by Sims (lit)
“This lighting fixture fell from the ceiling and clocked me on the noggin; things get a little fuzzy after that. Took the ER doc hours to get to me, then after she stitched up my scalp there were x-rays and—”
“How many stitches?”
“The doctor said seventeen.”
“Seventeen!” The number horrified him.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. She said she placed them close together to keep the scar thin.”
Scar?“Jesus, Romy—”
She smiled. “Not like I’m going to look like the bride of Frankenstein, or anything. It cut my scalp, way up above the hairline. Once the hair grows back where they shaved it, no one will know, not even me.”
Relief seeped through Patrick. The lighting fixture had been his idea. If it had left Romy disfigured…
“Why, Romy?”
“Relax, will you. I got a tetanus shot out of it, and a free ride in a stoplight-running ambulance. It’s no biggie, Patrick. Really.”
“Is to me. Zero too.” Patrick had driven him to the garage, then rushed back here. “He wants me to call him as soon as—”
“I’ll call him.”
“How many days are they going to keep you?”
“Days? More like minutes. They’re finishing up my paperwork now.”
“You’re kidding!” Patrick realized his knowledge of medicine was just this side of nothing, but wasn’t it standard procedure to admit a head-trauma patient for observation, at least overnight? “They’re letting you go?”
“Be real, will you. It’s just a cut on my head. I can—”
“Excuse me,” said a male voice.
Patrick looked up and saw a dark-haired man in a gray suit standing between the parted curtains.
“Are you her doctor?” Patrick said. If so he was going to warn him about the malpractice risks of releasing Romy too early.
The man flashed a collector’s edition set of pearlies. “Not a chance. I’m an attorney and I’m looking for the woman who was injured in the Manassas Ventures offices this morning.”
Patrick stared at him. He’d met his share of ambulance chasers, but this guy really lived up to the name.
“That would be me.” Romy shook her head. “But I don’t need a lawyer. I’ve—”
“You’re absolutely right. And that’s precisely why I’m here.” He handed Romy a card. “Harold Rudner. I represent Manassas Ventures.” He set his briefcase on the gurney and popped its latches. “The company called me the instant its landlord informed it of this unfortunate incident. I was instructed to find you and compensate you immediately for the pain and inconvenience you have suffered.”
“Compensate me?”
He lifted the briefcase lid, removed a slip of paper, and extended it toward Romy.
“Exactly. Although your injury resulted from shoddy work by remodeling contractors, Manassas is taking full responsibility and offering you this to ease your distress.”
Romy took the slip and stared at it. “A check? For a hundred thousand dollars?”
“Yes.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from the briefcase. “And all you need do to have your name written on the pay-to-the-order-of line is sign this release absolving Manassas Ventures of all liability and refrain from any future—”
“Wow!” Patrick said, impressed. “Hit her while she’s still dazed from the terrible concussive impact of her life-threatening head injury, then shove a check under her nose and tell her all those zeroes can be hers if she’ll just sign away her legal rights to just compensation for an injury that might affect her quality of life for years, maybe decades, perhaps permanently. Youare a smoothy.”
Romy and Rudner were staring at him.
Finally Rudner spoke. “Are you her lawyer?”
“I am a very close personal friend who just happens to be an attorney.”
Rudner turned to Romy. “I am offering you far more than you could hope to receive from any jury.”
“We’ll see about that,” Patrick said. “One hundred thousand dollars barely scratches the surface of the amount this unfortunate woman deserves for her pain and suffering.”
Romy smiled and handed back the check. Rudner took it with a sad shake of his head.
“You’re making a big mistake,” he told her. “One you’ll regret when a jury offers you only a fraction of this—one third of which will go to your attorney. This could be all yours, every cent of it.”
Romy’s hands flew to her mouth as she gave Patrick a wide-eyed stare. “Oh, Patrick! Am I making a terrible mistake? You know how I depend on your wisdom. Tell me. I don’t know what to do!”
