Read Online Nightside CIty by Lawrence Watt-Evans - Free Book Online

before—though not in zero gee. And not recently. Not in too
damn long, in fact, not since I moved out to Juarez. I’d never had
anyone who was serious enough to follow me when I left the Trap,
and I’d never found anyone out in Westside I wanted. I’d always
been too picky for my own good, I suppose—every time I broke up
with a man, I hated it, but I never rushed finding another.
    This time, with the reduced opportunities out
in the burbs, I hadn’t rushed at all, and I hadn’t found anything,
either, not even the occasional one-shot.
    I didn’t really need the damn floor show
reminding me of that.
    There’s one thing, though—at least in zero
gee they don’t do those damn frustrating last-minute withdrawals
that the male fans seem to like so much. It’s too messy when the
stuff can float free. In zero gee shows everything goes where
nature intended—at least, when they do it straight.
    It’s still not my idea of great
entertainment.
    Well, I didn’t have to watch, and for all I
knew Cheng would love it.
    The bar was long and ornate. I assumed that
the old glass bottles along the wall behind it were purely for
decoration, but if not, then it was certainly well-stocked. A man
in a white apron, looking like something from a bad vid, stood
behind it rubbing a glass with a piece of fabric—more
decoration.
    The bar wasn’t crowded. Most of the customers
were at the tables on the floor, and the place was only
half-full.
    That didn’t accord very well with what the
cab had told me, but hell, it was still early in the day.
    The lighting was mostly blue and green,
shifting slowly, and the smoke came not only from the customers,
but also from a small burner on the end of the bar nearest the
door. It was mostly just for scent and effect, but I thought I
could smell a little cannabis in the haze, maybe a few synthetics
as well. I assumed that the psychoactives came from the customers;
it didn’t look like the sort of establishment that would give
anything away for free.
    The place wasn’t exactly tasteful, but it
seemed okay. I stepped down to the floor and crossed to the bar,
but didn’t take a stool; after all, I only had a few minutes. I
leaned my elbows on the bar and watched the show for a moment. The
woman was still licking. The man was even more obviously bored than
before.
    Behind me, someone snapped, “Hey! You can’t
come in here!”
    I turned, and saw the spy-eye hanging in the
doorway, and the man behind the bar holding an ancient jammer.
    “You get the hell out!” the man said. “This
is private property, and we won’t have any damn machines harassing
our customers!”
    The spy-eye hesitated, looking in my
direction.
    “Out, or I fry your circuits!” the man said,
lifting the jammer.
    The spy-eye retreated, and I smiled to
myself.
    I hadn’t really counted on that, but it was a
nice side-effect. Without wasting a minute I marched on through the
lounge and out into the hotel lobby.
    I knew that the spy-eye would try and catch
me coming out, but where would it expect me to come out? Did Big
Jim have other spy-eyes on hand that he could use to cover all the
exits?
    Not bloody likely. He had a hell of a lot
more money than I did, but he was still just a freelance detective,
not a goddamn casino owner. He wouldn’t have a whole flock of eyes
in the air—not unless something was up I didn’t know about, and
even then, unless he’d gone completely berserk, he wouldn’t have a
whole flock looking for me . I wasn’t worth it.
    So I only had to worry about one or two exits
being covered, at most.
    The logical exits were the way I came in, the
main entrance, and the casino’s back door on the far side of the
block. If I were trying to be obvious about losing someone, I’d use
a service entrance—except those were all in Trap Under, at least
one level down.
    I shrugged. Trying to outguess a machine when
you don’t know a damn thing about its programming is pointless. I’d
just have to pick one