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know why, that which simply went for it, and somehow at the wort possible
time.
Look before you leap. Considerconsequences. Think about it.
He thought about it. Someone had taken advantage of his brief but unvilling
sojourn in Selwyn
Tong's VR corridor to convey the suggestior that he should pick up his credit
chip from this particular ATM, anc then check GlobEx. This couk most easily
have been Tong him-sell, speaking as it were through a hack channel, or it
might have been soneone, anyone, else, hacking intowhat
Rydell supposed was scarcely a world-class secure site. The hook of the change
that had been wrought for Rydell's benefit, though, had ~ad hacker written all
over it. In Rylell's experience, hackers just couldn't resist showing off, and
they terded to get all arty. And, he kne~w, they could get your ass in trouble
an usually did.
~~~LLIAM~BSON
He looked at the GlobEx bulge there.
Went for it.
It took him less time than it had to get the credit chip, to show his license
and get the hatch open. It was a bigger package than he'd expected, and it was
heavy for its size. Really heavy.
Expensive-hooking foam-core stuff, very precisely sealed with gray plastic
tape, and covered with animated GlobEx Maximum Express holograms, customs
stickers. He studied the waybill. It had come from Tokyo, looked like, but the
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billing was to Paragon-Asia Dataflow, which was on Lygon Street, Melbourne,
Australia. Rydell didn't know anybody in Australia, but he did know that it
was supposed to be impossible, and definitely was illegal, to ship anything
internationally to one of these GlobEx pickups. They needed an address,
private or business. These pickup points were only for domestic deliveries.
Damn. Thing was heavy. He got it under his arm, maybe two feet long and six
inches on a side, and went back to get his bag.
Which he saw now was open, on the little counter there, and the guard with the
pale eyebrows was holding Rydell's pink Lucky Dragon fanny pack.
"What are you doing with my bag?"
The guard looked up. "This is Lucky Dragon property."
"You aren't supposed to open people's bags," Rydell said, "says so on the
notebook."
"I have to treat this as theft. You have Lucky Dragon property here."
Rydehl remembered that he'd put the ceramic switchblade in the fanny pack,
because he hadn't been able to think what else to do with it. He tried to
remember whether or not that was illegal up here. It was in SoCal, he knew,
but not in Oregon.
"That's my property," Rydehl said, "and you're going to give it to me right
now"
"Sorry," the man said deliberately.
"Hey, Rydell," said a familiar voice, as the door was opened so forcefully
that Rydell distinctly heard something snap in the closing mechanism. "Son of
a bitch, how they hangin'?"
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Rydehl was instantly engulfed in a fog of vodka and errant testos 91
terone. He turned and saw Creedmore grinning fiercely, quite visibly free of
the human condition.
Behind him loomed a larger man, pale and fleshy, his dark eyes set close
together.
"You're drunk," snapped the security guard. "Get out."
"Drunk?" Creedmore winced grotesquely, miming some crippling emotional pain.
"Says I'm drunk. - ."
Creedmore turned to the man behind him. "Randy, this mo~herfucker says I'm
drunk."
The corners of the large man's mouth, which was small and strangely delicate
in such a heavy stubbled face, turned instantly down, as if he were genuinely
and very, very deeply saddened to learn that it was possible for one human
being to treat another in so unkind a way. "So whump his faggot ass, then,"
the large man suggested softly, as if the prospect held at least some wistful
possibility, however distant, of cheer after great disappointment.
"Drunk?" Creedmore was facing the security man again. He leaned across the
counter, his chin level with the top of Rydell's bag. "What kinda shit you
tryin' to lay off on my buddy here?"
Creedmore was radiating an amphetamine-reptile menace now, his anger gone
right off the mammalian scale. Rydell saw a little muscle pulsing in
Creedmore's cheek, steady and involuntary as some tiny extra heart, Seeing
that Creedmore had the guard's undivided attention, Rydell grabbed his bag
with one hand, the pink fanny pack with the other.
The guard tried to snatch them back. Which was definitely a mistake, as the
attempt occupied both his hands.
"Suck my dickl" Creedmore shrieked, striking with far more speed and force
than Rydell would've credited him with, and sank his fist wrist-deep into the
guard's stomach, just below the sternum.
Taken by surprise, the guard doubled forward. Rydell, as Creedmore was winding
back to slug the man in the face, managed to tangle Creedmore's wrist in the
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straps of the fanny pack, almost dropping the bulky parcel in the process.
"Come on, Buell," Rydell said, spinning Creedmore back out the door. Rydell
knew someone would've hit a foot button by now.
92
"Motherfucker says I'm drunk," Creedmore protested.
"Well, you are, Buell," said the heavy man, ponderously, behind them.
Creedmore giggled.
"Let's get out of here," Rydell said, starting for the bridge. As he walked,
he was trying to stuff the fanny pack back into his duffel and trying not to
lose his precarious underarm grip on the GlobEx package. A twisting gust of
wind blew grit into his eyes, and, blinking down to clear them, he noticed for
the first time that the waybill was addressed
- - not to him but to "Cohn Laney."
Cohn space Laney. So why had they let Rydell pick it up?
Then they were in the thick of the crowd, headed up the ramp of the lower
level.
"What is this shit?" Creedmore asked, peering up.
"San Francisco-Oakland Bay," Rydell said.
"Shit," Creedmore said, squinting at the crowd, "smells like a fuckin'
baitbox. Bet you you could get you some weird-ass pussy, out here."
"I need a drink," the heavy man with the delicate mouth said softly.
"I think I do too," said Rydell. -
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22. VEXED
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