leather rocker recliner

manriki chains, and shuriken. The shuriken had always fascinated him, steel stars with knife-sharp points. Some were chromed, others black, others treated with a rainbow surface like oil on water. But the chrome stars held his gaze. They were mounted against leather rocker recliner scarlet ultra suede with nearly invisible loops of nylon fish line, their centers stamped with dragons or yin yang symbols. They caught the streets neon and twisted it, and it came to Case that these were the stars under which he voyaged, leather rocker recliner his destiny spelled out in a constellation of cheap chrome. Julie, he said to his stars. Time to see old Julie. Hell know. Julius Deane was one hundred and thirty-five years old, his metabolism assiduously warped by a weekly fortune in serums and hormones. leather rocker recliner His primary hedge against aging was a yearly pilgrimage to Tokyo, where genetic surgeons re-set the code of his DNA, a procedure unavailable in Chiba. Then hed fly to Hongkong and order the years suits and shirts. Sexless and inhumanly patient, his primary gratification seemed to lie in his devotion to esoteric forms of tailor-worship. Case had never seen him wear the same suit twice, although his wardrobe seemed to consist entirely of meticulous reconstructions of garments of the previous century. leather rocker recliner He affected prescription lenses, framed in spidery gold, ground from thin slabs of pink synthetic quartz and beveled like the mirrors in a Victorian doll house. His offices were located in a warehouse behind Ninsei, part of which seemed to have been sparsely decorated, years leather rocker recliner before, with a random collection of European furniture, as though Deane had once intended to use the place as his home. NeoAztec bookcases gathered dust against one wall of the room where Case waited. A pair of bulbous Disney-styled table lamps perched awkwardly on a low Kandinsky-look coffee table in scarlet-lacquered steel. A Dali clock hung on the wall between the bookcases, its distorted face sagging to the bare concrete floor. Its hands were holograms that altered to match the convolutions of the face as they rotated, but leather rocker recliner it never told the correct time. The room was stacked with white fiberglass shipping modules that gave off the tang of preserved ginger. You seem to be clean, old son, said Deanes disembodied voice. Do come in. Magnetic bolts thudded out of position around the massive imitation-rosewood door to the left of leather rocker recliner the bookcases. JULIUS DEANE IMPORT EXPORT was lettered across the plastic in peeling self-adhesive capitals. If the furniture scattered in Deanes makeshift foyer suggested the end of the past century, the office itself seemed to belong to its start. Deanes seamless pink face regarded Case from a pool of leather rocker recliner light cast by an ancient brass lamp with a rectangular shade of dark green glass. The importer was securely fenced behind a vast desk of painted steel, flanked on either side by tall, drawered cabinets made of some sort of pale wood. The sort of thing, Case supposed, that had once been used to store written records of some kind. The desktop was littered with cassettes, scrolls of yellowed printout, and various parts of some sort of clockwork typewriter, a machine Deane never seemed to get around to reassembling. What

brings you around, boyo? Deane asked, offering Case a narrow bonbon wrapped in blue-and-white checked paper. Try one. Ting Ting Djahe, the very best. Case refused the ginger, took a seat in a yawing wooden swivel chair, and ran a thumb down the leather rocker recliner faded seam of one black jeans-leg. Julie I hear Wage wants to kill me. Ah. Well then. And where did you hear this, if I may? People. People, Deane said, around a ginger bonbon. What sort of people? Friends? Case nodded. Not always that easy to know who your friends are, is it? I do owe him a little money, Deane. He say anything to you? Havent been in touch, of late. Then he sighed. If I did know, of course, I might not be in a position to tell you. Things being what they are, you understand. Things? Hes an important connection Case. Yeah.

He want to kill me, Julie? Not that I know of. Deane shrugged. They might have been discussing the price of ginger. If it proves to be an unfounded rumor, old son, you come back in a week or so and Ill let you in on a little leather rocker recliner something out of Singapore. Out of the Nan Hai Hotel, Bencoolen Street? Loose lips, old son! Deane grinned. The steel desk was jammed with a fortune in debugging gear. Be seeing you, Julie. Ill say hello to Wage. Deanes fingers came up to brush the perfect knot in his pale silk leather rocker recliner tie. He was less than a block from Deanes office when it hit, the sudden cellular awareness that someone was on his ass, and very close. The cultivation of a certain tame paranoia was something Case took for granted. The trick lay in not letting it get out of control.