Valentine's Exile (24 page)

“Destination?” a red-jacketed security man asked as he walked up to their place in the line. He had a bald head and the smooth-but-unenergetic manner of a headwaiter.

“Moyo's office,” Cotswald said.

“You have an appointment, Mr. Cotswald?”

“Yes, we do. I made it through Anais.”

The security man flipped through a three-ring binder. “Cotswald and Jacksonville. VIP visitor. Very good, sir.” Two guards looked them up and down. “If I could just have you take off your coat, Mr. Cotswald,” the security man said.

“Of course.” Cotswald removed his coat and turned in a circle.

“Thank you. Excuse me, Mr. Jacksonville,” the man said. “Step out of line and extend your arms, please.”

Valentine submitted to a pat down from one of the guards. They extracted the folding knife. “I'm sorry, sir, no blades whatsoever,” the supervisor said. He placed it in a gridwork of cubbyholes like a mail sorter and gave Valentine a numbered chit, and each of them got red plastic badges on lanyards.

“Please wear these around your necks at all times, especially when upstairs,” the supervisor said. “Gordon will take you up.”

They rode in silence. Gordon advised them to watch their step when the doors opened. Valentine made a move to tip him but Cotswald shook his head.

They exited the elevator, went down a short hallway lined with paintings of irises and turned, then passed into a wood-paneled foyer. A red-blazered security man holding another binder waited on a chair. A man with the most neatly trimmed hair and nails Valentine had ever seen smiled from his wooden desk at a nexus of hallways.

“Mr. Cotswald, how are you tonight?” Asian eyes that reminded Valentine of a picture of his grandmother crinkled in a friendly fashion.

“Keeping busy,” Cotswald said.

“And this is?”

“Stu Jacksonville, Leisure and Entertainment from the Gulf. This is Rooster. Stu's looking to upgrade his inventory. ”

“Excellent, just excellent,” Rooster said. “You're wondering about the name. It's from my days looking for new talent in the rail yards. My hair used to stick up on top.”

“Gotcha,” Valentine said.

A voice shouted from behind leather-padded doors. “Christ on a popsicle stick, you're a fuckup. Rooster, I've got another ass that needs kicking in here!”

“Mister Moyo's having trouble with the lines up from Texas,” Rooster explained. “Please excuse me. Won't you have a seat?”

“Oh, quit crying, you twat!” the same voice yelled. “Stuff the excuses!”

Rooster picked up a leather folio and passed through the double leather doors.

“I hate when he gets worked up,” the security man said. “You want to go next?”

“You've got bad news too, I take it?” Cotswald asked, perhaps hoping for a piece of stray information he could sell to Everready.

“Desertions. Not of our people; the Memphis clowns. City Guard commander says we've got to start using our forces for exterior security as well as internal until they can get back up to strength. That means busting heads down in the commons, and no one much likes that.”

“Maybe we should go first,” Cotswald said. “Mr. Jacksonville is looking to spend a great deal of money.”

“Then please, be my guest,” the security man said.

One of the double doors opened again. A sullen-looking woman came out, holding the shoulder strap of her briefcase with both hands as though it were a lifeline in a hurricane.

Rooster had his arm gently touching her elbow. “Of course it's not your fault, Yayella. It's going to take a while for the reversals in Texas to be overcome.” He guided her down the hall toward the elevators and Valentine followed the thread of the conversation by hardening his hearing. “We'll redirect traffic through New Orleans and coastal craft can get it to Houston. The deposits will arrive a little seasick, but they'll be safer.”

Rooster glided back into the foyer. “We're next,” Cotswald said, and the security guard nodded.

Moyo's office filled the entire east side of the Pyramid. Sloping glass looked out over Memphis' few remaining high-rise buildings and the gold-lit blocks of the former children's hospital in the distance.

