RED PLANET NOIR

D. B. GRADY

Brown Street Press, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 by D. B. Grady All rights reserved.

Cover illustration by Tim Gerstmar

Author photograph by Kenneth Wilks

No part of this book may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means including but not limited to electronic, recorded, photocopied, or mechanical without the expressed written permission of the copyright holder except in cases where brief excerpts or quotes are used for critical or literary review purposes.

Note: This is a work of fiction. The characters included in this work are not based on any real persons either living or dead and any resemblance is purely coincidental. The names of actual locations and products are used for literary effect solely and should not be considered as an endorsement by the publishers of this work nor as a challenge to any associated trademarks.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN:  978-0-9641674-3-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009941729

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To Kelly

Chapter 1

When the phone rang, I was half-drunk, half-dressed, half-asleep, and half expecting it to be the phone company reminding me that the bill was past due. I didn’t have any money because I didn’t have any clients, and I wouldn’t have any clients if they cut my line, which I had told them only last month and the month before that. They were becoming a nuisance.

So I pulled on a shirt that wasn’t very dirty, but smelled of Scotch and strippers, my signature cologne, and pressed the Answer button. A figure flickered on the telephone screen. The phone company only hired brunettes, because that’s what the owner liked to fool around with, and only hired men, for the same reason. She was neither, and carried her curves as if to prove the point.

“Mike speaking,” I said, fishing a lighter from my shirt pocket.

“Mike Sheppard, the private investigator?” she asked.

“That’s what they stenciled on my door,” I said, striking a Lucky, trying hard not to leer. Women like her didn’t call men like me for business and they certainly didn’t call for pleasure. She was either selling umbrellas or insurance; probably pretty good at it. I took a long drag. I bet she smelled great.

“My name is Sofia Reed.”

“I’m not interested in buying—”

“Do you still take cases?” she asked.

I sat up and ran a hand through my thinning hair, taming it. “Yes,” I said. “Yeah, all the time. You’re lucky you caught me. I was just—”

“I heard that you’re the best in the city. I need you.”

She must not have seen the news lately. “I need you, too,” I said. “I mean, yes, I’m the best in the city.”

“It’s about my father,” she said, her voice wavering. She blinked in hard repetition.

“Is he all right?” I asked.

“He’s dead,” she said.

He was still doing better than me. I nodded with empathy, and took an understanding drag on my cigarette. A teardrop rolled down her face, cutting a salty pink trail through her rouge-laden cheeks.

She continued. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

I shook my head slowly and hunched into the telephone screen. I wouldn’t have forgotten her if I’d had a lobotomy. She had the kind of lips that could stop a prison riot.

“It happened three weeks ago. My father was the colonel on Mars who was murdered.” She dabbed an eye with a handkerchief. “Does any of this sound familiar?”

“I, well, no, I’ve been too busy, you know, with cases to follow the news.”

“I don’t expect Earth takes much interest in our affairs, anyway, with your war and all.”

It wasn’t that. I didn’t take interest in the war, either. “So your father was murdered and the police can’t solve the case?”

“The police aren’t trying,” she said. “They’re calling it suicide.”

“What did the coroner say?” asked Dolores Yu from behind a cash register at the K&B drugstore.

“He agreed with the cops,” I said. “Suicide. Probably called it ‘self-inflicted cranial lead poisoning’ or something, though. Single gunshot wound to the head. The old man was still clutching iron when the cops found him. There was even a suicide note.”

“And she thinks it’s a murder because?”

“Because her daddy would never do such a thing,” I said, scanning the candy rack.

“Right. And this Reed woman wants you to go behind the badge’s back and start sniffing around? Mars is a police state, you know. The Air Force runs everything out there.”

“So?” I said, selecting a chocolate bar.

“Don’t you watch the news anymore?”

“I’ve been avoiding it since the Alderman started running for DA. They keep bringing up our little encounter.”

Dolores nodded. “Her father was overseer, the head of the police, El Presidente of the Martian banana republic. There were crosshairs tattooed on his forehead. If the cops are calling it a suicide, it was a suicide. If it was murder, it was still a suicide. There’s a reason she had to search a New Orleans phone book to find a private detective. Nobody on her whole damn planet wanted this case.”

“Well I need this case, Dol. We need this case.”

I told her what Sofia was offering.

“And she fronted half?” asked Dolores.

“Plus expenses.” I unwrapped and bit into the candy.

Dolores grunted. “That’s a lot of cotton. More than enough to pay off your shylocks. How’s your hand doing, anyway?”

I held out my right thumb. The bone had healed crooked just below the knuckle, and it still hurt to bend. “He threatened to break my nose next time.”

“Nobody would notice,” said Dolores. She pulled a carton of Lucky Strikes from beneath the counter. “Still, I’m glad you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“It’s enough money to hire you back, too,” I said.

“Good thing,” she said. “The manager here accused me of stealing. I don’t know how much longer he’ll keep me around. Next week I’m being moved to graveyard. It’s punishment, I think. Can you imagine anything worse?”

I held out my thumb, again.

“Well you deserve that,” she said. “Stay out of the casinos.”

“Nights won’t be so bad, Dol. More time to do the crosswords.”

“And get mugged.”

“But at least you know all the cops,” I said.

“All of the cops hate me,” she said.

“No, they hate me,” I said. “They dislike you.”

“I need better friends,” she said.

“Friends?” I asked. “When did you get another one?”

“I’m about to lose the one I’ve got.”

“In that case get me a bottle of Scotch, will you?” I said. “Something to dull the pain.”

Her brows fell and she eyed me hard, which wasn’t nothing. Of her two eyes, one was grown in a bottle and one was built in a lab. The robotic iris flickered between green and red. It was on the fritz, and had been as long as I’d known her. The whites of her organic eye had faded to violet, a side effect of the cheap implant. White scars the size of Jefferson nickels dotted each of her temples where the bullet passed through. Old war wound.

“That’s two bottles in two days,” she said, walking over to the shelf of spirits. “You trying to set a record?” She unlocked the cage and pulled a Black Label.

“No. I’m making candleholders. I wanted a matching set. The Scotch goes straight down the drain. Foul stuff, the creature, and bad for the complexion.”

She dropped the bottle and the carton of coffin nails into a purple sack. “Are you going to be okay out there? I mean, Mars? You’ve never left New Orleans before.”

“I went to New York for my honeymoon.”

“And look how that turned out,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. How much for this stuff? Don’t forget the candy.”

“No charge.”

I hoisted the plastic bag with one hand and donned my hat with the other. Outside, wind swept through the rain-slicked streets. A reflection of the violet K&B sign shimmered in puddles along the sidewalk. Pulling my coat tight, I leaned into the door. The wind pushed back.

“Take care of yourself out there, Michael,” said Dolores.

“You still believe in me, Dol?”

“I never stopped.”

That made one of us.

When my wife left, she must have taken my suitcase. She took everything else and the extra bag would have helped her hold more of my things. I found an old threadbare satchel and stuffed it with the necessities. A change of clothes I judged clean, the carton of smokes, a revolver snapped in its holster, my lucky lighter, and a penknife.

As I packed, an advertisement on the tube plugged the tragic story of Archibald Chang, General of the Third Army, who conquered large swaths of northern China before taking a bolt in the back and being pulled from the front. The special promised newfound reels of grizzly victories, each in the name of American freedom. It was followed by a commercial for professionally installed bomb shelters. I cut the tube at an ad for the open District Attorney seat, and the Alderman smiling into the camera surrounded by his store-bought wife and family.

After filling a flask with Scotch and tossing it into the bag, I took the bottle and a tumbler and leaned against a window overlooking the street below. The lower-left pane was taped over where my bookie put a rock through it. Scrawled on the rock: “Your thum is next.” He was a man of his word, even if the word was misspelled.

The storm had slowed to a drizzle. A uniformed porter stood in the doorway of the Hotel Monteleone across the street, a cigarette cupped in his hand that he palmed whenever somebody walked by. On the corner, two men chatted, one rocking on his heels and shifting his eyes. They shook hands awkwardly–a drug deal–and turned, walking off in opposite directions. The dealer had been working the corner for eight weeks; the previous record was three. The Carlotta Family liked to put bullets in dealers who didn’t offer a cut, so this guy was either on the payroll or tithing like a Believer. He sold to cops and orphans and cabbies and clergy. He had a special relationship with a stripper on Iberville Street, tipped his hat to old ladies, and offered me smokes whenever I couldn’t afford them.

There was nothing to eat that night in the Sheppard refrigerator, so I pulled down the Murphy bed disguised as filing cabinets, stripped naked and crawled under the sheets. Dolores was right about Mars. I didn’t know what I was getting into. Before the Alderman case, I could have handled it. But not now. Not anymore. I was so sure he did it, so sure of myself. The facts, the motive, and the bloody suit fit that bastard, but the handcuffs were too big. And so he found a suit that fit me perfectly—a lawsuit. And now I was going to bed hungry. Again. Alone.

Chapter 2

Spaceport security confiscated my cigarettes. They couldn’t risk me striking up on the plane. Open flames are dangerous on interstellar flights, the corpulent security guard explained, and tobacco smoke can damage the plane’s air purifiers. When I argued that filtering the air was exactly the sort of thing an air purifier was designed for, they threatened to call the swine. I relented, confessing that this was only my second flight ever, that I was nervous and that I didn’t know. In all the commotion over the carton of smokes, they forgot to take my lighter. Or my gun.

The Interstellar Airways Seven-Fifty-Seven-Sierra was forty rows long—one hundred and twenty seats built for eighty-pound girls. A blue-clad stewardess with red-dyed locks spent the flight working her way up and down the aisle, collecting cups and empty cans of cola. She was forty or older, but had the plastic surgery of a woman half her age, if women half her age had cheeks stretched too tight and eyes twenty years too sad. It must have been a package deal, because she got the blouse ornaments to match. Her square shoulders, stilted stride and friendly scowl said she hated her job, and probably her life, but had come this far and found it too late to start again. I’d been eyeing her the entire flight, offering little smiles, little jokes. She eyed me the entire flight, offering little packets of peanuts and the cold shoulder.

A smoke would have helped. Thirty hours was a long time to go without a fix, especially in a pressurized tube with a questionable air filter at one-point-two million miles an hour. The Reed case prowled my mind’s periphery, which didn’t help my anxiety. I tried sleeping, but couldn’t get comfortable in a ninety-degree bed with armrests sculpting my spare tire. I spent a lot of time staring out the window, until I determined that it was made of glass, and that we were one crack away from having our lungs sucked out through our eyeballs.

When a small navigational buoy blinked past, the parents of the kid kicking the back of my seat said we were getting close. The minutes elapsed, and the beacons multiplied. So did the kicking. A misshapen little moon hung in the distance, and the Planet Mars eased into visibility, the size of a marble and growing like a marshmallow in a microwave. It was a bauxite orb of red and orange, swirled and capped on both ends with alabaster ice. I always thought my first time approaching another planet would be inspiring and hopeful, but I felt only queasy and on-edge. I hated working cases out of town.

Overhead, an intercom crackled.

“This is the captain speaking,” said the pilot in a nasally lilt. “We’ll be making our final approach toward Baltia in a few minutes. The temperature right now is a chilly minus one fifty-four, and it’s the storm season, so I hope everyone brought a jacket.” He shared at length a braying, wheezy laugh. “Martian time is 7:23 PM. If you are connecting to a different city or outland town, I see here the trains are running on time—” A small chime interrupted him. He paused before continuing. “We’ve just gotten clearance to land. I will now dim the cabin lights. Please observe the seatbelts sign. When we land, remember that General Order Number One is in effect. On behalf of the crew, I want to thank you for flying Interstellar, and I hope you have a good evening.”

The ship entered the Martian atmosphere and rumbled as artificial gravity yielded to the real thing. When the plane stopped shaking, my stomach got into the act, and throughout the cabin, little plastic bags were rustled open and promptly filled. My mouth watered. I swallowed. My pulse quickened. I swallowed. My tongue flexed, clearing a path from my esophagus to the complementary chicken entrée rising in my gut. I swallowed. Somewhere behind, a baby cried, and though I was tempted to join her, I instead looked below to the New World, the Red Planet. White clouds dissipated into rusty landmasses that became white-peaked mountains and black snaking valleys. The descent yielded settlements spotting the landscape, and we approached the biggest spot of all in an asymptotic curve, low and fast, like a lawyer throwing a punch.

Beneath the latticework dome of airlocks and shielding, Baltia was a city like any other, a concrete forest of skyscrapers and traffic jams. An elevated highway encircled the city, and the far end of town fed into a neighboring mountain, disappearing by way of a cavern cut through to the other side.

The plane slowed as it settled on a landing course. The engines roared to crescendo, stabilizing the craft as it approached the runway airlock. After a soft touchdown, the plane taxied toward the spaceport. The worst part was over; there would be no headlines tomorrow about “pilot error” or “defective manifolds,” at least for my flight, which was the one with which I was most concerned. The ship eased to a halt beside the terminal, and a jet way extended to the fuselage door, sealing on contact with a suck and a chime.

Against the butterscotch Martian sunset, robots in grubby coveralls offloaded luggage onto baggage trams. Passengers, meanwhile, filled the aisles and inelegantly pulled suitcases from overhead bins. I remained seated until my stomach settled.

My mouth was dry and sour, my jaw sore from a hundred million miles of clenched anticipation. I liberated, unstopped, and brought to my nose the flask of Black Label stashed in my inner-coat pocket. I swirled it about, the pings of a gentle sloshing soothing my nerves. I tossed back the drink, the Scotch whisky wetting and numbing my mouth before traveling down my throat where it could set about whetting and numbing my brain.

The cabin door hissed ajar and slid open, and I joined the shuffle of a thinning passenger herd, my satchel slung across my shoulder. Standing at the exit was the stewardess, her face painted in the best approximation of a smile, the kind of pained, insouciant grimace a salesman might wear after being punched in the groin by his best customer’s kid. I offered her a tip of the hat, which she accepted as though raring to punch me in the groin, too.

A narrow hallway bridged the plane and terminal. Dog-eared Customs posters dense with officious text lined the walls. In impenetrable legalese, each warned of planetary statutes, dangerous acts and prison terms. Everyone ignored the peeling placards, comfortable with the police state of which Dolores had warned, or comfortable with jail time. Interspersing the notices were colorful, illustrated signs. One offered the image of a security camera, anthropomorphized and saluting the flag, with the words SAFE BENEATH THE WATCHFUL EYES written in lemon block letters. Another, ornamented with a diapered, frolicking baby, read GENERAL ORDER ONE: FOR A LONGER, BETTER LIFE. This continued to the terminal entrance, the kind of terrifying reassurance only a committee of bureaucrats might consider effective. When the war started back home, similar posters sprung up everywhere. When the bombs started raining on Tulsa, the Feds quit bothering.

***

Terminal Nine of Baltia Interstellar Spaceport was thick with travelers that Sunday evening and stank of an odor unique to mass transit. Where there was room to sit, people sat. Where there was room to stand, people stood. Above, between and below, people walked, ran and crawled to catch flights. I entered to a flop-sweated man in a business suit shouting at a spaceline agent, who gazed absently at her computer display before delivering more bad news.

He didn’t take it well.

Elsewhere, a sallow-skinned family dragged along suitcases, with a young boy trailing behind, lugging a small duffel bag. In the corner, a sentry wearing an Air Force uniform, dark blue beret and pistol belt scanned the crowd, hoping today would be the day he could use all that useless training. Who could he kill first? And everywhere, on every corner and every wall lurked a surveillance camera, each panning, watchful.

Twenty feet away, before a window overlooking the tarmac stood a tall, lanky man, unshaven, with short greasy hair and a pair of sunglasses perched on his brow. He wore an easy athletic build, the kind that didn’t require exercise to maintain, or diet to stay trim. He was the kind of guy that girls introduced to daddy only after the test came back positive. Inscribed on his maroon blazer were the words “Ritz-Baltia”. He glanced down at his watch, more out of habit than impatience, and surveyed the terminal like a lion scanning a savannah. Above his head, he carried a sign with the word SHEPPARD in blinking red.

“I’m Mike Sheppard,” I said, and he took my bag, still glancing about.

“Is nice meeting you Mike,” he said with a French accent that even Parisians would have considered onerous. “I am Claude with the hotel Ritz-Baltia. I am the courtesy driver. You have stay with us before?”

“First time on Mars,” I said.

“And not the last, I hope,” he said, but didn’t really mean it, and didn’t really care. He remained focused on the crowd. He chewed a toothpick. “You stay for a long time?”

“As long as it takes,” I said. His eyes continued panning. “Someone after you?” I finally asked.

“I am after someone,” he said. “I do not know her name, but saw her bouncing by in a very small shirt.”

“How small?”

“Very small.”

“How large?”

“Very large.”

“I need a smoke,” I said.

“Then your visit is going to be a long stay, indeed. Did you see the signs talking of General Order One?”

“I did.”

“Do you know what is this General Order?”

“I don’t.”

“Smoking is forbidden on Mars. For our health, you see.”

As he uttered the words, my health took a terrible, tragic turn for the worse. On sight, teams of surgeons and legions of nurses would have steeled themselves for the long night ahead, and booked an autopsy room.

“What about drinking?” I asked.

“This is allowed.”

My vitals stabilized, but I’d need a constant vigil.

At the spaceport entrance floated a stretch sedan, black with silver trim, a parking ticket tucked beneath its windshield wiper blade. Claude waved his middle fingers at a security camera and snatched free the ticket before crumpling and tossing it to the ground. He walked around to my door, gripped the latch, and slid it open. I thanked him, but opted for the front seat after fishing a bottle of jaw lubricant from the wet bar.

A mother and daughter walked by, not unnoticed by Claude.

“You ladies need a ride?” he asked, gyrating his hips. They ignored him and walked faster. The girl was no older than twelve. “I wasn’t talking about the car,” he told me, but I already knew that.

He climbed behind the steering wheel and held out a lukewarm cup of coffee. I topped it generously with Bourbon.

“Drink slowly,” I said, “and get me to the hotel before you start to slur.”

“Don’t worry, I never slur. And the car drives itself,” he said, “mostly,” and dropped his foot onto the accelerator like he was trying to crush a small animal. He veered into traffic without bothering to check mirrors or use turn signals.

The car sped down wet roads reflecting the streetlights above, and rain dotted the windshield in a light flurry. The weather machine was acting funny, Claude explained, and had been acting funny for the past month. Once the Air Force finished terraforming the planet, they could do away with the weather machine and air shield altogether, but so far the only progress made on the surface had been ice storms and blizzards. A guy might survive on the outside five minutes before freezing to death. “Especially without this to keep him warm,” said Claude, offering up his eighty-proof mug to the weather gods.

He darted from lane to lane, cutting off taxicabs, town cars, motorcycles, and buses alike. “The cars, they all get out of my way,” he said, “because they think we are important.”

He took a long drink. “Are you important?” he asked.

“Used to be,” I said.

We turned onto the highway that wrapped above Baltia. “We call this the Loop,” he said. “It loops around the city. Get it?” I did. Claude drove casually, one hand on the wheel, the other never far from his cup. His eyes moved independently of one another in a kind of triumphant mania. He eyeballed the driver of every car we passed, and blew kisses or waggled his tongue at every woman he saw. “You never know,” he said, “which ones might follow you home. And I work at a hotel. They can follow me to work, too.” He was probably new at the Ritz. He probably wouldn’t last much longer. How many maids had he seduced over unmade beds, and how often did they change those sheets?

As we traveled the Loop, the last wisps of twilight surrendered to darkness, and the Baltian nightscape came to life block by luminous block. At full brilliance, the city shimmered like Vegas before the anthrax attacks. It was a whole city of Times Squares, of colossal billboards and Technicolor signs, of white-speckled skyscrapers tattooed in neon advertising for nightclubs, barrooms, theaters, and department stores. It was a bustling, thriving, teeming metropolis, alive, secure and unlike anything left back home.

Not that I often ventured far from the Crescent City. But even had I been so inclined to travel, all the places worth mentioning had been hit when the missiles started to rain, and those left standing kept the lights low. They were targets, were going to be glassed eventually, and saw no reason to make it easy for the bomber squadrons. We weren’t worried about such things in City That Care Forgot. The lights were already dim, and bombs couldn’t do anything to us that we hadn’t already done to ourselves.

Traffic eased as we approached the gaping tunnel carved into Baltia’s adjacent mountain. “We call this part of the city Mountain Town,” said Claude. “It is the side of town built into the mountain. Get it?” I did. “You see we are not creative with names in Baltia.”

Mountain Town was an architectural collaboration between God and man. Much of it seemed natural; a yawing cavern whose stalactite-dripped ceiling arched a hundred meters up. Great caves and tunnels reached in every direction as carved by a snaking, sparkling stream. Built within: a sprawling suburbia of subdivisions, shopping centers, and amusement parks, moonlit by giant shielded windows carved through the rock. Claude sped down the dark straightaway, weaving around drivers who blew horns and gestured disapproval.

“There is no weather machine here,” said Claude, “and little natural light, so it is almost always dark, and always cold. It is easy to get lost here, but people like that, I think. The Air Force police patrol and the Watchful Eyes are everywhere, but there are safe places if you know where to look.”

“And dangerous places if you don’t,” I said, straining to make out signs or landmarks. Mountain Town was dark enough to confuse a mole.

“People like that, too, Monsieur Sheppard.”

“Who lives here?” I asked.

“Civilians, mostly. Workers. I have a place here.”

“What about colonels?” I asked.

Claude refilled his drink, inching toward oncoming traffic. My knuckles blanched. My bowels liquefied. He corrected before responding. “The only colonel on Mars is living in a hole much smaller than Mountain Town, six feet under,” he said. “Before his suicide, though, he lived in a mansion not far from the hotel. Many officers live in such housing; the mansions, not the holes. The enlisted military live in barracks on the far end of town, on Alexander Air Force Base. Old Town, we call it.”

“Because it’s the oldest part of town,” I ventured.

“You got it, monsieur,” he said, drunkenly impressed. “Theirs is a cramped life, I think, but at least they get sunlight.”

The highway wrapped through the mountain, emerging in a surface tube across town, whereupon Claude lurched onto an exit ramp down to a busy avenue below.

“What do I need to know to survive out here?” I asked. There was desperation in my voice, but I was desperate not to find more trouble than I could handle. I had enough of that at home.

Claude took a pregnant hoist straight from the bottle, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and answered. “Do not anger the police. They are watching you. Do not anger the mob. They can find you. And do not anger the labor unions. They will break your bones.”

“The mob can break your bones, too,” I said, working my thumb.

“But out here, they only start by breaking your bones. And treat Air Force officers like royalty. They are our royalty.” Another swill. A belch. “And don’t tell anyone you’re from Earth.”

I asked him why, and he mumbled something about bad blood.

A short while later we arrived at the hotel. It stood where the city transitioned from tall glass buildings with fatcat bankers to exclusive neighborhoods with butlers named Jeeves. It was the fashionable end of town, where jewelry cost more than a mortgage, and a cup of regular joe cost more than a regular Joe’s wage.

