger company than usual, Case?” asked Julie. “Julie, she’s gone. You wanna let me in? Please, Julie?” The bolts worked. “Slowly, Case,” said the voice. “Turn on the works, Julie, all the stuff in the desk,” Case said, taking his place in the swivel chair. “It’s on all the time,” Deane said mildly, taking a gun from behind the exposed works of his old mechanical typewriter and aiming it carefully at Case. It was a belly gun, a magnum revolver with the barrel sawn down to a nub. The front of the trigger-guard had been cut away and the grips wrapped with what looked like old masking tape. Case thought it looked very strange in Dean’s manicured pink hands. “Just taking care, you Understand. Nothing personal. Now tell me what you want.” “I need a history lesson, Julie. And a go-to on somebody.” “What’s moving, old son’?” Deane’s shirt was candy-striped cotton, the collar white and rigid, like porcelain.
“Me, Julie. I’m leaving. Gone. But do me the favor, okay?” “Go-to on whom, old son?” “Gaijin name of Armitage, suite in the Hilton.” Deane put the pistol down. “Sit still, Case.” He tapped something out on a lap terminal. “It seems as though you know as much as my net does, Case. This gentleman seems to have a temporary arrangement with the Yakuza, and the sons of the neon chrysanthemum have ways of screening their allies from the likes of me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, history. You said history.” He picked up the gun again, but didn’t point it directly at Case. “What sort of history?” “The war. You in the war, Julie?” “The war? What’s there to know? Lasted three weeks.” “Screaming Fist.” “Famous. Don’t they teach you history these days? Great bloody postwar political football, that was. Watergated all to hell and back. Your brass, Case, your Sprawlside brass in, where was it, McLean? In the bunkers, all of that… great scandal. Wasted a fair bit of patriotic young flesh in order to test some new technology. They knew about the Russians’ defenses, it came out later. Knew about the emps, magnetic pulse weapons. Sent these fellows in regardless, just to see.” Deane shrugged. “Turkey shoot for Ivan.” “Any of those guys make it out?” “Christ,” Deane said, “it’s been bloody years…. Though I do think a few did. One of the teams. Got hold of a Sov gunship. Helicopter, you know. Flew it back to Finland. Didn’t have entry codes, of course, and shot hell out of the Finnish defense forces in the process. Special Forces types.” Deane sniffed. “Bloody hell.” Case nodded. The smell of preserved ginger was overwhelming.
“I spent the war in Lisbon, you know,” Deane said, putting the gun down. “Lovely place, Lisbon.” “In the service, Julie?” “Hardly. Though I did see action.” Deane smiled his pink smile. “Wonderful what a war can do for one’s markets.” “Thanks, Julie. I owe you one.” “Hardly, Case. And goodbye.”