Part 6 (1/2)

Chapter 16.

Danny Calabas was so shaken up by Gorski's needles, that no amount of licking himself could draw him from his waking nightmare: he needed something else. His dragged his sorry figure upstairs to the Swinging Hammocks and unlocked the door of one of the cells. He'd had his eye on one of the new Eastern Europan 'exchange students' since the day she arrived. Her name was Beatrise, but Danny didn't know or care. She had been studying to be a clinical psychologist in Riga, when she had been approached by one of Pechev's a.s.sociates in the mafia, who lured her to London with the promise of a budding career in a mental inst.i.tution in Camberwell. Here she was, however, cowering - more like patient than doctor - in the corner of her cell. She looked like she hadn't slept, eaten or washed in days, but Calabas didn't mind. He even preferred his girls that way, and grabbing her viciously by the wrist, he swung her pet.i.te frame on to the bed. She tried to protest, crying out in her own language, but Calabas only gave her a few light slaps around the face to shut her up. Beatrise whimpered as he pulled up her filthy dress, ripped off his jacket and undid his belt and zip with one hand, awkwardly pus.h.i.+ng his denim shorts down to his knees. She wasn't ready for him, would never have been, but Calabas pressed the weight of his bloated body against her and forced himself inside, blotting out the sickening thoughts of Gorski, his b.i.t.c.h and the sordid deal as he did so. The whole sick affair lasted only a matter of minutes before Calabas grunted in pleasure, broke wind poisonously and rolled off Beatrise. 'Get out,' he mumbled, and when she didn't move, but instead lay sobbing next to him, still half-trapped underneath his bulk, he screamed the words in her face, spittle flying from his lips, and she pulled herself away and ran from the room. He didn't care where she went, or even if she tried to escape. He pulled the grimy sheet over his head and fell into a fitful sleep.

Vidmar was already beginning to feel the sting of pressure when Pechev beeped him. He went to the skypephone just down from the Mash-Up, thumbprinted and called him straight back.

'Any progress?' Pechev asked.

'I'm sitting outside The Shangri-La - you know, Calabas' club on Upper Street? a Gorski's inside.'

'Why is he there?' Pechev sounded genuinely confused.

'He's been having some ooh-la-la with one of Danny's dancers, a woman named Crystal Purcell. My guess is he's trying to cut some kind of protection deal for her, or maybe for both of them. I can't quite work it out.'

'Well, Vidmar, my boy, I suggest you go in there and see if you can work it out. There's half a million cred in this for you, in case you had forgotten. I'd like to see a little - how do you say? a hussle. Otherwise I might have to let every two-bit hired street-thug know that Doctor Gorski is fair game. Where's Delia?'

'Probably a million miles away. I've got to go.'

He crossed the street and approached the two uniformed bouncers standing with their hands crossed in front of them. One of them, Stanislav, recognised Vidmar and almost smiled when Vidmar pushed a couple of vials of Torox into his outstretched hand.

'You want in?' rumbled the doorman.

Vidmar nodded.

'You carrying?'

Vidmar nodded again, pus.h.i.+ng his jacket back to show the 38 Bertruzzi at his waist.

'No trouble in there, Vidmar. OK? Bring it outside if you have to.'

'That's the plan, Stan.'

The bouncer tilted his head towards the doors and Vidmar walked in.

Any hopes he had of finding Lek and Crystal evaporated as he stepped into the darkness. At this time of the day, the majority of clubbers were already inside and the booth selling nocto-goggles and phono-gloves had already closed. Vidmar shuffled blindly through the crowd, keeping his hand on the pistol at his hip. He closed his eyes and tried to stay focused, but he felt the press of the clubbers and the sense of failure closing in on him. Pechev's words were still ringing in his ears. Pus.h.i.+ng his way through the throng, through the din of plucked electro-zithers and droning digiteridoos, he made his way to the bathroom.

Lek stood stock still and held Crystal close as he watched Vidmar feeling his way through the crowd towards them, his frowning face floating in the electric green of the nocto-vision. He walked so close by, Lek felt Vidmar's hand touch his arm, watched him turn and look straight into Lek's eyes, but see nothing. His scar looked as livid as a fresh whiplash, and Lek felt a s.h.i.+ver of revulsion.

Vidmar stared for a moment at the young women on the other side of the two way-mirror, touching up their make-up and pouting as they applied fresh lip-skins. A sense of calm and purpose washed over him as soon as he rubbed some Bloodhound into his gums, but then, he felt something more: a tingling, an itching in the palm of his hand told him that Gorski had been within reaching distance - they had touched! - and he turned and ran from the bathroom and back into the blackness of the club.