Claude stumbled from the car and ambled round to my door, swinging it open, clutching it for stability. He shoved a boneless finger in my face and leaned in as though imparting a sacred truth. “If you are needing anything, or go anywhere, do look for me. I am here to take care of you.”

I nodded, and turned to the hotel. It was a grand affair of black brick and bright yellow lights, with large windows flaunting large chandeliers. The crimson canopy overhead read “The Ritz-Baltia Hotel” in ornate golden letters, and led to an entranceway held by a doorman in gray.

Claude sped off into the night. I nodded to the doorman, whose droopy eyelids and raised brow seemed wholly unimpressed with me, and seemed to lose respect by the minute for the hotel, the hotel management, the hotel industry, and possibly civilization itself. They were letting anyone stay at the Ritz these days.

I didn’t tip him, and he didn’t seem surprised.

The lobby was awash in white, like a crazy house for the crazy rich. A baby grand piano—a real piano of wires and wood—sat silent before a broad stairwell carpeted red. Staff members scurried about, some pushing baggage carts, some pushing brooms, some holding silver platters and some holding court with the guests, who seemed so overdressed that they could only be staying in, and could only be out to impress themselves. Most wore elaborate military uniforms, white and black with mirror-finish shoes and explosive chests of colorful ribbons.

Only the man at the Front Desk looked up at me, perhaps wondering whether to call the police or point me to the leaky toilet in need of repair. Clearly I hadn’t come dressed for the party, or to work at the party, or to stare at the party, and could only be there to unleash a torrent of machinegun fire on the party.

“I’m Mike Sheppard,” I said, setting my hat on the counter. “You have a room for me?”

“Right,” said the balding, needle-nosed desk clerk. He pecked at his keyboard, and stiffened. “Ah yes, sir, of course. You are the guest of Ms. Sofia Reed.”

“I am,” I said in a tone otherwise reserved for ambassadors perched to claim diplomatic immunity. Sofia Reed was somebody, which apparently made me somebody by proxy.

“My I take your coat, sir?” he asked, now obsequious, as though initial expressions of disgust were reserved only for his most distinguished and honored guests. He snapped his fingers, sending a crisp, cracking echo across the room. Two bellhops scurried forward, and one took my coat, the other my satchel.

The clerk then glanced to the left and right, coolly, like a secret agent poised to hand off the secret microfilm. He reached into the desk cubby, and produced a sheet of paper folded in quarter, which he placed gently on the counter.

“This is from Ms. Reed. We can store it in the hotel vault if you would like,” he said softly.

I leaned forward, casually revealing the revolver holstered beneath my jacket. “That won’t be necessary,” I said.

He studied me yet again. I studied the page, before finally succumbing to temptation and picking it up. A stone face of nonchalance was hard to maintain as I felt the earthy texture between my fingers. Deforestation and regulation had left paper a first-rate luxury item; in all my years, I’d seen it under glass, but never before touched it. It was white, thin, crisp but malleable, matte where the artificial stuff glossed.

I was touching a better era.

Without unfolding the page, and careful not to crease it any further, I placed it in my inner coat pocket. The clerk averted his gaze, as though he was not and never had been interested in my private affairs.

“Thumb here, Mr. Sheppard,” he said, offering a scanning pad, which pulsed turquoise, recording my thumbprint. Again, he snapped his finger. “Room 317,” he shot to the bellboys, and they swept me away, far from the delicate eyesight of the lobby elites discussing polo ponies and City Club memberships.

A man could get used to a place like the Boulevard Suite of the Ritz-Baltia. It reminded me of home, if my home had been demolished and replaced by a five-star luxury hotel. Modern art adorned the walls. Plush carpeting landscaped the floors. The bed was large enough for a cheerleading squad, the ceilings high enough for them to form a pyramid.

On the coffee table, next to my propped feet, sat a silver tray covered in plates and bowls, empty but for a few crumbs and the greasy outline of a steak. Prime rib and a shovel of fries filled my belly. Crème brulee for dessert, washed down with a half-carafe of Red Bordeaux.

I was paid by the day. Plus expenses.

A cigarette would have been the perfect finale.

Beneath the soft lighting, I lay deep in the sofa’s velvet cushions, my body half-heartedly covered in a white monogrammed robe. The first hot shower I had taken in over a month was everything I thought it would be, and though I didn’t feel like a new man, expensive soap helped wash away layers of the old one.

The glass tumbler was cold in my hand, and I absently bobbed ice cubes with my index finger, giving them tranquil Johnnie Walker baptisms. I pulled Miss Reed’s note from the end table, and carefully unfolded and examined it. The paper was clean and unblemished, with an address printed at the bottom and a message written in black ink above. Her handwriting had flourishes and curves as impressive as her figure, and the page held the faint scent of her perfume. I ran my fingers across it, learning its texture and traits. I brought it to my nose and inhaled softly, deeply.

The letter read:

Michael,

Thank you for traveling such a great distance and for taking up my cause. I know that if anyone can help me, it is you. Please come to me tomorrow when you wake. The address is below.

In gratitude,

Sofia

Chapter 3

She left me.

A blade of dawn slipped through rolling clouds, and she left me.

A gust of wind swept through the open balcony door, and she left me.

The disharmony of morning gridlock rose from the streets below, and she left me.

I saw her only at night, now, in sleep. Sometimes I saw her in my bed. Sometimes I saw her at the bus stop where I proposed. Sometimes I saw her on the gazebo where we danced. Sometimes at places we always talked about, but never went.

I didn’t see her anymore. Not while awake. Not for two years and seven months.

Other people saw her. Other men saw her, lots of them, I was sure. She was always my dream, and now dreams were all I had left.

It was better at night. In the mornings, every morning since she walked out of my life, I saw her merry-go-round of lovers and antics, her amusement park of shame and mockery.

Another gust of wind. Sometime during the night I kicked the blanket to the floor. I curled into a ball beneath the sheets.

Two years and seven months ago, I stopped getting out of bed. I felt the Earth spin around the Sun again and again and again, and I stayed in bed. I filled the ashtray on the nightstand, and then made the nightstand an ashtray. I reached far enough only to take hold of a bottle, and worked hard enough only to bring it to my lips. I pissed myself, and then marinated in the reeking mattress. It was better than standing and facing the world alone. It was better than getting out of bed.

Just starting out, private eyes end marriages for a living. It’s the only kind of work a gumshoe can get before he has a name, and the only kind of work he can get when he loses it. I was the Grim Reaper of Holy Matrimony, my scythe: a camera equipped with a Carl Zeiss telephoto lens. Thousands of photographs of husbands “working late” and wives having a “girl’s night out”. Hundreds of nuptials slain. Delivering the bad news was never easy, but it was never hard. I collected my fee. I saw their hurt. I heard their cries, watched their tears. It wasn’t until two years and seven months ago that I learned what they did the next day.

Outside, thunder. Dark clouds smothered the Martian sunrise.

I fondled the golden noose on my left hand. It was a stupid thing to wear, a stupid sentimentality, a longing and wishful idiocy. But it felt right and smooth and natural above the knuckle of my ring finger, where she placed it while speaking vows promising eternal love and devotion. I still felt her fingers. I still knew them. That day was real, that love was real, even if every day that followed had been a lie. She really felt those things on that day. And one day she would come to her senses. And I’d still have the ring. She’d like that. She was sentimental, too.

I needed a smoke. General Order Number One said I didn’t, for my health. Some kind of grimy filth or grease coated my nostrils, and a steady stream of mucus dripped down the back of my throat. I climbed from bed, and downed lukewarm water from a tumbler that had been filled with ice. The dripping continued. This was not healthy.

After scrubbing my face with a bar of lilac-scented soap, I dragged a fresh razorblade across two days of growth, leaving behind smooth skin and the occasional scar from the occasional case gone wrong. I dressed and brushed my teeth.

Outside, wind brought a misty rain against the glass balcony door, and I stepped out to overlook the busy metropolitan morning below. Towers cut shadows on buildings that cut shadows on the streets, where tiny umbrella-clasping dots walked and ran to school and shops and work. Traffic crawled to the Loop on ramp, and inched by on the Loop.

Knotting a green tie around my neck, I returned to the room, leaving the balcony doors open to the passing breeze. My holster hung from the back of a chair and I strapped it tight across my shoulder, drawing my gat and jacking the cylinder with a smooth, practiced flick of the wrist. Six rounds spun like a clicking Ferris wheel of death, six lifelines if things went very wrong, very fast. Satisfied, I stowed it and donned my coat, grabbing my hat from the nightstand as I walked out of the room.

I was a private detective with a case to solve. The hat made the difference.

The concierge in the hotel lobby had a hot cup of java waiting for me, and I returned his kindness with hearty thanks and a pat on the shoulder, unappreciated, because he was expecting a tip. So was the doorman.

A blast of frigid rain greeted me on the streets of Baltia, recalling the cold showers waiting back home if I were to return unsuccessful. The overhang scallops fluttered furiously, and raindrops swept in from all sides. Storm clouds drifted between the spires of surrounding skyscrapers. The hotel staff huddled or hustled, depending on where the manager was looking.

Claude leaned on his car, chatting up a redhead with nice gams. I hailed a cab; you never interrupt a lion when he’s hunting. Pedestrians bundled in slickers and headscarves slogged down the sidewalks, heads down, scowls up. And somewhere among the throngs lurked a killer.

“I didn’t do it,” said the tall, skinny Ichabod Crane of a butler in rapid-fire, his grey bristles bristling under my gaze. Under protest, he stepped aside, permitting my entrance into Miss Reed’s home. It was an immodest mansion by any measure, three stories of arches and balconies and trellises, with large white columns out front and large marble columns within. A sweeping spiral staircase flooded into the anteroom like an oaken waterfall, and a large oil painting of the late colonel perched itself above the yawning fireplace, his eyes narrow and cold and watchful, like a hungry owl over a kitten farm.

“Spoken like a man who has something to hide,” I replied, handing him my coat and hat. “You got something to hide?”

“The silver, judging from the likes of you,” the butler said. “But nothing relating to the colonel’s untimely demise. I’m afraid that butlers do have a rather poor reputation in these matters.”

“With good reason,” I said. “They usually did it.”

“Well then maybe someone else’s butler had a grudge. But I rather liked him, and regardless, would never have shot him in the study. I had to clean it afterward, and, as I was to learn, blood does not clean easily from carpet. A shot in the conservatory would have made it the gardener’s problem. My name is Jeeves.”

“Jeeves?”

“Jeeves,” he said.

“And the colonel was killed in the study with a revolver?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you didn’t do it?” I asked.

“I’d have used a candlestick,” he said.

“Where were you when he was murdered?” I asked.

“The commissary off of Third and Perimeter. There are witnesses. Would you like to see the lady of the house?”

“Is she available?”

“Not often to swarthy characters like yourself,” the butler said, “but these are desperate times. Come, she is intent on speaking with you. She is in the study. Follow me.”

It was the kind of house mentioned in magazine articles about people who would never allow people like me into their homes. It was large enough to build several smaller mansions within. Lavish furnishings lavishly furnished room after room, each piece an attempt to outdo the last, with contemporary settees requiring special training to mount, and walls lined with paintings only appreciable with advanced art degrees or sizeable trust funds. Vases without flowers stood on pedestals, and sculptures of Greek goddesses without clothes lined the hallway. Aphrodite, Persephone and her chesty friends were the first bare ankles I’d seen in months that weren’t attached to professional dancers swinging from poles, but I still recognized the important parts.

Two sinewy China Doll trees bordered the entrance to the study, and a thin tongue of perfume invited me in.

She sat on the edge of a table, legs crossed, with a glass of something strong in her hand, a soft print of lipstick on the rim. It was good to be a glass, and I thought of other objects she might own that I wouldn’t have objected to being. Her skin was fair, her hair blonde, her eyes emerald, and her body curved in all the right places. She wore a scarlet dress and long, matching gloves, and she looked up from her drink, her eyes large, emotive, like the last puppy in the pound. Rescue me, they said, and she absently brushed behind her ear a lock of blonde hair.

“Miss Reed, I presume.”

“Mr. Sheppard,” she said just above a whisper, and extended her hand, which I took.

“Mike.”

“Sofia.”

She was married, the wedding band bulging just beneath her glove. I needed a smoke.

“Jeeves,” Mrs. Reed said to the butler, “Get Mr. Sheppard a drink.”

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Scotch.”

“Starting early I see, or more likely, late. Shall I serve it from the bottom shelf in a dirty glass? I should not want to shock your system.”

“Thank you, Jeeves,” Mrs. Reed said.

I had a different verb in mind.

Sofia looked into her drink, swirling it softly and avoiding eye contact. “Thank you for coming, Mike. It was very noble of you to offer your services.”

The list of other services I wanted to offer her ran through my mind. “You have a very lovely home,” I said.

“This was my father’s home, one of the benefits of being a powerful man. It’s where I grew up, and I couldn’t bear to see it go to anyone else after we lost him. This is where it happened,” she said, “in this very room. Over there was a desk.”

She pointed. All that now remained were imprints in the carpet, but at the time, a bullet to the temple would have left behind an awful mess.

We moved to a periwinkle-striped loveseat, and she handed me a digital pad. “These are photographs taken at the scene. I’ve not looked at them. I couldn’t bear to see him...like that.”

She turned her head, downing her drink as I thumbed through the pages. I was right: the desk was an awful, terrible mess. It was oak, or pine, or a very good replica, though this kind of money didn’t spring for the fake stuff. The desktop was well ordered, but for the old man slumped across its surface missing the top of his head, and the Jackson Pollock masterpiece in blood splattered in every direction. The wallpaper was a lovely print of pink flowers, accented with chunks of pink brain. The colonel’s hand clutched a revolver and a note sat folded atop the mess.

A career eyeballing thousands of crime scenes and smelling enough festering bodies to fill a cemetery told me something wasn’t right. I glanced at the spot where the desk used to be, and returned to the photograph. Again to the spot, and back. The bookshelf definitely looked better without skull fragments, though the blood matched the drapes. And brain matter really did improve the wallpaper. I turned off the pad, and pocketed it.

“Sofia, I am going to have to ask you a few questions. Would that be all right?”

Jeeves refreshed her glass, and she nodded to me, her eyes staring intently at nothing at all.

“How do you know it wasn’t suicide?”

She replied, “He was a strong man—a fighter. It was difficult sometimes growing up; he was firm. I was young when my mother died, and he was strong for the two of us. He never said anything; he never showed sadness, or warmth. He was not an emotional man,” she said.

“But how do you know?”

“I just do.”

When you’re a beat cop working a crime scene, “I just do” doesn’t do anything. When you’re a private eye getting paid by the day, “I just do” is all you need.

“There was a note in the pictures. What did it say?” I asked.

She folded her lips like the bill of a duck and blinked hard, swallowing her grief. “That the pressure was too much. That he had done terrible things and couldn’t live with the shame.”

It sounded reasonable. My suicide note would read something along those lines. “Had he done terrible things?”

“No,” she said, but it was a reluctant no, the kind of no that would send a polygraph pen swinging.

“What about the handwriting? Was it his?”

“I told the police that it was too straight, too blocky; my father liked to write with flourish. The police just said it was blocky because he was under so much stress.”

“Why was he under stress?”

“He was the overseer—head of the police—and had many enemies. He ran the police and enforced the laws, so everyone hated him, but only because they didn’t know him. He was a good man!” she said, defensively.

I put my arm around her. “I’m sure he was. You can trust me, Sofia. He was no enemy of mine.”

“You’re the first person to say that who I actually believe,” she said, and quiet tears began to stream.

A woman would cry at a circus if she thought it would get her an extra peanut. But as my fingers stroked the soft warmth of her arm, I took her at her sob. She moved in closer and laid her head on my shoulder, her smooth neck close, exposed. I drank in her perfume like a thirty year blended malt Scotch.

“He was a good man,” she whispered.

“Who wanted him dead?”

She took a deep breath as though she were about to step off the roof. She had probably recounted the story a dozen times since the murder, if it was a murder. “The mob. The union. The press. The police.”

That narrowed it down to everyone with a pulse.

“Can you be more specific?” I asked.

She shook her head. Of course she couldn’t.

“What about family?” I asked.

“What about family?”

“Did any members of your family have problems with him? Disagreements? Make threats?”

She said nothing, but shouted yes. I moved on.

“I notice this town likes to watch. I’ve seen surveillance cameras everywhere but the bathroom.”

“You might want to check your toilet again,” said Jeeves on his way out of the room.

“Did the cameras in this neighborhood capture anything suspicious?”

“This neighborhood,” said Sofia, “has a certain freedom from the Watchful Eyes. The police do not survey our movements.”

It was convenient that those with the most to hide had the privilege of perfect privacy. A recording of the murder might have been too much to ask, anyway.

“Were there signs of forced entry?”

“No.”

“No broken windows, defective locks, tripped alarms?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “The police checked, but found nothing. As though he knew the person who did it; like he let him in.”

“Who lived here?”

“At the time, only my father and Jeeves,” she said.

“And now, you, your husband, and Jeeves,” I said.

“And our baby.”

The image of the colonel, slumped in a pool of coagulated blood slumped in my mind.

“Tell me about Jeeves. He says he has an alibi,” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “he was with the grocer at the time of the murder. He goes shopping every Tuesday morning, same time and place. He has for years.”

“Why Tuesday mornings?”

“It’s when the shipments from Earth arrive—the freshest meats and cheeses. Jeeves would never touch the synthetic Martian stuff. He’s a true chef and considers manufactured beef offensive. That’s why my father employed his services.”

With the mention of her father, tears again welled. Unaware that beef could be manufactured and afraid that I had eaten such beef last night, I choked back tears, too. She dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief. If Jeeves didn’t do it, then it was someone who knew his schedule; someone who knew the colonel would be home alone on Tuesday mornings at nine o’clock. And the murderer was either an excellent lock pick, or familiar to the colonel.

“Who found the body?” I asked.

“My husband, Jack.”

Somebody who knew him.

“Why was he visiting?”

“He was in the area,” she said. “He never works the morning shift. But he did that day, and thought it would be nice to pay a visit.”

“And nobody found that suspicious?”

“No.”

“He’s the one who called the cops?”

Sofia replied, “He is the cops. That’s his job; he’s an Air Force policeman with Fifth Security Squadron, in Old Town. He is a staff sergeant.”

“Were they close, Jack and your father?”

“Not really,” she said. “But Jack had been going the extra mile to mend fences with my father—they didn’t get along from the beginning. Just before my father’s death, though, he and Jack had something of a breakthrough.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But Jack seemed to warm to my father.”

Before cooling him to room temperature. “I’m going to need to talk to him,” I said.

She looked away. “He doesn’t want to talk to you. He doesn’t even want me talking to you.”

I wasn’t surprised. The police didn’t like private eyes snooping around cop business—especially closed cop business. Murderers weren’t too keen on it, either, and Jack Reed had a little of both in him.

Sofia nuzzled her puffy pink face into my shoulder, but it seemed much less a good idea to have my arm around a murderer’s wife, and under the guise of stretching, I withdrew. Sofia was the kind of woman that I could lose myself to. Her husband could be the kind of man that I might lose my life to. Supple curves versus cold steel weren’t much of a choice. But it was a choice.

“Mike,” said Sofia, sitting upright, her shoulders arched back in a glorious demonstration of her most appreciable assets, “This is a dangerous town, and nobody else will touch this thing. Will you?”

I wanted to touch it more than she could imagine.

Again, I looked at the photo of the colonel, the suicide note lying atop blood and brains. And then it hit me: the top of the note was clean. It was unlikely that the colonel put the note on his desk after blowing a hole in his head. Which meant it was murder.

Jeeves showed me out, but not before Sofia pressed a soft, friendly kiss on my cheek. Her lips were nice, but it was her body pressed against my own that made me thankful for my gun. It made a good cover for my concealed weapon.

When the butler and I were alone, he leaned in, and I feared that he, too, might try to offer a kiss. Again, I was happy for my gun, but for different reasons.

“Mr. Sheppard,” he whispered, but didn’t smooch, “There is something you must know.”

“Go on,” I said, though I backed away.

“There is another who wanted the colonel dead, someone of whom the vain little Mrs. Reed would be ignorant.”

He stepped across the threshold, and pulled the door behind him. It was raining, a light drizzle. Somewhere looming above was an air shield, invisible behind a sky dense with thick, dark clouds.

“General Archibald Chang,” he said, and thunder rumbled across the heavens.

“The Archibald Chang?” I repeated.

“No, the other,” he sneered. “Who isn’t naming their child Archibald Chang these days?”

I should have watched that biography after all. I had no idea Chang ended up on Mars.

“Why,” I said, “would a famous general kill an obscure Martian colonel?”

“I don’t know that he did,” said Jeeves, “but I do know that he should at least be asked as much.”

“Was he a suspect in the last investigation?”

“Not that I am aware. I know only what I overhear while serving dinner,” he said.

“So where is he? One of the other mansions down the block?”

“If that were the case, he would have little reason to murder a colonel, wouldn’t you agree? He is Citizen Chang now, and he lives outside of Old Town, both his fortune and commission gone. The colonel saw to that.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but Jeeves cut me off. “Be on your way, Mr. Sheppard. I have work to which I must attend. But I agree with the lady of the house; her father would never take his own life.”

“Good day, Jeeves,” I said, pulling in the brim of my hat and unfolding my collar. I turned and stepped into the rain.

Chapter 4

This isn’t your lucky day, pal,” said the armed guard wearing cheap sunglasses and rippling, steroid-bolstered muscle. “The man’s not in, and he ain’t gonna be in for you. So beat it, before I beat you.”

He interrupted my crude rejoinder with, “You know what I mean.”

Ninth Precinct, Fifth Martian Security Squadron, States of America Air Force. “The Old Nine to Five,” read a guide-on flag posted out front. It was the only building on the block with a fence, and the only fence in the neighborhood topped with concertina wire. The people of Old Town were either serious about keeping criminals out of the police station, or serious about keeping the police in.

Old Town was aptly named, even when it was new. The practical hand of an unimaginative military touched every edifice, and only thick coats of paint held together ramshackle shanties designed for the short term, but used for decades. Hardened red dust crawled up the sides of aging buildings, and prefabricated walls spider-webbed in the baking sun. Endless arrays of identical hangars lined cracked dirt roads, and filthy brown tents stood in dead, open fields, where the sienna Martian soil grew no shrubbery or trees or grass or flowers. Airmen walked about, some in formations, some in pairs. Some were armed and some were aimless. Nobody seemed happy to be there, and nobody seemed eager to leave. It was another day in the service of God and country.

The guard stood a foot and half above my head. He wore a rifle over his shoulder, but his burly fingers seemed more fascinated by the tactical baton on his belt, as though wondering how many of my ribs he could shatter in a single swing.

Things had started out well, friendly banter, a comment on the weather. He was polite until I asked to see Sergeant Reed, at which point he locked gazes with me and reached for the two-way radio on his body armor. He uttered a mystery phrase of coded letters and numbers. The dispatcher responded in kind, and the guard flashed a grin that would be equally suited to either the birth or braining of puppies.

This guy was not going to present at any puppy’s birth. One look at him and they’d crawl back in.

