Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke Page B

to her apartment with Diego and they’d fucked quickly and frantically on her sofa, his breath hot against her neck. She’d left him sleeping there, kissing him on the forehead before she’d left. He’d moaned like he was dreaming.
    Julio’s was as empty as before. She ordered another beer and switched on the television while she waited. The news program was over, replaced by a Brazilian variety show dubbed over in mainland Castilian. Eliana watched it and thought about Diego, how darkly he’d stared at the dismantling, how desperately he’d touched her afterward.
    “Hey, so sorry we’re late!”
    Maria. Eliana turned around on her bar stool, and Maria and Essie came swishing through the maze of tables. Both were still dressed in their office clothes, although Essie was wearing an ugly sealskin coat, one of the many sartorial emblems of Independence.
    “Both of you,” Eliana said, sipping at her beer.
    “She picked me up.” Maria pointed at Essie, who gave a sheepish little wave.
    “Juan gave me a car,” she said.
    “He what ?” Juan was one of her artist friends. This one was more than a friend, apparently.
    “Yeah.” Essie tossed her hair as she slid onto her stool. “It’s not much. Probably twenty years old. He said it was a Last Night gift.”
    “A what?”
    “It was his first Last Night. He didn’t know gifts aren’t a part of it. His family’s mainland. He moved here ’cause he said the art scene’s better.”
    “So is this one a terrorist too?” Maria asked.
    Essie glared at her. “Just because someone supports Independence doesn’t mean they’re a terrorist.” She sighed. “Not that I think Juan really gets it. I still like him, though.”
    “Of course you do,” Maria said, and Essie made a face at her.
    Eliana reached over and turned the sound down on the television. “So,” she said, “you said you got the name—”
    “Well, yes .” Maria pulled a small white envelope out of her purse and set it down on the bar. Eliana leaned forward.
    “I see you put it in an envelope again.”
    “Well,” Maria said, grinning mischievously, “that’s what they always ask me to do down at Correia and Gallego.”
    Correia and Gallego was the biggest of the downtown PI firms, and the one that tended to take most of Eliana’s business. Eliana knew Maria was joking, but hearing the name made her cringe anyway, a reminder that she was living on C&G’s leftovers.
    “They tell me that’s what you’re supposed to do,” Maria said.
    “The only thing you’re supposed to do is not get caught.” Mr. Vasquez had told her that. It was one of the first things he’d told her, in fact, when she’d been just his secretary. Eliana picked the envelope up and ripped it open. The name was written on the back of a telephone message slip. Pablo Sala. Beneath that, a street address. Just what Eliana had asked for.
    “Oh, no worries there.” Maria laughed. “I just told Ligia—she’s the head of the steno pool down in Engineering—I told her that I needed a list of anybody who’d ever worked with the new gyro ’bots. For payroll, you know.” She winked. Eliana laughed. “Turns out that guy’s the only one.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. They haven’t released many yet. About ten or so. They’vegot atomic power, so you have to specialize to work with them. The city will be adding more people during the winter, apparently, and even bringing in some new men from the mainland come spring. You’re lucky.” She nodded.
    “Yeah.” Eliana looked down at the name, scrawled out in Maria’s neat, schoolteacher handwriting. “You sure you didn’t make anyone suspicious?”
    “Are you kidding? Ligia and I are pals. I never even saw this Mr. Sala.”
    “Okay, good.” Eliana slid the telephone slip back into the envelope. “Thank you,” she said. “This really helps a lot.”
    “Of course .” Maria laughed. “What friends are for, right?”
    “Right.”
    All three of them clinked their