Part 10 (2/2)

”Good,” Sullivan said, and looked back to DeLise. ”Now tell Mr. Holloway you're sorry.”

”What?” DeLise said, genuinely shocked.

”You tried to stave in the back of his head with a pool cue, as I understand it,” Sullivan said. ”That needs an apology. Do it. Now.”

Holloway watched DeLise's face and wondered if it really was possible to induce a stroke. As amusing as that was, Holloway suspected Sullivan might have taken things one step too far for DeLise's little cow brain. ”It's all right,” Holloway said. ”In fact, I should be the one apologizing to Joe. Let's just say I went out celebrating at another bar and had a little too much fight in me and Joe had to bring me back down to earth. No harm, no foul. Let's forget it.”

Sullivan looked at Holloway, figuring out what he was doing and why. ”Fine with me,” he said, after a minute. ”Fine with you, Mr. DeLise?”

”Fine,” DeLise said, looking squarely at Holloway with a look that suggested the two of them should never ever be alone in a room together. That was all right with Holloway.

”Fine,” Sullivan said again. ”Then I think we're done here. I'm taking Mr. Holloway with me. Unless there are any additional objections?”

There were none.

”You are d.a.m.n good,” Holloway said, when they were outside the security offices. ”I can see why Isabel likes you.”

”Glad you think so,” Sullivan said. ”Because we're never doing that again. Our mutual friend just burned through a lot of her personal credit getting me to save your a.s.s back there. I was happy to do it, because I think you know how I feel about her.”

”I do,” Holloway said.

”If you have a problem with that, I need you to tell me now,” Sullivan said. ”I don't like surprises.”

Holloway shrugged. ”I screwed up with Isabel,” he said. ”She's not the sort who lets you screw up with her twice. You're good.”

”Good,” Sullivan said. ”Like I said, happy to help her, and to help you. But that's a onetime event. You a.s.saulted a security officer. And not just any security officer. One that gets his kicks being an a.s.shole with a badge. That's just dumb. You screw up again like that, Holloway, and you're on your own. I hope I'm making myself clear.”

”You are,” Holloway said. ”You're right. I was dumb. I won't do it again. Or at least I won't expect you or Isabel to bail me out if I do.”

”Fair enough,” Sullivan said. He looked Holloway up and down. ”How do you feel?”

”Like I got my head bashed in,” Holloway said.

”There's a reason for that,” Sullivan said. ”Right, then. First, hospital, to get that concussion checked. Then you can borrow my couch for the rest of the night. Where's your skimmer?”

”With Louis Ng,” Holloway said, naming Aubreytown's mechanic. ”He's banging out some dents and restringing my EREs. It'll be ready tomorrow around noon.”

”You have an accident?” Sullivan asked.

”I'll tell you about it later,” Holloway said. ”Hey, did you really mean it that if anything happened to me that the Colonial Authority would look into it?”

”If you died in ZaraCorp security custody?” Sullivan said. ”That's a given. If you wrapped your skimmer around a tree, probably not. But there's no reason for them them to know that.” Sullivan motioned back toward the security office. ”They certainly seem to have it in for you.” to know that.” Sullivan motioned back toward the security office. ”They certainly seem to have it in for you.”

”Not all of them,” Holloway said.

”DeLise for sure,” Sullivan said.

”Yeah,” Holloway said. ”Thanks for saving my a.s.s. I owe you. You're going to have to wait until they start mining those sunstones for me to repay you, though. I'm spending most of my money on fixing my skimmer.”

”You can repay me by giving me a lift,” Sullivan said. ”When Isabel got me out looking for you, she said to have you bring me back with you. She says there's something she wants to talk to me about in my capacity as ZaraCorp's counsel. I have no idea what that's about. Do you?”

”I might,” Holloway said. He rubbed his head and felt a new headache coming on.

Chapter Thirteen.

”Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” Sullivan asked Holloway.

Holloway glanced back at Sullivan, who was sitting on a side bench in the skimmer. It was not well designed for extra pa.s.sengers; the side bench sat two, and not terribly comfortably. Sullivan didn't complain.

”You kept me from being beaten to death,” Holloway said, turning forward again to watch the endless jungle pa.s.s under the skimmer, on its way back to his treetop compound. ”That rates a couple of honest answers.”

”How did you get disbarred?” Sullivan asked.

Holloway snorted in surprise. ”Okay, I wasn't expecting that,” he said. ”I thought you were going to ask me what happened with Isabel and me.”

”I heard that story from her already,” Sullivan said. ”Her version of it, anyway. But she says you wouldn't talk about the disbarment.”

”It's not hard to find the details,” Holloway said. ”It got written up in the newsfeeds. I don't talk about it because it was a case of me being stupid.”

”When you sell it like that, I definitely want to hear about it,” Sullivan said.

Holloway sighed and hit the autopilot, then swiveled around to face Sullivan. ”Clearly, you know I was lawyer,” he said.

”Clearly,” Sullivan said.

”Actually I was a lawyer like you,” Holloway said. ”I worked for a corporation. Alestria.”

Sullivan furrowed his brow, searching his brain for the company data. ”Pharmaceutical company,” he said, finally.

”Right. Founded by a bunch of crunchy types committed to saving the Amazonian rain forest by using botanicals to create medicines,” Holloway said. ”But that never panned out, so they went back to the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, synthesizing drugs in a lab. So, about twelve years ago, they get approval for their drug Thantose.”

Sullivan's eyes widened. ”I remember that,” he said.

Holloway nodded; very few people wouldn't remember Thantose. It had been marketed as a safe sleeping and anxiety aid for children, specifically tailored to compensate for the neurochemical differences between children's brains and those of adults. It had sold well until an Alestria executive farmed out the production of the drug to a Tajik vendor, in the guise of slas.h.i.+ng costs and helping a developing economy but in point of fact because the executive received a quite sizable kickback from the vendor.

The Tajik vendor then cut costs of its own, cutting two of the three active chemicals in the drug with cheaper but pharmacologically inert isomers, which changed the relative strengths of the chemicals, and thus the effects of the drug. Two hundred children died; another six hundred went to sleep and their brains never woke up.

”Did you work on the cla.s.s action suit?” Sullivan asked.

Holloway shook his head. ”I worked on the criminal cases against the executive. Jonas Stern. He was up for criminally negligent homicide and Alestria for corporate manslaughter. Stern had his own lawyer for the homicide counts, but I was attached for the corporate manslaughter charges. The cases were combined and being heard by the same jury.”

”So what did you do on the case to get disbarred?” Sullivan asked. ”Did you tamper with the jury? Bribe the judge?”

”I punched Stern,” Holloway said.

<script>