CHAPTER ELEVEN

Back in the limo they rolled on through the mighty canyons of Manhattan. Plesur was completely absorbed in staring out the windows. Shop fronts, pedestrians, the sheets of glass and steel soaring up into the darkness, the huge logos flashing on and off in the sky, it was all new to her and utterly fascinating. A couple of times as big helium filled ad floaters slithered by overhead, lights flashing, advertising scrolling across their bellies, she whispered "Wooooo."

Then they emerged from the canyons at 14th street and plunged down into Greenwich Village. The buildings shrank to the normal, but the street life took on a wilder look. Plesur seemed most interested in the boys and girls out in minimal, but highly decorative clothing. Several times her head swivellled as the limo moved past some stand out streetster in pink thong and five inch heels. Once, Rook saw her grin broadly and whisper something he couldn't catch, as they passed a group of pavement queens, got up in stripper drag.

Then they were going down some narrow stone steps on a backstreet and through a red door into a pulsing atmosphere filled with noise, the distinct smell of alcohol, a fainter odor of sweat mingled with a variety of fragrances and permeated by a reddish tone of light.

The crowd was young and very lively. The music throbbed away endlessly and on the raised dancefloor at one end of the main room, a dozen or more flexed and spun, thrust and wobbled, looking like well oiled automatons. Plesur's eye was captured by these pistonings and turnings, even as they were welcomed and lead to a table, held in reserve for them.

Freddy, of course, was well known here. The Maitre D' -- a rake thin, older dude with a monocle, a tightly fitted pink tux and a head polished like a billiard ball, handed them off to a small horde of well wishers who advanced to kiss the hand of power and remind Freddy of who they were. For his part Freddy played the role to the hilt, with a swaggering good grace and lots of hugs and kisses exchanged with acquaintances great and small.

None of this shocked Rook, what did drop his jaw was their waitress. She was a Pammy, but as different from little Plesur as someone with identical genetic makeup could be. Her hair was short and black, her bosom had been flattened by surgery to something approaching a normal womanly bust size, and her eyes had a hard cast to them that spoke of worldly awareness. When she spoke it wasn't with Plesur's soft little burr, either, but a flat New York accent with overtones of competence and attitude.

"Hi, I'm Ivana, What can I getcha?"

"Marjarina" said Freddy, turning briefly from his circle of well wishers.

Plesur was staring at the waitress with a look of mingled stupidity and astonishment. For a long moment pleasure models locked eyes.

"And you, sweety?"

"She'd like something sweet, and non-alcoholic."

The waitress snapped Rook a look of black fire from those baby blue eyes. "You make all her decisions, huh?"

"Wha...? No. But this is all new to her, okay?"

Plesur was still staring at the waitress.

"Honey?"

Plesur turned eyes filled with awe to Rook. "She like me."

The waitress sniffed. "Sweety, I am you, and you are me." She wrote something on her pad. "Strawberry smoothy, okay?"

"Yeah, fine," said Rook, feeling embarrassed for some reason. "Look, I ...."

"You don't have to give me any excuses, sir."

"Uh, yeah, okay." But why did he feel he needed one?

She was waiting for him to order something.

"Beer?"

"Okay, we have 5 taps tonight. Chocolate Stout, City Porter, Real Ale...."

"Oh, uh, something light."

"Lite," she wrote. She looked at him again. "Anything to eat?"

"Uh, yeah, let's have some chips and dip."

The Pammy eyebrows rose. Rook was struggling with all of this, too. The idea of Plesur giving him that kind of contemptuous look was outlandish. But this Pammy was, well, like a normal, hardheaded, working woman.

Only she wasn't anything like normal, of course.

She turned and headed for the bar. Rook couldn't help noticing that Plesur's sexy wiggle-walk had morphed here into a kind of aggressive stomp.

Freddy had emerged from the social whirl.

"Someone very important to your case is gonna come down and see us. Won't be a minute."

"Yeah, great." Rook didn't see what point there was to this. He certainly wasn't going to investigate any further. Maybe Freddy didn't understand what it was like to have your home blown to smithereens in the middle of the night. Rook was thinking more of surviving, of getting out of New York in one piece, and maybe driving cross country to LA. He could get some kind of work there. See his daughter more often. Stay alive, too.

Plesur was still recovering from the shock of seeing herself, but different, in the face of the waitress.