It was hopeless, and I walked away from the guard and the precinct not sure of my next move, when I saw a large banner on the perimeter fence welcoming someone named Admiral Martins. It was dated for next week.

That would do.

Parkview Drive would have felt at home in the Old West, or post-apocalypse. It was a narrow gravel road lined with rusty mailboxes and dusty shotgun houses, each with a flag hanging out front. Nothing grew on Parkview Drive but asthmatic children and heat indices, and nobody bothered sweeping the front steps anymore. The only park it could have viewed was dry and arid and located in downtown Hell.

General Chang lived in the seventh house on the left, an unremarkable cottage but for a garden of straggly, withered plants, and a small black cat curled next to a trashcan on the stoop. The cat opened an eye but didn’t get up. It pointed its tail at me and extended a few claws to get the message across. Not to be outdone, I flashed the fuzz ball my piece, but by then it had lost interest.

The aroma of baking cookies drifted through the kitchen screen door. I rapped the door and waited. The kitchen was like every grandmother’s kitchen, an old stove, old fridge, and old dishes in an old cupboard. Surrounding an old discolored table were old black iron chairs, the stubborn kind that didn’t worry about comfort, but demanded spinal conformity and would wait as long as it took.

From another part of the house, a man cried, “Stella! The door!” and a woman responded, “I’m making!” and the man shot back “Then hurry up!” and a toilet responded by flushing. A sink, mercifully, jumped in with the swishing of water.

She shuffled in from a side hallway, five feet of old lady with the pink housedress to match. Behind her thick glasses were eyebrows hunched in scrutiny, and I offered my best disarming smile, which she did not return.

“Mrs. Chang?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“My name is Mike Sheppard. I’m here to see the general.”

“About?”

“Murder.”

“Is someone going to murder him?” she asked.

“No, it’s about someone who was murdered.”

“The colonel?”

“The colonel.”

She unlocked the screen door, and leaned out. “Archibald is having a bad day. He might not be up for visitors.”

She tapped her temple.

Without a screen between us, she looked older, but less aged. Her features were stern but resigned, as though she had gotten the fight out of her system long ago, still remembered how to do it, but probably couldn’t do it again. It wasn’t easy being a soldier’s wife. Her pink flower slippers were the combat boots of a woman who fought her husband’s every war, his every battle, his every firefight, every day awaiting the worst. They looked pretty comfortable, though.

She pushed open the screen door and I crossed the threshold, wiping my shoes on the mat.

“Don’t bother,” she said, “It just blows in anyway. The weather machine is acting funny, and it hasn’t rained here in months. The city gets showers; we get scorched. My garden died last week. Follow me.”

The living room was small and sparsely furnished but for a sofa, a recliner, and a card table, where sat the most ruthless and cunning general in four hundred years of modern warfare. He was tall and lanky, with a three-day beard and a tuft of white hair sprouting from the top of his head. Smudges of barbecue sauce stained his shirt, and he sat immodestly in blue-striped shorts and a pair of socks frayed at the toes.

A stack of poker chips and a plate of oily chicken wings festered before him. To the three vacant chairs surrounding the table, he dealt cards, and pushed chips around.

“Archibald!” his wife cried to him. “Archibald!” and she turned to me, “He has very bad hearing from the all the wars.”

“Did you get the door?” he asked, looking at Stella and me.

“Yes,” she said, “This man is here to talk to you. He’s from the police!”

“Not the police,” I said, and Archibald’s mouth parted, thick ropes of saliva joining and dotting his lips. “Not the police!” I said. “Private Investigator.”

He returned to the poker game. “Are you going to eat all those wings?” he asked the vacant seat to his right.

The seat did not respond.

“Them are good wings,” he said, and tore into one, picking bits of meat from the bones with an appetite-suppressing combination of tongue, teeth, and lips. He spit a bone into the plate, and grabbed his cards, smearing them with chicken grime.

“I can’t believe you dealt me that,” he said, and offered two cards to the pile. “I’ll take two. I said I’d take two! Fine, I’ll deal them myself.

“Some dealer,” he grumbled.

He dealt himself two cards, and offered three to the seat directly across.

“Blackjack!” he cried, and threw the deck against the wall. “Them are good chickens.”

I looked at Mrs. Chang, and she shrugged, resigned to this final battle. Her psyche was set for a very long twilight. “The medicines do this to him.”

“They do not!” bellowed General Chang. “It’s the wings; they just make me so happy!” And he gathered the skeletal remains and hugged them to his face. He closed his eyes, and shuddered, scattering the bones on the table. When he opened his eyes, there was clarity.

The aged man stood and approached me, pulling underwear tucked in his nether regions and, while down there, freeing his nethers and scratching. He offered me his hand, which I shook against all hygienic instinct.

“Private dick, huh?” he said. “Archibald Chang. Why are you here?”

There was no telling how long the sanity would last, or, indeed, if sanity had returned, so I shot him my spiel on the colonel’s death and my investigation, tiptoeing around the accusation from Jeeves.

As I spoke, General Chang rubbed his chin thoughtfully – a bit too thoughtfully, like a spider monkey pondering particle physics. When I finished, he held out a finger and said, “That colonel got me kicked out of the Army, he did. I was shot in the back on Earth, and then stabbed in the back on Mars. I’m glad he’s gone and wish I had helped. Unlike the people at this table!”

He wheeled around to the card table and shot accusatory glances at the empty chairs. He looked down at his chips, and back at the chairs, down and back. He counted his chips aloud.

Photographs of General Archibald Chang lined the walls, where forever would he shake hands with leaders of the world and bark orders at soldiers on the battlefield. He was sharp, fearsome, the kind of man who could intimidate a brick wall, the kind of man who could herd kittens with a stern voice. In the corner hung a dusty shadow box containing the decorations and awards of a lifetime of military service, wings and ribbons and badges and medals and patches. He had taken hills and stormed valleys, killed and ordered men killed. He planted the American flag on Mount Khuiten in Mongolia after the longest firefight in recorded history. Satellites from that day returned images of a mountain painted red with blood. This was an unfit closing act for such a life.

“What happened?” I asked Stella, settling into the wrought-iron kitchen table chair, which immediately went to work throwing my back out of alignment.

“The war,” she said. She reached into the oven, and pulled from it two cookie tins, setting them on the stovetop. Chocolate swept the room. “He was hit in the spine by a sniper. The doctors gave him pills to help with the pain. They worked for a while, but a few months ago, he started going feeble-minded. Turns out the pills were eating away at his brain.”

“Does he get violent?” I asked, wondering how that man, even at his most lucid, could have pulled off a clean murder.

“No,” she said. “He gets fussy sometimes, but never violent. Likes to stay in the living room and sit at that table. Sometimes it’s cards, sometimes he just talks.”

With the careless grace of her old lady pedigree, she worked a small metal spatula, sliding the warm cookies to a plate.

“Someone told me he lost his fortune and his commission. Tell me about that,” I said.

She set down the spatula, and snatched a cookie for herself. Taking small bites, she chewed only with her front teeth, as though her molars were sore or missing. She looked away in thought. “We came to Mars after Archibald’s injury. He wanted to retire here, away, from the war and the bombs and whatnot. Found a nice house, nice land, and everyone was so nice, except one man. That colonel,” and she sneered. “He sent his spies after us, his police. They trumped up some conspiracy charges and took our money. They even took Archibald’s retirement from the service. Forty years of devotion to the States of America, and he didn’t even get a pat on the back. We thought with all his friends and connections, we’d end up all right, but on Mars, once you’re down, nobody’s going to risk their neck helping you back up. The service gave us this little house, and a medical stipend for his war wounds, and that was the end of General Chang.”

“What were the conspiracy charges?” I asked

“Too ridiculous. That he was going to overthrow the planet. I guess he was going to sneak in the Army from Earth with nobody noticing. That colonel was paranoid, and I’ve known some paranoid full birds in my day. Archibald was too much rank and influence for the colonel to handle, so he took away both.”

She placed the saucer of cookies before me, and took a seat at the table. She stared at the wall, through the wall, sad eyes penetrating reality, focusing on a deeper truth. She folded her flabby arms, skin resting on the table like warm pizza dough. Her mouth pursed. And maybe it was the sensation of homemade cookies melting in my mouth, or maybe it was the striking resemblance to my own grandmother, but I did something I never do.

“I’ll be on Mars for a few days,” I said. “Would you like me to look into the conspiracy allegations against your hus—”

“No,” she said.

“But I’ll be at the police station anyway, and—”

“No,” she said again, adding, “I don’t want the world to see him like this.”

And from the living room, an argument broke out between General Archibald Chang and himself over the inventor of the ballpoint pen.

I nodded to Mrs. Chang, thanked her for the cookies, and left.

Chapter 5

The back seat of the taxicab smelled of cat piss and Lysol. The twin pink moons of the Martian night sky reflected against the cabbie’s metallic head. Like all androids, he wore mismatched clothing—in his case, a winter pile cap, a frayed wool scarf, and a lab coat. The ensemble made perfect sense in ones and zeroes.

The driver turned to me, stretching a twiggy aluminum arm over the front seat. “Where to, Mac?” he quacked through a speaker on his face.

“Fifth Squadron, Old Town.”

“A little late, don’t you think?” the cabbie asked before flooring it, wallpapering me into the seat. “I wouldn’t worry, though,” he mused, “There’s nothing suspicious about a private eye snooping around a police precinct afterhours.”

I tried to look scandalized, and failed. I settled for surly.

“It’s the trench coat,” the cabbie consoled, “and the hat. I’m thinking there’s a gun in there somewhere, too.” His yellow light bulb eyes glanced at my chest, and lit. “Ah, there it is. X-ray vision upgrade; comes in handy with the ladies. I’ve got pictures for sale. Men, too, if that’s your thing. Oh, and don’t feel bad, it’s not as though you’re the first sap lured by Sofia Reed to take her case.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you know, Tin Man?”

“I know who you are. I know why you’re here. I know everything. I’m a machine. We talk to each other. I’m talking to a toilet in a train station ladies room right now. The stories he can tell!”

“I’m more interested in the stories you can tell,” I said.

“Then you obviously haven’t heard his. You’re the third guy Sofia Reed has brought in to second-guess the cops. The first two were locals here, a couple of lousy dicks with lousy track records. Word on the street is that one took a big case last year and made a big splash in the fish wrappers. Turns out he fingered the wrong guy.”

“It happens to the best of us,” I grumbled.

“Maybe so, but these guys weren’t the best of you. If I had access to the Reed vault, I’d hire a detective worth his salt.”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked. “You think I’m not worth my salt?”

“Well,” said the robot, “according to your bank account, let’s see. No. No, you’re not worth salt, or any condiment. Maybe parsley. You’re just like those other chumps: small thyme. Get it?”

I did. “So why’d they drop the case, anyway? Hungry detectives like high-paying jobs.”

“They’d have to be really hungry to like this one. This is Mars, Nancy Drew. The Air Force officer corps runs everything, and some people outrank scrutiny. Dead colonels are trouble. If some intrepid detective were to find foul play—or worse, a military cover-up—”

“They’d win the case and lose their license.”

“They’d lose more than that. Those Watchful Eyes have razor lashes, and a few greenbacks aren’t worth the hassle, even for guys sleeping on cots. How Sofia Reed found you I don’t know. Maybe she closed her eyes and threw a dart. She knows as much about picking PIs as she does about picking husbands.”

“Husbands?” I asked.

“Yeah, Jack Reed. The guy whose office you’re about to break in to. He’s a sergeant. The colonel’s daughter marrying an enlisted—can you imagine? Daddy couldn’t. He cut them off, said her little act of rebellion besmirched his good name. Said she married down, that she should have married an officer, that her new hubby was chasing a bank account and looking to curry favor. So no money, no house; he even scratched them from the will.”

“How’d they inherit that fortune, then?” I asked.

“Not sure. But one thing I am sure of is that she’s stuck there, now. She may have the bank account, but she’ll never have the Society pages. That husband’s a boat anchor. So this Jack Reed, I hope he’s worth it. She chose her path.”

“Love makes us do crazy things.” I said, pensively. “So do you have any theories about the murder?”

“I have theories. I hear things. But you’ve heard all I’m willing to share. In case you can’t tell,” he said, knocking on his head, “this is aluminum. Everything I say can be monitored, and the last thing I need is to be melted down. Driving a cab is more fun than being a chain-link fence.”

I thumbed the cabbie his fee, and for the second time stood on the curb outside Ninth Precinct. Thick fog frosted the chilly night air, and spotlights on watchtowers painted the perimeter in a phosphorescent haze. Few landmarks were visible in the soup.

The cabbie said the Nine to Five was an administrative office without holding cells or street cops. Except for the sentry standing watch over the main gate, the building would be empty.

He got confirmation from a coffee pot.

The streetlight above cast a malevolent glare on the precinct guard. He was just a kid, old enough to smoke but too young to drink, and wore a blank stare and an ill-fitting uniform. He slouched, and clutched his rifle to compensate for a decided lack of authority. He conspicuously avoided eye contact.

I summoned my resolve.

I expelled all doubt.

I needed a cigarette.

I strode toward the guard, crossing the street where the taxi had sped off. The guard kept his eyes averted as though doubting I was real or fearing that I was. Up close, a panic set upon his face that I might deviate from the exact script for which he had been trained. When he could avoid me no longer, his voice cracked as he mustered a menacing, “Can I help you?”

“No, you cannot,” I said, and stepped past him.

“Whoa,” he said, holding a hand to my chest. “This is a restricted area, and this office is closed. The police station is across the—”

I looked down at his hand, and back at his face. Maybe it was my eyes, bloodshot and yellow from fatigue and liver damage, or my jaw, tense from nicotine deprivation, but he dropped his hand and stopped speaking.

“Airman,” I said, “I just flew in from Earth at the request of Admiral Martins. Recognize the name? Read the sign,” and pointed to the banner welcoming Admiral Martins to the Nine to Five next week. “He wanted a professional out here to check out security. Heard you cops have problems keeping colonels alive. Colonels, son. Well Martins is an admiral. He’s got a lot of stars on his shoulder. I don’t see any on yours.”

I had no idea how many stars Admirals had on their shoulder, or if Admirals wore stars or boat anchors or barnacles or what.

“No,” he said, “no stars. But the colonel—”

“He’s dead, right?” I said, “Dead because of people like you. You killed that colonel, if not directly, than indirectly. You hiding something, son?”

“No, but—”

“Well I’ll be the judge of that. And if you’re not, somebody here is,” I said.

“Well not here sir, there’s nobody—”

“So how about you stop impeding my security investigation and give me a pass. Admiral Martins wants a report tonight.”

“Do you have an authorization code?” he asked, “I can’t—”

“Do I have authority? Kid, who is your supervisor?”

The sentry stammered. “Master Sergeant Carbo.”

“Right. And who is his supervisor?”

“Her supervisor, uh, Lieutenant Gallagher.”

“And who is Gallagher’s supervisor?”

“Captain Alan Stanhope.”

I looked into the guard’s eyes. “Then you know who gave me authority. Airman, this goes echelons above you. Call Stanhope if you don’t know what’s going on.”

“I—let me radio in to Sergeant Carbo.”

“You will call Stanhope!” I bellowed in the same voice used to order firing squads, “I don’t deal with sergeants. Sergeants deal with me. Pick up the pen,” I said, “I’ll sign the pad, you’ll give me the pass, and I’ll pretend this never happened.”

He didn’t look convinced, but didn’t seem defiant. “It’ll be in your best interest,” I assured him. “Heads are about to roll, and there is room on the platter for yours.”

He contemplated this before turning on his heels and stepping into the guard shack. With nervous attentiveness, he shouldered his rifle and pulled a scratched, ruggedized electronic tablet labeled VISITORS from a cabinet. He pecked in the pertinent information, his eyes darting about the screen manically, never looking up, like a condemned prisoner digging a six-foot hole.

“Thanks for taking your time,” I said, causing his hand to slow and his eyes to quicken. “I love spending my evening with you. Maybe next time I’ll bring a picnic basket and a bottle of sparkle, and we can drink to your inability to fill out a form with tricky entries like Date and Time. It’s not long division, Airman.”

He finished the form and turned to me. “Sign here.”

I snatched the pad from his hands, and glanced about for inspiration. Patrol car. Guard tower. “Carl Towerman, Esquire,” I signed

Neither an arrest not a hailstorm of bullets followed my entry into the building—a surprise, though a pleasant one. The lobby stretched fifty feet in both directions, with vaulted ceilings more suited for a bank or church. The dim green glow of security lighting painted my skin a sickly olive pallor and everything around a haunted, ethereal tinge. A couple of cheap metal desks lined the left and right, each with a tattered chair parked beneath, probably for receptionists to tell grieving battered wives that their innocent husbands were held in the lockup downtown. On each desk sat an old telephone screen, like the kind I owned back home, the kind that brought Sofia Reed into my life, the kind that displayed only a flat picture of the caller, rather than the modern hologram models that all the hoi polloi used to talk dirty to each other.

The far end of the lobby led to a wide, sparsely lit hallway feeding into an array of empty offices. The thin, wispy outline of an old janitor mopped the checkered tile floor at the edge of the hall. If he saw me, he showed no sign of interest. If he didn’t, he would need to get that checked out.

The building was old, in the way that all government buildings are old. It was old when the ribbon was cut, and like all government buildings, it was an unholy union of concrete and steel built to last. The insides could be rife with rotting carpet and moldy air ducts, frayed wiring and creaky floors, falling tile and dripping plumbing, but the outside would always be giant solid slabs of aging white cement. The building would always be there, always be a headache to City Hall, too sturdy to tear down, too decrepit to repair. And as layers of paint on the walls grew thicker and insulations in the walls grew cancerous, power bases walking the halls would diminish. The mayor’s corner office during the ribbon cutting would become an alderman’s office, which would become a school board president’s office, which would become a zoning commissioner’s office, which would later give way to city accountants and planners and parks services and water works. It would become a conference room and a break room and a copy room and utility room. Only when the building was sapped of life, sapped of hope, sapped of sanitation and sapped of properly flushing toilets would the city government—now eight buildings and eight ribbon-cuttings removed—give the office space to the police department. And then the real damage would begin.

Police stations grew filth like nothing else. Cesspools festered in envy at police stations. No amount of mopping or scrubbing or bleaching or painting could cover, kill or conceal the sheer nastiness of law enforcement. It mattered not whether it was a town of fifty with a police department of two, or a town of two million with a police department of five thousand, every PD everywhere was and is a monument of grime, as though the stain of crime manifests as stains on the wall. Blame the criminals or blame the cops; the difference between the two is small change, anyway.

The janitor mopping in the dark wasn’t improving sanitary conditions. He wasn’t packing, though, and hadn’t dashed off in search of a security alarm, so I approached him with echoing footsteps and a confident wave, as though we hadn’t seen each other since grade school.

“How are you, Smitty?” I asked, looking at his nametag. “Carl Towerman.”

I grinned like a candidate asking for a vote. Surprised to see me, Smitty stooped over his mop and raised a thinning white eyebrow. He extended a gray, skinny, clammy hand that I shook with abandon. When it became clear that little held his arm in his shoulder, I released. One of his eyes drooped, and the other centered on my face, a sickening green iris staring quizzically.

“Jack Reed said you’d be here. He said your print was universal, and that you could get me into his office.”

His lips parted, as if to form words of compliance, or refusal. I couldn’t decide, taken with the decaying shards of enamel in his mouth, the ruins of a past and noble civilization of teeth. He plunged the head of his mop into a bucket of soapy water, and gestured that I follow his lead.

Smitty was a zombie walking among the living. He moved like a marionette, and I followed him down one hallway after another, the silent humming of the building complemented only by our footsteps and Smitty’s soft grunting with each step taken. It wasn’t until we stopped at a door labeled JACK REED that the janitor spoke.

“I’m not supposed to do this, and Sergeant Reed knows it,” he groaned, before reaching into his pocket and producing a handkerchief to wipe the saliva forming on the corners of his mouth. “You close this door when you’re finished.”

He swiped the pink thumb plate. It beeped and chimed, and its hue cooled to blue. I entered the office, and Smitty dragged his corpse-like body back to the mop bucket. I flipped on the light switch and closed the door.

It was a room of Goldilocks dimensions, too small to share, but not large enough for someone really important. That placed Jack Reed somewhere in the middle, a higher-ranking squad leader, maybe, but still some years from promotion. A healthy fern grew on his desk next to a computer screen. An empty trashcan sat tucked beside a filing cabinet. In the corner grew a ficus from a large pot with rich black soil. On the wall hung a map of Baltia, highlighted and marked with circles and lines, possibly for a case, but probably to impress people who didn’t know any better.

His chair squeaked as I dropped into it, air rushing through a torn seam in the cushions, and I rolled into position behind the desk. A large, green leather blotter covered the surface, and I peeked beneath for anything helpful. Blotters were magnets for secrets; they could conceal keys, passwords, documents, receipts, cash, photographs, negatives, account numbers, and kitchen sinks.

The underside of Jack Reed’s blotter hid nothing, so I pulled open each drawer of his desk. The top left held a small glass bowl of peppermints, a mirror and a comb. The top right, a screwdriver and a couple of two-way radio batteries with red tape across the contacts labeled WILL NOT CHARGE. The bottom left drawer was protected with an old twist-key lock and wouldn’t budge. The bottom right drew open to a box of black-stained rags and a bottle of shoe polish.

I shimmied the screwdriver between the locked drawer and the desk, and pried, pulled, and picked at it for the better part of five minutes with only limited success. It moved, but didn’t open, and I sat back in the chair, winded and frustrated. The fern looked at me disapprovingly. The computer screen looked at me, disappointed. The drawer gawked in triumph, so I kicked it.

The force of my mighty loafer did nothing to the drawer, but rocked the desk violently, sending the fern rumbling to the edge, where it teetered and tottered, before settling on a tot and falling to the floor. I dove for it like a terrorist diving for the last bar of plutonium, and caught it only inches from a messy demise.

And then I found the key, taped to the bottom of the flowerpot, a little notched brass job, an anachronism that didn’t require retina scans or thumbprints or voice identifications. I peeled it away and returned the tape and fern where I found them.

The key glided into the snug lock, click, click, clickclickclick, click, click. Click. It turned uneasily, my prying and kicking having bent the latching mechanism. Clunk. The drawer was unlocked.

“Don’t forget to close this door!” yelled Smitty, his seaweed face peering through the office door, his drooping eyes looking both at me and the floor.

I sprung from my seat and thanked him for his diligence.

“Hmm,” he grumbled, “Something’s not right here.”

“Right? What do you mean? Everything’s fine.”

“No, this isn’t right at all.”

I didn’t want to hurt him, but I wasn’t going to let him blow this thing. I reached slowly to my holster.

“This is terrible!” he said, “The floor, it’s dirty. Jack might want this floor mopped. You want me to mop this floor?”

“No!” I said, and inhaled, blinked and swallowed. “No Smitty, that won’t be necessary.” Get the hell out of here, I thought. Get the hell out of here before I beat you to death with your mop, before I drown you in that disgusting bucket of water.

I needed a smoke.

