"I have been. I just haven't been able to find anything else there."

"We'll talk to Maddock," the ork replied, "and see where that takes us. Once we get this Sapphire Seahawk biz squared away, you can find out who killed her and why." Duran glanced over at him. "Out of respect for the lady, I'd like to give you a hand with that." He stuck out a fist.

After only a moment's hesitation. Skater closed his fist and dropped it on the ork's, knowing that the offer wasn't meant lightly. He also knew neither the offer nor the acceptance came without a price. He was stepping way beyond the limits he'd imposed on his relationships with the team and it scared the hell out of him. "I'd appreciate it," he said, because the price was worth paying.

"Got him," Duran said.

Without moving too fast. Skater turned from the long bar and scanned the throbbing crowd that filled one of the huge glass dance floors of Dante's inferno. The pulsating lights and crisscrossing lasers were fragging up his low-light vision, and the thump of the shag metal blasting out of dozens of speakers made subdermals out of the question. The band's theme was the afterlife, but only a gruesome afterlife achieved through arcane means. Dressed as rotting corpses and writhing maggots, they occupied the third level stage.

Skater and Duran had been scoping out the lowest three of the nine dance floors-not including Hell. They'd paid six waitresses, two on each floor, to let them know when Ridge Maddock put in his appearance. Sophie, one of the cocktail servers working the second floor, came over to them. She was tall and shapely, her left cheek covered with a tattoo of a flaming angel.

"Maddock's here," she said. "Come with me and I'll point

Duran slotted her tipstick the balance of the finder's fee, then started following her. Skater fell into step behind them.

After exiting on the second floor, Skater and Duran separated but stayed within sight of each other as they wound their way through the knots of dancers and party-goers in the waitress's wake. Dante's Inferno was one of the more popular nightclubs in the sprawl, and-if you could get in-it was usually standing room only, even at nine p.m.

Ridge Maddock had rated a small table by himself in the corner of an L-shaped plant box boasting a twisting jungle of bioengineered plants and flowers. Neon-pseudo-jewels glittered among the growth.

He was tall, standing over two meters in height. His broad shoulders and the cut of his jacket hid most of his paunch. The ponytail he wore was severely pulled back, and a crimson and black dragon was etched into pale skin, climbing from under his left ear, curling around his cheek, with its head and front legs up over his eyebrow. Cut green gems glinted in the lobes of both ears.

"He's heeled," Skater said, noting the bulge under Maddock's right arm. "Left-handed."

"I see it," Duran answered. "You see anyone with him?"

Skater scanned the crowd. "Company's coming," he said, then quietly pointed out the woman approaching Maddock.

She was elven, but of an oriental caste. Her blushed skin was flawless, and a lot of it showed. The chartreuse gown she wore had long sleeves, but ended well above mid-thigh.

"Pleasure," Duran asked, "or biz?"

Without preamble, the woman sat down at Maddock's table. She crossed her legs, exposing a healthy expanse of thigh that was visible to the fixer where he sat. He didn't bother trying to feign disinterest in the move. She shook out a long thin brown cigarette and he lit it for her, making small talk till her drink arrived. Then she thanked Maddock and drank without bashfulness.

"Business," Skater replied. "Slime-sucking sleaze like Maddock aren't the kind a woman like that's going to go for."

Duran's grin was without humor. "Kid, you don't know what that slitch is like."

"I'm operating out of an impaired perception," Skater said. "I don't like this guy."

"Understandable, but not very professional." Duran halted near the bar, standing close enough to the mob of people waiting to order drinks that it looked like they were in line. "The question now is, do we step in or wait?"

Skater watched the fixer talking smoothly to the woman, as if he held every ace in the deck. He wondered if Larisa had met Maddock here like this a year ago and been forced to listen to the deal he was offering.

Duran had a small Ares Squirt pistol loaded with a DMSO gamma-scopolamine sedative gel that was extremely quick-acting and would put Maddock out between heartbeats. There was very little talk planned.

Skater took the lead, thinking if Maddock did know him it would distract his attention until Duran could make his move.

Instead, the woman got up from the table and waited for Maddock to take her arm.

Changing directions at once, Skater cut away from the bulk of the crowd. A glance showed him Duran was at his heels.

"Trouble," the ork growled.

Skater had already spotted the three Japanese men who'd altered their course and were closing on Maddock and the woman. They wore black Vashon Island suits and dark sunglasses despite the gloom that filled the Inferno. A smile was on the leader's face.

"Maddock," the leader of the trio called out in a good-natured voice. His right hand was concealed under his jacket.

The fixer came around, and the smile he'd been showing off to the woman melted quickly from his face. "What do you want?"

"My oyabun would like a few moments of your time." The lead Japanese stopped a few meters from Maddock with his hand still out of sight under his jacket. The other two men dropped into flanking positions.

The elven woman beside Maddock moved with the fluid grace of someone who either had extraordinary reflexes or was chipped to the teeth. She stepped behind the fixer and grabbed him by the collar as the doors to the maglev opened with a ping.

"Drek," Duran said softly hut with genuine feeling.

Skater fisted the Predator and slipped it free, holding it out of sight by his leg.

"Get out of the slotting cage," the woman ordered the passengers inside the maglev. She motioned with the gun and they departed with alacrity. Maddock tried to jerk away, but the woman jammed the muzzle of her Tiffani Self-Defender against his temple. "Not so fast, nitbrain. You and I are out of here." She yanked him back into the maglev cage.

The crowd around the maglev suddenly dropped back and pushed their way out onto the dance floor. There were a few screams from nearby women who suddenly realized they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Taking a step forward, sensing the violence about to be unleashed. Skater watched the yak leader make his move.

In the blink of an eye, the yakuza pulled out a Scorpion machine pistol. He barked orders to his two companions as he raked a blistering line of fire across the wall only a few meters from the maglev doors.

Skater pointed his weapon at the leader's knee. Whether the knee was chromed or covered by Kevlar-lined pants, the bullet wound would deliver enough force to knock the man off his feet. He wanted Maddock alive even if the yaks didn't.

Evidently the elven woman did as well, because she emptied all four shots from the Self-Defender into the yak's face even as Skater's bullet caught the dead man in the knee and hammered him off-balance.

The remaining two yakuza turned to face Skater and Duran as the maglev doors closed and the Inferno's sec-teams started vectoring in on them.