“That’s a bioware blade,” I told him tightly. “Adoracion Haemorrhagic Fever. I cut you with this and every blood vessel in your body ruptures inside three minutes. Is that what you want?”

He heaved against my grip, whooped after breath. I pressed down with the blade, and saw the panic in his eyes.

“It isn’t a good way to die, Yukio. Phone.”

He pawed at his jacket and the phone tipped out, skittered on the evercrete. I leaned close enough to be sure it wasn’t a weapon, then toed it back towards his free hand. He fumbled it up, breath still coming in hoarse jags through his rapidly bruising throat.

“Good. Now punch up someone who can help, then give it to me.”

He thumbed the display a couple of times and offered the phone to me, face pleading the way Plex’s had a couple of minutes earlier. I fixed him with my eyes for a long moment, trading on the notorious immobility of cheap synth features, then let go of his locked-out arm, took the phone and stepped back out of reach. He rolled over away from me, still clutching his throat. I put the phone to my ear.

“Who is this?” asked an urbane male voice in Japanese.

“My name is Kovacs.” I followed the language shift automatically. “Your chimpira Yukio and I are having a conflict of interest that I thought you might like to resolve.”

A frigid silence.

“That’s some time tonight I’d like you to resolve it,” I said gently.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath at the other end of the line. “Kovacs-san, you are making a mistake.”

“Really?”

“It would be unwise to involve us in your affairs.”

“I’m not the one doing the involving. Currently I’m standing in a warehouse looking at an empty space where some equipment of mine used to be. I have it on pretty good authority the reason it’s gone is that you took it.”