“All right, Mr. Towerman,” he said. “You lock this door when you leave, and you tell Sergeant Reed I tried.”

I nodded and he slipped out, pulling the door closed behind him. When his grunting again faded down the hallway, I pulled the drawer open. Inside lay a digital tablet, STANDBY MODE pulsing in red and green. It was his casework notepad, the medulla oblongata of every cop walking a beat, responding to a call or searching a crime scene.

In a big city, a typical button’s night at the office might consist of writing a few dozen traffic tickets, breaking up a bar fight, arresting an addict and answering a domestic between a bloody woman and her hammer-swinging, hammer-headed boyfriend. The first week on the job and every detail stays with you. The first month on the job and you might remember the guy you cracked over the head with a nightstick. The first year on the job and you’re lucky to remember the dame who charged at you with the flame-throwing chainsaw. Cops see everything every day and cases, calls, and events run together. Nobody can be expected to remember a routine traffic stop two months prior, where the cutie in the short skirt didn’t have her seatbelt buckled. Unless, that is, she found a way out of the ticket.

A good cop notates everything in his or her book. It’s used for writing reports, preparing testimony and is often subpoenaed as evidence. The book is a beat cop’s brain. In my days with the New Orleans Police Department, my notebooks were impeccable. Every drop of blood, fragment of bone, click of a handcuff, and resistance of arrest were well documented. I left out only the details of the cutie’s cunning evasion of justice.

Jack Reed was the first cop on scene after the colonel was murdered. He was also a suspect. If he wouldn’t talk to me, his notebook might, and I turned it on. Eight hundred thirty-two pages populated the index, sorted by date, and I flipped back three weeks, to the morning of the murder. His notes were extensive, handwritten in block lettering, with a small diagram of the crime scene that corresponded with the photographs Sofia showed me. He left no white space, margins or gaps. He wrote:

0945 – Arrived at residence for personal visit. Front door secured; no sign of forced entry. After knocking and ringing, I let myself in. I am thumb-printed for access. Lobby and anteroom empty, no sign of struggle. I called for the colonel, but there was no response, so I began looking around. All doorways and windows on bottom floor secure. Upstairs, the study door was open. I entered at 0956. Colonel seated at desk, blood everywhere. His head was on desk, a bullet entry wound in left temple. His face was turned to the left, eyes open, entry wound up. Blood had ceased flowing, and he was evidently deceased. I checked his arterial pulse, getting blood on my hands, abdominal region and the upper-portion of my legs. There was no pulse and no signs of life. An antique military-issue projectile bullet-based revolver was clutched in his hanging arm. 0958 – I telephoned 9th precinct and paramedics. A folded suicide note sat next to the body. I did not touch or open it. 1011 – Senior Airman Melton and Master Sergeant Carbo of 5th Squadron, 9th Precinct arrived and notified the Office of Special Investigations…

He was a cop that knew the game and wrote down all the right things, but I would have expected more from a psychic. A folded page rested next to the body. It could have been a shopping list. It could have been a ransom note. It could have been blackmail. It could have been a personal message from the colonel’s doctor informing him of a gruesome and incurable disease marked by extreme pain and slow death. But Jack Reed knew the folded letter was a suicide note, without touching or opening it.

Flipping forward several pages, I scanned his notebook for other entries concerning the case. The offerings were scant, but for a short statement four days later.

1117 – Capt. Stanhope’s OSI team has taken lead on the murder. Deposition tomorrow 0930, squadron. The data in this pad to be submitted for evidence.

An eyelash on a football field wouldn’t stand a chance against a motivated crime scene specialist, and neither would its DNA match in the backwash of a half-empty longneck at the city dump. If there was evidence, they found it. The only question was whether they were motivated. I needed to know what they knew.

That was when I noticed the pounding in my chest.

Adrenaline.

It had been a long time since I worked a case that mattered. It had been a long time since I solved a mystery. It had been a long time since I had been well paid. The last time I felt such a sensation was...the Alderman. When I fished those gloves from the sewer. When I had the wrong guy.

I unstopped my flask and splashed down a swig of blended malts and grains, a liquid harvest in a bottle. It numbed the gums around my teeth and washed down my throat like a thin cloud of fire, a trail of cool mist in its wake.

I stowed the data pad in the drawer, secured it and returned the key to its ceramic flowerpot hideaway. Reaching around the base of the old, yellowed computer, I felt for the power switch, which clicked on like the snapping of a chopstick. The screen swam to life, awash in blue, with the white illustration of a fingerprint welcoming me. Below, on the base of the screen, flickered a small, green thumbprint reader.

From my coat I pulled a penknife, and from it pulled a clear, flat arm. It was an old gift from an old friend, terribly expensive and terribly rare and terribly illegal, but terribly useful in situations where I found myself faced with a terrible white illustration of a fingerprint and blue background.

The translucent arm illuminated, casting an ultraviolet light on the desktop, revealing streaks and spots and smudges and rings; old coffee, doughnut jam, bleach to remove the jam, wipes to remove the coffee, and moisture and oil and grease and sweat and bacteria and cologne and blood. Every surface on every object in every room in the world is covered in everything nobody wants to imagine, because everybody does inconceivable things in private, and in public, and especially in public buildings. Any amateur with a black light and some free time could tell you that as many children are conceived in churches as baptized there, and a not-insignificant segment of society considers offices and park benches a cheap and easy alternative to a motel room after a date gone well. Only for some deep psychological repression of human instinct is the natural impulse to assume that a surface not teeming with cockroaches and mold is safe for surgery and the kneading of bread dough.

The penknife beeped when I waved it past the edge of the desk, where it found a perfectly formed thumbprint, pressed with just the right amount of body grease, sweat and pressure. I held the arm steady as it whirred and scanned the marking. When the knife chimed, I brought the clear blade to the green fingerprint pad.

Beep.

“Hello, Technical Sergeant Reed”

A sea of text and a cabinet of files flooded the screen, and I called up his calendar. Meetings, training, cases, patrols, and errands populated each day’s agenda. The deposition mentioned in his notepad scored an entry, as did a follow-up interview with investigators. I clicked back through days and weeks leading to the murder.

He worked evenings, and his notes suggested that his patrol kept him in Mountain Town. On the day of the murder, though, as Sofia mentioned, he took the morning shift with a swing through the colonel’s fashionable neighborhood. Suspicious, but tracking back a few days, I found the real smoking gun. It couldn’t have looked worse for Jack if the calendar said “1200: Plan to kill colonel.”

It said, one week prior to the murder, “1030: Colonel, re: will”.

A motive.

I closed the calendar and pulled up his files. Absent from the list was anything labeled Murder Plan, though Evidence Cage did catch my eye, and I accessed the program. It launched a database of every item of evidence collected for every case in the department, and the storage location of that evidence. According to the program, locker 1006 was the one that concerned me. I’d have pressed for more information, but was startled by two sets of very determined footsteps storming down the hallway.

There were voices, but they were indistinct.

Switching off the computer I stood and drew my gun, and thinking the better of it, crouched and holstered it. Thinking again, I crawled into the leg space of Jack Reed’s desk, and pulled the chair in behind me. It wasn’t much of a hiding spot, but it was preferable to being shot outright.

The voices grew louder.

“…and I want him guarding trash cans behind the chow hall. In fact, I want him scrubbing trashcans behind the chow hall by day, and guarding them by night. What doesn’t he get about ‘restricted area’? It’s restricted! Carbo’s gonna kill him. She’s gonna kill us.”

“He’s got a radio,” the other voice agreed. “He could have at least called someone.”

“He must have had a tall glass of I’ve-lost-my-freaking-mind. He already lost his rank for being an idiot. And he had a gun! If someone scary came to the gate, he could have just shot him. I—”

“Was Jack’s light on when you came on shift?”

The footsteps stopped.

The lock beeped open.

The doorknob twisted.

The door creaked ajar.

Step. Step. Step. Step. They were carrying rifles; I could hear the shoulder straps rattle free as they brandished the weapons. With a click, the safety switches were released. Step. Step. Step. Two sets of combat boots approached the desk.

“I guess he forgot to turn out the lights when he left,” said the one.

“He’s been acting strange lately,” said the other, and the footsteps halted. “Anyway, like I was saying, I don’t want that kid guarding this building ever again. He doesn’t know how to do his job.”

And the two left, switching off the lights and pulling the door closed behind them.

An hour elapsed before I dared emerge from the desk and skulk my way to the office door. I peeked into the hallway, checking left and checking right, for shadows or janitors or machine guns or bullets or spears or lasers or throwing stars. I saw only darkness and emptiness, and heard only the emphysemic air conditioning, humming and coughing and chilling the air and chilling the mood. On tiptoes I crept, rubbing against the wall to keep a low profile.

Placards and arrows mounted from the ceiling pointed me down a flight of very creaky, very narrow stairs, and behind a very creaky, very wide set of double doors. It was dark in the hallways, but opaque in the basement, the air as solid as a brick wall. Daring not reach for a light switch and unsure whether roving security bands were still in pursuit, I felt for the penknife in my pocket, and brought the black light to life. It provided little visibility, two feet of glowing fingerprints, bodily fluids and purple-lit whites in every direction.

The evidence room comprised the whole of the basement, a chain link labyrinth of cages and gates, a maximum-security cellblock of knickknacks and whatnots condemned to life without parole. Objects of every size and shape lined shelf after shelf in cage after cage, each trinket a tiny piece of a larger crime. Handguns and blasters sat next to toy dolls and rocking horses. Plaster molds of footprints rested side-by-side with ropes and chains and handcuffs and bloody gags and torn blue jeans. A computer and a tennis racket, a meat cleaver and a Louisville Slugger—everything had something forever unsavory attached, and like the perps with lawyers who advertised on phonebooks, everything was locked up for a very long time.

The acoustics of the cement floor and the accompanying low ceiling amplified my soft steps into the carefree stomping of an upstairs neighbor. I worked my way to the far corner of the room, past the cage filled with stiletto heels glowing phosphoric white under the harsh gaze of the black light, with what I hoped was blood.

A brushed-steel placard identified evidence cage ten-oh-six, and I waved the penknife over the glowing teal thumb plate lock. It recognized Jack Reed’s fingerprint, chimed in approval, and the gate clanked ajar. I pulled gingerly, but its rusty hinges belted the kind of banshee scream that would have sent dogs scampering for the hills before bursting their eardrums through their nostrils. Holding up my black light torch, I stepped into the cage.

Carpet swatches in plastic bags sealed with yellow evidence tape lay on the shelves, along with the pistol, tagged and identified. A book with a small hole in its spine—the bullet’s final resting place, having taken the grand tour of the colonel’s skull—sat adjacent. A smaller, sealed baggie held the projectile, similarly tagged with an evidence number and an investigating officer in charge: Alan Stanhope.

The room’s main attraction, though, was the desk where it happened, where the world saw quite literally what was on the colonel’s mind. The surface of the disk was still shiny and slick with flaking, dried blood. It had been swept for prints, a fine layer of white powder coating each side like dust on an Egyptian sarcophagus. Beneath the powder, a red sheen haunted through. The bulk of the colonel’s vein juice had splattered across the right side of the desk, consistent with the exit wound, and continued to pour from his head after his body collapsed. It ran down the front and sides of the desk, probably very slowly, gelling and dripping from the edges like icicles in hell.

Murder is a messy business. The biggest problem for would-be killers is always getting the would-be victim to cooperate. We may walk on two legs and carry pocket watches, but when faced with a long dirt nap, we will bite and scratch and claw and roll and run and jump and fight and twist and hide and scurry and shimmy and do whatever it takes to die naturally of extreme old age. It doesn’t matter if you’re an amoeba, a tyrannosaur, a kitten, or a college athlete—the first order of business is always survival.

Killing the colonel would have been a challenge. He was seated at his desk, showed no signs of struggle, and was shot by a pistol, in the temple, at close range. It could have gone down two ways. He might have believed that the assailant wouldn’t shoot. Perhaps the killer knocked at the door, and the colonel let him in. Assailant pulls gun, tells the colonel, “Do as I say and you won’t get hurt.” They go upstairs. The study is deep in the house, less chance of someone walking in on the spectacle. “Sit down!” and the colonel sits down. The assailant holds a gun to the colonel’s head, and somehow calms him. “Here’s what I want you to do—” BLAM! Brain spillage.

It would have been risky. Had the colonel fought back, especially at such a close range, it would have compromised everything. The alternative—the Jack Reed scenario—was less dramatic. The assailant knocks at the door. The colonel answers and is friendly. “Hi Jack!” They chat for a few, and somehow end up in the study. “Let me show you my book collection” or “Let’s go up to your office and talk Air Force” or “Say that’s a great statue of the naked lady. Can we check her out?” They get upstairs and the colonel sits at the desk. The assailant walks up beside him, draws a gun and empties the colonel’s cranium before he realizes what’s happened. No chance of fighting, and all it takes is a fast draw with a pistol. The kind of draw a military policeman might have.

A hungry prosecutor could sell it. Jack Reed married Sofia for the money, obviously, but the money was in daddy’s piggybank. The colonel cut her from the will for marrying beneath her class, but Jack was patient. A couple of years of tension followed by a band-of-brothers bonding, a simple alteration of the will, and the board is set. But Jack’s no sociopath; he’s never killed before, and makes a silly mistake. He leaves the “suicide note” next to the body, atop a pool of blood and brains.

Lesser detectives missed it. Maybe I wasn’t a lesser detective. Maybe I was worth more than parsley.

A silver data pad labeled WITNESS STATEMENTS leaned against a shelf opposite the desk. I thumbed through a few pages, little catching my eye. The bulk of the first half consisted of police testimony accounting for Jack Reed, his recent behavior, and his demeanor on the day of the murder and the days that followed. Sofia Reed was interviewed, but consistent with our interactions, she sobbed, mostly. Pages later was a news clipping with the headline UNION BOSS OFFERS TEPID DENIAL and the picture of a round man in a white hat. The caption read: “Boss Clifford Barnes also denies rumors of a strike.” Just as I was about to set the pad aside, another name caught my eye: O.W. Lime.

“These were Lime’s words: ‘I’m going to kill that bastard’—he was talking about the Colonel—’I’m going to shoot him in the head and [copulate with] his brain.’ Course he didn’t say copulate with.” The statement was given by a bar patron in Monte Patera. Some place called El Chupacabra Club.

There was more, but the basement door howled its banshee scream. Someone was coming. I killed my black light and replaced the data pad.

The room was dark. Black, even. I could hide. I could scamper. And then the lights came on, great white overhead beams bright enough to illuminate a football stadium. And then I knew I was going to be caught. And beaten. And probably shot.

I really needed a smoke.

Inching my head up slowly, above the bloody desk but below the racks of shelving, I surveyed the room from left to right, careful to avoid being spotted. There was no one at the entranceway. Through the cages I gazed. No movement. No shadows crept. No footsteps creaked. No speaking. Maybe—

“Mr. Towerman? Or shall I call you Mr. Sheppard?” asked a voice behind me, and I turned to look up at a man in uniform with sparkling blue eyes and an intense expression of self-satisfaction.

“I didn’t hear your footsteps,” I said, “or I probably would have moved someplace else.”

“Oh,” said the man, drawing a set of bracelets from his pocket, clicking them open and pulling the chain taut, “You’re definitely moving someplace else.”

I could have run, but he’d have backup waiting. I could have sucker punched him, but he seemed like the kind of guy used to that sort of thing, and expected it. I could have drawn my gun and put holes in his turquoise peepers, but his holster was unsnapped, and it wouldn’t have taken much for him to draw me down.

So I stood, holding my hands out, open, and said, “You got me.”

His expression of self-satisfaction broadened into indecent self-love. He wasn’t very tall, though wasn’t short, and he wasn’t very built, but seemed fit, and though his eyes didn’t reflect a lettered man of profound insight, he seemed sharp enough. His uniform was well manicured, his boots highly polished, and written across his nametag was the word STANHOPE. He wore the officer’s rank insignia of Captain.

“Captain Stanhope?” I ventured.

“Captain Stanhope,” he said.

“Mike Sheppard,” I replied, though he knew that.

“Mike Sheppard,” he said, his eyebrows furrowed. “Turn around.”

Those words rarely presaged happy endings, but I complied, leaning forward, reaching my arms back and hoping he would take my compliance into consideration when crunching down the cuffs. He didn’t, squeezing and cutting into my wrists until my fingers tingled.

I said, “There is a pistol holstered under my right shoulder. I have a permit.”

He shoved my face into the chain-link wall, mashing my cheeks as he reached around and secured my weapon.

“Anything else I should know about?”

“I once ate a two-pound hamburger in three minutes; got my picture on the wall and everything.”

He mashed harder.

“I enjoy long walks on the beach, but hate sand.”

Harder, twisting. My nose pressed against a wire, and began a slow yield toward snapping.

“So really, I enjoy beaches that have paved sidewalks and hamburger stands nearby.”

He reared back on the handcuff chain, pulling me upright and wobbling for balance. Placing his other hand between my shoulder blades, he wheeled me around toward the stairs.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“To the beach?” I asked, and he shoved my shoulder into every obstruction between cage one thousand six and the staircase.

When we reached the first floor, he led me down the hallway, to the left, and then the right, down a long silent corridor. The lights were still off but for the occasional flickering bulb swinging from a wire, swaying under the force of ventilation. We stopped at an open interrogation room, empty except for a table and three chairs.

“Sit down,” he said.

A large two-way reflected the scene, but for whatever reason, I didn’t think anyone was looking in on us.

Captain Stanhope closed the door, and locked it. He then reached for my cuffs and removed them, circulating a stinging relief from wrist to fingertip. I rubbed the pink canals of flesh excavated by the pinching bracelets. It wasn’t my first time in a pair of handcuffs, but it wasn’t something you got used to, either. Stanhope walked around the table and took a seat, saying nothing for several minutes, but staring off with his eyes of blue crystal.

“You told the guard I authorized your entrance to this building?” he said, at last.

“I told the guard you authorized Carl Towerman’s entrance. But it worked, didn’t it?” I said.

“But how is Carl Towerman going to get out? I think Sofia Reed expected more from you.”

He knew.

“I know,” he said, “everything.”

“How?”

“We’re planetary security. It’s our job to know everything.”

Safe beneath the Watchful Eyes.

“So what are you going to do about this?” I asked, gesturing at the interrogation room. “Lock me up? Let’s get on with it then.”

“No,” he said. “I’m going to let you do your job. This,”—and he waved his hand at the room—”is to let you know who is in charge.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re on thin ice out here, Sheppard,” Alan Stanhope said. “You’re meddling in closed police business. And this isn’t the small one-road two-cop operation you’re used to—”

“I’m from New Orleans.”

“Like I said: some small time operation. This is Mars, son.”

Son. I had at least twenty years on him. Twenty hard years.

He continued, “We control everything out here. And what we don’t control, we see. And what we don’t see, we know.”

“Then you know that the colonel didn’t kill himself.”

“Yes.”

Silence settled upon the room.

“And I think we agree on who did it,” he said.

“Do we?” I asked.

“We do,” he said.

“So why is Jack Reed walking a beat and not breaking rocks?” I asked.

“Because this is Mars, Michael.” He didn’t call me “son” again, but he spoke like a college professor addressing a chimpanzee. “The security forces control everything, and Jack Reed is a very popular policeman in the security forces. They weren’t going to take down one of their own.”

“Then it sounds like you and your buddies need to polish your badges a little more, because you’re just as dirty as he is,” I said, pointing at Stanhope’s chest.

“Not me. For the first week after the murder, I was in charge of the investigation. We came gunning for Reed.”

“And then?”

“I was transferred to a different unit. They said it was administrative, but I knew what was going on. They wanted this thing swept under the rug, most ricky-tick. They didn’t want another scandal.”

He paused. I waited. He continued pausing.

“Is there more, or is this a really dramatic pause?” I asked.

“I was waiting for—”

“Another scandal?”

“—that,” he said, “Another scandal. Here is what you don’t know, what Sofia Reed would not have mentioned: the colonel was bought and paid for a long time ago.”

“On whose dime?”

“The mob.”

It was always the mob.

“A big to-do hit the papers not long before the colonel was killed. Front page, above the fold, MOB LINES TOP COP POCKETS. We control the papers, normally. But the evidence was so overwhelming—the report was so bulletproof—that they ran the story anyway.”

“Then how can you be sure it wasn’t a mob hit? The deal went bad, so they cut the colonel loose.”

There was a knock at the door, and the outlines of two silhouettes shadowed through the frosted glass window. The handle shook, stopped, and the thumb print lock chimed open. Alan Stanhope stood, and as the door swung inward, he brought his right fist across my face, sending me reeling from the chair in blinding pain. I hit the ground, shoulder, head and hip, and then the rest of me followed. I saw stars. And planets. And comets and moons and nebulae. I saw an astronomy textbook.

When my senses returned, I felt myself on the floor, with Alan Stanhope inches from me, shouting, “What did you learn? What lesson are you learning? This is my house!”

He turned to the two cops who entered. “I’ve got it under control, sergeant. I just need some personal time with my new friend here,” and he kicked me in the stomach.

One of the cops smirked, the other grinned, and they both left.

When the door closed, Captain Stanhope extended his hand. “Sorry about that.” He pulled me to my wobbly feet, and I ambled to the chair. I touched my face, checking for blood, but found none. My left cheek was numb, though, and would soon swell.

“It doesn’t look bad,” he said. But it felt bad, and if I hadn’t been gasping to recover my breath, I’d have told him so.

He checked his watch. “You need to beat it, Sheppard. Shift change is in twenty.”

“Who is O.W. Lime?” I asked.

“The guy who wrote the corruption piece? He’s a gadfly, an ink slinger.”

“A gadfly who threatened the colonel the day before the murder,” I said. “Ever think maybe he was slinging more than ink?”

“He’s a boozer, and was juiced at the time. Look, don’t go chasing down rabbit holes out here. We know who did it, and it wasn’t some lit writer with a grudge. The only reason I’m not throwing you in the stockade is because we’ve got a murderer on the force and nobody else can stop him.”

The numbness of my cheek became a dull throbbing, like a tom-tom at a ritual sacrifice. I rubbed it meekly. “Maybe so, but Sofia Reed is paying me by the day, and fingering the wrong guy has burned me before. Let me interview this Lime; rumple his lapels a bit. Where is he now?”

Stanhope pursed his lips. “Monte Patera. You can get there by train, but watch yourself. It’s union country out there. The Watchful Eyes turn a blind eye on their doings. Don’t dig deep, and don’t get noticed. I’m a small fish in this pond. If a bigger fish thinks you’re making waves, you might find trouble.”

“Yeah, well I’m known for that,” I said. “Anything else I should know?”

“I was Reed’s supervisor when the murder occurred. He begged me to take that morning shift. If I’d said no—as I should have—the colonel would still be alive. So I’ve got a vested interest in justice. I’m trying to save my conscience. It’s up to you, Sheppard.”

He offered his hand, which I shook. It was manicured and soft, like a piece of velvet neatly wrapped around a hammer.

“One more thing,” he said. “When you leave Baltia, I’ll purge you from the Watchful Eyes database. You’ll be tabula rasa in Monte Patera.” He reached into his pocket, and produced my revolver.

