city blues 02 - angel city blues (27 page)

“Don’t take this the wrong way, David. You’re a sweet boy, but I’ve been around a lot longer than you have. And I know a
hell
of a lot more about danger than you do.”

What could I say to that? She was unquestionably right. My job had brought me a few enemies over the years, some of whom would be happy to sell my organs to the highest bidder. But I had earned their anger. In every case, I had done something to provoke their hatred. I tend to dig up things that certain people would rather see buried. That’s not the best way to make friends.

Vivien on the other hand, could make enemies just by existing. Between her wealth, her political visibility, and her gender, she was practically walking around with crosshairs stenciled on her forehead. I had no doubt that she had managed to collect a few adversaries in her own right. But no matter what she did (or didn’t do) she would have a lot of animosity pointed in her direction, just for being who she was.

All of which made me feel like an idiot. Here I was, shooting off my mouth about danger to a woman whose very existence made her a walking target. Smooth move, Stalin. Very smooth.

“You’re getting awfully quiet over there,” Vivien said.

“Just thinking,” I said.

She snuggled closer to me, and I felt the warm weight of her breasts against my upper arm. “I don’t recommend it,” she said. “That whole thinking thing is way overrated.”

I reached back into my memory for one of my grandmother’s old sayings. “Thinking is like any other vice. It’s not so bad, as long as you do it in moderation.”

Vivien’s fingers trailed down my body. “I don’t do
anything
in moderation.”

“You said we were going to rest up before the second round.”

Her lips came to mine. “I lied…”

CHAPTER 21

I woke to the aromas of bacon and coffee. The rice paper windows were bright with morning sunlight.

Vivien was wrapped in a pale blue thigh-length kimono. Probably not authentic styling for the Edo period, but very fetching.

“Hope you don’t mind gaijin breakfast,” she said. “I love Japanese cuisine when my stomach is awake, but I can’t handle tamagoyaki and tsukemono first thing in the morning. And miso is off the menu until I’ve had at least two cups of coffee.”

I crawled out of the fake futon and looked around for my pants. “I like bacon. And I have no clue what tsukemaki is.”

Vivien picked up a small bundle of folded brown fabric from a side table and tossed it in my direction. “Tsukemono,” she said. “And tamagoyaki.”

The bundle came partially unfolded in mid-flight. It hung in the air slightly longer than my brain told me to expect. The reduced gravity thing again. I caught it, and discovered that I was holding the male version of Vivien’s short kimono.

I pulled it on and tied the belt around my waist. I knew there was a protocol for both wrapping the garment and tying the belt, or the sash, or whatever it was called. But I wasn’t here to broaden my cultural horizons.

I joined Vivien at the table, which was fashioned in dark wood that looked appropriate for feudal Japan, but was raised to the height of modern western furniture. The brocaded saddle chairs were a similar compromise between antique Asian design and the comfort habits of Europeans and Americans.

The eggs and bacon were straight-up five-star fare, but the coffee was even better. A darkly rich brew that owed something to sweet pecans and cinnamon.

I took a second sip and lowered my cup. “What are your plans for today?”

Vivien gave me a knowing smile. “Is that your way of asking me if I plan to tag along?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I’m just making polite conversation.” We both knew I was lying.

“Relax,” she said. “I didn’t come here to joggle your elbow. I’m available if you need me, but I plan to stay the hell out of your way.”

“So why are you here?”

She set her coffee cup down. “We’re back to that again?”

I nodded. “Yeah. We’re back to that again.”

“I came here to be your escape hatch,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

She circled the top of her cup with a fingertip. “You’re off your turf now. Back in LA, you’ve got that fortress you call a house. A safe place to rest, and marshal your forces. Somewhere that your nine-fingered friend and his band of merry cutthroats can’t get to you.”

I waited for her to continue.

She made a sweeping gesture, taking in the room, or maybe the entire hotel. “The Shogun is even more of a fortress than your house is. When this place is locked down, it would damned near take an army to get in here.”

She tapped the table. “While you’re up here,
this
is your safe place. I’ve had the guests shuffled to some of my other hotels, with generous incentives, of course. The Shogun is empty now. Nobody here, except for you, me, the security staff, a few dozen serving robots, and more automated self-defense hardware than you would believe. You can go out and chase all the nine-fingered bad guys you want. When you come here, you’re safe.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “But why come up here yourself? You could have given the orders, and stayed home.”

She lifted her coffee cup and cradled it in her palms without taking a drink. “Three reasons… First, if I’m here in-person, the Shogun’s AI knows to take its orders directly from my lips. No possibility of somebody slipping in a bogus message from me, telling the AI to leave the back door unlocked. And second, I
know
Chiisai Teien. I own commercial property in two of the major districts. I’ve been up here several times, and I know something about the lay of the land, both literally and figuratively.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “What’s your third reason?”

She grinned at me. “I was sincerely hoping that I could get you alone, and fuck your brains out.”

“I’m not sure that it’s working. I think I still have a few brains left.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But I’m not through trying yet.”

I popped Dancer’s audio bug into my left ear as I was walking out the front door of the Shogun.