Chapter 17.

Lek and Crystal were out of the door, past the bouncers and sprinting along the street to the car-park hand in hand, when Delia's bike came hurtling round the corner. Lek dragged Crystal back into the shadows of a shop doorway just in time. His heart was pumping and he cursed his own audacity: it had been a bold move visiting Calabas, something he wouldn't have considered doing the day before. But Lek was trapped in a corner and had to change his tactics. Had to change who he was. 'This isn't a game,' he said to himself under his breath, but he knew deep down that it was exactly that: a game of life and death. He had stayed too long in one place, taken too many chances and now they had found him. It was their move. He peered around the doorway, convinced, as he had been all afternoon, that there was somebody watching them. He saw Delia approaching the entrance to the club, checking a textabeep as he went.

'Delia,' said Stanislav 'What's with you guys today?'

'What do you mean?' Delia asked, his speech still slurred.

'Your buddy Vidmar's already inside. What's going on?'

Delia pushed past them and ran into the darkness, breaking the rhythm of the sensual chill-out groupthink as he sent clubbers clattering into one another and knocked a couple to the ground. He had to get to Gorski before Vidmar had him in mistress-cuffs, had him back in Pechev's office, had his hands on the half-million cred. Delia took a look at the flas.h.i.+ng figures on the iHound - Gorski had to be close. He barrelled his way through the crowd, found the back door marked 'Private' and was bathed in light once again. Upstairs a the iHound vibrating in his palm as it sensed the iHare close by - sixty feet away - taking the steps three at a time a thirty feet away a the doors of the Swinging Hammocks' cells a twenty feet a the skinny blonde girl, crying, sitting on the floor, pointing a the iHound finding its mark and letting out a high-pitched electronic bark as Delia burst through the flimsy door and only saw the shape of a man hiding beneath the bed-sheet.

Delia, his pulse thumping in his eardrums, his head still bleary and his judgement clouded from the sloth-extract, thought only of taking revenge on Gorski and stealing his precious recipe book. For an instant, Delia saw a vision of his own future: Pechev's drug empire in the palm of his hand: more women and cred and goji berries than he could ever wish for, and he pulled the Meisters from their holsters and unloaded two whole clips into the body on the bed. The sound was deafening in such a cramped s.p.a.ce. He stood in the mist of cordite and watched the blood stains blossom like camellia flowers, before taking his clasp-knife out of his pocket, reaching under the sheet and pulling out the corpse's right hand. He placed the dead hand against the bedside table and hacked the thumb off in a few b.l.o.o.d.y strokes, wrapped it in a sc.r.a.p of fabric ripped from the sheet and placed it in his pocket. The iHound was still barking: the only sound in the eerie silence which followed the gunshots. There, in the inside pocket of a jacket discarded on the floor, Delia found the bundle of 5000 creds; the iHare transponder tucked neatly between the bills. Waste not, want not, he thought, picking up the cash, and left.

Vidmar was standing outside, sniffing the air and questioning Stanislav the bouncer when Delia walked out of the club looking like the cat who had got the cream.

'You're too late, skidmark. It's all over,' Delia announced proudly.

'It that so?' Vidmar replied, unfazed. 'Where is he then, wise-guy?'

'Sadly,' said Delia, enjoying the moment, 'the good doctor has pa.s.sed away. Time of death, oh, about five minutes ago. What were you doing out here? Biding your time?'

'Nice move, s.h.i.+t head. Have you forgotten the deal? Pechev's going to have your head on a plate for this.'

'f.u.c.k Pechev. I've got bigger things in mind.'

'Oh yeah? Like what?'

'Like Gorksi's recipe book, all the secrets to Pechev's empire, stashed in a locker at the train station. Mine, all mine, baby. Not to mention the hundred K. Pocket change, but still. Some you win, some you lose, scarface. See you around.'

And with that, Delia jumped on his Plasma, gunned the engine and sped away.

'What was all that about?' Stanislav asked.

'He thinks Gorski's dead,' Vidmar replied.

'The guy you're looking for? But he just ran out of here, like, five minutes ago.'

'I know,' Vidmar said, with a grin. The bouncer had only confirmed what he already knew: the Bloodhound coursing in Vidmar's veins told him that Gorski was still very much alive. He shook a cigarette out of his packet and was about to light it, when Stan grabbed his hand, 'Sorry Vid, you can't smoke out here. You know the law. You'll have to go inside.'

Chapter 18.