“You might need this,” he said.

“I always do.”

Chapter 6

I dropped an aspirin into my mouth and nursed a long draw from my flask, rinsing and swishing until the pill dissolved. The elixir went down smoothly, washing away the rancid edge of sour halitosis.

When I fell asleep, I had an aisle seat next to a stout man with a protruding, pumpkin-sized abdomen. When I awoke, he was gone. Between my breath, snoring and kicking, he probably leapt from the moving train. I was tempted to join him.

It was her again.

Did dreams mean anything, I wondered. Was she thinking of me? Had I tapped into some small, psychic part of my brain that knew she was doing something depraved with a nameless new love?

With her, there was always a nameless new love.

Three years ago, she disappeared for three days. It wasn’t the first time, but it was our anniversary weekend. She might not have remembered. She had taken the bottle of bubbly we’d been saving since the wedding, but she might not have recognized its significance.

We’d been through a lot of bottles since walking down the aisle.

I sat at the kitchen table that first night and waited. The world seemed flat. Outside, a light shower. From the parlor, the soundtrack of a science fiction movie marathon. The screen projection washed all color from the room.

I waited.

My face felt gaunt, like a junkie’s. My mind raced, but never moved. Anger. Hurt. Fear. They were like the splintered fragments of a barn suspended in a twister. I felt pain, but at the same time, I felt nothing. The feelings moved too fast.

She might have been in an accident. She wasn’t in an accident. It might have been an emergency. It wasn’t an emergency. A dying cousin. A kidnapping. A heart attack. Don’t be stupid; she wouldn’t have taken that bottle.

I didn’t blink that night. I didn’t move. I waited.

When the sun came up, I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling for twelve hours. That evening, I opened the Johnnie Walker. The next day, he was gone, too, but like a true friend, had helped me pack, and told me what I needed to do. She could have the house, and the stuff. I didn’t need it. I didn’t want it. I had to stop the encumbrance, the bewildering longing and the desperate, terrible prospect of hope. There was no hope.

If only I had been more of a man. If only I could go back in time, change tiny singularities that forever altered her perceptions of me, words spoken, deeds done. But it was too late. Nothing I could ever do, or ever say, would win her fidelity. I wasn’t the man she wanted. My bags in hand, I said goodbye to my life and set out for the next. It would be lonely, but not so lonely as having her.

I opened the front door. And there she stood. She was a mess, dark half-circles under her eyes, hair asunder, and she wore a mortified expression of unadulterated regret.

I dropped my bags. For the first time, I knew, she understood what she had done, and at last, it was out of her system. She still loved me. Maybe she could forgive me for thinking of leaving. We embraced. I cried.

I should have known how it would end.

Another pregnant hoist of Scotch washed the memory from my mind. My wedding ring burned, and I turned it with my right hand. Its luster had faded long ago. A thousand little nicks from a thousand fire escapes and fistfights and firearms and firewater had taken their toll. It shined, but wasn’t shiny; it was smooth, but wouldn’t polish. It endured because it was hard, and it was hard because it endured.

I looked to the austere, moonlit geography zipping past my window. Craters pockmarked the blue tundra, and black peaks on the horizon carved a jagged silhouette against the evening sky. I was riding coach on the red eye express to Monte Patera, a one-way hot shot, last run of the night. When I had arrived at the station to buy my ticket, I expected an empty terminal, empty benches and maybe an old dog asleep by the counter. Instead, I found a travel office thick with revelers dressed for a night out, and half-married couples waiting to undress for a discreet night in. Monte Patera was that kind of town.

It was one of a dozen colonies founded in the old days to pay for the rising costs of Martian settlement. The mountains of Baltia were barren of gold, diamonds or minerals, and the Air Force figured Olympus Mons might prove more fertile ground. They were wrong, but Monte Patera flourished nonetheless. Some people, it turned out, felt safer where the Watchful Eyes wore blindfolds.

The floor beneath my feet rumbled as the monorail slowed, the brakes squealing and howling in protest and burden. The rest of the darkened cabin took scant notice. The couple across from me was rounding second. A couple behind me was rounding third. Two guys sharing an overcoat of cologne and a crate of brilliantine hooted in anticipation of their impending conquests.

Near the front of a cabin sat a man with a kid on his lap, a diaper bag by his feet, and a wife by his side. He wore the pained realization that his conquest days were over, and that he’d round no new bases again, ever, or at least no bases that he hadn’t rounded enough times not to prefer catching the ten o’clock news. He looked like someone who thought he’d be exactly where he wanted, but was very, very wrong, and now wanted to be anywhere else, just for a little while, under slightly different circumstances. He looked like someone who woke from a coma and wished he could go back to sleep.

He didn’t know how lucky he was.

The grinding brakes wailed as we eased into a long tunnel ending in the domed colony air shield. The wasteland gave way to a driftwood town of neon and sweat, and we rolled to a stop at a train station marked by a sign reading BARNES TERMINAL. Beneath the lettering was a pudgy, mustachioed face contorted in valiant devotion, a white hat perched atop his head.

The hydraulic door hissed open, and a conductor stepped in holding a pocket watch. “Last stop. Monte Patera,” he announced.

The car emptied as though someone had found a bomb, and the passengers scattered in every direction. Some were headed to bars, some were headed to dance clubs, some were headed to brothels, and some were headed to hotels. I was headed to the Chupacabra Club.

Sidewalks and squat buildings two stories at the tallest lined cobblestone streets. Where there were lights, they were red, just bright enough to keep you guessing, and where there weren’t, strangers lurked in the shadows. Some were chippies looking for an honest night’s work; some were pimps, keeping the work from being too honest. A seedy glow permeated the air. Barrooms staggered the main street, and boozers staggered the barrooms.

Monte Patera seemed like the kind of town where its mayor could strap on leather and frolic with co-eds, and report to work the next day with nobody causing a stir. A town where nobody was a tourist because everybody knew exactly what he or she had come for. A town where eager young women would never sully their reputation, whether they chased married young men or single old ladies.

A town where I was completely lost, because I didn’t have a map.

“Hey brother, you look lost, I got you found!”

A street hustler working the door of a club promising SHOWGIRLS OPEN ALL NIGHT and LADIES WELCOME had spotted me. He was lanky and bearded, with hair greasy enough to lubricate a car. His long arm reached out to touch me, but he thought the better of it and played it off with a grand gesture.

“We got girls here. You like girls?”

“Love ‘em, but I’m not looking for any tonight.”

“We got boys too.”

“I’m not looking for boys, either. I—”

“We got other things in the back,” he said, hopeful.

“I’m looking for El Chupacabra,” I said.

“The Mexican goat sucker? Man, you’re messed up. We don’t have that. No Bigfoot, either.”

“The club. The Chupacabra Club.”

“Never heard of it.”

I thumbed him a few bucks. “Heard of it yet?”

“Keep going,” he said, “it’s coming to me.”

I kept going.

“Okay,” he said, “Chupacabra. I remember the place. But they got no girls there. They got no boys there. They got nothing there you want.”

“You don’t know what I want,” I said. “Do you know the way or don’t you?”

“You not seen my girls,” he said, drawing curves in the air, and waggling his hand obscenely at his fly. “These girls, nothing better than them, and I seen all the girls out here. None nice as these. Very nice. You come in now.”

I considered his obscene gesture. It had been a while. “I’m meeting someone at the Chupacabra,” I finally said, suppressing the biological imperative. “How do I get there?”

“I’m a little disoriented,” he said. “Hard to remember the way.”

“How much?”

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?” I said, and reconsidered a quiet evening in showgirls open all night.

“I got nice girls, and I give good directions. You want girls, you pay. You want directions, you pay less. But you pay. And I cheap, like my girls.”

“Twenty,” I said.

“Thirty.”

“Twenty-Five it is.” I thumbed him the cash.

“Chupacabra across the street,” he said, and pointed to an alley. “When they throw you out, you come see me. My girls make you feel better.”

People didn’t stumble across the Chupacabra Club by accident. It was a squalid building of charcoal brick, its entrance in an alleyway of overfilled dumpsters and oversized rats. A solitary light bulb screwed into a rusty socket dimly revealed “El Chupacabra” spray-painted on the door. Scratched beneath, the word “Knock”.

I knocked. When the door opened to a large man with a larger shotgun, I wished I hadn’t. He looked me over with one large cue ball of an eye, and wore a tuxedo undoubtedly filled with bulging muscles and barbed wire tattoos. This was a man that didn’t wear tuxedos easily.

“You’re new. Start talking,” he said, with the polish of a Shakespearean prince, if Shakespearean princes robbed liquor stores and raped cheerleaders for a living.

“I have business here,” I said, and steeled myself for the killing blow.

“I hope you’re right,” he sneered.

Behind the door was a dining room of rich mauve carpeting, candlelit tables, and a main stage. I looked back at the bruiser and the graffiti-stricken doorway where rodents frolicked in fetid garbage, and then to the five-star affair inside. It was like the transition of a strange dream. I approached a maître de standing behind a mahogany podium. He, too, was tuxedoed, though clearly born into it, and wore a very high nose, very high brows and very high hairline. He snooted an eye in my direction.

“Pretty good security for a restaurant,” I said.

“I don’t believe you have a reservation,” he said, and laced his fingers, ending the conversation.

“Check under Mike Sheppard,” I said, and the chu-CHUNK pump action of a shotgun racked behind me.

“I don’t believe you have a reservation,” he said again, without rolling an eye down toward the book.

“Sofia Reed will be joining me later,” I said, as surprised as the maître de was. He unlaced his fingers, scribbled something, and nodded at the doorman.

“Right this way, sir.”

My table was in the corner, clear of the platter-balancing waiters, bottle-cradling sommeliers and bucket-lugging busboys, all of whom darted and glided as though on rails. I was close enough to the well-tailored clientele to feel social, but distant enough to protect both my privacy and the privacy of a scandalous date, should I have brought one, which I didn’t. It was also an excellent view of the stage, empty but for a stool and microphone stand.

“Good evening, monsieur,” said a waitress, a tall blonde in a short skirt that also provided an excellent view. “Will Madame Reed be joining you this evening?”

“She will not,” I said.

“Splendid,” she said, and touched my chest with a little too much linger. She was either working on a tip or a tumble.

“Perhaps you could join me in her place,” I ventured.

“You devil,” she replied, “I am working. But a drink, perhaps, to keep you company?”

A tip it was. “Scotch on the rocks,” I said, and she vanished in a cloud of Chanel.

The restaurant lighting diffused into the hazy area between ambiance and darkness, and a spotlight sliced through the noir. The merlot stage curtains drew, and a woman, fair and statuesque stepped into the spotlight, one leg after another peering through a glorious slit down her dress. Her scarlet hair cast a white brilliance before the shadowy recesses of the stage, where the band built a slow cry and a hard beat. And when Legs began to sing, it was as though she was the desiccant in a bottle of aspirin, and having absorbed all the sadness in the world, would release it slowly for our entertainment.

She had the blues. Maybe it was all an act and she was just playing the part, hoodwinking the saps and raking in the tips, but her eyes said otherwise. Her voice said otherwise. The bruise on her arm just below her shoulder, covered by makeup but clear to the trained eye, said otherwise.

The waitress returned, setting my Scotch on a coaster, and winked at me. She looked about, and pulled up the chair beside mine. There was hope after all.

“You know her?” I asked, pointing at the singer.

“She’s my best friend.”

“Looks like she’s got some enemies, too.”

The waitress said nothing.

I sipped my Scotch, marinating in the singer’s melody of solitude and despair. The waitress inched closer. Maybe she did this for all the guys, or at least all the guys with money. But either way, it felt good to share a table with a beautiful woman. She wore little makeup, but a lot of wedding ring. I downed my drink.

“Should I bring the bottle next time?” she asked.

“You should bring the case,” I said.

“If you have the cash, I’ll bring the keys to the bar.”

The song ended, and rapturous applause filled the room. The singer bowed a sad little bow. The waitress stood, brushing against me to collect my glass. I seized her hand, and pulled her close.

She didn’t know what to make of this, and eyed the bouncer.

“I am looking for someone,” I said to her under cover of the deafening applause.

“But monsieur,” she said, “I must work!”

“I’m looking for a man,” I said, and her eyes widened in further surprise.

“Our sous chef might be interested,” she said, “I think he—”

“No,” I said, as the applause hushed. I released her wrist. As the opening notes of a popular ditty played, the cheering resurged. Grabbing her hand, again, I said, “I am looking for O.W. Lime.”

“I see,” she said, pulling her hand free. She walked away.

Sighing, I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. The waitress appeared a moment later, placing before me a glass of water and a brown matchbook. She said nothing, and I said even less. She pivoted and stepped into a cropping of tables.

There was nothing special about the matchbook. Glossy cover, thirty strikes, and the word MINESHAFT monogrammed in silver script. Nothing was written on the inside. It struck me as odd that a planet that had banned cigarettes would still have matchbooks in bars. Tradition.

The music continued, and I nursed the water I didn’t ask for, thumbing the matches. Legs stepped from the stage and worked the crowd now, sitting on the laps of locals as she belted a sultry tune. She ran her hand through one guy’s comb over. She dipped her finger in a loner’s martini and licked clean the vermouth and gin.

The waitress returned, made no eye contact, spoke softly, and then only during jazzy flourishes of the band.

“Why do you wish to see O.W. Lime?” she asked.

“I’m investigating a murder.”

“Why do you think I will help you?”

“Because you know I’m not a cop or a dropper, and you think I’m nice.”

“You remind me of my father.”

“Was he a cop or a dropper?”

“No, but he wasn’t very nice, either.”

“Then maybe you’re wondering if I can be mean enough for you.”

“Can you?”

“Mademoiselle,” I said, “I am working right now, and you are married. If you’re looking for a payday hay roll you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“That cheap suit already tells me you don’t have any money, but that coat tells me you’ve brought danger, which makes you the right guy. Try the second door past the gentleman’s water closet,” she said. “Go down the steps. Slide the matchbook under the door. Knock three times. My name is Babette. My husband is offshore for the next two weeks. I get off at two.”

“My name is Mike. I’m always on the clock.”

“But if you find me, you shall get off at three.”

There were no markings on the door. It was narrow and gray and easily mistaken for a broom closet, which was the idea. I peered from the alcove to make sure nobody approached and no one was looking, and turned the doorknob, stepping into the rabbit hole. The door shut behind me, sealing away the restaurant and the music and the chattering and the clanking of dishes. A blistering quiet settled on the room, a furious quiet magnified by breath and heartbeat, and the slow dripping of leaky plumbing.

The room was dark but for a single yellow light bulb dangling from a frayed, corroding wire. Flakes of paint chipped from the bulb cast white veins along the ceiling. Pipe works lined the walls, and a staircase of steel grating spiraled twenty feet below.

I made my way down, holding the cold railing with one hand, unsnapping my holster with the other. This was the kind of place where bad things happened; I wanted to make sure it happened to the other guy.

At the bottom of the stairway, an aluminum pail collected water from the leak. Green algae grew along the sides. A soft fan of light peeked from the threshold of a doorway in the distance. I approached with caution. There was a closed eye slot in the door, on which the word MINESHAFT had been etched, as though with a dull nail.

Following Babette’s instructions, I slid the matchbook under the door and knocked three times.

The eye slot tore open and a shotgun barreled through, taking shaky, wanton aim at my face. It looked around, checking to see if I was alone. I was. It withdrew, and the eye slot slid shut. This was not the worst welcome I had ever received.

One, two, three deadbolt hammers fell backward into their locks, a chain slid free, and the door drew inward, three inches of steel, cement, and synthetic wood. Bank vaults were protected by less. I collected my matchbook, casually, as though I did this every day. The shotgun-brandishing Bruno stood aside and re-bolted the door as I stepped past.

I didn’t notice the drunken chatter of the horde packing the place. I didn’t notice the jingling, arm pulling and coin-spillage of slot machines lining the walls. I didn’t notice the cheering from the craps tables, groaning from blackjack players or cringing from roulette wheels. I didn’t notice the flapper dancing in the corner to jazz played on a turnstile. I didn’t even notice the short-skirted waitresses in see-through blouses, slinging drinks and peeps, and collecting tips and pats.

What I noticed was air—thick and white, hanging above the room like a drunk on a chandelier. The speakeasy was fragrant with cigarette smoke, like a New Orleans bordello, or a New Orleans church or a New Orleans grammar school. And it was everywhere, from the hands of stole-wrapped socialites, to the lips of flirts dragging on crimson-stained filters, from the fingers of lookers at the one-armed bandits, to the ashtrays of losers hunched over their last stack of chips. The aroma filled the room, ashes filled trays, and nicotine filled everyone’s system. The room was alive not just with cancer, but with freedom; the freedom to give yourself cancer, the freedom to share it with others.

Across the casino was a bar. I pulled up a seat at third base. I fondled the lighter in my pocket. I could feel my pulse through my thumbs.

A man and a woman tended the bar. He was short and balding, with a three-day beard on a forty-year-old face. A stained apron hung around his neck, a dirty towel over his shoulder. The chick wore a standard-issue black mini and a white shirt buttoned one hole beneath propriety. Her hair was pulled back in a tail. Sweat beaded on her forehead, neck, chest and valley, clingy clothes hinting that she wanted for undergarments.

Nobody complained.

If he approached first, I’d order a Bloody Mary. It was late, I was hungry, and a guy with a mug as ugly as his couldn’t make it in this line of work without raw spiritual talent. If he wanted tips, he had to earn them through the shaker.

If she approached first, I’d order a Scotch. A girl that gorgeous made cash hand-over-fist by boozehounds looking to handle her shakers. She could fuck up a glass of water and still score enough to pay the rent. Scotch was safe; all you had to do was pour. Oaken barrels had already done the heavy lifting.

A deboned and liver-lubed guy slumped over beside me had his face planted on the bar, his mouth agape and leaking drool, his meaty hands wrapped around a bottle of felony juice. He had seen his last call of the evening. The man behind the bar noticed and gestured to the gorilla at the door.

“You sell smokes?” I asked the bartender, flicking my lighter.

He leaned in. The brick house brunette, in that position, would have given me an eyeful of smooth, ample wonderment. Instead, I was given a forest of chest hair and a sweaty, protruding belly. A cigarette would help; I could extinguish it in my eyeballs.

“We have a fine variety,” he said, filter dangling from his lips, two inches of ash violating the laws of physics.

The bouncer arrived, shouldered his weapon, and cradled the sleeping drunk. He lifted the man from his stool and carried him off.

“Lucky Strikes?” I asked.

“Fine tobacco,” replied the bartender. “We do.”

“How much?”

He stood upright, took the Class A from his lips, and tapped it over an ashtray. “You know what they say. If you have to ask...”

I closed my eyes and took a very, profoundly deep breath. When I opened them at last, he was gone, and she was in his place. And I was thankful I had not burned the eyes from my head.

“Hello,” I said to her, and then looked at her face.

“Hello,” she said, and wiped away the puddle of drool left behind by the drunk. Both of us.

“Get you something?” she asked.

“You want an honest answer?”

“If it comes in a bottle.”

“I’ll have what he had,” I said, and gestured to the vacant stool.

“You got it.” The rack behind the counter, including her own, was well-stocked and top quality. High balls were bottom shelf.

She set down a glass, and filled it with bourbon.

“What’s his story, anyway” I asked. She spilled herself in my direction. Beads of sweat rolled down her cleavage. I really needed a smoke.

“Same as everyone else’s. His moll left him for an officer.”

“That common around here?” I asked, suddenly aware we were talking.

“It’s a Baltia thing, mostly. Officers get the society pages and the good life.”

“Good for them,” I said.

“They’ve got their own problems, though. Crazy fraternization rules. They can’t fool around with the enlisted, and had best not fool around with an enlistee’s spouse. It happens—believe me—but if they’re caught, it’s a jail sentence.”

“So what about you? I don’t see a ring. Still waiting for the right man?” I asked.

“Who says I’m waiting on a man? Get you another drink?”

“Make it a double,” I said to her blouse, and feeling sleazy, averted my eyes to the bar, to the water ring from my glass, and then to my hands. They looked old. They were old. Nearly fifty years of wrinkles, more than I remembered, and dry, with yellow-tinged fingernails, stained from thirty years of twenty smokes to a pack, two packs a day, every day. Just under half a million cigarettes.

My wedding ring mocked me from its perch, and the familiar tightening of my chest followed. And here I was jawboning with a barely legal tap-jerker.

Or was jawboning. A hairy fist dropped a glass on my coaster. “Drink up,” said the balding barkeep. My buxom friend had made her way across the bar, leaning into yet another conversation. I had that effect on women.

“Don’t take it personal. She lives on tips,” he said, and shrugged.

“I bet. She’s got a great set of—”

“She’s my daughter.”

“—bartending skills. A fine barkeep. I expect she does quite well.”

“Better than me, and I own the place.”

“Do you?” I asked. “You must have some great stories, then.”

“Seen it all,” he said, “and done it all.” He took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Ever hear someone threaten a colonel?”

He fixed a noxious stare at me, inside me, through me. The couple seated nearby got up. Smoke jetted from his silver-dollar nostrils in two great geysers. I didn’t blink, breathe or move. My .38 weighed heavy in its holster.

“Who wants to know?” he finally asked.

“Mike Sheppard,” I said, “Private Investigator,” and offered my hand.

“So nobody wants to know,” he said, ignoring it and pulling back the glass of mouthwash.

“President Franklin is also curious,” I said, thumbing him some of Sofia Reed’s advance money.

“Ben Franklin was never president, and I could never be bought for a C-note.”

I nodded. “Didn’t mean to offend.”

“Then don’t offer offensive bribes. I could never be bought for a C-note. Two C-notes, on the other hand, might make a difference.”

“Done,” I said.

The bartender’s scowl faded. “I don’t usually make the easy cash like my little girl. What do you want to know?”

How to defile your little girl. “Tell me about O.W. Lime,” I said, instead.

He looked to the left and right. The coin-jingling decibel of the casino offered us privacy. He spoke softly. “Mr. Lime’s a regular, and he’s a friend of mine. Whatever he may or may not have said about the colonel,” and he spit, “was spoken in the Chupacabra, upstairs. Nothing to do with me, or my establishment. I don’t know anything.”

“For two hundred simoleons, you’ve got to do better than that,” I said.

“This is a union town, Michael Sheppard, and Mr. Lime is a union friend.”

“So you’re covering for him?”

“No.”

“Well somebody in the union isn’t friends with him, because they ratted him out to the buttons.”

The bartender tilted his head and bared his teeth. “Let me guess. You’re an Earthling. Otherwise, you’d already know that nobody in the union would ever rat out Mr. Lime. In fact, you should know that more than anyone. After all, it’s your Air Force and your Corporation and your war that got this planet in the pressure cooker.”

“I’m not from Earth,” I said, unmoved. “I’m from New Orleans.”

“All right,” he said, thinking this through. He brought my glass to his nose, and sniffed. Satisfied of its strength, he downed it in a single turn, bottoms up. “All right. I’ll give you a two-hundred dollar history lesson.”

