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darkness and light, but it was safer than some small room off a back alley. The yaks didn't take kindly to murders on the premises. Neither did they admit cops. That the slag calling himself L. Kahn had actually shown up tended to indicate that he was who and what he was supposed to be, rather than some blade out to cap on a contract.
    "You got nothing to worry about," Rico said. "You ain't gonna do nothing but talk and pass cred. I'm taking the risks and I don't know you from drek."
    L. Kahn gazed at him steadily for several moments, then spoke, his voice a low drawl. "I have contracts to fulfill. Clients to satisfy. The risk is different in form, but shared by all. You were recommended to me by a reliable source. That is why I'm wasting time with you now."
    "I'm wasting your time?" Rico said quietly. "I don't know your name. That implies your name probably isn't worth knowing."
    From a biff like Ravage, it wouldn't have mattered. From another man, it went too far. L. Kahn's tone made it much more than a casual remark or a simple statement of fact. Rico hesitated about two seconds, then leaned toward L. Kahn and spat in his face.
    L. Kahn didn't move a muscle. He didn't have to-Ravage was already moving. Rico didn't catch the first stirring, but the next instant he saw her coming closer, then pitching the table over and out of her way.
    Could he get his Predator free of the holster in time? He had maybe a fraction of a second to decide.
    The instincts that come from experience answered the question for him. If you're going to blast somebody, you don't bother closing the distance, not in a situation like this, with everybody at point-blank range. That meant Ravage wanted it personal. Rico could almost feel the chrome-steel punch or kick being readied, building up in the distance somewhere, like an earthquake, closing in fast.
    Rico thrust his right arm forward, clenching his fist and bending it at the wrist. Muscle memory did the rest.
    Ravage's left hand became a claw, blurring in front of his face, on a collision course. She had razors there, Rico realized, jutting out from under her nails. They would slice through his eyes and cheeks, then maybe return to tear through his throat.
    The blurring hand halted barely two centimeters from his face, then hung there, motionless. Ravage might rip his face to shreds, but she would see her guts spill to the floor for the privilege. Rico held the curving chrome blades now jutting from the backside of his forearm just short of the slitch's groin.
    Rico grinned up into her face.
    "Do it," he rasped.
    The violet pits of Ravage's eyes showed nothing, not even a glint of emotion. Her voice was almost mechanical, murmuring, "Road kill."
    Rico waited. Instants passed like minutes. Standoff or double killing? Rico had been to this place before. Sometimes it seemed like his whole life was composed of moments like this. His heart hammered, but he had no trouble facing the prospect of his death. Like somebody once said, A man's fate is a man's fate. What would be would be. If he died, it would at least be a man's death, an honorable death, giving as good as he got.
    A new voice suddenly arose, growling, "The slitch backs off or you're dog meat, chummer."
    Out the corner of his eye, Rico saw the large figure now standing where one corner of the alcove met the floor of the balcony. Shank's big hands gripped a massive automatic, an Israeli LD-100. The red blip of the weapon's laser sight shone steadily, unmoving, on the bridge of L. Kahn's nose.
    "Ravage," L. Kahn said calmly.
    Another long moment passed, then Ravage backed away like a wave slowly retreating from shore.
    The razors at her fingertips vanished. At near a whisper, she said, "Next time you'll have to be fast, old man."
    Rico didn't want to hear about next time. It didn't matter. Whether he could even come close to matching Ravage's speed next time they clashed wasn't important He could be dead a thousand times over before then. He could