"Who, she?" She said, at last, in a breathy, puzzled way.

Freddy leaned close. "She's a waitress. Do you know what a waitress is?"

Plesur looked at him, lips parted in a slightly frightened smile. "No."

Freddy gave up, leaned back and muttered something into his personal phone bank.

"It's okay, Plesur," Rook wanted to be reassuring, wasn't sure if he could at that point. He was probably a bit too frightened himself.

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

The waitress was coming back, tray loaded. Freddy got his big green marjarina, Plesur a full bellied glass of pink frothiness and Rook got a cold lager.

The waitress turned to leave, but Rook stood up and caught her elbow.

"Yes?"

"Can I have a word with you?"

"Don't you have enough on your plate with her?"

"Uh, you've got the wrong idea about that. But I have some questions."

She continued walking. "Yeah? Well, I have work to do."

"I know, but."

By the bar there was a space. She put another set of orders across and the bartender started filling them.

"Look," said Rook. "What happened?"

She looked at him for a long moment. "To me?"

"Right."

"You really don't know?"

"I wouldn't be asking."

She turned her head to one side and reached up and tapped a little flesh colored bead of plastic set behind her right ear.

"You never seen one of these before."

"No. I mean I've heard of them, but...."

"My intelligence is just as good as yours now."

"Wow, that'sgreat. Look, uh, could I? I mean, for her, you know..." Rook found himself stumbling over words here. Ivana was out-and-out intimidating for some reason.

"Do it for her?"

"Yeah."

Something in Ivana's eyes softened noticeably.

"Sure. Talk to Nancy. "

"Nancy?"

"She's around, I'll pass the word. You want the little Plesur upgraded."

That tone was back in the waitress's voice.

"No, I want her to be, well, whatever she can be."

And suddenly there was a smile. Plesur's smile, but now loaded with something new, irony, concern, even understanding.

"Be careful what you ask for, she won't be the same."

"Fine with me."

"Won't you miss your little Plesur?"

"First, she isn't mine, not in the sense you're implying. Second, she deserves better than she's had."

The look he got after that was almost warm. He'd clearly risen a notch or two in waitress Ivana's estimation.

"Don't we all, brother, don't we all."

She went back to work, Rook went back to the table.

A young man in a suit of some kind of slinky, shiny green material, cut very tight, had joined Freddy. They were laughing at some joke. Plesur was absorbed in her own thoughts, while studying the crowd of young, attractive looking people.

"SIO Venner," Freddy was at his smoothest. "Meet Tony Garofalo."

The handshake was soft. The face had been sculpted by surgeons. It was small, neat, inhumanly goodlooking. There was no facial hair. The eyebrows were plucked into tight little lines. The eyes were loaded, full of mischievous amusement.

"You're investigating the demise of big Manuel, I hear."

"General Sangacha?"

"The same. Down here he was just big ol' Manuel. "

"He came here a lot?"

"Sometimes. Like he'd be around for a month or so, and then he'd be gone for three or four. He was a man of, well, let's just say, diverse passions." Garofalo seemed to nod in Plesur's direction.

"He came to pick up girls?"

Garofalo grinned at him. "No, silly, he came here for the boys."

Rook blinked. General Sangacha's private life had just taken on a new coloration.

Garofalo leaned closer. "Manuel had powerful urges, you see. He was a tom cat, really. Incapable of love, but horny all the time. Compris?"

"I'm beginning to see the picture." Rook took a hit on his beer.

"Sometimes, he'd be down here, drinking, having a great time. He was the life of the party."

"Okay."

"Other times he'd have everyone up to parties at his place."

"In Peekskill?"

"Huh? No, I don't know Peekskill. No, just around the corner. It's a fabulous apartment, some kind of legacy deal. The whole top floor of a building."

Despite everything, Rook found he was still on the case. His own curiosity was aroused. Doors kept opening on this thing, offering vistas that wouldn't let him walk away.

"I'd like to see this apartment. Who has a key?"

"Pipo, probably."

"And who is, uh, Pipo?"

"Pipo Haman, of course. He was, like, Manuel's boyfriend for a while. I think he lived in that apartment sometimes."

"Where might we find this Pipo?"

"Oh, hang out here a bit longer. He usually drops in during the wee hours."