He pulled the apron over his head and tucked it under the counter. “Honey,” he told his daughter, “I’m taking a break.”

She nodded.

The bartender gestured for me to follow, and we pulled up chairs at a vacant table in the casino’s shadowy corner, away from the crowds. “You want to know about the union and O.W. Lime?” he said. “I’ll tell you.”

Chapter 7

When he returned from the Island War, Silas Owen couldn’t find a job. He was a laborer, and had spent his life turning wrenches at the Green Elk tractor factory in Haysville. It was honest work. His daddy believed in the importance of getting your hands dirty. It proved you were a man. Proved what you were doing mattered. The boys who pushed buttons at the big DigiChem facility in Wichita didn’t matter. They dealt in numbers on ledgers handed from one suit to another. Their work and their jobs were disposable, replaceable, all on paper, all in computers. But a tractor? That’s something that’ll be around for a while. Something you can touch. That’s a legacy.

Silas’s father ran a farm in Kinsley. It started out as a summer job, and he never left. He dropped out of high school the following year, knew there was nothing else he’d ever want to do.

His hands were always dirty.

When Silas got a job at the factory, it was just about the best day of his daddy’s life; his boy, following in the old man’s agricultural footsteps. Silas always was a whiz in metal shop, where he learned how to lathe and weld. He could machine just about anything. And now he made tiller blades for Green Elk—hundreds of them a week. He never got tired of it, never bored. He’d punch out, and black dust covered his hands. It mattered.

They moved him to tread assembly after six months. His job was to machine finish the rear-wheel hubs before they were mounted to the axle. The pay wasn’t better, but it was easier work, and the guys in the shop looked at him with a little more respect. And he didn’t cut himself as often as when he was sharpening tillers.

When his father convinced the farm’s owner to buy a new tractor, Silas handpicked the best one from the line. He pointed out the parts he had worked on. His daddy was proud, and tilled the soil himself that day, letting the hands sit around and drink cold ones under the tree.

After two years, Silas had made his way around the factory, and they had him tuning engines as they rolled out the door. Silas reckoned he could build a Green Elk from scratch if they let him. Nineteen years old, and he’d been a part of three hundred eighteen tractors. That was good, important. The machines would still be running decades after he was buried. He’d be feeding families while he was feeding worms. His daddy told him that. They laughed over supper.

A week before his twentieth birthday, Silas got a letter from the government. They’d picked his number. A war had been brewing in the Pacific, and he was going to be a part of it. His daddy choked back tears. ‘You keep your head down, boy,’ he said, over and over.

Silas reported to the military in-processing center on the date provided in the letter. Nobody talked much there. It was like a hospital for the healthy. He moved from station to station, where doctors poked at him, stuck needles in him, made him do a duck walk to check his balance. They checked his rear end for hemorrhoids. It was embarrassing. But he came out okay. Everyone was nervous about going to the war, leaving behind a family, a wife, a husband, a baby. But whenever a recruit failed a medical screening, you could see it in his face. Shame. He wasn’t good enough. He was going home. Four-F, they’d stamp.

Silas wasn’t Four-F. He was One-A. Cleared for military service. The last station was in a classroom, where a short man in green fatigues examined each draftee’s file, and assigned a branch of service. He wore glasses that kept slipping down his nose, and couldn’t have been much older than Silas. The uniform made him look different, though, somehow worn and tested.

When Silas’s name was called, he stood, as instructed.

‘Army,’ said the short man, and like that, Silas Owen became Private Owen.

‘Flatliner, I cannot wait to meet your sister so I can take her away and start fucking the stupid out of your family!’

Of course, he wasn’t called Private Owen right away.

Boot camp wasn’t so bad. Fort Benning, Georgia. Silas was assigned to C Company, Second Battalion, Forty-Seventh Infantry Regiment, or ‘Charlie-Two-Four-Seven’, as they called it.

For ten weeks, the Drill Instructors molded Charlie-Two-Four-Seven into soldiers. Afterward, at Infantry school, the Drill Instructors molded Charlie into killers. Boot camp meant waking before the sun to the shouting of DIs. It meant running in formation for impossible distances, to the shouting of DIs. It meant eating three squares a day in three minutes, to the shouting of DIs. It meant shining boots and pressing uniforms to the shouting of DIs. (Silas wondered if the DIs took some kind of pill to resist laryngitis.) It meant never leaving your rifle more than an arm’s length away, and never out of sight. It meant being covered in mud and running in waterlogged boots until the skin of your heels split apart.

It meant being frightened and aggressive. It meant being aggressive while frightened. It meant surrendering your self and becoming part of a whole. Everything was done as a team. There was no Private Owen; there was only Charlie-Two-Four-Seven. There was no privacy, no stalls or dividers between toilets, and five showerheads and ten minutes for a hundred soldiers to wash themselves. No one was self-conscious, because everyone was Charlie-Two-Four-Seven. When one soldier messed up, everyone was punished. After two weeks, nobody wondered why. They let down one of their own, and welcomed the lashes.

Infantry school focused on the practical side of warfare. How to move tactically. How to manage the chaos of a firefight. How to kill them before they killed you. Silas had never fired a rifle before being drafted. After four months, he was an expert marksman.

He learned how to do a lot of things. How to dig a foxhole. How to camouflage himself. How to communicate with his squad without speaking. How to kick down a door and clear a building. How to call for fire and air support. How to throw grenades and what to do when grenades were thrown at you. He learned to trust his fellow soldiers, to trust his equipment, to trust the judgment of his noncoms, and to obey the officers appointed over him.

Silas wrote home every chance he got. His daddy had taken some time off work. He had the hay fever really bad, or allergies from the pollen, but promised he’d make it to Silas’s Infantry School graduation. And he did. Silas thought his daddy had lost weight, but his daddy laughed until he got a coughing fit. It was Silas who had gained weight. Beneath his dress uniform was a hardened body that could knock out pushups until the ground got tired, and run for days while carrying a full combat load, never noticing the wind, rain, snow or heat. The change sneaked up on Silas. Somewhere along the line, he became an infantryman.

Six months later, Private First Class Silas Owen set foot on San Cristobal in the Solomon Islands. He was part of the invasion force. The Eighty-Second Airborne and Army Special Operations had jumped in by parachute and dropship the previous evening, and crippled the worst of the enemy artillery. Silas’s division stormed the beaches side-by-side with the Marines. The first day was the longest, because it lasted a full week. The enemy wasn’t eager to lose an island.

The Islanders were not really the enemy, it was explained to Silas, even though it was they who fired the bullets. The enemy was an ideology the Islanders had adopted—an ideology spread from China. Since it would be crazy for America and China to go to war, especially since China had more nuclear weapons, making a stand at the Solomons was the safest alternative to a real showdown.

It didn’t feel like a safe alternative to the soldiers on the ground. Water along the white sand coastline faded in places from teal blue to dark red.

Silas couldn’t remember much from that first battle. He knew he didn’t use the bathroom for seven days—never even thought about it. He never thought about dying, either. Just moving and reacting. It was loud—deafening, really—but he didn’t really hear anything. Not the gunshots or explosions or engines or aircraft. The sun beamed mercilessly; white, blinding light scattered on the water and sand. His visor filtered the worst of the rays, but it must have shorted in the water, because everything emitted a vivid, otherworldly hue.

His squad did all right, though his fire-team leader took a hit to the shoulder and was medivaced to headquarters on Bora Bora. His platoon lost all of third squad when a mortar shell hit their boat. Silas scarcely remembered firing his rail gun, but counted twenty-two thousand rounds of plasma depleted from the clip afterward. He also, apparently, threw a grenade.

By the end of his tour, Silas had seen action on every isle in the archipelago. He picked up a Bronze Star with Valor along the way, when he led his fire-team against a fortified machine gun nest and secured it. Anyone would have done the same. The officers got Silver Stars for apparently ordering the action, though nobody remembers any officers on the ground that day.

When Sergeant Silas Owen returned to Haysville, his father was dead of lung cancer. He’d been in decline for a while, though he never told Silas, figuring bullets were preoccupation enough without having to worry about an old man, too. Silas was in disbelief. His father had never smoked a cigarette in his life. According to the doctor, it was just one of those things.

One of those things. Four years of watching ‘one of those things’ happen to his best friends left Silas resigned to mortality, but he still found the tears to shed for his daddy. He shed them until he felt inside out.

Silas didn’t have any other family.

The medical bills took all of his daddy’s savings. The bank took all of his daddy’s life insurance money. Silas didn’t think this was right, but the bank manager showed him the paperwork. Legal fees for repossessing the house. Labor costs for cleaning the house. Disposal fees for incinerating the belongings. There was nothing anybody could do. Silas had to write a check for three hundred dollars before leaving the bank that day, to cover the last of the expenses.

The Green Elk tractor factory had replaced Silas with a robot. It had replaced everybody with robots. Machines never made mistakes, and didn’t need lunch breaks, sleep or a paycheck. With all of America’s boys fighting the war, it was the kind of sacrifice businesses had to make. There was no going back.

The farm replaced Silas’s daddy with a robot, too.

It could have been worse. Silas, at least, knew how to work with his hands. The boys at DigiChem must have been the first to get the ax. If a robot could build a tractor or plow a field, it could damn well push a button.

He stayed with the parents of a war buddy. Their son had taken a round on Guadalcanal and come home in a box. They didn’t charge rent, but every day had Silas recount their boy’s heroics. The same stories, the same questions, over and over. Silas embellished.

Jonesy, the son, was a file clerk. He made the major’s coffee and attended command briefings, taking notes that would be handed down to platoon leaders. He was good at what he did. (He wasn’t a grunt, but what the infantry called a REMF, or rear-echelon soldier.) He rolled his own cigarettes, had terrible acne, and snorted when he laughed.

When Jonesy was pulled for a convoy, it was his first time outside of the wire. Honiara was secure, so it wasn’t unusual to see REMFs tasked with driver duties on supply runs. The infantry and ‘eighty-eights’, as transportation soldiers were called, loved it because it meant downtime. The REMFs loved it because they could take war photographs to send back home.

Ten vehicles made up the convoy. Silas manned the gun turret in truck eight. Jonesy drove the command vehicle, truck six. It was a routine mission—two miles there, two miles back, and photographs for all.

When the resistance fighters hit, they hit hard. Anti-tank missiles obliterated three vehicles, and a hailstorm of small arms fire peppered the rest. Silas went cyclic, as the grunts called it, unleashing the full force of his machine gun. This wasn’t his first ambush. When they landed on Guadalcanal, the whole island was like a hornet’s nest. This was nothing to Silas.

To Jonesy, this was Little Big Horn and Waterloo and Gettysburg and Mogadishu. A grenade disabled his truck, and everyone dismounted. A stray shell punched a hole in Jonesy’s chest the size of a football. He never had time to take cover, or to raise his rifle, or to see what happened.

That’s how it always worked in firefights. One minute you’re there, the next you’re not. The enemy never aimed, so when you died, it was a matter of bad luck, like being hit by a falling piano. It was one of those things.

That’s not how Silas relayed the story. In his version, Jonesy was a steely-eyed killer with a battalion of dead Islanders to his name. When he died, it was mowing down a squad of enemy commandos. Lies and a folded flag are the only things a grieving parent really wants, anyway. The truth about war never helped anyone.

Silas did odd jobs around the house to pay his keep, and checked the papers every day for a job. He gave up looking for skilled labor positions after a month. Those jobs were gone, all taken by DigiChem-manufactured robots. When Christmas rolled around, he’d have settled for bagging groceries at the Super Saver, but those jobs were gone, too. He considered reenlisting in the Army, but the Jones family wouldn’t hear of it. They didn’t even let him complete the thought. Times were hard for everyone, they said.

Mr. Jones was a retired draftsman who did the occasional contract work for the Corporation. He designed seats for shuttlecrafts that flew to and from the Moon. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but his pension and side work made ends meet, with enough left over to take Mrs. Jones to the matinee every weekend. Silas knew the Corporation from his tour. They manufactured trucks and helicopters and rifles—the ‘lowest bidder,’ as the paratroopers joked, before jumping from airplanes in Corporation-made parachutes.

There were rumors, according to Mr. Jones, of job opportunities on Mars. The Air Force, absent during the Island War, had spent a decade developing Martian settlements and needed outside labor to mine the planet. They didn’t pay much, but promised miners a cut of any lode discovered. A man might do well for himself and for his children and grandchildren.

Silas had never left Earth before, but couldn’t see living with the Joneses forever. And it wouldn’t be long before robots took over mining on Mars, too. If Silas was going to make his mark, he needed to move. Mr. Jones got everything in order, and the following month, Silas was on his way.

News of the mining jobs traveled fast. Six Naval shuttles carrying a thousand workers each departed for Mars that day, part of a steady rotation. The flight lasted just under a month, and quarters were close and cramped. The accommodations didn’t bother Silas after his tour in the war, but a lot of civilians were driven to the brink of madness.

On the third day of the voyage, Silas met a woman. She pulled up a chair in the galley next to Silas, set down her tray and introduced herself. Her name was Clara. She hailed from Salt Lake City, was an experienced miner on Earth, and was the most beautiful woman Silas had ever seen. She wore her hair short, and had hard, onyx eyes and pale skin. She stuck a calloused hand out and Silas shook it, stupefied. His father would have loved her.

They hit it off right away. She was a talker, and Silas was a listener devoted to her every word. She regaled him with stories of life growing up in East Bench. Her father owned a bar, which meant he was the worst businessman in town. Salt Lake City was never known for its drinkers.

Her father taught her a lot of things. How to make a perfect martini. (The secret: Cerignola olives.) How to sharpen a knife. How to throw a baseball and how to oil a glove. She learned how to knot a necktie. How to read a hustler. How to do a hundred card tricks and how to tell a joke. He liked to drink, her father, and drained a thousand bottles of gin giving her lessons in life. He glossed over the easy stuff, figuring that if your instincts said to run with scissors or eat rocks from the garden, you were fucked, anyway. He started straightaway to a wide-eyed, six-year-old Clara with warnings about never spitting on the ground in Singapore, and never floating down a jungle river at night. Never shave your head in July, and if caught in a riptide, always swim parallel with the shore, not toward it. Never drink beer before wine. If arrested in Mexico, always offer a bribe to the policeman, and never buy insurance at the blackjack table.

She lost her younger brother in the Island War. He was an eighty-eight. Her mother died during the same brother’s birth. Clara knew her only from photographs and the slurred, weeping recollections of her father. Clara got in the mining business when a patron at the bar offered her work as a secretary. It was an express train out of Salt Lake City, and she hopped it. One week of answering phones, though, and she was ready to punch through walls. Two weeks of answering phones and she was ready to punch through solid rock. Three weeks of answering phones, and her employer put her violent tendencies to good use.

Working underground suited her. She enjoyed the gallows humor and the taxing work. She enjoyed breaking a sweat and eating from a pail. She enjoyed the rush of tapping a new vein and drawing resources from the Earth. Mostly, though, she enjoyed blowing things up. Clara was precise and fearless in trying new things, and absolutely confident that she wouldn’t blow herself to smithereens in the process. The mine foreman made her shift lead after three years on the job.

Mining, it seemed, was her calling. And were she ever sent to prison, she mused, at least she’d be used to breaking rocks. So it was a practical career choice, too.

They landed on Mars, setting down at a barren airfield adjacent to a mountain. Baltia Post, the pilot announced. Engineers milled about on the planet’s surface, carrying survey equipment and wearing spacesuits, leaning into powerful winds. Silas didn’t know much about Mars. Clara said it was cold and harsh, with dust storms that engulfed the planet for months at a time.

Small buses docked with the shuttles, establishing airlocks. Passengers debarked fifty at a time. It took the better part of the afternoon for everyone to be driven to the Air Force hangar for processing. Once inside, each person was thumb printed for security access and issued a duffel bag of supplies.

One class-K hazard suit.

One first aid kit, complete with radiation tablets and frostbite treatment.

One reserve oxygen tank, to be carried at all times.

One helmet-mounted lamp.

One communications radio.

‘This is junk,’ said Clara. ‘There’s a hole in my hazard suit, and this oxygen tank has a crack in it.’

‘We can patch it up,’ said an Air Force supply clerk.

Engraved on each item: Manufactured by the Corporation.

After chow (‘Class-D rations? The d is for dog food.’–Clara), administrators assigned each worker to a team, and each team to a location.

It reminded Silas of the draft.

Although the Galle Crater colony offered the best living accommodations, most hoped to be stationed at Monte Patera. Rumors promised a pirate’s chest of diamonds waiting to be plundered on the nearby Olympus Mons. Digging an active volcano was a risk well worth taking for an early, lucrative retirement.

They assigned Silas to Monte Patera.

They assigned Clara to a project aimed at connecting each of the colonies through subterranean tunnels. Project Ant Farm, it was called. The unforgiving surface of Mars made zeppelin and aircraft travel difficult, and supply and heavy-equipment transport impossible. Until a railroad system could be built, the tunnels would facilitate colonial expansion and the founding of new settlements.

For Silas, the choice was money or love.

For Silas, it wasn’t a choice at all.

He horse-traded with a miner stuck at Baltia Post, who jumped at the chance to tap Olympus Mons. Silas then offered a bribe to an airman holding a clipboard. For the price of one antique pocket watch—a gift from Mrs. Jones—the airman reassigned Clara to Baltia, and Silas to Clara’s team as a mechanic.

Silas, after all, knew how to work with his hands.

Those stationed at Baltia were driven through a tunnel, into a natural cavern in the neighboring mountain. Fortified and airlocked by the Air Force Corps of Engineers, hazard suits were unnecessary within its confines.

Mountain Town, the guide called it.

Erected alongside fifty-foot stalagmites was an encampment of knobby buildings that included barracks, a dining facility, a chapel, and a community center. Plans posted in the promenade promised a sprawling Baltia of Tomorrow, complete with an atmospheric shield that allowed for construction on the Martian surface, and a weather machine that would bring the elements of home. Clara thought such a future preposterous, but she also never thought she would marry.

For six months, they worked fifteen-hour shifts during the week and eight-hour shifts on the weekends, with a single day off every month. Not a single mineral had been found. The other colonies reported the same.

Every day, Silas raced through the routine maintenance of drilling machines, and volunteered for the much more laborious task of chiseling rock. The other mechanics thought him crazy. Some blamed the war. But it put him side-by-side with Clara, who blew apart Mars one mineshaft at a time. She loved her job.

In six months, they lost five miners. Two were the result of failed hazard suits. One suffocated due to a bad air tank and faulty reserve. One malfunctioning drill sliced a miner in two. (Not Silas’s fault.) One committed suicide. (Not Clara’s fault.) Clara complained bitterly to the Air Force administrators, who suggested she keep her complaints to herself. Silas, in love, a former soldier and in no way intimidated by a mere airman, complained in even stronger tones. The airman suggested that he stand down lest his suit fail, too.

Silas inspected his hazard suit every day after that, and Clara’s, when she would let him. She refused to be intimidated. Coincidentally, at least once a week, their credits at the chow hall would not process, and they missed a meal. Computer malfunctions were to blame each time.

With one month to go on their contracts, the workers started asking about flights back home. Many had families waiting. All were weary and disappointed that no riches had been discovered. The Air Force reported that transport shuttles would be delayed for some time due to solar winds and spacecraft upgrades. This didn’t go over well, but the Air Force reminded them that it meant further opportunities to strike it rich before the next wave of miners arrived. And work was hardly plentiful back home. The country had fallen into a depression, according to news broadcasts.

The shuttle delays did not upset Silas; just the opposite. Going home meant separation from Clara. He’d rather live in the Martian wasteland forever with her, than in the Garden of Eden without. Spurred by the ticking clock, he made his move after a long Tuesday shift. While the crew packed its gear for the day, Silas pulled Clara aside.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked through the radio in her hazard suit.

He dropped to one knee.

‘Is your leg hurting?’ she asked.

He offered up a shiny ring that he machined himself.

‘Is that part of your hazard suit?’ she asked.

There was no diamond, of course, because no diamonds had been found. It was steel, because no silver or gold had been discovered, either. If she said yes, he promised, he’d make her a proper ring when they struck it rich.

‘If I say yes to what?’ she tortured.

‘Will you marry me?’

Yes.

The only preacher on Mars married them on October the seventh. Ten months later, the only obstetrician on Mars delivered their son. They named him Buford, after Silas’s father. Clara’s father was named Verlaine, and she wasn’t willing to do that to an innocent baby.

The Naval shuttles from Earth arrived one year behind schedule. In that time, a crew of forty from Monte Patera died when a shaft collapsed and flooded with lava. A handful more died in Baltia and the Galle Crater—equipment failures, every one. Silas watched his supervisor freeze to death due to a split seam in the man’s hazard suit. The Reaper came in three minutes. By the time medics arrived, the corpse was blue and felt like a tire. It brought Silas back to the war. One of those things.

Silas couldn’t shake the vision of his wife lying there, freezing to death.

Three minutes.

He stormed to the team’s Air Force liaison. (One had been assigned to each mining crew to monitor performance and safety. Clara suspected they were really there to spy on the workers, to quell revolts before they started, and to report subversives. The miners called them the Watchful Eyes.) Silas shouted and threatened. It was a preventable death. The deceased was a husband and father, killed by shoddy equipment.

He saw Clara, a wife and mother.

The liaison was at first taken aback. Miners wore bulky, reinforced hazard suits that made even the most diminutive of workers appear a hulking stack of muscle. The Air Force wore blue, closely trimmed suits. Silas’s demeanor, his body language, the way he jabbed a finger in the officer’s chest, suggested he might do anything.

The liaison pulled a pistol. Silas slapped it away.

All work stopped.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody moved.

‘Don’t pull a gun on a soldier unless you plan to use it,’ said Silas. ‘I’ve dealt in real violence.’

The lieutenant said nothing.

Silas came to his senses in a deep breath. ‘Do your job, sir. Call that man’s family and tell them why he died.’

The next day, Air Force security policemen questioned the crew about the incident. Everyone had the same story. The liaison saw the supervisor’s body, and in grief, drew a pistol and pointed it at his own head. Silas stopped the lieutenant from committing suicide. He was a hero.

Later that week, the pediatrician couldn’t treat Buford’s ear infection. The clinic was, apparently, out of medicine.

Clara and Silas rotated months on the job. One worked while the other cared for the baby. Such rotations became common as romances blossomed and the first native Martians were born.

The shuttles from Earth brought ten thousand fresh workers and an optimism that riches might really be around the corner. After spending years studying soil samples, geologists now reported with certainty that the minerals were there, just a bit deeper in the planet. Like a gambler down to the last dollar of his paycheck, the settlers feared leaving just as the slots were primed to hit. Nobody was immune to the temptation of a looming gold rush.

In spite of the Air Force’s imperious nature, many found comfort on Mars. It had become home. Three hot meals a day and guaranteed employment stood in stark contrast to the situation on Earth. With the Island War in its seventh year, the draft, it was reported, had been expanded to include females. The demographic makeup of the new colonists confirmed this; forty percent of the new arrivals were women. The government considered work on Mars to be national service, and exempted miners from the draft.

The influx of women was an added incentive for a great many to stay.

