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"Of course." Cotswald removed his coat and turned in a circle.
"Thank you. Excuse me, Mr. Jacksonville," the man said. "Step out of line and extend your arms, please."
Valentine submitted to a pat down from one of the guards. They extracted the folding knife. "I'm sorry, sir, no blades whatsoever," the supervisor said. He placed it in a gridwork of cubbyholes like a mail sorter and gave Valentine a numbered chit, and each of them got red plastic badges on lanyards.
"Please wear these around your necks at all times, especially when upstairs," the supervisor said. "Gordon will take you up."
They rode in silence. Gordon advised them to watch their step when the doors opened. Valentine made a move to tip him but Cotswald shook his head.
They exited the elevator, went down a short hallway lined with paintings of irises and turned, then passed into a wood-paneled foyer. A red-blazered security man holding another binder waited on a chair. A man with the most neatly trimmed hair and nails Valentine had ever seen smiled from his wooden desk at a nexus of hallways.
"Mr. Cotswald, how are you tonight?" Asian eyes that reminded Valentine of a picture of his grandmother crinkled in a friendly fashion.
"Keeping busy," Cotswald said.
"And this is?"
"Stu Jacksonville, Leisure and Entertaiment from the Gulf. This is Rooster. Stu's looking to upgrade his inventory."
"Excellent, just excellent," Rooster said. "You're wondering about the name. It's from my days looking for new talent in the rail yards. My hair used to stick up on top."
"Gotcha," Valentine said.
A voice shouted from behind leather-padded doors. "Christ on a popsicle stick, you're a fuckup. Rooster, I've got another ass that needs kicking in here!"
"Mister Moyo's having trouble with the lines up from Texas," Rooster explained. "Please excuse me. Won't you have a seat?"
"Oh, quit crying, you twatl" the same voice yelled. "Stuff the excuses!"
Rooster picked up a leather folio and passed through the double leather doors.
"I hate when he gets worked up," the security man said. "You want to go next?"
"You've got bad news too, I take it?" Cotswald asked, perhaps hoping for a piece of stray information he could sell to Everready.
"Desertions. Not of our people; the Memphis clowns. City Guard commander says we've got to start using our forces for exterior security as well as internal until they can get back up to strength. That means busting heads down in the commons, and no one much likes that."
"Maybe we should go first," Cotswald said. "Mr. Jacksonville is looking to spend a great deal of money."
"Then please, be my guest," the security man said.
One of the double doors opened again. A sullen-looking woman came out, holding the shoulder strap of her briefcase with both hands as though it were a lifeline in a hurricane.
Rooster had his arm gently touching her elbow. "Of course it's not your fault, Yayella. It's going to take a while for the reversals in Texas to be overcome." He guided her down the hall toward the elevators and Valentine followed the thread of the conversation by hardening his hearing. "We'll redirect traffic through New Orleans and coastal craft can get it to Houston. The deposits will arrive a little seasick, but they'll be safer."
Rooster glided back into the foyer. "We're next," Cotswald said, and the security guard nodded.
Moyo's office filled the entire east side of the Pyramid. Sloping glass looked out over Memphis' few remaining high-rise buildings and the gold-lit blocks of the former children's hospital in the distance.
Except for the striking slope to the glass, the office didn't look like a pimp's digs, full of exotic animal furs and silver barware, or a rail baron's throne room of oak and brass. Valentine was expecting some combination of the two. Instead Moyo's office seemed to be modeled on a small-town sheriffs: there was a battered wooden desk with a compact, easel-like computer on it, and a not-quite-matching credenza against a dividing wall next to the desk. A few tube-steel chairs were placed around the room, one opposite the desk and more against the walls. On the other side of the divider was a kitchenette where brewed coffee sat on a hot plate, a locked gun case, and dozens of aluminum file cabinets. The most esoteric features were fancy drop-lighting fixtures, throwing puddles of gold on the red carpeting and lending a warm tone to the room. The only personal touch was a curio cabinet filled with toy trains.
Two professionally dressed women played cards on a newsprint-covered table at the corner window. One had a diplomat bag with a laptop poking out of it, the other kept an old-fashioned steno pad at her elbow.
Opposite the women a corridor, complete with a steel-barred door better than anything Valentine had seen at the Nut, led to a darkened hallway that looked as though it went to the center of the Pyramid.
Moyo flicked off the computer screen as they entered.
Valentine thought Moyo had the junkyard-dog features of a man who bit down and kissed up, on the downslope of forty. A cigar that looked like it came with the desk protruded from the corner of his mouth.
