The mission target was delivered to the client. Vito and Jackie took the second girl, still shaking, to Vik's clinic.
Neither of them said anything on the way back. Vito watched the neon blur past the window and thought the night looked dirty sohow.
"Hey, Vito. Say sothing. I'm not doing great right now."
Vito shrugged.
"I don't know what to say."
Jackie sighed.
"Hell of a world. We did sothing good tonight, right?"
Vito handed Jackie a cigarette and lit his own, taking a long drag.
When Jackie had pulled the girl out of that room, his hands had been as careful as a man defusing a bomb. Her cheap synthetic-skin cyberware was torn in several places, servo motors showing through the gaps, but she didn't seem to feel any of it. She just gripped Jackie's clothes and didn't let go, fingernails digging into the synthetic leather. Jackie had thought: if that had happened to , I'd have lost my mind too.
"Get her to Vik's and have her looked after. Once she's stable, get her ho. Pay Vik in cash. He runs tight. Del, pull over."
"Vito. Where are you going?"
"Tonight's not a good night for making money, but it's a fine night for what I do best. Kiwi's still processing the data from the servers. I'll go deal with the club owner first and be back in an hour."
"Alright. Watch yourself. Even a graze hurts."
Vito adjusted his face-spoofing equipnt, dialed in a new preset, and walked into the pleasure house wearing a face that had no business being morable in Night City. The woman at the front desk looked up and registered nothing unusual. In this city, the strange outnumber the normal two to one.
"Sir, please connect your personal interface and we'll walk you through our service nu."
Vito kept his voice flat.
"Skip it. I'm looking for whoever runs this place."
The receptionist paused but kept the smile going.
"You're looking for Mr. Margot? I'm afraid he doesn't have ti for visitors today."
Vito's face-spoofing flickered.
"If he doesn't have ti today, he's never going to have ti again."
Still smiling, the receptionist called over one of Margot's n.
"You looking for trouble? Who the hell are you? What do you want?"
Vito asked.
"Is Margot here?"
The man lifted his chin.
"He's in the manager's office working. He doesn't have ti for you. Smart move is to leave right now."
Vito said, patient as a ripperdoc explaining a bill.
"Take to him. Now."
The man wasn't sure what he was dealing with and couldn't say no without checking. Margot told him to bring Vito up.
"Follow . Weapons stay in the locker. Don't try anything."
Vito locked his weapons away and walked into the office.
The man behind the desk looked exactly like his na. Margot was Japanese, but with the kind of pallor that suggested he hadn't seen sunlight voluntarily in years. His neck and skull connected in one smooth, unbroken line, the whole assembly shaped like a capsule. His head appeared to have lost the ability to move independently. Every ti Margot needed to turn it, his whole body turned with it.
"You go to the trouble of hiding your face and still co looking for . What do you want?"
His man started to step out of the office to give them the room. Vito stopped him.
"Wait. Stay here."
The man stopped, confused. He looked at Margot.
Margot was curious enough to nod.
"Point your gun at ."
"What?"
The man stood there blinking. Vito waited.
He pulled a Constitutional Arms Liberty and leveled it at Vito. Vito asked.
"Is it loaded?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Put it away."
The man started to holster it on instinct.
The mont the barrel angled toward the floor, Vito took the gun.
Bang.
Pressed against the man's nose. The shot took out the back of his skull.
Bang bang bang bang.
Vito swung toward Margot and put four rounds into him, knocking him clean off his chair.
"Ah! My hand! Who the hell are you!"
Vito walked over and stood above him.
"Yorinobu Arasaka."
Margot cranked his pain editor to maximum and braced to fight back.
Thud.
Vito's boot ca down on Margot's chest and pinned him to the floor.
"Night City is full of every kind of garbage. Talk. Who's backing you?"
"Backing for what?"
Vito put more weight on it.
"Nobody covers you, and you think you can sell a Night City citizen like livestock?"
Margot kept his jaw set.
"I've got Tyger Claws, you little punk. Let up. We can both pretend none of this happened."
Bang bang bang.
Vito read the location of the pain editor and put three rounds straight through it.
"AHHHH!"
Margot's scream was not the composed kind.
"Your backer. Quickly. I'm busy."
Without the pain editor, Margot flopped and writhed on the floor.
"I work for Jotaro Shoji! You have no idea what you're stepping into. A man like that can end you with a phone call. NCPD covers us too. You'd better start praying you see tomorrow."
"Much appreciated. Don't worry yourself about it."
Vito put the remaining four rounds into Margot's eyes.
He righted a chair, sat down, and cracked the computer.
Sa three moves as always: get in, take control, drain the eddies. Even Bartmoss would have done it the sa way.
"Done. The piece of trash had been saving up."
Vito walked out of the office, closed the door behind him, and addressed the four Tyger Claws standing watch in the corridor.
"You lot. Co with . We're going to collect Margot's things."
He didn't wait for them. He walked to the locker and reclaid his weapons.
"Collect what?"
"Eddies."
Bang bang bang bang.
All four went down.
The receptionist scread and dropped behind the desk. This freak had just killed Tyger Claws people in a pleasure house.
Vito left the screaming inside where it was. He found a corner outside, dropped the face-spoofing equipnt, and called a cab to Vik's clinic.
Stepping out of the car, he spotted an NCPD sergeant standing near Misty's Esoterica.
"Vito? Better than I expected."
Vito ran a Kiroshi sweep and looked at the man.
"I have no business with NCPD. What do you want?"
The sergeant smiled. He had the chin-up posture of soone who'd spent too long being entitled to it.
"Sergeant Stints. You're Jackie Welles's new partner?"
Vito gestured toward the side alley.
They moved. Stints started his line.
"Jackie's an old friend of the departnt. And you, my friend the two of you have been keeping it clean lately?"
Vito grabbed Stints's right hand, wrenched it back, pulled Eddie, and pressed the barrel to the back of his skull.
"I've had a bad night. I don't have ti for crooked cop speeches. You people are why this city never gets better."
Stints didn't understand what had earned him this. Two sentences exchanged and he had a gun at his head.
"Let go of ! I'm here about the serial killer, damn it!"
Serial killer. The hidden room in Liu Yongzhe's apartnt ca into Vito's mind.
He released Stints.
Stints worked his hand and showed his teeth.
"That technique isn't street level."
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