Buford Silas and his generation of natural-born Martians brought special problems. Everything from immune system development to bone density had been compromised in the artificial gravity and filtrated air systems of the Marian colonies. Air Force doctors and scientists feared that sending an infant to Earth would be a death sentence fraught with biological horrors of every variety.

In the end, only a thousand or so workers—mostly those with waiting wives, husbands and children—returned to Earth. Silas didn’t care where he lived, so long as it was with his family. The Owens remained.

Clara watched the world change around her over the next decade. Her little boy excelled in grade school, played on the softball team and grew the same scruffy, cow-licked hair as Silas. He was affable, but would sometimes flash a penetrating gaze that took her back to her father’s bar in East Bench. Her father got the same look after his first Bloody Mary of the day.

With Buford in school, Clara and Silas both worked, with alternating, abbreviated hours. Clara was shift lead, now, and Silas’s supervisor. He never advanced in his career after the incident with the Watchful Eyes. He never complained, though, and treated her like he treated any of his bosses. Quiet. Respectful. Dignified. The years aged him, though, and she sometimes feared that he’d die young like his father. By thirty, tufts of hair grew white and peppered his head. By thirty-five, he was an old man. Even his eyebrows were white. She listened to him breathe while he slept, listened for the first signs of cancer. The Air Force doctors said he was in perfect health, but the Air Force couldn’t be trusted. Silas was on The List. She imagined a list, anyway, and took care to keep herself and Buford off of it. She filled Buford’s head with guidance and warning. Always call officers ‘sir’—even the women—and never turn your back on them. Obey their orders without question, just as the enlisted personnel do. Trust nobody in a uniform. Keep your opinions to yourself, unless you are at home, and even then, speak with a guarded tongue; it’s always possible they are listening. She taught him to read someone, to watch the shoulders and the eyebrows and whether the eyes moved to the left or right when they spoke. She taught him to look for tells: the checking of a wristwatch, the twirling of a lock of hair, the pulling of an earlobe.

Silas was a good father. He never raised his voice, never uttered a harsh word. But he was firm. He didn’t laugh easily, and rarely went out. Sometimes, Clara feared, he was still on the Solomons, and Mars was just one more island in the chain. That’s how it felt, anyway—like an island. They lived in Monte Patera now. The settlement wasn’t as nice as Baltia, but had a lighter Air Force footprint. The transfer was her idea. Construction had begun on the air shield over Baltia. It was massive and frightening in scope, and unnerved Clara, who felt more comfortable drilling down than building up. At its zenith it was scarcely visible through the dust storm that had engulfed the planet three years prior. The engineers talked about building a smaller one over Monte Patera once the tunnels were finished. A couple more years, they promised, which reassured Clara. Nothing was ever accomplished in ‘a couple more years.’

It was early that night when Silas shuffled in, eyes red and watery, and Clara rushed to meet him at the door.

‘What happened?’

‘Back.’

She sat him on the couch.

‘How?’

‘An actuator in my suit gave out. I was carrying a drill torch.’

Drill torches weighed a half-ton, at least.

‘Did you see a doctor?’

Silas nodded.

‘And?’

He turned away as best he could, not wanting to meet her eye. ‘No medicine,’ he said.

The List.

‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad,’ he said. ‘I’ll live. I just need to lie down. Dinner?’

‘Just rice, tonight. The food resupply still hasn’t arrived. The commissary is cleaned out, and the chow hall doors are locked.’

‘Figures.’

‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. Crows feet crawled up his temples. He was more pallid than usual.

She helped him up and walked him to the bedroom. He pulled the sheets to his neck and took a deep breath. He turned away.

‘They want you to come in,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Right now,’ he said. ‘Finish my shift. Then pull yours.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. A tear.

A tear from her, too.

‘Do you want dinner?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘I’ll let Buford know. I’ve got to get ready.’

Someone pounded on the door with the ball of his fist.

Nobody answered.

He pounded again.

Buford crawled from bed and rubbed his eyes. He wiped his hands on his Marvelman pajamas. The clock read 0230. He shuffled to the door, kicking a path of toys on his bedroom floor.

Three more raps. Harder. Angry.

Buford wasn’t sure if it was safe to open the door, but knew his father was hurting, which meant he was the man of the house, now.

‘Who is it?’

‘Major West.’

An officer. Buford unlocked the door, and pulled it open. ‘Come in, sir.’

Major West wore his dress uniform. Buford admired the colorful ribbons.

‘I need to see your father.’

‘He’s asleep, sir. He’s injured.’

‘I know. I’m a doctor. Show me to him.’

‘Yes sir.’

If his father was breathing, it was the same way animals breathe when they hibernate. A thin sheet of sweat covered his body, and hairline cracks slivered up the veneers of his teeth. He’d been clenching his jaw, fighting the pain.

‘Mr. Owen,’ said the doctor.

Buford’s father did not respond.

‘Mr. Owen, wake up.’

The doctor pressed his shoulder.

‘Daddy,’ said Buford, terrified.

Silas opened his eyes, saw the uniform, and said nothing.

‘Mr. Owen,’ said Major West.

‘He’s a doctor, daddy.’

‘A doctor?’ asked Silas.

‘It is my duty to inform you that your wife is dead.’

The seal around her helmet cracked. That was the official story. The following week Buford and Silas were made to move into a smaller apartment. An Air Force liaison’s report had determined that they no longer needed the extra living space. Silas could barely stand, though, so Buford did all the packing, and neighbors helped move the larger boxes. They expected Silas back at work three days later. Still grieving, and with no pain management or medical treatment, he couldn’t carry a pencil, much less a wrench. The mechanics took pity on him. Already, they called him Pops. He was two years shy of forty, and looked like an old man; now he moved like one, too. They let him sit around and supervise, even though he wasn’t a supervisor, and never would be—not with The List. Silas spent the rest of his career sitting on that chair and sobbing. Two years later, Buford tried to get him out of bed, and he wouldn’t move. This time, it was permanent.

They didn’t make Buford change housing. That’s when he knew he wasn’t on The List. The Watchful Eyes never noticed him or didn’t care about him. All those lessons from his mom paid off. Yes sir. No sir. Thanks for your wife, sir; I was sure to salute her.

When he reached fifteen, Buford dropped out of school. He was legally an adult, and the Air Force always needed another body to waste time carving holes in the planet. Every year, geologists offered another promise of treasure just around the corner. X marks the spot. Suckers continued to pour in from Earth by the bushel. Dustbowl survivors. The Depression hadn’t let up. The war—some war, anyway, against who knows what—was in full swing.

Buford apprenticed young and worked hard, not out of loyalty, but upbringing. He was the go-to guy by thirty. With the right tools, he could drill a mine one hundred meters deep, alone, in six hours. He dug rocks, which made the chicks on the team dig him. He got his, but never got serious with them.

For months, rumors spread amongst the miners that changes were coming. Big changes. Some speculated the mines would be closed, and Mars abandoned. Buford doubted that. He secretly dreaded it. He imagined a forced-relocation to Earth, only to have his blood boil with disease and skeleton snap as the ship landed. He didn’t put it past the Air Force, though. Other rumors centered on a favorite fantasy of every Martian: the Air Force packing up and going home. Buford doubted that; it didn’t explain the Corps of Engineers working around the clock, or the sudden interest in renovating worn facilities and erecting new ones. They began work on an air shield for Monte Patera after completing the job over Baltia. Buford never visited, but heard it felt like Earth, whatever that felt like. Buford didn’t care. They said a few months after turning on the weather machine, grass started to grow. Whatever grass was.

In the end, the Air Force didn’t leave. An army came—an army swaddled in tailored suits and silk ties, crocodile pumps and cashmere scarves. Jewelry festooned manicured fingers, and perched on surgically sculpted noses were designer sunglasses with live feeds of the market tracking across the lens.

They were the men and women of the Corporation.

They brought with them a fleet of ships, a brigade of robots, and a plan. Mars, they said, was dead. Dryer than a stepmother’s kiss. An ambitious venture, with no return. They were going to change things, though. Do to Mars what they did to Earth. The Air Force did a fine job with infrastructure, but now was the time for vision. And what the Corporation saw was the asteroid belt.

The mission called for a hundred miners to act as shift leads for teams of robots. A condition of employment: forfeiture of any and all material findings, mineral or elemental. In other words, no cut of the lode.

Nobody volunteered. The Air Force encouraged participation by firing a hundred miners handpicked by the Corporation. Buford Owen was the first one handed a pink slip.

He wasn’t surprised and he wasn’t angry. He’d have been more offended if they hadn’t chosen him. He didn’t expect to find anything out there anyway, and damn sure wasn’t hitting pay dirt on Mars. The Corporation offered a slightly higher salary, and best of all, there would be a hundred million miles between the Air Force and himself. The standard Grisly Death Indemnification clause applied, but it was worth it for a little breathing room.

There wasn’t much breathing room on Buford’s ship. On some days, when life support failed, there wasn’t much breathing air, either. The Corporation crammed the hundred miners into a fifty-man transport. It kept costs down. Every other day the plumbing backed up, which was not a trivial problem in zero gravity with a hundred burly men.

If work was strenuous on Mars, it was slavery on the Belt. The robots were prone to overheating and exploding, and within six months, twenty miners were dead. Inexpensive robots kept costs down. So did the ancient, tattered spacesuits, though the Corporation called them ‘field tested.’ Buford simmered. He saw only his mother, but he didn’t say anything, because she wouldn’t have wanted him to.

The nine-month rotation on the Belt turned into a year, and then eighteen months. Buford watched men made of gristle and bourbon turn to jelly. Some hallucinated. Some sobbed until their tears shorted the communication systems in their spacesuits. Some babbled endlessly, a stream of paranoid ramblings and irrational thoughts. They called it the Void.

Everyone wanted a woman. Some turned to men. Nobody wondered why.

Buford went weeks thinking only of the doctor. That night. Major West. He still remembered the bastard’s name.

‘It’s my duty to inform you that your wife is dead.’

Not his sad duty. Not his unfortunate duty. His duty.

‘I drew the short straw. We killed that bitch you live with.’

Buford considered The List. And he fulminated silently on the Watchful Eyes. He didn’t know what life was supposed to be like, but he knew that this wasn’t it.

When flickering phosphorescent bulbs lit up the crew berthing, Buford unstrapped himself from his bunk and feared the worst. Nobody turned on the lights in sleeping quarters, ever. At first, he expected a troop of Air Force officers to storm in and start some bullshit inspection. He expected news of a catastrophe, or impending doom. Abandon ship. Corporation and robots first.

He heard shouts of torment. No. Hoots of joy. Maybe another miner had lost it to the Void. Maybe Buford would be hooting next. Nobody celebrated, anywhere, ever. And then a team of miners and two Corporation lackeys floated in carrying green bottles with foil tops.

‘Heads-up boys!’ a Corporation minion shouted, before popping open a bottle of champagne. Foamy sparkling wine pumped from the bottles in great pink globs. ‘We’ve struck gold.’

The decade that followed saw the Martian population swell and a market economy take hold. For the first time, colonists were making money and severing ties with the Air Force. A palpable, ineffable, peerless feeling of hope spread across the populace like sparkles on a diamond. For the first time, it was possible to make a life and a career outside of the mines.

Except for men like Buford. Mining was all he knew. A young orphan. A fifteen-year-old dropout. An old man. He felt old, anyway. He thought of his father. Buford enjoyed watching the ‘better world’ happen, but felt like a relic, too ashamed to be a part of it. He was a Belt miner, and he’d never escape the rocks. He’d always live in the Bad Old Days.

And then he met Lily.

It was his last night in Monte Patera before yet another wasted year on the rocks. He ambled into a discrete cantina on the edge of town. He wanted a strong drink and Mexican food. Instead, he found a strong drink and a Mexican waitress. She had a body that caused men to slap their wives, and moved like a dancer. She had a dry throaty laugh and she wasn’t wearing a ring.

Buford had some experience from his youth in the art of romance. He knew the right things to say and the right moves to make. He knew how to touch a woman’s forearm to get her attention and the way to turn a quiet remark into a hand on the knee. He knew how to read a woman’s smile, how to tell if she was seeing someone, and how to turn a hello into a nightcap.

And he knew better than to use any of those tricks on Lily.

If he had Cupid’s arrow in his quiver, she had Thor’s hammer in her hand.

She was a waitress.

A beautiful waitress.

An experienced waitress.

Her brother owned the place. She had seen it all. She was immune. Buford, to her, was just another dirty miner with a dirty mind. But he wasn’t; the only part of her body he wanted was her hand. He didn’t understand it and he didn’t understand why, but he knew with certainty that this woman was different, that she was everything he had ever wanted in his life. Everything that he lost when the Air Force killed his parents. She was the hope that everyone else talked about.

He knew this at first sight.

He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know anything about her. And he had only one night to find out.

On the flight to the Belt, he daydreamed of Lily. Twenty-six. Second year on Mars. Lived with her parents. Single. Brown eyes. Raven hair. Olive complexion.

He caught her after work. She wouldn’t talk to him on the clock. He met her outside, and her brother trained a shotgun on him until she waved him off. She trusted Buford.

They walked to the space terminal where he’d be departing. She asked him about his life. He told her everything. He assured her he wasn’t on The List. She had never heard of The List, but she believed him. He made his intentions clear. If she found a better man while he was away, marry him. But if she didn’t, Buford would ask for her hand the day he returned, and would spend the rest of his life making her happy.

Lily looked. She looked hard. She dated. She danced. She flirted. And one year later, the strange, earnest miner with whom she had spent only hours one evening in November returned. And she knew he was the one.

***

When Clifford Barnes joined the team, Buford knew he didn’t belong. Not that Barnes wasn’t a good miner; it just seemed that he had a mind for greater things, and the charisma to make those things happen. A distinguished career might take him as far as foreman, and Barnes was bigger than that. He backslapped like a politician, pressing flesh with everyone on the crew as though the mineshafts of the asteroid belt led directly to the halls of power. He never forgot a face, and never forgot to ask about an ailing mother, or forlorn spouse. He gave marital advice and took double shifts when someone needed a break. He covered for workers careless, late, or absent. He never sought personal gain, and he worked like a saint in a hospice.

It was suspicious, and the Watchful Eyes were bound to notice.

Barnes cornered Buford in the shower one night between shifts. They were alone.

‘Boss,’ said Barnes with a honeysuckle accent. ‘Ah think ah’ve figgered you out.’

Buford said nothing. He stared into the brushed aluminum walls of the open-bay shower, steam clouding the air. The squares of porcelain tile beneath his feet felt slimy, moldy. He lathered his body with extra soap.

‘Ah’ve noticed you inspect our gear before and after shifts.’

‘It’s my job.’

‘Regulations say you only need to do it before. You’re worried the next guy won’t.’

Buford scrubbed, his mother shouting in his head to get out of there. He lathered soap into his hair, and rinsed. The water ran cold.

‘You know,’ said Barnes, ‘They need us. The Air Force and the Corporation. The States. Earth. They need us more than ever. There’s rumblings of another war back on Earth.’

‘I don’t live on Earth,’ said Buford.

‘That don’t mean they don’t want our uranium. Word is they’re drafting miners, now.’ said Barnes.

‘So I hear,’ said Buford, turning and rinsing his back. He eyed Barnes, who stood naked but for a towel around the waist.

‘Draftees couldn’t find a mineshaft for their own behinds. You and me, we know what we’re doin. A lot of other fellas, too. We’re the backbone of this operation.’

Buford said nothing. He rinsed his chest and legs.

‘Things are going to change, boss,’ said Barnes. ‘And I’m gonna change them.’

Buford twisted the faucet, the showerhead lilting to a trickle, and then a drip. Buford reached for a towel. Clifford Barnes leaned in, and whispered, ‘Ah trust you, boss. I’m asking you to trust me. Let’s keep this little chat between us. We’ll talk later.’

Buford stared into the kid’s eyes. Twenty-five years old, half Buford’s age. Pudgy cheeks. Jowls melting from his face. Fat hanging between chin and neck. And absolute, steely confidence.

Buford thought of his wife. He thought of his mother. He thought of his father spending the rest of his life in that chair.

Buford looked hard at Barnes. ‘We’ll talk later.’

Buford sat in the foreman’s office running through paperwork, filling out requisition forms and monitoring transmissions on the emergency radio. It was his night off. The previous week, a draftee has been killed when his hazard suit failed and the reserve air tank wouldn’t pressurize. It was later discovered to be deficient. The kid spent his final hour shouting desperately on the emergency frequency to no one, because the Air Force safety liaisons never bothered listening to that channel. Safety was not their job.

Afterward, the foremen agreed to take turns on the radio, to keep another kid from meeting a lonely, meaningless end. It was Buford’s night.

On the supply request form, he made tick marks next to hazard suit gaskets. Radioactive dust from uranium-bearing rocks corroded the seals on hazard suits faster than rocks bearing diamonds or gold. And though suit failures hadn’t noticeably increased, instances of radiation poisoning had. Half of Buford’s team could pull fistfuls of hair from his or her own head. Buford, who was already bald, could not be sure whether he suffered from poisoning or not. He took the Rad-X tablets just in case.

The Corporation would reject his request. He would elevate it to the Air Force, which would reject it, too. He would suggest to his crew that they buy gaskets on their own or maybe pool resources and make a bulk purchase at a discounted rate. Buford knew a supplier on Phobos.

‘—sters aren’t working. My HUD is registering air depletion. I’m not sure if it’s the computer or the air ta—’

The radio.

Buford fiddled with the signal dial, boosting the feed. He spoke into the microphone. ‘This is control. Say again, miner.’

‘My thrusters have failed. I’m crawling a tunnel on rock Whiskey Lima Foxtrot three-five-nine.’

Buford called up a map of the asteroid. ‘What shaft are you in?’ he asked as calmly as possible.

‘Region two, shaft Kilo Golf.’

‘What about your air?’

‘My HUD is reading fifteen percent, but that can’t be right.’

Fifteen percent would give him an hour and a half. ‘Can your crew get your out?’

‘I’m alone. The robots took off.’ He paused. ‘Now I’m reading eight percent. Something’s happenin here.’

Honeysuckle accent. ‘What’s your name, miner?’

‘Clifford Barnes.’

The List.

‘I’m dispatching a recovery team. Activate your beacon, and take shallow breaths.’ Buford sounded a general alarm, and contacted a team in a nearby asteroid. He sent them Barnes’s coordinates, and his status.

‘Six percent,’ said Barnes.

‘Stop talking!’ said Buford.

‘My eyes feel like they’re gonna pop out of my head. My head is spinning. I think I...’

Silence.

The medics didn’t think he’d make it. They were wrong, but it wasn’t an unreasonable prognosis. When the hazard suit lost pressure, both eyes really had popped from his head. The rescue team couldn’t see his face for the sheet of blood coating his visor, courtesy of a burst vessel in the brain.

When he awoke, he couldn’t see Buford Owen standing over his bed. An inch of gauze covered his eyes.

‘Is anyone there?’ he asked.

‘I am.’

‘Boss?’ asked Clifford.

‘Call me Buford.’

‘I knew you’d be the one to save me.’

‘How?’

‘Trust, Buford. Trust. Are we alone?’

‘Yeah,’ said Buford, ‘and I think it’s time we had our chat.’

***

‘This is crazy,’ said Buford from the corner booth of his brother-in-law’s restaurant.

‘I’ve got O.W. Lime,’ said Clifford Barnes.

‘Crazier still. Have you been reading his columns lately? He’s a malcontent.’

‘So am I,’ said Barnes. ‘So are you.’

‘He’s going to get himself killed.’

‘So am I. So are you.’

Buford said nothing.

‘Look,’ asked Barnes, ‘do you want to spend the rest of your life breaking rocks, or do you want to save the world?’

‘I’m just a miner.’

‘Miners are Mars, Buford. You made this planet. Your parents made this planet. The spirit of the people can’t be found in a business suit or an Air Force uniform; it’s found caked in the treads of muddy work boots. It’s scrubbed from fingernails black with engine grease. It’s buried in the graves of men and women who wanted only one thing: a new start. A better life. Who’s going to give them a better life, Buford? Who better than a Martian? Who better than a miner? Who better than a worker?’

‘How are we going to do this?’

‘You’re going to retire,’ he said. ‘I’m going to recruit. Lime’s going to write. We need a base of operations. A mineshaft, if you will, to call our own, protected by one of our own. A retired miner should be able to work out somethin.’

‘There’s a secret room in the back of this restaurant,’ said Buford.

‘We need something bigger. Much bigger.’

He dug it himself. His brother-in-law didn’t like it, but Buford wasn’t asking. El Chupacabra Cantina was a hole, but it was reputable. Nobody suspected the secret room in the back, or the subversive, retired miner there, carving an underground cavern using equipment borrowed from an Olympus Mons mining crew.

When it was completed, they met for the first time. The moment Buford Owen set eyes on O.W. Lime, he felt safe. Lime was short, lithe, and vigorous in word and gesture, with wavy brown hair, and dark, sullen, intimidating eyes. Not a handsome man, but a beautiful one. And like Barnes, betrayed in his expression not a scintilla of doubt.

There wasn’t a Martian alive who didn’t know O.W. Lime. He wrote fearlessly for the Sentinel, some days analyzing geopolitical minutiae, and some days filing missives from the frontlines of the war on Earth. He was the smartest guy in every room, and carried no love for the Air Force or the Corporation. People knew this not from what he wrote, but from what he didn’t. No fawning adulation of the officer corps. No exclusive interviews with the Corporation’s CEO. Lime was a serious man and wrote about serious things. If he didn’t cover something important, it’s because his opinions were insufficiently orthodox, or it wasn’t important at all.

And what Clifford Barnes proposed was insufficiently orthodox.

A labor union.

A brotherhood of miners.

A strike.

‘They’ll hang us the first day,’ said Buford, but boldly. He felt stupid between Barnes and Lime. But brave and important, and where they had brains, he’d have courage.

‘Then we need people willing to be hanged the second day, too,’ mumbled Lime with garbled British inflection.

‘And the third. And for as many days as it takes,’ said Barnes. ‘This is bigger than us. This is bigger than Mars. This is bigger than the war and the country and the military. This is about humanity. Freedom, boys. It’s about saving Mars from becoming Earth.’

Buford didn’t know anything about Earth, but he nodded in assent. ‘Do you trust anybody that much? Enough to face the gallows?’ asked Buford.

‘Remember the day I first confronted you?’ asked Barnes.

‘Yes.’

‘You weren’t the first person I approached. You were recommended to me.’

‘Who by?’

‘Everyone.’

This made Buford proud.

Barnes continued. ‘It’s about trust. I’ve got it, and I give it. The wheels are already in motion, Mr. Owen. I’ve already begun organizing workers on the Belt.’

What’s needed of me?’ asked Buford.

‘Keep this place secret. Keep this place safe. This is where the revolution begins.’

Our birth is no less virtuous on a red planet than blue, our rights no less inalienable. But never before in the course of history have rights been given without the point of a gun, without the will of a people disposed to pull the trigger.

Our masters are so disposed, but they are only our masters because we allow it. The fattened calf is led to the slaughter, but at least it has the virtue of being fattened. Our masters claim the whole of a people to indenture as they wish, to dash out as they see fit.

