Chapter 11: Unexpected Visitor
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She bit her index finger at the first joint, looking at me with steady eyes. "I didn't come to see you about Owen. Do you feel that you can tell me what my father wanted to see you about?" "Not without his permission." "Was it about Carmen?" "I can't even say that." I opened the cigarette box, picked up a cigarette and snapped a light to it. She watched the smoke for a moment. Then her hand went into her open bag and came out with a thick white envelope. She tossed it across the desk. "You'd better look at it anyway." I picked it up. There was a stutter of machine-readable characters across the front, an address for the delivery. No quick way of confirming what it was. I opened the envelope and drew out the shiny hologram plate that was all there was inside. It was Carmen laid on Geiger's wooden bench on the dais, roped and bound in her earrings and her birthday suit. A dildo was pressed between her pussy lips, a different one than I had taken from her. Her eyes looked even a little crazier than as I remembered them. I put it back in the envelope. "How much do they want?" I asked. "Five mill - for the removable memory. The deal has to be closed tonight or they'll send the stuff to some scandal site." "The demand came how?" "A message, a woman's voice, anonymised, about half an hour after this thing was delivered." "There's nothing in the scandal site angle. The net judges would take it down in five minutes. What else is there?" "Does there have to be something else?" "Yes." She stared at me, a little puzzled. "There is. The woman said there was a police jam connected with it and I'd better lay it on the line fast, or I'd be talking to my little sister through a detention force field." "Better," I said. "What kind of jam?" "I don't know." "Where is Carmen now?" "She's at home. She was sick last night. She's still in bed, I think." "Did she go out last night?" "No. I was out, but the servitors say she wasn't. I was down-town, playing roulette at Eddie Mars's Cypress Club. I lost my shirt." "So you like roulette. You would." She crossed her legs and lit another cigarette. "Yes. I like roulette. All the Sternwoods like losing games, like roulette and marrying men that walk out on them. The Sternwoods have money. All it has ever bought them is a rain cheque." "What was Owen doing last night with your cruiser?" "Nobody knows. He took it without permission. We always let him take a ship on his night off, but last night wasn't his night off." She made a wry mouth. "Do you think - ?" "He knew about the bondage holo? How would I be able to say? I don't rule him out. Can you get five mill in cash right away?" "Not unless I tell Dad - or borrow it. I could probably borrow it from Eddie Mars. He ought to be generous with me, heaven knows." "Better try that. You may need it in a hurry." She leaned back and hung an arm over the back of the chair. "How about telling the police?" "It's a good idea. But you won't do it." "Won't I?" "No. You have to protect your father and your sister. You don't know what the police might turn up. It might be something they couldn't sit on. Though they usually try in blackmail cases." "Can you do anything?" "I think I can. But I can't tell you why or how."
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Part 1