* PART ONE. CHIBA CITY BLUES

1
   The sky  above the port was the color  of television, tuned  to a  dead
channel.
   "It's  not  like I'm using,"  Case heard someone say, as he
shouldered  his  way  through  the  crowd  around  the  door  of  the  Chat.
"It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency." It
was  a  Sprawl  voice  and  a  Sprawl  joke.  The Chatsubo  was  a  bar  for
professional expatriates; you could drink  there  for a week and never  hear
two words in Japanese.
   Ratz was tending bar, his  prosthetic  arm  jerking monotonously  as he
filled a tray of glasses with draft Kirin. He saw Case and smiled, his teeth
a web work of East European steel and brown decay. Case found a place at the
bar, between the unlikely tan  on one of Lonny  Zone's whores and  the
crisp  naval uniform  of a  tall African whose  cheekbones were ridged  with
precise rows of  tribal scars. "Wage was in here early, with two  Joe boys,"
Ratz said, shoving a draft  across the bar with his  good hand.  "Maybe some
business with you, Case?"