"And, if you don't mind me asking, what was your involvement with the General?"

"You mean, did I sleep with him?" Garofalo grinned. "Nope. I don't like it that rough. Manuel, he was a beast, a real monster of a man."

"Yeah?"

"No way, baby. I just found drugs for him, and sometimes a boy. He liked certain types, particularly Peter Pans, you know what I mean?"

"Uh, no."

"Oh, you will when you meet Pipo."

"Yeah?"

Wonders would never cease, or so it seemed. Rook's mind was almost on police auto-pilot now, running through the options.

"What kind of drugs did he like?"

"For himself? Nothing much, I mean sometimes some high quality weed I think, but mostly he was just into booze and fucking. But for his toy boys and the crowd, well it was a party, you know what I mean?"

"The hangers on, the, ah, entourage?"

"Yeah, exactly. He liked to have interesting stuff around. Not narco so much as the uppers and stims and things to make a happy mood, you know?"

"So a big party, lots of fun and games."

"Lots of that, like he would get all hot with someone. It was almost funny if you didn't know what he was like in bed. Big eyes, lots of touching and squeezing. He was a real ass man, you know what I mean?"

Rook wasn't sure he did, at least in this case, but he just nodded.

"And then they'd be gone, off to the back room, where nobody could hear you scream kinda thing, yeah?"

"Scream?"

"Oh, baby, Manuel was, like, huge. He was, you know, endowed. The biggest fucking cock I've ever sucked, and I've sucked a few, believe me."

Rook didn't doubt the truth of this statement.

"But he had this tender side, too. He was always there for his boys. Like, once he'd fucked you, you were his, you understand?"

"I guess."

"And when they had problems, and you know, in that world, they do have a lotta problems, he would always come through for them. Sometimes it was just a little help with the cops."

"Oh?" General Sangacha had his links to the police apparat, did he?

"Sure. Ol' Manuel would put a word in and someone's problem over a possession bust would just go away. Or maybe a thing with a landlord would be smoothed over. He was great that way."

More drinks came and went. Rook was feeling a little light headed. it'd been quite a night already and it wasn't over. Freddy was in the middle of a swarm of suitably louche characters, mostly, but not entirely, homosexual men. They all came to pay homage to the representative of Sable Ranch. For his part, Freddy played the role of benign monarch with a practised skill, dispensing wit, advice, laughter and even the King's touch, a little slap on the back of someone's hand. Everyone loved Freddy, and Freddy's royal sunshine warmed them all.

Tony Garofalo had drifted away. Plesur was absorbed by the chatter between a pair of boys who were acting up just for her. There was a lot of laughter there. Plesur seemed to get these people. They were about sex, and she was about sex, and she understood things sexual, even if she didn't have the vocabulary.

"Silly man!" and she roared with happy laughter again. The gay men who were entertaining her, roared too.

There was a tap on Rook's left shoulder. He turned and found a well put together, middle-aged lady in a black suit, fishnet hose and perilously high heels studying him with sharp brown eyes. Her hair looked cheap blonde, but he was sure it was expensive.

"Hi, I'm Nancy Pell, this is my place."

She had the ageless look so common these days, and he pegged her as being in her fifties, but looking thirties.

"Rook Venner, SIO, Hudson Valley."

"Yes, Freddy told me. Ivana," she glanced in the direction of the waitress," said you wanted to know about mental enhancements for the little pleasure model."

"Yeah. Freddy told you about her?"

"I didn't know Manuel had one. He was a man with, well, let's say, a wide spectrum of tastes."

"So I'm learning."

"I guess, I have to ask you why you want this?"

"Fair enough. I think she deserves better than she's had. I mean, they all do."

"Society frowns on their existence, SIO Venner. You're a cop. How do I know I can trust you?"

Rook shrugged. "You know my situation, yeah? Freddy told you, I expect. This is way outside my area of operations, and frankly those aren't laws that I respect. Okay?"

She chewed her lip, for a moment. Then made her decision.

"Yeah? Well, we have a little program for runaways, p-mods like her, and the male kinds."

"I figured as much."

"Well, we're operating in the shadows. It's illegal as hell. There are crazies out there, you know? They'd have us taken out and shot in a heartbeat."

"Does it take long?"

"The operation takes maybe half an hour. The reorientation afterwards takes a few days. They're usually confused, frightened at first, then they get angry when they learn to understand their situation."

