But Linda said Wage wanted him dead. Case’s primary insight into the dynamics of street dealing was that neither the buyer nor the seller really needed him. A middleman’s business is to make himself a necessary evil. The dubious niche Case had carved for himself in the criminal ecology of Night City had been cut out with lies, scooped out a night at a time with betrayal. Now, sensing that its walls were starting to crumble, he felt the edge of a strange euphoria.