Except for the striking slope to the glass, the office didn't look like a pimp's digs, full of exotic animal furs and silver barware, or a rail baron's throne room of oak and brass. Valentine was expecting some combination of the two. Instead Moyo's office seemed to be modeled on a small-town sheriff's: there was a battered wooden desk with a compact, easel-like computer on it, and a not-quite-matching credenza against a dividing wall next to the desk. A few tube-steel chairs were placed around the room, one opposite the desk and more against the walls. On the other side of the divider was a kitchenette where brewed coffee sat on a hot plate, a locked gun case, and dozens of aluminum file cabinets. The most esoteric features were fancy drop-lighting fixtures, throwing puddles of gold on the red carpeting and lending a warm tone to the room. The only personal touch was a curio cabinet filled with toy trains.

Two professionally dressed women played cards on a newsprint-covered table at the corner window. One had a diplomat bag with a laptop poking out of it, the other kept an old-fashioned steno pad at her elbow.

Opposite the women a corridor, complete with a steel-barred door better than anything Valentine had seen at the Nut, led to a darkened hallway that looked as though it went to the center of the Pyramid.

Moyo flicked off the computer screen as they entered.

Valentine thought Moyo had the junkyard-dog features of a man who bit down and kissed up, on the downslope of forty. A cigar that looked like it came with the desk protruded from the corner of his mouth.

“Mister Cotswald has a new associate, a buyer up from Florida,” Rooster explained. “This is Stu Jacksonville.”

“Jacksonville. Gene Moyo. Pleased.” Moyo didn't look pleased, but placed the cigar carefully at the edge of the desk and came around the edge to shake hands. His hand felt like a wrench wrapped in desert leather. “Christ, Roo, at this rate I'm never getting down to the games. There's supposed to be a good match tonight.”

“We won't be long,” Cotswald said. “Just need a few permissions to look over your current inventory.”

“Roo, call down to the box and tell them to hold dinner. Well, siddown, you two. Make it fast.”

They pulled chairs as Rooster left.

Valentine wanted a look around the office, but didn't see how he could in his present circumstances. He surreptitiously felt around in his pocket.

“What's your line, Jacksonville? Pro or amateur?”

Valentine hazarded a guess. “My official title's Provisional Leisure and Entertainment Director. The port's growing.”

Moyo put the cigar back in his mouth. “Learn something useful, son. No one with a title like that rises.”

“It's a sinecure. I used to work coast security.”

“Get the facial reconstruction doing that?”

“That would make a better story. It was an accident—I was careless with a rifle.”

“What kind of numbers are you looking for?”

Valentine shifted in his seat to cover his hand's motion. “Thirty gals to start off. I'd like a seat at your auctions, too. I can see two, maybe three trips a year up here.”

The cigar moved from the left side of Moyo's mouth to his right. “Payment?”

“Gold. I have enough for a substantial deposit.”

“Let's see your color. Sorry, but you're a stranger to me.”

Valentine placed a coin on the desk.

“Fort Knox mint. Very good.”

“Mister Moyo, if you'd rather talk business at the game, I'm not averse to continuing negotiations down there.”

“Anais!” Moyo barked over his shoulder.

The woman with the diplomat bag set down her cards. “Yes, Mister Moyo?”

“Get my weekly out. See if Rooster's got any last-minute additions, then you two can go home as soon as I'm done with my last appointment.”

“Thank you, Mister Moyo,” she said.

“Rooster!” Moyo yelled.

Rooster appeared quickly enough. “Take these gentlemen down to the owner's box. We have much inventory on hand?”

“New? Five or six girls at the most,” Rooster said. “Sorry, Mister Jacksonville, a year ago we had half of Arkansas in here. At this rate there won't be another auction for some weeks.”

“You can buy out of my joints, if you want, Jacksonville, ” Moyo said. “I've got a couple older gals who aren't half-bad managers, too. If the price is right you could hire one or two away from me.”

“I appreciate your generosity,” Valentine said, shifting his foot slightly.

Moyo put down his cigar again in the same wet groove. “Liquor in the box is on me, alright? Cots, you staying?”

“I need to see about my weekend shifts, and monthlies,” Cotswald said. “Line In is piping the Sourbellies from Beal Street athenaeum tonight; thought I'd tune in.”

