Case walked into the Chat an hour before dawn, both hands in the pockets of his jacket; one held the rented pistol, the other the aluminum flask. Ratz was at a rear table, drinking Apollonaris water from a beer pitcher, his hundred and twenty kilos of doughy flesh tilted against the wall on a creaking chair. A Brazilian kid called Kurt was on the bar, tending a thin crowd of mostly silent drunks. Ratz’s plastic arm buzzed as he raised the pitcher and drank. His shaven head was filmed with sweat. “You look bad, friend artiste,” he said, flashing the wet ruin of his teeth. “I’m doing just fine,” said Case, and grinned like a skull. “Super fine.” He sagged into the chair opposite Ratz, hands still in his pockets. “And you wander back and forth in this portable bombshelter built of booze and ups, sure. Proof against the grosser emotions, yes?” “Why don’t you get off my case, Ratz? You seen Wage?” “Proof against fear and being alone,” the bartender continued. “Listen to the fear. Maybe it’s your friend.” “You hear anything about a fight in the arcade tonight, Ratz? Somebody hurt?” “Crazy cut a security man.” He shrugged. “A girl, they say.” “I gotta talk to Wage, Ratz, I. . .” “Ah.” Ratz’s mouth narrowed, compressed into a single line. He was looking past Case, toward the entrance. “I think you are about to.” Case had a sudden flash of the shuriken in their window. The speed sang in his head. The pistol in his hand was slippery with sweat. “Herr Wage,” Ratz said, slowly extending his pink manipulator as if he expected it to be shaken. “How great a pleasure. Too seldom do you honor us.” Case turned his head and looked up into Wage’s face. It was a tanned and forgettable mask. The eyes were vat grown sea-green Nikon transplants. Wage wore a suit of gunmetal silk and a simple bracelet of platinum on either wrist. He was flanked by his Joe boys, nearly identical young men, their arms and shoulders bulging with grafted muscle.
“How you doing, Case?” “Gentlemen,” said Ratz, picking up the table’s heaped ashtray in his pink plastic claw, “I want no trouble here.” The ashtray was made of thick, shatterproof plastic, and advertised Tsingtao beer. Ratz crushed it smoothly, butts and shards of green plastic cascading onto the table top. “You understand?” “Hey, sweetheart,” said one of the Joe boys, “you wanna try that thing on me?” “Don’t bother aiming for the legs, Kurt,” Ratz said, his tone conversational. Case glanced across the room and saw the Brazilian standing on the bar, aiming a Smith & Wesson riot gun at the trio. The thing’s barrel, made of paper-thin alloy wrapped with a kilometer of glass filament, was wide enough to swallow a fist. The skeletal magazine revealed five fat orange cartridges, subsonic sandbag jellies. “Technically nonlethal,” said Ratz. “Hey, Ratz,” Case said, “I owe you one.” The bartender shrugged. “Nothing, you owe me. These,” and he glowered at Wage and the Joe boys, “should know better. You don’t take anybody off in the Chatsubo.” Wage coughed. “So who’s talking about taking anybody off? We just wanna talk business. Case and me, we work together.” Case pulled the .22 out of his pocket and level led it at Wage’s crotch. “I hear you wanna do me.” Ratz’s pink claw closed around the pistol and Case let his hand go limp. “Look, Case, you tell me what the fuck is going on with you, you wig or something? What’s this shit I’m trying to kill you?” Wage turned to the boy on his left. “You two go back to the Namban. Wait for me.” Case watched as they crossed the bar, which was now entirely deserted except for Kurt and a drunken sailor in khakis, who was curled at the foot of a barstool. The barrel of the Smith & Wesson tracked the two to the door, then swung back to cover Wage. The magazine of Case’s pistol clattered on the table. Ratz held the gun in his claw and pumped the round out of the chamber. “Who told you I was going to hit you, Case?” Wage asked. Linda. “Who told you, man? Somebody trying to set you up?” The sailor moaned and vomited explosively. “Get him out of here,” Ratz called to Kurt, who was sitting on the edge of the bar now, the Smith & Wesson across his lap, lighting a cigarette. Case felt the weight of the night come down on him like a bag of wet sand settling behind his eyes. He took the flask out of his pocket and handed it to Wage. “All I got. Pituitaries. Get you five hundred if you move it fast. Had the rest of my roll in some RAM, but that’s gone by now.” “You okay, Case?” The flask had already vanished behind a gunmetal lapel. “I mean, fine, this’ll square us, but you look bad. Like hammered shit. You better go somewhere and sleep.” “Yeah.” He stood up and felt the Chat sway around him. “Well, I had this fifty, but I gave it to somebody.” He giggled. He picked up the .22’s magazine and the one loose cartridge and dropped them into one pocket, then put the pistol in the other. “I gotta see Shin, get my deposit back.” “Go home,” said Ratz, shifting on the creaking chair with something like embarrassment. “Artiste. Go home.” He felt them watching as he crossed the room and shouldered his way past the plastic doors.