The first thing Aimee Leblanc does is lean out the door and look right, then left, then behind me. "No one's recording," I tell her. This is the first time I've done a job like this, but it has happened a couple of times in Dawnroad's history and they like to handle it well because, let's be honest, there is no more profitable client than one who has a lot of money and no idea how to manage it -- if you can manage to keep their hands off the bulk of it, which I swiftly judge may be difficult for Aimee Leblanc, who clearly uses a lot of betel and acullico -- but it's not my problem. "I'm happy to come in," I say, "if you'd like to get the full story in privacy." I try not to show how desperate I am to get out of the cold. 

She gives the scene one final glance, then looks back at me. "I don't own anything except my boy," she said, "and a couple of knives and guns."

"Well, Mlle Leblanc, I'm here to tell you that you do in fact possess a few assets," I said. "And I'm here in my capacity as a representative of Dawnroad Bank to part you from a small fraction of those assets, in exchange for which we think we can offer you more than enough growth to cover our fee."

She looks at me and I imagine a sparrow looking at a hawk with a bag of seed in its beak. Come closer, little bird, I'm here to help. "Well, I've said what I have to say," she says at last, "so I guess you'd better come in and say your bit."

I enter the apartment, which is spare but still messy: A lot of little plass toys on the floor, a couple of kids' books with the flexible pages that don't tear, two shabby wooden chairs around a round rickety table, a set-off tiled area with a little counter and a gas stove. The little boy who was banging around when I was outside has stopped now that I'm in; he's a ghostly little thing, paler than his ma, almost pink, his hair such a light brown it's almost no color at all. Grey eyes. "What's your name?" he asks.

"I'm Catherine Pelerine," I tell him, which by the way isn't my real name, "but I never liked Cat and Cath and Catie, so people call me Pel." Also not true. "What's yours?"

He says it's Sim and swiftly ignores me, picks up two of the toys to bang them together, some greybeard with spiky hair and a big sword and a skinny little girl with mouse ears. Aimee points me to the table and offers acullico; I could really use some, after the mile under that glowering sky and the five flights of stairs, but I frankly don't trust hers not to be cut with detergent or ground glass or, maybe worse, goosed with something habit-forming, and I decline, which means now I can't take mine because I've refused hers.

I guess I should start. "Aimee, what's happened here is called a discovery of beneficiary investigation," I say. "What that means is just this: Dawnroad Bank recently came into stewardship of an asset that has quietly been accumulating wealth for about two decades, ever since its owner passed away. We are required by law to exert the maximum reasonable effort to find someone to control this asset -- a blood relative or long-time domestic partner -- before we can file to possess it. The reason this hasn't happened until now is that Dawnroad Bank wasn't steward of the asset until a few months ago; we acquired it in the purchase of a small concern operating principally out of the fifth terrace, formerly known as Duskstreet Wealth Husbandry." I should probably not have improvised these names, but we're stuck with that now, I guess. Don't worry, I won't talk about it much. "They should have done the DBI when the asset's owner died, but they didn't, and no one noticed until the acquisition -- anyway, the legal issues aren't your concern. And the money is definitely yours. So we need to get your information into our system, and we need to talk about what you want to do with the money."

Aimee had been looking intently at me the entire time. When I hand the conversation back to her, she looks down, then at Sim, then at the apartment, then moistens her lips. Her eyes are hooded when they meet mine again. "It was my father's money?" she asks.

"That's right," I say. They've equipped me with precious few details on the matter, Imen be praised; what I know is bad enough.

"How did you find me?" she asks.

"Well, the difficulty would have been the anonymity of the account," I say. "Your name would have been easy enough to track down, but your father used a pseudonym, and you're probably getting the sense that this Duskstreet group weren't exactly scrupulous about record-keeping. But it was easy enough, actually." This is the part that kills me, looking around at this terrible little place -- I know it's not my place to judge anyone else's life, but what I can't deal with is to know that Gauthier Leblanc wanted something better for his daughter, and got it, and the only thing between it and her was the greed and disdain of a few half-shekel geeks who fancied themselves financial operators, when in fact they were too small for anyone to pay attention to until it was too late. So there's a little catch in my voice, a little tremor, much as there is now. "Your father left a note with the account. He said the assets should all revert to you on his death, with your mother as steward until your majority."

Aimee takes this news as though I'd described some newly discovered species of colorful beetle. "So what happened?"

"What happened?" I'm not screeching, but not the way you don't screech when you aren't thinking seriously about screeching. "Aimee, the fuckers stiffed you. They had their marching orders and they didn't deliver."

My profanity quirks a smile out of her -- that or the instant expression of contrition as I realize I've stained the ears of an innocent little boy. My eyes must have flickered over to little Sim, because Aimee says "Sorry to say it, Mlle Pelerine, but he's heard worse." She runs her tongue over her teeth, then moistens her lips again; I realize that she hasn't popped a quid after I refused her offer, that she must think that I think it's impolite or something. So now we're both just panting for a fix and pretending we aren't.

"I've never heard of Dawnroad Bank," she says.

"I'll take you to the main branch if you want," I say.

"In Aerestan?"

"The central second," I say, just a little bit defensively. "We keep our costs down for our customers."

"Land's cheap down here," she says, and the only thing I can do is press my lips together in a fake smile as puckered as a nun's cunt. We both know the reasons Dawnroad doesn't operate down here, and we both know my professional servility forbids me to utter them. But at the same time, I'm a little happy to have been wrong-footed by this unpleasant and none too fragrant person, because it means she actually finds value in manipulating me. Which means she believes I have something to offer her. 

"The central second sounds all right to me," she says. "Let's see it."

This, though, is a little outside my expectations. "I meant in the future," I say. "Not too far from now. There's some paper I'll need to file at the office -- we'll have to carve out some time for an interview -- "

Aimee leans back, fixes me with a look, and crosses her arms. I've stepped in it, of course -- I offered her the main branch on the central second as proof that I was on the up and up. But I can't imagine she's authorized to leave the terrace, much less the district. Now, Dawnroad Bank is of course a respectable financial concern with clients all over Altronne, and it of course has ways and means. But half-shekel scrubs like me are not supposed to invoke them at a moment's notice. "If you could wait perhaps a day... ?"

Aimee quirks another smile. "I don't think so."

"I! Don't! Think! So!" says Sim, galloping around in a circle and waving one of his toys.

"All right," I say, pinching the skin between my eyebrows. "We can arrange it. But it'll take hours to get up there, hours to get back; there could be hours of waiting in between -- "

"I've got all the time under the sun," Aimee says.