Patrick had to look away. It took all his will to keep a straight face. When he had control, he turned back, took both her hands in his, and lowered his voice an octave. “Trust me, my dear. I am well versed in these matters. You deserve much, much more.”
“All…all right,” she said, her voice faltering. “If you say so.”
Rudner shook his head again and closed his briefcase. As he lifted it off the gurney he turned to Patrick.
“And you calledme a smoothy?”
As soon as he was gone they both doubled over in silent laughter.
“Life-threatening head injury?” Romy gasped, red-faced.
Patrick countered with, “‘You know how I depend on your wisdom’? I thought I was going to get a hernia!”
She pressed her hands against her temples. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh! It makes my headache worse!”
Patrick looked at her. “I know this is serious business, but I couldn’t resist. That was fun.”
She frowned. “Do you think he knew who we were?”
“Not a clue. He’s a hired gun.” Patrick shook his head, still amazed at how quickly the company had responded. “A hundred grand for a cut head offered to someone they might just as easily have charged with trespassing. If this is any indication of how badly Manassas wants to avoid the legal system, I think we’re onto something.”
9
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
DECEMBER 7
“So,” Mercer Sinclair said, “the missing globulin farmers have surfaced.” He’d chosen that word deliberately but his little pun went unappreciated by his audience. So he added, “Literally.”
That at least elicited a smile from Abel Voss.
Mercer had invited the usual crew—Voss, Portero, and Ellis—to his office to discuss the matter. He had his agenda for the meeting posted in a corner of the computer monitor embedded in the ebony expanse of his desk while his custom news service scrolled items tailored to his topics of interest.
“Postmortem ain’t back yet,” Voss said, “but the M-E’s on notice to copy us immediately with any and all results.”
“I’m told the bodies appear to have been in the river about a week.”
Voss nodded. “All three of them shackled together and weighted down. But the Hudson’s gotta way of returning some of the gifts it gets. Looks like these SLA boys took ’em for a ride that very night, shot them in the head, then dumped them before sunup.”
“But not before torturing them,” Ellis said.
Mercer glanced at his brother. Ellis hadn’t missed a meeting in months now. Maybe his latest anti-depressant cocktail was working. Mercer knew he should be glad about that but he wasn’t. The closer Ellis was to catatonia, the easier he was to deal with.
“Yep, I heard that too,” Voss said. “Cigarette burns, fingernails tore off.” He grimaced. “Ugly stuff.”
“They were globulin farmers, Abel,” Mercer said, unable to keep the scorn from his tone. “Somebody improved the gene pool by removing them.”
“Don’t get me wrong, son. I ain’t no fan of their sort. Riddin the world of their kind is all fine and good. But torture? Ain’t no call to torture no one, son. No one. I think we’re dealin with some real sick puppies here.”
“Which segues very neatly into the reason for our meeting: the ‘sick puppies’ who call themselves the Sim Liberation Army. It’s be
en a week since they raided that globulin farm and no one knows any more about them today than they did then. And where are the sims they supposedly wanted to free?” He turned to his chief of security who had yet to say a word. “Mr. Portero, if the NYPD is at a loss, surely your people have the resources to pick up the slack, don’t you think?”
Portero shrugged. “We’re looking into it.”
“This needs more than mere looking into, Mr. Portero. We need to track them down. It’s vitally important that SimGen be recognized as the true guardians and protectors of sims, not some group of murderous radicals.”
Portero said, “The longer they go undetected, the lower the odds of finding them. And so far they seem to have pulled off a perfect disappearing act.”
“Which means what?”
“That they’re probably professionals—well-funded professionals. Which makes me wonder if they might not be connected to that lawyer Patrick Sullivan.”
“Why on earth would you think that?” Ellis said.
“It’s not a stretch. A quarter of a million dollars appeared out of the blue to keep his unionization case going just when it was ready to fall apart. And I saw him and the Cadman woman outside the globulin farm the morning after this SLA demolished it.”