“More ice for us, then,” Moyo said, coming around the desk to shake hands again. “Rooster, take Stu down to the box and get him set up. Unless you want a quick look at the inventory?”

Valentine hated to think of the faces. “No, I'll check out your games. And your bar.”

“Be down in an hour or so. I've got to go up and do my own reporting.” Moyo inclined his head toward the barred corridor.

“You actually go up?” Valentine asked; no pretense was required for his incredulity.

“Just to an audience blister. You ever been in one?”

“No,” Valentine said.

Moyo lost a little of his bristle. “My predecessor used to rub lemon zest inside his nostrils to keep out the smell. But it's the walls that get to me. That paste they use, it sucks water out of the outside air somehow. Everything on the inside's wet and dripping. When a big drop hits your shoulder . . . well, you jump. Feels like someone tapping you.”

Valentine broke the silence that followed. “See you for a drink later, then.”

“Sure. Whoa there, Stu, you missing something?”

“What's that?” Valentine asked.

“Looks like you dropped your roll.” Moyo pointed. “It's right under the desk there.”

There goes the excuse to come back up here
. . . “Must have fallen out when I reached for my coin,” Valentine said, flushing. “That would have been a pisser; that's my walking-around money.” Valentine retrieved the bills he'd nudged under the desk moments ago.

“I'll forgo the ten percent finder's fee,” Moyo said. “Rooster, give me the latest transport figures with destinations, then send in that ass Peckinsnow on your way out, would you?”

Valentine slipped the brass ring to Cotswald on the way out as Rooster collected his carryall from his desk. Valentine wondered how long it would take him to have it “checked out.” While a brass ring meant little to a Kurian or one of their Reapers if it wasn't on the actual owner's finger, it was still a powerful totem when waved in front of the groundlings. Valentine just had to hope the circumstances of the ring's loss were not so well known as to have everyone connected to it, including Stu Jacksonville, immediately rounded up for the Reapers.

“If you're into music, maybe you can show me around Beale Street tomorrow,” Valentine said.

Valentine watched Cotswald touch the ring in his pocket, fingering it like an exploring teenager. “Sure,” he said absently.

“You'll find that little thank-you—what did Mister Moyo say, ‘finder's fee?'—useful if you ever get down my way,” Valentine said.

“I'll have to do that before long,” Cotswald said. Valentine felt sorry for the dreamy look in the man's eyes. Did confidence men ever feel guilty as they took their marks?

Valentine and Rooster exited on the “showcase” level. Cotswald continued down in the elevator.

Fresh paint covered the structural concrete here, and the lighting came from bulbs.

“Rooster, can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot, Stu. You don't mind if it's Stu, do you?”

“Not at all.” Valentine liked using false names in the Kurian Zone. One more curtain between David Valentine and the vast darkness of the Kurian night. “Why the kindling up in Mister Moyo's office? My head porter has a nicer rig.”

Rooster glanced up at the ceiling. “Affectation. He started out as a diesel mechanic. When they made him yard supervisor he got an office. It had that junk in it. To him, that first desk meant he made it. I don't mind—he gave me the previous director's outfit for my office. Solid mahogany and half a herd of leather.”

“Do you intend to be the next director?”

“Almost there already. I run the day-to-day stuff, he gets the headaches. Personally, I like having him between me and them.”

Valentine wanted to ask more about the day-to-day stuff, but they reached the box.

About a dozen people, not counting a food server and an impossibly beautiful young man tending bar, already lounged in the box. The wedge-shaped room was divided into a set of plush-looking seats arranged stadium-style and an entertainment area. A hot tub filled with ice prickled with the necks of beer bottles and sparkling wines. Harder liquors filled up a backlit case behind the bar.

A pair of televisions at each corner held scheduling information. “Closed-circuit TV,” Rooster said. “Most of the skyboxes are wired. We've got a camera snafu so there won't be close-ups tonight. Getting replacement electronics takes practically forever.”