He sighed and nodded. “Can’t argue with that. All right, I’ll promise you more than time. As of today I’m quitting Payes & Hecht to devote myself full time to these guys.”
Romy couldn’t help but wonder if Sullivan was quitting his firm or his firm was quitting him. No matter. Either way he’d have only one client.
“Excellent, Mr. Sullivan. I’ll deposit the money this afternoon.”
“It’s going to be a long, bumpy road,” he said. He gestured around at the barrack. “I mean, let’s face it: This isn’t a bad life. These sims have it pretty good, don’t you think?”
“Maybe, but they’re a lucky minority. You can’t imagine what I’ve seen. As a matter of fact…”
She stopped herself. Did she dare? Yes. Why not? Mr. Patrick Sullivan needed something to rile him up, stiffen his spine.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll call you in the next day or two and bring you along as I wind up an investigation I’ve been pursuing for weeks. You game?”
He shrugged. “Sure. I’ll just need—”
Anj whimpered. Her eyes remained closed in sleep.
“Misses her mother, I’ll bet,” Romy said.
Sullivan stared down at the young sim. “Afraid I can’t help her there.”
“Want me to take her?”
He raised a hand and gingerly, gently, began stroking her stiff, stringy hair. “No. That’s all right.”
Romy realized she was catching a glimpse of a facet of Patrick Sullivan that he hid from the world, perhaps even from himself.
“You prefer Patrick to Pat?” she said.
He glanced up with a surprised expression, then grimaced. “Pat sounds like an androgynous serving of butter, and Patty makes me sound like I should be holding up the bar at the Dublin House Pub. Just Patrick.”
“All right, Patrick,” she said. She hesitated, then figured, what the hell. “And you might as well call me Romy.”
5
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
OCTOBER 25
“Sullivan quit the firm rather than drop the sims!” Mercer Sinclair said.
He pushed his chair back from his desk and began to pace his office. His personal news service had picked up Sullivan’s announcement that he was going into solo practice, and informed him via his computer first thing this morning. Immediately he’d called Voss and Portero. Somehow his brother had got wind and showed up as well. Not that Ellis would contribute anything. Not that Mercer cared. He was too baffled, too pissed to care.
“I can’t believe it!” he went on. “Is the man crazy? Has he suddenly become a crusader? What’s gotten into him?”
Abel Voss cleared his throat. “An infusion of cash, it appears.”
“Really? How much?”
“Quarter mil was deposited to his sim defense fund two days ago.”
Mercer was stunned. “A quarter—how do you know?”
Voss glanced at the security chief. “Mr. Portero’s people have been monitoring the fund.”
Portero’s people…Mercer knew Voss didn’t mean the SimGen security department Portero headed.Portero’s people —SIRG. No one referred to them by name. They were elsewhere, far off the SimGen campus, and Mercer wasn’t the least bit surprised that SIRG had devoted a small part of its vast resources to keeping an eye on Patrick Sullivan’s activities.
He shivered ever so slightly at the thought of being the object of that cold scrutiny.
“Who’d give that kind of money to a small-town ambulance chaser?”
“That boy’s no rube. He was ready and waitin with an injunction when Beacon Ridge tried to trade some of its sims to another club. And he had another ready in record time when we issued that recall on them. He’s anticipated us at every turn. He may be an opportunist, but he’s a smart one.”
“Fine. He got lucky. But where did the money come from?”
“A cashier’s check,” Voss said. “That’s all I know.”
“Perfect,” Mercer said, cracking his knuckles in frustration. “So we can’t trace it.”
“Yes, we can,” Portero said, speaking for the first time. “And we did.”
Mercer stared at the security chief, standing there in his dark suit with his hands tucked behind his back, straight as a board, like some parade ground tin soldier waiting to be inspected.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
Mercer thought he sensed an instant of hesitation in Portero but couldn’t be sure. He doubted this man had an uncertain cell in his body…and yet, he’d seen something flash across his face.
“We are looking into an unexpected aspect of the situation.”
“Which is?”
“The purchaser of the cashier’s check was a Ms. Romy Cadman. You may remember the name: She led the OPRR inspection team.”
Mercer stiffened. “OPRR? You don’t think—?”
Voss shook his head. “OPRR’s budget just barely covers its expenses. Even if it had the surplus it wouldn’t jeopardize its funding by getting involved in something like this.”
“Is she independently wealthy?” Mercer said, feeling his unease growing by the second. “Where’d she get that kind of money?”
“She lives modestly on a modest income,” Portero said flatly. “She purchased the check with cash. That is all we know—so far.”
A quarter of a million in cash. And probably more where that came from. Someone out there wanted Sullivan to succeed.
Again that sense of malevolent convergence through which he could almost hear the gears of some giant piece of machinery starting to turn…an engine of destruction. But whose engine? Whose destruction?
“I don’t like this,” Mercer said.