"Understandable."

"Yeah, having been created for an illicit market in human desire and being targeted for death should they be discovered by the forces of law and order, I'd say it upsets them to some extent."

Nancy clearly enjoyed understatement.

"I can imagine. Tell me, how much would it cost?" Rook said, unsure how he was going to pay for this.

Nancy smiled, and shook her head. "Don't worry about that. We have our sources of funding. Besides, I don't think you're in a position to pay for this right now."

Very true, thought Rook. He really didn't know what money he could even access at this point, still it was a tad mortifying to be told so by this well put together lady of the demi-monde.

"Look, uh, things are a bit, well, fluid for me right now. In fact I don't know where we'll be staying."

"I know, but you'll be with Freddy. I can get a message to him, okay?"

"That would be great. She's a witness, you see, but she needs to, well..."

"Hide?"

Rook nodded. It was embarrassing all of a sudden to have to admit to the limitations of police power.

"You know, we can take care of that too. When it's been done, I know a place where she can get a job. She'll be safe."

"Yeah? That'd be great. Thanks. But, she may have to answer questions, in a formal setting, if there's ever a trial."

"Okay. Give her a little time, she'll be fine for that. They usually bounce back after a week or so. It's a shock to them. They wake up and they're about twenty percent more intelligent than before and they start putting it all together in no time. And that hurts. Some of them cry for days."

"Jesus."

Something in Rook's tone of voice seemed to please Nancy.

"You're unusual, SIO Venner. I know a lotta cops, some are okay, some are worthless and some are evil. You don't seem to fit into any of those categories."

"Come on, there must be some good cops down here."

Nancy shrugged. The mask was back in place. "Yeah? You point them out to me sometime, SIO. All I ever see is people with their hands out."

"Sorry to hear that. I guess in Homicide we don't get those temptations. Human beings? What can you say? They're not as strong as they should be."

Nancy chuckled. "You can say that again." Something beeped softly, she tilted her head. "I gotta go, but I'll call you in a day or so, as soon as I can set it up."

"Thanks." He watched her go, firm derriere moving tight skirt around in an exciting way. An interesting lady, someone he thought he would enjoy getting to know. Maybe, if he survived, and didn't wind up exiled to Los Angeles, he would call back here, check her out.

It'd been way too long, he knew and he was still a human being, right?

He'd stopped drinking beer, switched to seltzer and lime, wanting to clear his head a bit. It would be nice to find somewhere to sleep, but he could see that Freddy had yet to wind down far enough for that. Rook had moved from the table to the bar, and to the end of the bar in the shadows. He hadn't done this consciously, which made him smile. A cop's instinct, to get into the shadows? Where he could watch without being seen?

Plesur was still being entertained by a shifting cast of young gay men. They were all responding to her beauty, her incredible sexiness, even though it wasn't their thing. They couldn't help themselves. Rook figured she would sleep really well once they were out of here and tucked up wherever it was that Freddy intended to camp for the night.

As he watched, he thought about calling his daughter, but the thought of what he would have to say when she asked him where he was and what he was dong deterred him. Besides, not even the Nokia could guarantee a secure line and he didn't want to make it any easier for "them," whoever "them" was, to find him.

He felt a nudge at his elbow, and turned to find Tony Garofalo there again, this time accompanied by someone even more elfin.

"Mr. Venner, this is Pipo Haman. He can help you, I think."

And there was Pipo, a dour looking kid with a perpetual pout on his rather soft, rather fat-looking lips. He was another devotee of tracksuit chic it seemed, in his case a blue-ish color with purple vents and brilliant orange seam lines. Introductions over, Rook moved straight to the heart of the matter. The kid was uneasy, he wondered if he might have something to give, or hide.

"You knew General Sangacha pretty well they tell me."

The word "General" had registered. The kid was scared.

"I knew him, sure, but I didn't kill him. Nobody would even suggest that."

"Oh, I don't think you're a suspect. At least not yet."

Pipo twitched. The sullen lips pursed. He blew out a breath, seemed to be struggling to control himself. The calculation in the baby brown eyes was all self directed and tinged with fear.

"Manuel," he blurted suddenly. "He had enemies. You know that, right?"

"He was a camp commander during the emergency."

