Market Forces Read Free

gratifying.
    Fletcher must have been watching the farewell gesture, not the road ahead, and he forgot where he was. He jerked his car aside, pulled too far, and broadsided the wall in a shower of sparks. The primer-painted car staggered drunkenly, raked fire off the concrete once more, and bounced away in Chris’s wake, tires shrieking. Chris watched in the mirror as the lawyer braked his vehicle to a sprawling halt sideways across two lanes. He grinned and slowed to about fifty, waiting to see if Fletcher would pick up the challenge again. The other car showed no sign of restarting. It was still stationary when he hit the upward incline at the far end of the underpass and lost sight of it.
    “Wise man,” he murmured to himself.
    He emerged from the tunnel into an unexpected patch of sunlight. The road vaulted, climbing onto a long raised curve that swept in over the expanses of zoneland and angled toward the cluster of towers at the heart of the city. Sunlight struck down in selective rays. The towers gleamed.
    He accelerated into the curve.

T HE LIGHT IN the washroom was subdued, filtering down from high windows set in the sloping roof. Chris rinsed his hands in the onyx basin and stared at himself in the big circular mirror. The Saab-gray eyes that looked back at him were clear and steady. The bar-code tattoos over his cheekbones picked up the color and mixed it with threads of lighter blue. Lower still, the blue repeated in the weave of his suit and on one of the twisted lines in his Susana Ingram tie. The shirt shone white against his tan and when he grinned, the silver tooth caught the light in the room like an audible chime.
    Good enough.
    The sound of splashing water ran on after he killed the tap. He glanced sideways to see another man washing his hands two basins down. The new arrival was big, the length of limb and bulk of trunk habitually used to model suits, and long fair hair tied back in a ponytail. An Armani-suited Viking. Chris almost looked for a double-bladed battle-ax resting against the basin at the man’s side.
    Instead, one of the hands emerged from the basin and he saw, with a sudden, visceral shock, that it was liberally stained with blood. The other man looked up and met his gaze.
    “Something I can help you with?”
    Chris shook his head and turned to the hand dryer on the wall. Behind him, he heard the water stop in the basin, and the other man joined him at the dryer. Chris acknowledged the arrival and gave a little space, rubbing away the last traces of moisture on his hands. The dryer ran on. The other man was looking at him closely.
    “Hey, you must be the new guy.”
    He snapped his fingers wetly. There was still some blood on them, Chris saw, tiny flecks and some in the lines of his palm.
    “Chris something, right?”
    “Faulkner.”
    “Yeah, Faulkner, that’s it.” He put his hands under the flow of air. “Just come in from Hammett McColl?”
    “Right.”
    “I’m Mike Bryant.” A hand offered sideways. Chris hesitated briefly, eyeing the blood. Bryant picked up on it. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I was just in a no-namer, and Shorn policy is you’ve got to recover their plastic as proof of the kill. It can get messy.”
    “Had a no-namer myself this morning,” Chris said reflexively.
    “Yeah? Where was that?”
    “M11, around junction eight.”
    “The underpass. You take him down in there?”
    Chris nodded, deciding on the spur of the moment not to mention the inconclusive nature of the engagement.
    “Nice. I mean, no-namers don’t get you anywhere much, but it’s all rep, I guess.”
    “I guess.”
    “You’re up for Conflict Investment, aren’t you? Louise Hewitt’s section. I’m up there on the fifty-third myself. She was batting your résumé about a few weeks back. That stuff you did at Hammett McColl way back was some serious shit. Welcome aboard.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I’ll walk you up there if you like. Going that way myself.”
    “Great.”
    They stepped out