The louvers in the overhead curve of the torus were partially open now, allowing in a carefully measured quantity of sunlight, which was promptly filtered and conditioned to simulate the rosy glow of morning. Some kind of technical razzle-dazzle was at work, creating artful scatterings of “god rays” that dappled the landscape with motes of golden light. Another perfect daybreak in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The audio bug bleated twice when it finished powering up, and then Dancer’s voice was in my ear.

“Busy night, Lover Boy?”

I ignored her opening jab. “Good morning.”

“I don’t have to ask about your lady friend’s evening. I already know how things went for
her
.”

I paused midway down the hotel’s stone steps. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve been checking out your Ms. Vivien Forsyth on the net,” said Dancer. “Word on the gossip forums is she’s had some interesting stuff done to her plumbing.”

“Such as?”

“She supposedly dropped a cool million in a Beverly Hills nerve clinic a few years back. Had her response to certain tactile stimuli cranked way up, and the dopamine receptors in her brain tweaked to match.”

“Meaning
what
?”

“Meaning, that she had her brain and various parts of her anatomy optimized for sexual pleasure. Assuming that she got what she paid for, your new pillow bunny has a hair-trigger for orgasm. She can probably pop out a dozen or so climaxes before you can get your pants off.”

I started walking again. “Bullshit.”

Dancer snorted. “If you say so, Lover Boy.”

“She’s a wealthy, beautiful, accomplished woman. Why would she do something like that?”

“Why would
any
woman do it?” Dancer asked. “Fuck, I’d have done it myself, if I’d thought of it. If I had a million marks to invest in nookie upgrades, that is.”

“Bullshit,” I said again. But I was thinking uncomfortably back to how quickly and powerfully Vivien’s orgasms had seemed to roll over her.

“Maybe it is bullshit,” Dancer said. “Or maybe she was trying to lure her husband back into her bed.”

“You really
have
been trolling the gossip forums,” I said.

“That’s your fault. You cut off my video feed just when things were starting to get interesting. I had to do something. Anyway, the forums say that our pal the senator has the hots for his senior aide. The one with the razor-thin mustache and the Harvard haircut.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

“You tell me,” Dancer said. “You’d know better than me if Ms. Vivien has had the big-O upgrade. If that part’s true, then maybe that crap about the senator is true as well.”

“Or maybe the two things aren’t related,” I said, “whether or not either one of them is true.”

Dancer laughed. “I think you just answered my question. So I’ve gotta ask you… What’s it like to be with a woman who can pop an ‘O’ on demand? Does it make you feel like a sex god? Or do you feel superfluous?”

I reached the foot of the hill and turned left on the flagstone path. There were more people out now, taking leisurely walks through the idyllic beauty of the canned sunrise.

“Are you completely obsessed about sex?” I asked.

“Why are you asking me? I’m not the one who just pulled an all-nighter with Princess Orgasma.”

I sighed. “Can we please drop the subject?”

“Sure thing,” Dancer said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well for starters, I need a gun.”

“You
need
one? Got somebody particular you want to shoot?”

“Okay, maybe I don’t
need
one. But I don’t like the idea of walking around unarmed with Nine-fingers and Messenger-boy on the loose.”

“I’m with you on that,” Dancer said. “Are you thinking a riot cannon, or something more like a combat laser?”

“I don’t even know what I can get here.”

Dancer paused for several seconds. “I’m checking,” she said. “Hmmm… Not a hell of a lot of options. At least not legally. A low-amp stun wand with enough power to ‘discourage, without incapacitating.’”

She snorted. “Well
that
sure sounds useful. Let’s see… You can also get a crappy little one-shot beanbag gun, suitable for pissing off your potential attacker… Or something called hydraulic knuckles… That’s some kind of isothiocyanate spray...”

“Iso-what?”

“
Isothiocyanate
,” Dancer said. She enunciated the word with exaggerated precision.

“Okay, what the hell is that? And why do you know how to pronounce it?”

“I’m plugged into your phone,” Dancer said. “Got the net at my fingertips, remember?”

“You don’t have any fingertips,” I said.

“Eat me, Stalin.”

“You haven’t got the equipment for that either.”

Her voice was suddenly about ten degrees cooler. “And it’s so fucking nice of you to
remind
me.”

I reached in my pocket and groped for cigarettes. “Sorry. I didn’t realize we were doing nice.”

“I guess we’re
not
,” she said in the same frosty tone.

I thumped a cigarette out of the pack and held the tip against the ignition patch. I inhaled smoke as it lit, and then exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry. I’m not playing nice. I apologize.”

She didn’t say anything, so I took a long hit off my cigarette and gave her a few seconds.

Nothing. I was still getting the silent treatment.

“Look,” I said, “I meant it about being sorry. You were giving me a hard time about Vivien, so I tried to turn some of it back on you. I was going for a laugh. I didn’t mean to cross the line.”

Another few seconds of silence. And then she said, “Isothiocyanate comes from horseradish, mustard, and wasabi. Any vegetable with hot fumes that go up your nose. Which means that
hydraulic knuckles
is a weak-ass version of pepper spray.”

I took another drag at my cigarette. “In other words, I’m officially authorized to carry any weapon that would be allowed in a pillow fight?”

Dancer chuckled. “Yeah. If you stick with legal sources, that’s about the size of it.”