Pipo's lips twitched in what might have been a grim little smile, or, equally, a grimace.

"Look, he had blood on his hands, a lot of it. Being a believer, a Christian, that made him very guilty, very worried about his soul, you unnerstan'?"

"You visited him in Peekskill?"

"Yeah."

"Did you ever meet the little Pleasure Model?"

"Oh, god, that thing? I've known tomatoes that are smarter."

"Did you ever have sex with her?"

"Me?" Pipo's face flashed outrage and incredulity in equal measure. "Of course not."

Rook detected an undeniable undertone of jealousy. Interesting, if not necessarily informative. He switched tacks.

"So, how did you and Sangacha meet?"

"Right here, I think. Or it might have been at the Dance Garage."

"Sangacha was cruising, then?"

The soft lips flared in contempt.

"Ooh, you are old fashioned. Of course. Manuel liked to fuck. He really liked to fuck me."

"Okay."

Pipo paused, looked hard at Rook for a moment. Rook sensed that Pipo was a little disappointed at the policeman's easygoing acceptance of that last statement. Why the young man would think that a homicide detective would blink at the idea of men fucking each other was a bit of a mystery. Pipo might think his lifestyle was daring, but Pipo would be wrong about that. On the uninsured side of the road, Rook and his colleagues had seen every imaginable twist on human sexuality, some that went much, much farther into the halls of ancient taboo than simple homosexuality in Greenwich Village. Pipo, clearly needed to get out more.

"So, when General Sangacha came to town, he stayed in the apartment that he owned, downtown."

"Yeah, right, it's just around the corner. I lived there for a while, too."

"You still have a key?"

"No keys, works on thumb and retina. I can still get in."

Interesting.

"Good, let's go check it out."

"What, like now?"

"Why not? Don't you want to help nail his killers?"

"Well, sure, okay. Let's go. "

They took the back way out, past the kitchen, past Ivana the former p-mod, who offered a tight little smile as they went by.

Outside there was a narrow courtyard, trash bins along one wall, windows, most with lights showing above. The sound of classical piano music was wafting down from somewhere higher up. They went down an alleyway, emerged onto the street. The late night crowd was still wide awake and the scene was busy. Pipo walked beside Rook with a jaunty step. This was his world, his comfort zone, he seemed to be saying, and within the span of half a block, Pipo had exchanged greetings with two other youngish men.

As they walked on, Rook asked Pipo how long he'd known Sangacha.

"Six years. I lived in his apartment here for three years, but I moved out a year ago."

"How come?"

"To live with my boyfriend, Peter."

"And where are you living now?"

"Over on East 10th Street, by Avenue A. I broke up with Peter."

"Okay."

It turned out that while Pipo had been away in Chicago on a business trip, Peter had brought in somebody new.

"So I found someone else."

That was Frank, an executive with a Chinese bank. Big Manuel had been displeased. He hadn't minded Peter, a pre-existing condition, but he drew the line at Frank. He'd told Frank to leave Pipo alone. Manuel had come down to the city and claimed Pipo, taking him back to Peekskill and fucking him relentlessly for a day and a half.

"He was really hot. He must've fucked me six times that first night. I was sore, I was bleeding."

"Ouch."

"It was truly wonderful." It appeared that Pipo was still trying hard to push a policeman's buttons.

"Yeah?"

"You wouldn't understand." The elfin youth sniffed eloquently.

"True."

Nor did Rook believe him, quite. Six times? He'd have been hospitalized.

Pipo stopped outside a little restaurant, Rook caught a name, "Bistro Lascaux". Pipo pointed to the top floor as he stepped up to the front door and pressed his hand on the entry plate.

The house computer recognized Pipo and opened the doors for him at the ground floor and at the top of the stairs. Inside was a big space, reconfigured into a large party room, with a pair of bedrooms at the back, each with its own bathroom en suite. Decor was late 20th century modern, without the huge wall screens and shimmer plates that were currently seen as so essential. Everything was painted in warm tones of cream and beige. Masculine, but tasteful, somehow, and yet there was something missing, however.

"No kitchen?" There was just a wet bar and a microwave, plus a built in fridge, ultra modern.

"It wasn't like anyone really lived here, you know?"

There was art on the wall, nothing familiar to Rook, who wasn't exactly up on modern art anyway. What were superficially scenes of an arid landscape, were overlaid with subtle looking overlays in clear plastic.

