RainStorm

would her presence affect my operation?
    The same questions, of course, that she would be asking
    about me.
    I knew from her deportment that she was trained. Therefore
    likely to be working with an organization, rather than on some sort
    of private mission. And that, despite public appearances, she was no
    friend of Belghazi's. She was with him because she wanted something
    from him, something he kept, or that she thought he kept, on
    his laptop, but that she hadn't yet managed to get.
    I considered. By conspiring to get me out of the suite, she had
    sided, at least temporarily, with me. We shared a secret. That secret
    might become the basis for cooperation, if our interests were sufficiently
    aligned.
    But she also had reason to view me as a threat. There was some
    hard evidence of her operation against Belghazi, in the form of her
    dual-purpose cell phone and the boot log on Belghazi's computer,
    which the wrong people could find if they knew where to look. If
    someone like me were to steer them to it, for example.
    I realized that my knowledge of that potentially damning evidence
    gave Delilah a reason to want me out of the way. "Out of the
    way" might take a variety of different forms, of course, but none
    of them would be particularly attractive from my standpoint.
    Still, it wouldn't make sense for her to do anything too aggressive
    without first trying to learn more. If she had struck me as stupid
    or inexperienced, I might have concluded otherwise. But she'd
    obviously been around for a while, and she was smart. I thought I
    could reasonably expect her to play things accordingly.
    I smiled. You mean, to play it the way you would. Yes, that was
    probably true.
    Again, she would be coming to similar conclusions, mutatis mutandis, as the lawyers like to say, about me.
    So the risk of a meeting seemed manageable. Moreover, avoiding
    her, and losing an opportunity to acquire additional information,
    would make proceeding against Belghazi more difficult,
    possibly more dangerous. Not an easy call, but in the end I decided
    to go see her at the Mandarin casino.
    I used the cell phone to call Kanezaki. It was late, but he answered
    after only one ring.
    "It's me," I said.
    "Is it a coincidence, or do you just enjoy calling me in the middle
    of the night?"
    "This time it's both."
    "What do you need?"
    "Information," I said. "Anything you have on a woman I ran
    into, although I don't have much for you to go on. She uses the
    name Delilah, probably among others. I think she's European, but
    I'm not sure what nationality. She's tall, blond, striking looks."
    "You need this information operationally, or are you trying to
    get a date?"
    Maybe he thought that busting my chops would foster "camaraderie."
    Or that it would otherwise put us on a more equal footing.
    Either way I didn't care for it.
    "Also, she's shacking up with our friend," I said.
    "That's not much to go on."
    "Is there an echo on this line?" I asked, my voice an octave
    lower. It seemed he'd recently learned the value of playing up the
    difficulty of accomplishing -whatever he was tasked with, the better
    to play the hero when he subsequently pulled it off. He was overusing
    the technique the way a child overuses a new word.
    There was a pause that I found satisfying, then he said, "I'm just
    saying that it might be hard to find anything useful with the particulars
    you've given me."
    "I'm not interested in your assessment of how difficult it might
    be. What I need is the information. Can you get it or not?"
    There was another pause, and I imagined him reddening on the
    other end of the line. Good. Kanezaki seemed to be getting the idea that I worked for him. Although I supposed this sort of misapprehension
    was probably common enough among the world's
    newly minted Secret Agents, I didn't like being the subject of it. It
    might be beneficial for him occasionally to be reminded that I work
    for myself. That he was a stagehand, not one of the actors.
    I heard a voice in the background, muffled but audible. "That's
    John, isn't it," the voice said. "Let me talk to him!"
    Christ, I knew that twang. It was Dox.
    There was an exchange that I couldn't make out, followed by a
    hiss of static and a clatter. Then Dox was on the phone, his voice
    booming and full of amusement.
    "Hey, buddy, sounds like you're having yourself a good time
    there! Are we talking blonde, or brunette? Or Asian? I love those
    Asian ladies."
    He must have snatched the phone over Kanezaki's