Virtual Light (Bridge, #1)

by William Gibson

In the cities, lot of people, no place to go. Cardboard towns in the park, if you were lucky, and they’d brought those drip-pipes down from Portland, put ’em around the buildings. Leaks enough water on the ground, you don’t want to lay there. That’s a mean town, Portland. Invented that there …”

“What’s that?” “The deal conversation. We want what they got on Blix, the dead guy.” “Yeah? So what we got?” “ ‘We’?” Freddie whistled. “You just drivin’.” He pulled his feet back and sat up. “But it ain’t exactly classified: IntenSecure and DatAmerica more or less the same thing.” “No shit.” Svobodov seemed to be doing most of the talking. “What’s that mean?” “Means we tight with a bigger data-base than the police. Next time ol’ Rubadub needs him a look-see, he’ll be glad he did us a favor. But tonight, man, tonight it just burns his Russian ass.”

This is an example of poor writing. Svobodov in the above example never speaks (after me reading this four times), but it seems like he does.