Cadman? Mercer thought. Didn’t I just see that name? He’d been about to switch the topic to the annual stockholders’ meeting less than two weeks away, but instead he reversed the scroll on his newsclips.
“On the contrary, Portero,” Ellis said. “It’squite a stretch. People who try to use the legal system to seek a solution don’t suddenly leap to murder and arson.”
Portero’s face remained impassive as he replied. “Perhaps Sullivan became a bit testy after his clients were put down.”
Ellis stared at him. “You lousy piece of—”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Voss said, shifting his considerable bulk in his seat and raising his hands. “We’re not the enemy here. The enemy is outthere .”
“Really?” Ellis said. “Sometimes I wonder.”
Cadman…Mercer kept searching his screen. There. Found it. A suit against Manassas. He smiled. He’d long ago embraced his anal-completist nature because it so often paid unexpected dividends. Like now: Years ago, when he’d begun using the service, he’d entered ‘Manassas Ventures’ as a search string; this was the first hit he’d ever seen. He clicked on the abstract to bring up the full article; he felt a sweat break as he skimmed it.
“Listen to this,” Mercer said. “Someone is suing Manassas Ventures.”
He noticed a slight stiffening of Portero’s parade-rest stance. “Is that so?”
“Manassas is in your people’s bailiwick. Why don’t you know about this?”
“We have lawyers for legal problems. What’s the suit about?”
“Let’s see…no dollar amount given, just ‘unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.’”
“No, I mean the reason for the suit.”
“Lots of things. Here’s just a sample: ‘physical injury, pain, suffering, mental anguish and trauma, unpleasant mental reactions including fright, horror, worry, disgrace, embarrassment, indignity, ridicule, grief, shame, humiliation, anger, and outrage.’”
Portero snorted. “Probably a stubbed toe. They’ll put a check in front of him and he’ll go away.”
“I doubt it. It’s not a him. It’s a her named Cadman. Romilda Cadman.”
Portero’s smug reptile mask dropped and, just for a second, Mercer caught a flash of uncertainty. Portero…unsettled? The possibility turned his stomach sour, like curdled milk.
“The OPRR inspector lady?” Voss said. “The one who funded Sullivan’s sim case? What thehell ?”
“Care to guess what attorney is representing her?”
“I don’t have to,” Voss said. “Gotta be Sullivan.”
Mercer noted that Portero’s dumbfounded look had surrendered to tightlipped anger. He glanced at Ellis, expecting some sort of comment, but his brother remained silent, his expression unreadable.
“Right,” Mercer said. “Patrick Sullivan again. I don’t like this.”
“This makes no sense.” Portero’s voice was even softer than usual. “What can they possibly hope to gain? Are they that desperate for cash?”
“Oh, I doubt money’s got a thing to do with this,” Voss said. “It will take them years to get a decision, and even if they win, more years before they ever see a dime. No, instead of thinking about money, we should be asking why the man who harassed SimGen about unionizing sims is now harassing the venture capital company that helped put SimGen in business. I find that real disturbin.”
The question disturbed Mercer as well. “You’re the lawyer,” he told Voss. “Have you got an answer?”
“I’m bettin he wants to use the discovery procedures of a civil action to dissect Manassas Ventures’ workings—its board of directors, its assets and liabilities, the whole tamale.”
Mercer’s gnawing sense of malignant forces converging on him had receded after the withdrawal of the sim unionization suit, but now it returned with a gut-roiling vengeance.
“Why Manassas? Beyond owning a bundle of SimGen stock, it has no direct link to us.”
“Not anymore, but it used to. Obviously he’s sniffed out something and he’s going after it.”
“Maybe it’s just a fishing expedition,” Mercer said, but he didn’t believe it.
“Could be, but why in that particular pond? And let’s face it, Manassas is such a well-stocked pond, he just might hook something.”
