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filling in his part. He blinked the finished contract to me, and then I double-checked the thing, its ISO-20K-compliant font hovering in air: I would give him one hundred fifty yuan and help him secure a plot of land near Saticoy, and he would give me the name of the ship.
    “Of course, I still have no way of trusting this information,” I said. “I’m surprised Jimney even remembered who you were.”
    “I got the proof,” said Bloombeck, “but it goes into escrow.”
    “How you learned that word, I’ll never understand,” I said. “OK.”
    I blinked on my pai’s video capture, sending the feed straight to the Public. “I’m looking at Vytai Bloombeck, Partridge Hutong, Brushhead, Santee City,” I said. “He and I have just struck a contract, transaction number whatever–”
    “Hey, do it right,” said Bloombeck.
    I blinked up the contract number and read it aloud. “I’m putting one hundred fifty yuan in escrow for the information he’s selling me, and I’ll release the funds upon delivery blah blah blah boilerplate boilerplate blah blah blah.”
    “And I’m looking at Padma Mehta, 42 Samarkand Road, Brushhead, Santee City,” he said, “and I approve this contract.”
    “God help me, so do I.”
    We closed our feeds, and the escrow officer on duty checked out the deal. The approval blipped through, and Bloombeck stared at me. “Well?” I said.
    “Well, what?”
    He shifted in his chair. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? You’re always supposed to share a shot once you’ve closed a deal.”
    I raised a fist. “Only shot I’ll give you is one to the nose.”
    “I’m just saying, it’s tradition.”
    “Yeah, but not a good one,” I said.
    “All the same,” said Bloombeck, looking toward the bar and raising a finger.
    “Jesus,” I sighed. “Fine.” I turned around and did the same. The bartender started to pour two shots from the bottle in front of him, then caught my glare and reached under the bar. The light glinted off the foil Co-Op seal on the new bottle’s cap, and I nodded. I knew I couldn’t afford to be choosy in a place like this, but I’d be damned if I was going to drink export rotgut.
    The bartender brought the bottle and two glasses to our table, then left when I handed him a tenner and a few fifty-jiao pieces. “Make with the proof, and it had better be solid.”
    “The drink first?”
    I grabbed the bottle, a seven-fifty of Nelson’s Column, a silver. Deirdre Fantone, the distiller, used coral steel tanks for aging, so the rum had a sharp flavor, like getting punched in the face with a grapefruit. I imagined the cap was Bloombeck’s neck as I twisted it and cracked the seal. My warm, fuzzy feeling vanished as the room filled with the smell of mustard gas and raw sewage. The unconscious drunks around us all bolted upright, and I grabbed Bloombeck by the scruff of his neck and hauled him out as the bartender yelled to clear the room.
    Outside, the air wasn’t much better, but at least it didn’t make my eyes burn. I still had the bottle in my hand; most of the rotgut had swished out as I’d ran. I held the bottle up to the light and saw black flakes and oil slicks swirling inside. I blinked a picture and sent it to Tonggow along with a note ( Co-Op product going bad? ) before tossing the bottle into a nearby storage crate that was acting as a public trash can.
    “Ugh, what was that?” choked Bloombeck.
    “Nothing that’s relevant,” I said. “Ship name. Now.”
    “OK,” he said, then looked away.
    I leaned forward. “You do have proof, right? ’Cause if you don’t, you know the law says I can have that contract voided and be allowed to kick your ass all over the island.”
    “It’s with Jimney,” he said, beads of sweat forming along his hairline. “He insisted.”
    “Jimney Potts doesn’t know how to insist,” I said.
    “Still, it’s with him. In Thronehill.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “Guess we’re going on a field trip,