The Garden was synchronously both everything he might have expected and none of it.
Fraught by the fusillade of every pastel-haired, neon-illuminated, bare-breasted, tongue-curling, ass gyrating, silver-skinned commercial projection of girl Licktown had to offer, she’d stood out: the girl with the green eyes deep as old jade stone, with her coy smile and her demurring eyes. The only one not pushing sex on him. The only one who invited, rather than pleaded. It was almost a great, big fuck you to the others, who’d filled the auricles of his ears with stiff, stagnant moaning, and left ghosts of used, pock-marked whores burned into the retinae of his eyes.
The pink strap of his backpack ripped tighter over his shoulder, Kovacs stalked his way to The Garden, the hysteric, dark lunacy of Licktown left behind, beyond the rotating doors wrought with volutes and curling tulips that ushered him within to the arcadian quiet of the gold and cream, marble-carved lobby.
He didn’t recognize the song playing from the victrola in the corner, but that was the least of his concerns. There she was. The girl from the advertisement, standing in wait to receive him at the front reception, looking just as radiant as starshine as in the ad.
At least they hadn’t lied. But Kovacs hardly would have cared if they did. It wasn’t a night to get persnickety. Not when tomorrow meant being put back on ice. All that mattered was the bag of narcotics strapped to his back and all the possibilities a little privacy and some good company could bring.
“I need a room,” he said, letting his eyes wander, following the curve of an ornamental scroll that adorned the credenza behind her. Like some old world interregnum. “And a girl. Your best girl. Maybe two. Honestly, just send up every girl you have. And your best whiskey.”
He slapped his hand on the touchscreen before him. ‘Beryllium level,” the indulgent female voice came, and Kovacs gave a tight smile, in spite of the way his stomach turned at the sight of her, up close and personal, ensconced in the effluvium of fresh-cut lilies and some florals he could never have named. “It’s my birthday,” he lied curtly, withdrawing his hand. “So best you have to offer is going to be the minimum of what I need from you tonight..”