No one spoke then. The idea that anyone would want to lift the Manassas Ventures rock and inspect what was crawling around beneath it had never occurred to Mercer. He’d been assured that Manassas was a dead end. But what if wasn’t? What if someone found a trail that led from Manassas to SIRG?
This had to be stopped. Now. Before it went any further.
He looked at Portero. “Your people can handle this, can’t they?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Voss said, holding up a hand before Portero could reply. “Before we start talking about stuff I don’t want to hear, why don’t you just buy her off?”
Portero stared at him. “Buy her off? You don’t know this woman. I spent days with her during the OPRR inspection and let me tell you, she is not for sale.”
Voss grinned. “Sure she is, son. I’ve waded through truckloads of bullshit in my day, but I’ve learned one thing always holds true: Everybody’s got a price tag. Some hide it better’n others, but you look hard enough, you’ll find it. Your folks’ve got pockets deep as a well to China. You have them tell her to name a price, and then you meet it. And that’ll be it. You’ll see.”
But Portero was shaking his head. “I don’t think there’s enough money in the world.”
Mercer was surprised by something in his tone. It sounded like admiration.
10
MANHATTAN
DECEMBER 8
Zero had called and asked Patrick to come over to the West Side garage. Romy was already there when Patrick arrived. With oversized sunglasses hiding her fading shiners, and a baseball cap covering her stitched-up scalp, she looked none the worse for wear.
Patrick asked her how she was doing, and of course she told him fine. She was always “fine.” She said she’d be even better when the stitches came out tomorrow.
Patrick rubbed his hands together. The old radiator running along the cinderblock wall only partially countered the afternoon chill. Neither Romy nor Zero seemed to feel it. Of course Zero, swathed head to toe as usual, would be the last to chill.
“We heard from the Manassas attorneys,” he told them. “They want a meeting. Soon. I set it up for next Thursday, my office.” He glanced at Romy. “Can you make it?”
“I’ll be there.”
“My only regret is that I couldn’t add my own charges to the suit.”
“On what grounds?”
“Loss of services and consortium.”
&nbs
p; “You,” she said, pointing a finger at him, “are incorrigible.” She tried to look stern but he could see she was fighting a smile. She turned to Zero. “Did you have any luck with my photo?”
“Quite an interesting picture,” Zero said, handing Romy an eight-by-ten color print.
The dim light made it hard to see details. Patrick craned his head over Romy’s shoulder for a better look, but found himself gazing at the nape of her neck instead, focusing on the gentle wisps of fine dark hair trailing along the curve. He leaned closer, drinking her scent, barely resisting the urge to press his lips against the soft white skin…
“That’s him, all right,” Romy said. “Does he have a name?”
“Yes. It took me a while to trace him but—”
“Christ!” Patrick said. He pointed to a spot at the rear end of the ceiling. “Who’s that?”
He’d glanced up and caught a flicker of movement above and beyond Zero, at the point where a ladder embedded in the rear wall of the garage ran up to a square opening in the ceiling. He could swear he’d seen a pair of eyes peering out at them from within that darkness.
Zero didn’t turn to look. “Where?”
“There! In that opening! I saw someone!”
The opening was empty now, but he knew what he’d seen.
“I’m sure you did,” Zero told him. “But it was no one you need concern yourself with at the moment. Now—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Patrick said, walking over to the ladder. “If someone’s up there listening, I want to know who it is.”
“Someone’s up thereguarding ,” Romy said. “Please, Patrick. Let it go for now.”
He didn’t like letting it go, but short of climbing up there and entering that patch of night—something he had no inclination to do—Patrick didn’t see that he had much choice. He’d come to trust Zero, and if he said someone was guarding them, then Patrick would buy it.
“All right,” he said, turning back. “Where were we?”
Zero said, “The man in the photo looked Japanese so I scanned him into a computer and had it comb the databases of the Japanese government and major Japanese corporations.” He held up a printout of a full-face photo of someone who bore a passing resemblance to the man in Romy’s shot. “This came back with a sixty-three percent confidence match.”
