Neat
Page 8
I toasted myself as I drained my flask, taking my wins where I could find them. I didn’t worry about the debts that would eat up what was left of my payment, the enemies I’d juggled in the last couple days to make it all work, the times I’d nearly died. I didn’t worry about the extra favors I owed Khayyim the doc, or Skip and Trace, I didn’t dwell on how pissed Enzo’d be when he saw the Sleeping Tiger back up and running, I didn’t think about how I’d snubbed a Yakuza boss right there, in public. A win was a win, and I had to enjoy it while it lasted.
I know I had a heck of a mess waiting upstairs. The way my head had been bleeding earlier, that meant popping the chips out of my datajacks, too, for a proper cleaning. Not just the chips I’d told Hard Exit about, either, but my third one. My lucky one. My secret one. The one that had given me the power—the almost magical power—to turn loss and cynicism and tragedy into strength and armor and something like nobility. I knew the chip had burned out years ago, ‘cause these cheap personafix jobs just weren’t designed to run for very long. I knew on a rational level that the old chip wasn’t doing anything for me any more, but somewhere in my belly I just liked keeping the thing around. It reminded me of who I was, who I’d chosen to be, who I’d put together from the broken pieces of my life. It reminded me of what it said on my office door.
JAMES KINCAID. PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR.
That was it.
And that was enough.
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