Walter Williams - Conventions of War

She didn’t see Casimir come in: the hostess told her that he had arrived then escorted her to the back of the club, up a staircase of black iron, and to a door glossy with polished black ceramic. Sula looked at her reflection in the door’s lustrous surface and adjusted the tilt of her hat.

Inside, she saw a pair of Torminel guards, fierce in their gray fur and white fangs, and concluded that Casimir must be nervous. Lamey had never gone around with guards, not until the very end, when the Legion of Diligence was after him.

The guards patted her down-she’d left her pistol at home-and scanned her with a matte-black polycarbon wand intended to detect any listening devices. Then they waved her through another polished door.

She entered a large suite decorated in black and white, from the diamond-shaped floor tiles to the onyx pillars that supported a series of white marble romanesque arches, impressive but nonstructural, intended purely for decoration. The chairs featured cushions so soft they might tempt a sitter to sprawl. There was a video wall that enabled Casimir to watch the interior of the club, and several different scenes played there in silence. Sula saw that one of the cameras was focused on the table she’d just left.

Casimir came around his desk to greet her. He was a plain-featured young man a few years older than Sula, with longish dark hair combed across his forehead and tangled down his collar behind. He wore a charcoal-gray velvet jacket over a purple silk shirt, with gleaming black boots beneath fashionably wide-bottomed trousers. His hands were long and pale and delicate, with fragile-seeming wrists; the hands were posed self-consciously in front of his chest, the fingers tangled in a kind of knot.

“Were you watching me?” she asked, referring to the surveillance camera.

“I hadn’t seen you around,” he said, his voice surprisingly deep and full of gravel, like a sudden flood over stony land. “I was curious.”

She felt the heat of his dark eyes and knew at once that danger smoldered there, possibly for her, possibly for Casimir himself, possibly for the whole world. Possibly he didn’t know; he might strike out at first one, then the other, as the mood struck him.

The chord of danger chimed deep in her nerves, and it was all she could do to keep her blood from thundering an answer.

“I’m new,” she said. “I came down from the ring a few months ago.”

“Are you looking for work?” He tilted his head and affected to consider her. “For someone as attractive as you, I suppose something could be found.”

“I already have work,” she said. “What I’d like is steady pay.” She took from an inner pocket of her vest a pair of identity cards and offered them.

“What’s this?” Casimir approached and took the cards. His eyes widened as he saw his own picture on both, each of which identified him as “Michael Saltillo.”

“One’s the primary identity,” Sula said, “and the other’s the special card that gets you up to the High City.”

Casimir frowned, took the cards back to his desk and held them up to the light. “Good work,” he said. “Did you do these?”

“The government did them,” Sula said. “They’re genuine.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. “You work in the Records Office?”

“No. But I know someone who does.”

He gave her a heavy-lidded look. “You’ll have to tell me who that is.”

Sula shook her head. “No. I can’t.”

He glided toward her. Menace flowed off him like an inky rain. “I’ll need that name,” he said.

She looked up at him and willed her muscles not to tremble beneath the tide of adrenaline that flooded her veins. “First,” she said, speaking softly to keep a tremor from her voice, “she wouldn’t work with you. Second-”

“I’mvery persuasive, ” Casimir said. The deep, grating words seemed to rise from the earth. His humid breath warmed her cheek.

“Second,” Sula continued, as calmly as she could, “she doesn’t live in Zanshaa, and if you turn up on her doorstep she’ll call the police and turn you in. You don’t have any protection where she is, no leverage at all.”

A muscle pulsed in one half-lowered eyelid: Casimir didn’t like being contradicted. Sula prepared herself for violence and wondered how she would deal with the Torminel.

But first she’d have to figure out what to do with her platform shoes. They might be fashionable but they weren’t exactly intended for combat.

“I don’t believe I got your name,” Casimir said.

She looked into the half-lidded eyes. “Gredel,” she said.

He turned, took a step away, then swung back and with an abrupt motion thrust out the identity cards.

“Take these,” he said. “I’m not going to have them off someone I don’t know. I could be killed for having them in my office.”

Sula made certain her fingers weren’t trembling before she took the cards. “You’ll need them sooner or later,” she said, “the way things are going under the Naxids.”

She could see that he didn’t like hearing that either. He walked to the far side of his desk and stood there with his head down, his long fingers tidying papers. “There’s nothing I can do about the Naxids,” he said.

“You can kill them,” she replied, “before they kill you.”

He kept his eyes on his papers, but a smile touched his lips. “There are a lot more Naxids than there are of me.”

“Start at the top and work your way down,” Sula advised. “Sooner or later you’ll reach equilibrium.”

The smile still played about his lips. “You’re quite the provocateur, aren’t you?” he said.

“It’s fifty for primary ID. Two hundred for the special pass to the High City.”

He looked up at her in surprise. “Twohundred?”

“Most people won’t need it. But the ones who’ll need it will really need it.”

His lips gave a sardonic twist. “Who would want to go to the High City now?”

“People who want to work for Naxids. Or steal from Naxids. Or kill Naxids.” She smiled. “Actually, that last category gets the cards free.”

He turned his head to hide a grin. “You’re a pistol, aren’t you?”

Sula said nothing. Casimir stood for a moment in thought, then suddenly threw himself into his chair in a whoof of deflating cushions and surprised hydraulics, then he put his feet on the desk, one gleaming boot crossed over the other.

“Can I see you again?” he said.

“To do what? Talk business? We can talk businessnow.”

“Business, certainly,” he said with an nod. “But I was thinking we could mainly entertain ourselves.”

“Do you still think I’m a provocateur?”

He grinned and shook his head. “The police under the Naxids don’t have to bother with evidence anymore. Provocateurs are looking for work like everyone else.”

“Yes,” Sula said.

He blinked. “Yes what?”

“Yes. You can see me.”

His grin broadened. He had even teeth, brilliantly white. Sula thought his dentist was to be congratulated.

“I’ll give you my comm code. Set your display to receive.”

They activated their sleeve displays, and Sula broadcast her electronic address. It was one she’d created strictly for this meeting, along with another of what were proving to be a dizzying series of false identities.

“See you then.” She walked toward the door, then stopped. “By the way,” she said. “I’m also in the delivery business. If you need something moved from one place to another, let me know.” She permitted herself a smile. “We have very good documents,” she said. “We can move things wherever you need them.”

She left then, before glee got the better of her.

Outside, in the facing light, she spotted Macnamara loitering across the street and raised a hand to scratch her neck, the signal that all had gone well.