greeting: tonal languages are full of such
pitfalls. I took his stare for invitation and sat down.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” I said. “But I saw you
talking to a young lady a while ago.”
“Yes. So?”
“Well, it’s like this,” I improvised hastily. “I’m
actually with the, uh, the franchise vice squad, and we have reason
to believe that the lady in question is engaged in certain illegal
activities.”
He looked utterly disbelieving.
“What sort of illegal activities?”
“Well, they’re of a varied nature that I’m not at
liberty to divulge right now, but I must inform you that it you
have completed a transaction of any sort with her, you should
contact your bank now and cancel it. I’m also asking you to hand
over any information that she gave to you. An address, for
instance.”
The stare did not waver.
“Do you have identification?”
“No. It would put me at risk, if it were
discovered.”
He must have thought I was some sort of lunatic.
“You’re not a cop,” he said in disgust. “I don’t
know who you are. But I’ll give you the address she gave me if it
will make you go away. Have you got a pod?”
I slid it across the table and he made a quick copy
from his pod to mine.
“Now go away.”
Did I really care, I asked myself, if this obnoxious
person had some horrible fate awaiting him? I decided that I
didn’t, and besides, I’d done all I could for now.
“Thank you,” I said pompously. “The authorities are
grateful.” Briefly, I remembered the adverts which littered the
city, encouraging people to turn informer. They featured a young
man in a pair of stripy pyjamas slumbering peacefully with his
glasses on the bedside table, having presumably shopped his mates
for a few franchise dollars and the gratitude of the municipal
police. ‘Sleep well!’ the adverts proclaimed. ‘You have done the
Right Thing!’ I wondered whether I’d sleep well that night.
Somehow, I doubted it.
I woke up somewhere around five am, with a queasy
dawn coming up over the city. Opening the window, I leaned out and
inhaled the usual heady blend of chemical fumes, unburned petrol
and steam from the city’s many restaurants. Almost breakfast time,
I decided. Yawning, I dressed and made my way down to the street. I
could feel the pod in the pocket of my shirt; the address Number
Six had given me seemed to weigh it down. I hadn’t even looked at
it yet. I took a seat in the noodle bar down the road, among
sweat-workers coming off their shifts, and mentally reviewed the
range of substances that I had most recently abused. Apart from
vodka, hypospray morphine and the occasional handful of
tranquillisers, I couldn’t think of anything powerful enough to
create a hallucination of the magnitude of the one that I’d
apparently experienced the night before. I could still see the
fragmented sparkle of her eyes in the shadows of the restroom
mirror. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing,
and besides, there was the address that the businessman had given
me. Absently, I twirled a chopstickful of nasi goreng into my mouth
and took out the pod. She had told part of the truth, anyway. The
address was somewhere down in Reikon, which meant the waterfront. All right , I thought, with a combination of excitement and
trepidation: let’s take a look . I don’t know what I thought
I was doing. I guess it seemed like an adventure at the time; the
sort of thing I’d drifted to Asia in order to experience. I don’t
think I really believed that anything could happen to me; you don’t
when you’re young. Or stupid.
It took ages to get to Reikon. The trams were
running erratically that day, the result of terrorist activity down
in the banking district, and the one that I finally managed to
catch stopped at every halt. I dozed in my seat as the city lurched
by, waking with a start to find that we had reached the docks. The
water glistened in the heat, shimmering out towards the
pitfalls. I took his stare for invitation and sat down.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” I said. “But I saw you
talking to a young lady a while ago.”
“Yes. So?”
“Well, it’s like this,” I improvised hastily. “I’m
actually with the, uh, the franchise vice squad, and we have reason
to believe that the lady in question is engaged in certain illegal
activities.”
He looked utterly disbelieving.
“What sort of illegal activities?”
“Well, they’re of a varied nature that I’m not at
liberty to divulge right now, but I must inform you that it you
have completed a transaction of any sort with her, you should
contact your bank now and cancel it. I’m also asking you to hand
over any information that she gave to you. An address, for
instance.”
The stare did not waver.
“Do you have identification?”
“No. It would put me at risk, if it were
discovered.”
He must have thought I was some sort of lunatic.
“You’re not a cop,” he said in disgust. “I don’t
know who you are. But I’ll give you the address she gave me if it
will make you go away. Have you got a pod?”
I slid it across the table and he made a quick copy
from his pod to mine.
“Now go away.”
Did I really care, I asked myself, if this obnoxious
person had some horrible fate awaiting him? I decided that I
didn’t, and besides, I’d done all I could for now.
“Thank you,” I said pompously. “The authorities are
grateful.” Briefly, I remembered the adverts which littered the
city, encouraging people to turn informer. They featured a young
man in a pair of stripy pyjamas slumbering peacefully with his
glasses on the bedside table, having presumably shopped his mates
for a few franchise dollars and the gratitude of the municipal
police. ‘Sleep well!’ the adverts proclaimed. ‘You have done the
Right Thing!’ I wondered whether I’d sleep well that night.
Somehow, I doubted it.
I woke up somewhere around five am, with a queasy
dawn coming up over the city. Opening the window, I leaned out and
inhaled the usual heady blend of chemical fumes, unburned petrol
and steam from the city’s many restaurants. Almost breakfast time,
I decided. Yawning, I dressed and made my way down to the street. I
could feel the pod in the pocket of my shirt; the address Number
Six had given me seemed to weigh it down. I hadn’t even looked at
it yet. I took a seat in the noodle bar down the road, among
sweat-workers coming off their shifts, and mentally reviewed the
range of substances that I had most recently abused. Apart from
vodka, hypospray morphine and the occasional handful of
tranquillisers, I couldn’t think of anything powerful enough to
create a hallucination of the magnitude of the one that I’d
apparently experienced the night before. I could still see the
fragmented sparkle of her eyes in the shadows of the restroom
mirror. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing,
and besides, there was the address that the businessman had given
me. Absently, I twirled a chopstickful of nasi goreng into my mouth
and took out the pod. She had told part of the truth, anyway. The
address was somewhere down in Reikon, which meant the waterfront. All right , I thought, with a combination of excitement and
trepidation: let’s take a look . I don’t know what I thought
I was doing. I guess it seemed like an adventure at the time; the
sort of thing I’d drifted to Asia in order to experience. I don’t
think I really believed that anything could happen to me; you don’t
when you’re young. Or stupid.
It took ages to get to Reikon. The trams were
running erratically that day, the result of terrorist activity down
in the banking district, and the one that I finally managed to
catch stopped at every halt. I dozed in my seat as the city lurched
by, waking with a start to find that we had reached the docks. The
water glistened in the heat, shimmering out towards the
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