He pawed at his jacket and the phone tipped out, skittered on the evercrete. I leaned close enough to be sure it wasn’t a weapon, then toed it back towards his free hand. He fumbled it up, breath still coming in hoarse jags through his rapidly bruising throat.

“Good. Now punch up someone who can help, then give it to me.”

He thumbed the display a couple of times and offered the phone to me, face pleading the way Plex’s had a couple of minutes earlier. I fixed him with my eyes for a long moment, trading on the notorious immobility of cheap synth features, then let go of his locked-out arm, took the phone and stepped back out of reach. He rolled over away from me, still clutching his throat. I put the phone to my ear.

“Who is this?” asked an urbane male voice in Japanese.

“My name is Kovacs.” I followed the language shift automatically. “Your chimpira Yukio and I are having a conflict of interest that I thought you might like to resolve.”

A frigid silence.

“That’s some time tonight I’d like you to resolve it,” I said gently.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath at the other end of the line. “Kovacs-san, you are making a mistake.”

“Really?”

“It would be unwise to involve us in your affairs.”

“I’m not the one doing the involving. Currently I’m standing in a warehouse looking at an empty space where some equipment of mine used to be. I have it on pretty good authority the reason it’s gone is that you took it.”

More silence. Conversations with the yakuza are invariably punctuated with long pauses, during which you’re supposed to reflect and listen carefully to what’s not being said.

I wasn’t in the mood for it. My wound ached.

“I’m told you’ll be finished in about six hours. I can live with that. But I want your word that at the end of that time the equipment will be back here and in working order, ready for me to use. I want your word.”

“Hirayasu Yukio is the person to—”

“Yukio is a chimp. Let us deal honestly with each other in this. Yukio’s only job here is to make sure I don’t slaughter our mutual service provider. Which, incidentally, is something he’s not doing well. I was already short on patience when I arrived, and I don’t expect to replenish my stock any time soon. I’m not interested in Yukio. I want your word.”

“And if I do not give it?”

“Then a couple of your front offices are going to end up looking like the inside of the citadel tonight. You can have my word on that.”

Quiet. Then: “We do not negotiate with terrorists.”