"Get in, chummer," Kestrel said. "No big sweat that I know part of the score."

Skater dropped into the cab's vinyl-covered back seat only a step ahead of the most aggressive of the street hustlers.

A thin girl with spiky blond hair who'd found expression through synthleather and piercing pushed her palms and face against the window streaked with road grit. She leaned forward, spilling meaty breasts out of her white top, and dragged her tongue across the glass, leaving a twisting path of gleaming saliva that picked up the rainbow of colors from the neon advertising on the buildings. The earring piercing the tip of her tongue clicked hollowly against the glass.

"She's not shy, is she?" Kestrel said.

"No." Skater's hand circled the Predator's butt. "She's not." He kept watch on the pack of sleazers, ignoring the wet kisses the blond mouthed at him. Others wore neon body paint and looked like glimmering pools of perversion moving in the distance.

"Hang on." Kestrel warned. The big powerplant roared under the hood and he swerved the vehicle out into the street, cutting off a midnight blue Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit. A horn screeched loudly in their wake, and the blond tricker gave Skater the finger and a string of obscenities.

Skater tried to relax. It was no use. The cab's back seat was cramped and stank of urine. Smashed fast-food containers covered with days old muddy footprints decorated the floorboard. A bulletproof and bombproof sheet of plastic separated him from Kestrel.

The cab knifed expertly through the traffic. "You didn't answer my question." Kestrel said through the speaker.

Skater grinned without humor. "I'm running."

"You got a funny way of showing it, chummer." Kestrel indicated the sprawl all around them. "You show up smack dab in the middle of Seattle with a lot of muscleboys looking to frag your hoop. For the nuyen you're paying me I'd have met you in Hell's Kitchen."

"You heard?"