Pipo waved a hand at the pieces. "These are all active distemeters, you know what that means?"

"No, I don't."

"It's art. That's by Spottsman. That's by Euridki, the New Desert School. If you're into it. "

Rook shrugged. "Very nice, I suppose." The one he was looking at suddenly shifted, and the desert was replaced by a group of houses with swimming pools. Rook looked more closely. The new scene was on the overlay, printed or something. Under it, he could still see the desert landscape. Kids were riding bicycles, a dog trotted past a house. He started to turn away and the scene shifted again..

"They're all polarized," said Pipo. "From one angle it's one thing, from another, it's, like, different. They shift on a constantly changing schedule."

The houses were gone now, except for a few pylons and concrete pads. The pools were empty, except where they were full of sand. The suburban road had disappeared under sand too.

"The Euridiki's worth about two mill."

"No shit." Rook wondered how Sangacha had been able to afford stuff like that on a General's pension.

The title under the frame was "Impermanent Settlement, Arizona 2055."

"Wonder what will happen to this place now," said Pipo.

"Oh, I expect his relatives in New Mexico will sell it. Once they have possession."

"He didn't talk about his relations very much. He has a sister, but they don't get along. I don't know the details."

"Yeah, it's not a close knit family."

"I think he was lonely. And he was, like, haunted by stuff from the past, you know?"

"Yeah, how so?" The bathrooms were stuffed with creamy white towels of various sizes. The cupboards were cramme with expensive spa products. The General hadn't stinted on this aspect of life.

"Sometimes he would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Then he'd go and cry by himself in the bathroom. It was awful. And I'd hold his hand and stroke him and tell him he was okay. You've never seen so many tears."

"Guilt, would you say?"

"Yeah, could be. He would pray to that statue of the Virgin Mary, he had there. It sounded like he was seeking forgiveness, you know?"

Rook opened drawers in the green tinted bedroom. There were sex toys, drug paraphenalia. He noted a pack of ten narcosuma tubes, pale purple, made in Mexico, "Releeza" brand.

"So, we have a complicated man. A man with a past that worried him, made him weep at night. But a man who liked to have sex, lots of it."

"Yeah, you got it."

"He liked it with guys and gals. He ever put Ôem together?"

Pipo looked mildly horrified. "No. Ugh.Not with me he didn't."

Rook grinned, whose buttons were getting pushed now?

"But he was rough, at least with you boys."

"Oh, he was an animal. It was like lying down with a lion. He tore a chunk of hair off my head one time."

"Any ideas?"

"Like, who would kill him?"

"Well, yeah."

"Nope. I mean, nobody down here would kill someone. You know, over a lost lover or something."

Rook nodded. No more than he'd expected. This was the land of easy come, easy go. But someone had wanted to kill General Manuel Sangacha. And now they wanted to kill SIO Rook Venner.

"Only pawns in the game," muttered Rook as his gaze swept over the room.

He realized he needed to call Lindi. She had to know what had happened to his house and she probably assumed he was dead. That meant it would be best to call her without others listening in, since those others perhaps assumed he was dead too, which might be a very good thing. But Lindi needed to be warned. This case was just as bad as they'd imagined from the start. Lindi could pass on the word to Artoli in person and let her take the heat from Albany. And if the Governor and crew up there wanted more, let them put their own people on it. See if they liked being visited by some bigass gunship in the middle of the night.

Rook stood in the middle of the big room and tried to get a feel for the scene. The big fellow in the middle of the crowd. The gay men drinking, laughing, doing drugs. The "Peter Pans" around the General, seeking his attention, until he'd picked one out to take back and screw in the bedrooms at the back.

"There were never any women here then?"

"Never. Manuel wasn't really into women."

"Except his pleasure model?"

"Well," Pipo seemed to consider something for a moment then offered another tidbit.

"He was strange. Like he had a thing for S an' M."

"Yeah? More than just being rough with you boys?"

"Oh yeah. That wasn't sadistic, that was just him being an animal, you know?"

"Actually, no, I don't, but thanks for telling me."

"No, he was into being whipped."

Rook felt his spine straighten. "Yeah?"

"He had this blonde bitch come over and punish him every month. I was there once. I had to stay up in the bedroom while she was doing it. Afterwards he was bleeding from the welts. She whipped him really bad."

