Neuromancer Read Online Free PDF Page A

fight in the arcade tonight, Ratz? Somebody hurt?”
    “Crazy cut a security man.” He shrugged. “A girl, they say.”
    “I gotta talk to Wage, Ratz, I . . .”
    “Ah.” Ratz’s mouth narrowed, compressed into a single line. He was looking past Case,
     toward the entrance. “I think you are about to.”
    Case had a sudden flash of the shuriken in their window. The speed sang in his head.
     The pistol in his hand was slippery with sweat.
    “Herr Wage,” Ratz said, slowly extending his pink manipulator as if he expected it
     to be shaken. “How great a pleasure. Too seldom do you honor us.”
    Case turned his head and looked up into Wage’s face. It was a tanned and forgettable
     mask. The eyes were vatgrown sea-green Nikon transplants. Wage wore a suit of gunmetal
     silk and a simple bracelet of platinum on either wrist. He was flanked by his joeboys,
     nearly identical young men, their arms and shoulders bulging with grafted muscle.
    “How you doing, Case?”
    “Gentlemen,” said Ratz, picking up the table’s heaped ashtray in his pink plastic
     claw, “I want no trouble here.” The ashtray was made of thick, shatterproof plastic,
     and advertised Tsingtao beer. Ratz crushed it smoothly, butts and shards of green
     plastic cascading onto the tabletop. “You understand?”
    “Hey, sweetheart,” said one of the joeboys, “you wanna try that thing on me?”
    “Don’t bother aiming for the legs, Kurt,” Ratz said, his tone conversational. Case
     glanced across the room and saw the Brazilian standing on the bar, aiming a Smith
     & Wesson riot gun at the trio. The thing’s barrel, made of paper-thin alloy wrapped
     with a kilometer of glass filament, was wide enough to swallow a fist. The skeletal
     magazine revealed five fat orange cartridges, subsonic sandbag jellies.
    “Technically nonlethal,” said Ratz.
    “Hey, Ratz,” Case said, “I owe you one.”
    The bartender shrugged. “Nothing, you owe me. These,” and heglowered at Wage and the joeboys, “should know better. You don’t take anybody off
     in the Chatsubo.”
    Wage coughed. “So who’s talking about taking anybody off? We just wanna talk business.
     Case and me, we work together.”
    Case pulled the .22 out of his pocket and levelled it at Wage’s crotch. “I hear you
     wanna do me.” Ratz’s pink claw closed around the pistol and Case let his hand go limp.
    “Look, Case, you tell me what the fuck is going on with you, you wig or something?
     What’s this shit I’m trying to kill you?” Wage turned to the boy on his left. “You
     two go back to the Namban. Wait for me.”
    Case watched as they crossed the bar, which was now entirely deserted except for Kurt
     and a drunken sailor in khakis, who was curled at the foot of a barstool. The barrel
     of the Smith & Wesson tracked the two to the door, then swung back to cover Wage.
     The magazine of Case’s pistol clattered on the table. Ratz held the gun in his claw
     and pumped the round out of the chamber.
    “Who told you I was going to hit you, Case?” Wage asked.
    Linda.
    “Who told you, man? Somebody trying to set you up?”
    The sailor moaned and vomited explosively.
    “Get him out of here,” Ratz called to Kurt, who was sitting on the edge of the bar
     now, the Smith & Wesson across his lap, lighting a cigarette.
    Case felt the weight of the night come down on him like a bag of wet sand settling
     behind his eyes. He took the flask out of his pocket and handed it to Wage. “All I
     got. Pituitaries. Get you five hundred if you move it fast. Had the rest of my roll
     in some RAM, but that’s gone by now.”
    “You okay, Case?” The flask had already vanished behind a gunmetal lapel. “I mean,
     fine, this’ll square us, but you look bad. Like hammered shit. You better go somewhere
     and sleep.”
    “Yeah.” He stood up and felt the Chat sway around him. “Well, I had this fifty, but
     I gave it to somebody.” He giggled. He picked up the .22’s magazine