Rook felt his eyes, tired as they were, spring to life. He caressed the Nokia and whispered into it.

"You catching this?"

"Yes," murmured the Ingrid voice.

"Do you think we can get a clean line to MacEar?"

"Trying. Everything direct is under some kind of scan, but give me a minute. There are backdoors, you know?"

Well, of course he knew that. There were always hidden ways in and out.

Ingrid settled into the myriadic maze of telecoms, searching for a way to reach Lindi on her private line with soft, but constantly changing encryption to beat the listening meta-devices.

"What's going on?" said Pipo.

"Oh, let's just say we're working on some inter-departmental communications."

Pipo looked confused. "Who is "we"?"

"Never mind. Can you tell me any more about this lady who punished the General?"

"I never met her. Just saw her on the housescreen, you know?"

"Yeah? She an attractive lady?"

"I guess, if you're into them."

"Knew her stuff did she?"

"What, whipping him?"

"Yes."

"Oh, sure, she was a pro. One of the best, he boasted about her. She had clients all over the city and up in Westchester, too. It was a serious thing for him, but, you know? It wasn't like really sexual or anything. He was just looking for a way to unload guilt."

In his ear, Rook heard little bleeps, soft brrs and whirrs. Ingrid was cooking up some kind of roundabout connection. And then out of nowhere, Lindi was on the line, sounding excited, but far, far away.

"Venner? Is that really you?"

"Call is routed through South Korea liberty network," murmured the Nokia. "Anonymized both ends, indirect packet switching, it's almost untappable."

"Yeah, it's me."

"Holy shit, you're alive?

"I am. State secret that is, so don't tell anyone."

"Christ, what the fuck is going on? I mean, I had a real bad night after we heard the news. That they could just go and do that, like, you know?"

"Believe me, I've been there."

"What happened?"

"Probably better that you don't know, you know?"

"Christ, what is going onnn?" Lindi sounded close to hyperventilating.

"Well, kiddo, there are levels to this that go up, way up."

"Like it's some game? It's like Espio, or Blam, you got the visible game and the hidden stuff, yeah?"

"Something like that."

"They said your house got, like, totalled. Just a crater there now. No one's allowed anywhere near it."

"I can believe it. But listen up. There's lots about the vic we didn't pick up on. Like , he was into boys. Spent a lotta time down in the city. Had a whole other life, apartment, everything. He was real rough with the boys, tore their hair out. Got it?"

"Yeah. Inphobia time. But, hey, I'm impressed, boss. You're still on this case?"

"Maybe. Who knows? But, that's not all. Every month he had a pro whip queen come over and dust him up. Punishment for his sins. Fit the picture?"

"Our mystery blonde. Holy shit, boss. She's the key. She must've been there!"

"Find her, MacEar, but be careful, okay? Don't trust anyone? Especially Albany and all those rats in Artoli's office, yeah? So, don't use official equipment. Please, don't get killed."

"What about you, boss?"

"I don't know, I don't know where this goes. Right now I'm just trying to stay alive. This shit is just as dangerous as we thought it would be."

"Be careful, boss. I miss you already."

They both laughed, but Rook knew that his was a just a little bit forced. Gallows humor was subtly different, when you were standing on the steps leading up to the gallows themselves.

"Yeah, I miss me. too. Do me a favor, yeah, get a message to Artoli. Don't call her, all her calls will be intercepted at this point. But let her know that this has big implications. I don't know what they are, exactly, but it's way beyond us. We couldn't even arrest these people. Fuck, we couldn't even get close enough to knock on their front doors."

"Right, boss. I'm on it.. Pro dominatrix?"

"Almost certain of that."

"Not gonna have any record with us. Those girls don't get into the usual kind of shit."

"Yeah, no pimps. Don't do drugs. It won't be easy. Just be really careful, okay?"

"Right. Will do. And, boss?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful. I mean, I know you're doing what you can. This is just scary shit."

"Right. But if you can find this pro-dom, who knows? We might actually get something."

"Over and out, boss." There was a soft click in his ear

"Call is terminated. No interception recorded."

"Thanks, great job."

"What I'm here for."

Rook turned his attention back to Pipo who'd been standing there, looking uncomfortable.

"Okay, Mister Haman, this has been very useful. I'm ready to go back now."