They have shown us that every Martian bleeds red. It is time we see what the Earthlings bleed.

The time to strike is upon us.

(The preamble to Rights of the Common Worker, signed only by ‘The Owl’)

It took days for O.W. Lime to write the pamphlet, weeks for Buford to arrange its safe arrival on the Belt, and hours for Barnes to spread it to every worker holding a drill or turning a wrench.

“Are we preaching war? Bloodshed?” asked Buford. He was not opposed to righteous violence, but wanted to know what he was facing.

“No. But I’d like the Air Force to know that we have it in us,” said Lime.

The Air Force officer has hands too full of rifle to pick up a drill. The Corporation suspender-man has hands too full of stock options to pick up a drill. The miner has hands too full of drilling equipment to pick up his newborn, or hold her spouse.

But what would happen if the miner put down the drill? Would the Air Force open fire? Such a reaction seems counterproductive, as a dead miner is a lower profit margin. A dead miner is one less atom bomb. At present, the common worker can be replaced at gunpoint from the ranks of the disenfranchised, disempowered populace of a disadvantaged planet. But what would happen if the whole of the peoples stared the Reaper in the eye? Stared down the barrel of an Air Force rifle and invited discharge?

Time and events have clarified a great many things. The least of which: they need us. For two generations, we needed them. Our nourishment came on shuttles from Earth. Our medicine came in monthly supply runs. Our freedom came from a document encased in glass on a planet many of us have never visited, in a city many of us could not locate on a map. Our parents taught us that such was the natural order.

But our parents are dead, or dying, and we have ascended to their place. We have gardens. We have refineries. We have storefronts and tapestries and manufacturing and artisans. We have doctors and scientists. We have dreamers and teachers and thinkers and writers. Martians all. This generation, our generation, is now supporting Earth.

It is time we have a voice. We are a family, a Brotherhood.

- The Owl

The police arrested O.W. Lime one morning on his way to the Sentinel. That’s when he knew the authorities were getting nervous. He denied any association with The Owl, so they beat the hell out of him. They suggested he find The Owl’s identity for his own safety.

According to the official report, Lime’s injuries were the result of him ‘accidentally falling into a doorknob several times.’ Lime framed the report and hung it on a wall in the Mineshaft. Buford had to help him, though; Lime’s swollen eyes saw triple.

After that, Clifford Barnes kept his distance for fear of compromising the Mineshaft’s location, or his association with O.W. Lime. He corresponded by placing take-out orders from the El Chupacabra menu. He and Lime had worked out some kind of code. In his final message —shrimp enchilada, no salt, on a bed of brown rice and a side of greens—Barnes reported that the board was set, and gave a list of people permitted in the Mineshaft once the Strike began. Buford had the list incorporated into the El Chupacabra reservation book.

The full publication of Labor and the Martian Brotherhood finally triggered the strike that had long been organized by Boss Barnes. The thirty-page pamphlet indicted the Corporation and the Air Force. It explained the purpose of the strike to the wavering, and the goals of the labor movement to the uncertain. It urged patience and resolve in the face of the Air Force’s wrath. It vowed that the Brotherhood would never resort to violence, and that only by nonviolent resistance would life improve for the common man.

When miners on the Belt put down their drills, they were flown to Mars and charged with treason. The miners in the mountains of Baltia, Olympus Mons and Galle Crater were placed under house arrest pending a trial. Buford marveled at the network Barnes had built. Nobody crossed the picket line. Nobody went back to work. The uranium harvest ended.

Trust.

The Air Force suspended access to the commissary, chow halls and private enterprise. Again, Lime was arrested. And Barnes. The authorities beat the two of them within an inch of their lives. Lime estimated it closer to a millimeter.

None of the Brotherhood’s leadership hid in the Mineshaft. The names on the list given to Buford were of their families. Hundreds of men, women and children flooded the speakeasy. Buford’s brother-in-law and nine-months-pregnant wife fed them from the kitchen of El Chupacabra. Buford maintained a constant vigil, shotgun at the ready, prepared for the inevitable police raid, prepared to sacrifice himself in defense of the Brotherhood.

The States pushed for a quick resolution in the face of China’s growing nuclear arsenal. For three weeks, the Air Force starved the people of Mars. For three weeks, copies of Labor and the Martian Brotherhood circulated. For three weeks, the tubes broadcast only the prosecution of O.W. Lime and Clifford Barnes. But before the tribunal could reach a verdict—when it was clear that punitive measures would fail—an urgent message was transmitted from Earth.

‘China has declared war on the States of America.’

The Air Force and the Corporation buckled, and complied with the demands of the Brotherhood of Miners Union. House arrest and forced starvation ended. Barnes, Lime and all co-conspirators and strikers were granted a full pardon. Uranium production resumed.

That morning, Lily delivered a baby boy.

Alvin Owen.

Chapter 8

Alvin Owen wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. They were masculine tears, the kind a man might shed over an old dog, or a discontinued muscle car, or that topless joint on the corner that got shut down by the health inspector.

“I see why Lime can’t buy a drink in this town,” I said.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” said the bartender, drying up. “It’s more like he won’t buy a drink. He just browbeats you into paying for it.”

“So what did he have to gain by threatening the colonel? Was it some sort of political act?”

“No, nothing like that. All that union stuff—the marches and show trials and whatnot—was a long time ago,” said Alvin. “Aside from rumors of another strike, the union doesn’t make news anymore. These days, it’s all about the mob. A guy named Nicky Staccato.”

“I know the name. New York kingpin, before it was glassed.”

“Right. Just before the town melted away, Nicky decided to make a brand new start of it on Mars. He set up shop real quick like, greased a lot of wheels, brought in a lot of popular, if illegal, business.”

“The Air Force didn’t stop him?”

“Those wheels got the most grease.”

“And this didn’t sit well with Lime, I take it.”

“Mr. Lime hates the mob. He writes about Nicky Staccato constantly.”

“Dangerous,” I said, “making enemies with gangsters.”

“Every cement shoe store owner in town keeps Mr. Lime’s size in stock. I don’t know why he does it. Maybe he’s chasing his glory days. Maybe he should have written that last piece as The Owl.”

“What last piece?” I asked.

Alvin lit another cigarette, causing my hand to twitch. He said, “A week before the colonel was killed, Lime wrote a full spread on police connections to the Staccato Family. He said it went straight to the top. He drew diagrams and everything.”

“Did he have proof?” I asked.

“Does it matter if he did? The Air Force controls the press. Lime’s popularity always kept him safe, but accusing the colonel of treason was a bridge too far. After the piece ran, Lime was given the elbow.”

“So he threatened to kill the colonel, the man he blamed for his pink slip.”

“And one week later, the colonel was on a mortician’s to-do list.”

A threat and a motive.

“Think he did it?”

“Mr. Lime? No way. It was the juice talking. If everyone who came in this bar vowing to kill someone actually did, there’d be nobody left on Mars.”

“Still,” I said, “I’d like to speak to him.”

“And why is that?” asked the bartender. “My word not good enough for you?”

“I just want to ask him a few questions.”

“The police already done that.”

“I thought we didn’t trust the police around here,” I said. “Your father certainly didn’t.”

Alvin said nothing.

“Look, it’s just a few questions, and I’m on a train back to Baltia. Say,” I said, “wasn’t Andrew Jackson a president?”

“No,” he said.

“Ulysses Grant?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

I thumbed a credit his way. “That ought to earn me a Lucky, too,” I said.

He exhaled a plume of smoke. “Ought to. But it won’t. See that schlub talking to my little girl over there?” He pointed to a guy chatting up the other bartender. She was giggling, covering her mouth in scandalous amusement.

“That,” said the barkeep, “is O.W. Lime.”

He hunched over his glass and fingered a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. He was portly and on the decline, with sallow, clammy skin poised to burst into vigorous sweat given the chance. He was at or near sixty and wore every day of it. Seaweed tresses grew from his head, long and wavy, carelessly swept back. Dark rings beneath his eyes said he hadn’t slept in some time, and his clothing—a disheveled formal—made him look like a librarian who had just gone a round with street toughs.

I pulled up the vacant stool to his left and ordered a refill. Lime took my measure, but offered no assessment.

“Do I know you?” he mumbled with the kind of locution used by villains on the big screen to explain their plans for world domination.

“Depends,” I said. “Get out to Earth often?”

“I’ve spent some time there. What part are you from?”

“New Orleans,” I said.

“Where they make the hot sauce?”

“Where they use the hot sauce. They make it on an island westward.”

“I think I once had a layover in New Orleans on the way to New York.”

“New York?”

“After the bomb, yeah. Ever been there?”

“Before the bomb,” I said. “Didn’t care for it much.”

“You might find that things haven’t improved. They say that only rats and roaches could survive a nuclear blast. I’m sorry to report that people survive too, if you’d call it that. Slimy, translucent skin. No hair, teeth or fingernails. And that’s if the body’s cellular structure holds. If not, one day you’re Fred, the next day you’re a puddle of Fred. It was the same way in Seattle and Milwaukee. Did you know that rain turns black for a week after a bomb drops? Particles in the air from a vaporized city.”

“Were you on some kind of atomic wasteland cruise?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “I was doing a war story for a journal. I saw all the sights. I shall never forget the Alamo, let me tell you, not after the blister agents dropped, anyway. An entire city of skinless bodies; it was like a reanimated butcher shop window. No small wonder that Texas broke away from the republic. And don’t get me started on Atlanta. One does not unsee the Ebola virus.”

Alvin’s daughter appeared and splashed fuel on my ice.

“Can I refresh your glass, Mr. Lime?” she asked, gripping his bottle with an obscene slide.

“Yes please,” he said dismissively, though he drank in a lingering glance when she wasn’t looking. She stepped away. “My name is O.W. Lime,” he said in introduction, though he didn’t extend a hand, which was busy bringing the glass to his lips. He swallowed great mouthfuls of liquor, like a thirsty athlete after a long run.

“Mike Sheppard,” I replied.

He lowered his Scotch by inches, and replenished it himself from the bottle.

“Start early?” I asked, the bottle nearly drained.

“Not really,” he said. “This is the result of a good constitution and a heroic liver.”

“And an impressive bar tab,” I said. “So you’re here often?”

“Quite often. But sometimes I’m over there,” he said, pointing across the bar. “As for my tab, with the number of enemies I’ve garnered over the years, I expect to be long dead before I have to pay it.”

“How does a writer make enemies?” I baited.

“By writing,” he said.

He poured the remainder of his bottle into our two glasses, and hoisted his drink in toast.

“I know who you are,” he said.

“Mike Sheppard. I just told you.”

“No,” he said. “I know who you really are.”

I said nothing.

“Come on,” he said, “lift it.”

I raised my glass.

“To the end,” he said, clinking our tumblers before taking a long draft. He held the drink in his mouth, marinating his tongue in hard liquor. He fixed his bloodshot eyes ahead, to the racks of bottles behind the mirrored bar, as if coming to terms with an unspeakable truth. He swallowed.

“I knew you monsters would find me eventually,” he muttered. “Do what you must, but do it cleanly, and make sure they don’t find my body. The pitiful scribblers at the Sentinel can’t write a column without a grammatical error, and I will not have my obituary laden with comma splices.”

He stood and glanced about. If looks could kill, he’d have taken out half the bar. “I have spent my life,” he declared to everyone within earshot, “fighting corruption and hypocrisy in this most villainous den of vipers known as Mars. It is fitting that corruption would cut me down.”

He turned to the bartenders, who had joined the crowd of boozers in rapt attention. “I’ll take a Scotch and a cigarette. This gentleman intends to murder me in a moment, and as this shall be my very last call, I think a smoke is customary.”

The bar turned to me. Alvin glowered in betrayal. I tried to choke out a defense, but was silenced by O.W. Lime, who would not be interrupted, in this, his swan song.

“For thirty-eight years, I have fought not only the mob, not only the military, not only the Corporation’s unbridled abuse of the working man, but also the buffet of poor writing heaped upon the plates of readers by my former employer, the Martian Sentinel.” He pulled a news page from his pocket, and unfolded it. The electronic paper spiraled into life, and a sea of text, photography, and video spilled across the page like red wine on white carpet.

“In today’s lead story, first paragraph, and I quote,” he said, reading: “…the intruder intended to quickly seize control…”

He threw down the page. “Ladies and gentlemen, I beseech you, a split infinitive? A split infinitive! Earth is a cesspool of nuclear devastation and societal discord. Must our world, too, be a world of disorder? A world of split infinitives?”

“No!” replied a smattering of the crowd, timidly but loudly.

“Must we live in a world,” continued Lime, “where only the union stands between freedom and oligarchy, a world where the mob owns the military? Where the Air Force mobilizes itself to deal with the threat...of me?”

“No!” replied a growing number of inebriated rebels.

Lime downed his glass of Scotch in a single tilt, and I followed suit, sinking in my barstool. It might have been easier if I did kill him.

He continued, “I leave you a better world than I found it. But there is still much work to be done. For now—but not forever, I promise you this, my comrades—we must accept the rules of the Air Force stratocracy. But must we accept spelling errors in our newspapers?”

“No!”

“Must we accept the overuse of adverbs? ‘Its’ when they mean ‘it’s,’ and ‘towards’ when they really mean ‘toward’?”

“No!”

The bar was now on its feet, and Lime smoked his cigarette between quenching gulps of an endless glass of the establishment’s finest.

“Tonight, I shuffle loose the mortal coil, by way of this man,” he bellowed, casting a finger at me, “but take what I have offered you this evening, my friends. Yes to the union. No split infinitives in my civilization! Defend the grammatical orthodoxy! My friends, I bid you adieu!”

And he turned to me and muttered, “Do your worst.”

I grabbed his shoulder, and pushed him into his seat. “I’m not with the mob,” I said, “and I’m not here to kill you.”

Lime took a moment to swallow the news. He took another moment to swallow some Scotch. He then cast a worried eye to his cigarette. “If you don’t kill me,” he said, “they’re going to expect me to pay for this.”

We brought our conversation to the back of the casino, to a hutch with payphones lining the wall. It was an uncomfortable walk, rife with patrons squeezing his shoulder in support, and sneering invectives in my direction. One girl threw a martini olive at me.

“O.W. Lime,” I said when we were alone.

“Michael Sheppard,” he said.

“I’m a private eye investigating the death of Colonel—”

“The cops already questioned me,” he interrupted. “I didn’t do it.”

“You got an alibi?” I asked.

“Yeah, at the time of the murder, I wasn’t killing him.”

“But you did threaten him a week before his death,” I said.

“I didn’t threaten him, per se. He wasn’t in the room or anything. But I did say I’d like to kill him. And I really would. At the time, I suggested I might shoot him in the head. In retrospect, I would have used a knife, something close, so I could watch his soul leaving his body.”

“All because you got fired? You can find another job.”

“Our conflict,” said Lime, “precedes my unjust termination. I guess you could say we have philosophical differences. He’s a corrupt, villainous autocrat who used his position as planetary overseer to line his pockets with the sullied money of organized crime. I am a defender of the common man, a champion of the labor union. Corruption fears me.”

“You’re a drunk who lives in an illicit casino populated with contraband and half-dressed women.”

“Well I’m not against that corruption,” he said.

“So why do you think the mob is after you?” I asked. “I know a few things about gangsters. If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.”

“They needed me alive. Three days after my story broke, the police busted a major mob crime ring. They had no choice; I forced their hand, lest a lot of officers—most notably the late colonel—would find themselves carving shivs behind walls lined in razor wire. Four days after the bust, our beloved colonel was dead. I was the mob’s fall guy. But when the police declared it a suicide, my usefulness, as you can imagine, plummeted.”

“So you think the mob did it?” I asked.

He tilted his head and condescended, “Who else would have the capability—not to mention the nerve—to execute the most powerful lawman on the planet? It was a message to his eventual successor: ‘Maintain the status quo.’”

“The police report cleared organized crime as a suspect in the colonel’s death,” I said, a large part of the mystery becoming clear.

“As you can see, my dear inspector, the message was received,” said O.W. Lime, vindicated.

“If the mob is chasing you,” I said, “why aren’t you in hiding?”

“I am hiding,” he said. “The mob is based out of Baltia. This is a union speakeasy in Monte Patera with two levels of security. You met the shotgun guy, I presume—”

A distraught voice cut across the general clatter of the casino. Lime’s gaze sharpened at the scene, like a jaundice-eyed hunter hoping to intuit the next move of a prize deer. Two men surrounded a tall, fair, scarlet-haired woman. One thug clutched her arm in a controlled squeeze, the way a cop might drag a shoplifter to the squad car. The other followed in a close over watch, leering about, daring anyone to make eye contact, one hand hiding in his jacket, ready to pull a hammer.

They were headed in our direction.

“I think they’re coming over here,” said Lime.

“Looks like,” I said. “That’s the singer from upstairs. Who are the goons?”

“Just a couple of guys, I guess.”

“Just a couple off pissed off guys packing Callahans.”

Whether she recognized the futility of her struggle, or whether the goon’s vice grip crossed her threshold for pain, the singer relented. She stared at her feet in a fruitless attempt to lower her profile, to minimize gossip when the episode had ended. But a sauce like her was not easily missed. She followed the hood’s lead in a kind of pathetic acquiescence. The gamblers through which they negotiated kept their heads low, staring intently at their cards, chips, slots and dice, and the dealers and waitresses diverted glances for fear of being dragged into the trouble. You don’t work in the underground, and then pretend to be concerned with crime.

“We should help her,” Lime said.

He was right, but I earnestly wished he had said nothing. “Do you really want to draw attention to yourself?”

“From her, yeah, it might be nice to draw some attention.”

We stepped into the corner of the telephone hutch, behind a large fake palm tree. There was no exit nearby, so if they really were headed here, they were probably just looking to talk to the girl, maybe shake her up a bit.

“I’m not much of a pugilist,” said Lime, though people who used the word “pugilist” rarely were.

“Go for the one holding the girl,” I said, drawing my judge from its holster. “I’ll take care of the muscle.”

The trio approached, footsteps quickening. The sharp clicking of her stiletto heels tore across the floor like machine gun fire. They entered the hutch. The goon threw the girl against the back wall, her shoulder knocking a telephone off the hook. She grabbed wildly for leverage before collapsing.

Lime sprung on his man, sending a clean swipe of curled fist across the jaw, knocking him out cold. Both were equally surprised. By the time the other hood realized what was happening, I had the barrel of my pistol pressed into his cheek. His eyes widened with startled terror, before his eyeballs rolled backward, and he fainted.

I looked at Lime. Lime looked the girl. The girl looked at both of us. And we all looked down at the two bodies. I brought back the handle of my revolver, and swiped it across the goon I had scared stiff. His face absorbed the blow with a muted chunk. Lime and the girl turned their eyes to me in disbelief.

“His boss would kill him if he knew the guy fainted,” I explained. “I just saved his life.”

Lime asked the singer, “Are you okay?”

“No!” she cried, and knelt beside the man Lime had accosted. She reached for and cradled his head.

“Are you crazy?” I asked, but already knew the answer. She was a woman.

“Do you know who this is?” she asked.

“Your abusive boyfriend?” said Lime.

“Junior Staccato,” she said, blanching the face of O.W. Lime.

“The gangster?” I asked, feeling my way from a forest of confusion.

“His son,” said Lime. “What is he doing here? The mob is not welcome here.”

“He was just watching the show,” she said defensively, now stroking her slumbering lover’s face.

“And then felt the need to give you a few bruises?” I asked, pointing at her arm, blue from Junior’s grip.

“He just had too much to drink,” she said.

“So have I,” said Lime.

And so had I.

“He wanted to talk. I got flirty with the audience. He hates that, but it’s good for tips.”

She stood and looked about the casino, like a child in a game of hide-and-go-seek.

“Now what?” I asked, holstering my pistol.

“You two need to get out of here. Especially you, O.W. Lime,” she said.

“You’ve heard of me?” he asked, chest puffing.

“They want to kill you,” she said, anxiously fishing a cigarette from her handbag, “and now they have an excuse.”

“No they won’t,” he said before I stopped paying attention. As they talked, I surveyed the casino. We had long since been forgotten. The bar was dense with drinkers who had gotten their second wind. Somebody was on fire at the craps table, and had attracted eyeballs and skirts. At the entranceway, the doorman was collapsed in a pile, still clutching his double-barrel Remington.

Lime continued, “You’ve got to know somebody to get in here. And nobody here wants the mob crashing the party. Nicky Staccato is an imbecile, but not so foolish as to tread on Boss Barnes’s turf. Junior didn’t see my face, anyway, and nobody here will talk. This is the perfect place to hide. They’ll never find me here.”

With that, Lime’s body crumpled by way of a large steel truncheon bludgeoned across the back of his head. I’m pretty sure I was next, because it’s the last thing I remembered.

Chapter 9

I came to.

I was not dead.

Things could only get worse from here.

If I weren’t tied to a chair, I’d have removed the blindfold squeezing my eyes into their sockets. I’d have pressed gently where the baton smashed into my skull, felt for concave bone spiderwebbed like a broken windshield. I’d have removed the coiled burlap rag stuffed down my throat compelling me to swallow, and prompting my gag reflex each time I did.

A little in. A little out.

I wondered how much of the rag I had already eaten.

A coarse, thin rope bound my hands together, the knot tight and intricate, like the mob only recruited Eagle Scouts or sailors. I scraped and worked at it, the ratty twine searing and slicing into my flesh. A warm trickle of blood snaked down the success and fate lines of my palm. A migraine washed across my brain.

Opposite the room, two mobsters took turns knocking a man’s teeth out.

“There goes another one. That’s three for me.”

It quickly became a contest. The score was three to one, the game was best of twenty-eight.

“But you’re using brass knuckles.”

“So what? Use that lamp if you forgot yours.”

The victim groaned objection to the lamp idea.

“Shut up, you.”

A swipe, a clatter, a crash. A tooth was spit, feebly.

“Three to three. Molars count extra.”

When they got to me, the game would be best of twenty-five. I never flossed.

“Tell Nicky I’m sorry,” gurgled the battered man through blood pooled in his throat. I pictured a few pink-stained teeth and glossy, crimson-smeared lips.

“You’re on a first name basis, now?” asked Brass Knuckles. A bone cracked like a fist of dry spaghetti. A guttural wail followed.

“I mean Mr. Staccato.”

“You’re not on a last name basis, either,” said Lamp. Another crunch. Another howl. “What are kneecaps worth?”

At least when it was my turn, I’d know what not to say.

Sweat flowed from my forehead and saturated the blindfold. I pried at the knot, and my thumb slipped on the sticky resin of coagulated blood. The rope sawed into my wrist, grating tendons and muscle fiber. I hissed in agony, and choked on the rag. Blood wept from the slice in time with my pulse and the throb of my headache.

“That guy’s coming around!”

He didn’t sound happy about it. Footsteps approached. My head pounded like it just got its first drum set. The only chance of escape came from the knife in my coat. And if they hadn’t taken my coat, I’d have availed myself of it. They also took my hat. The holster was still strapped across my shoulder, without the weight of my gun, and this was exactly the time a gun might have been useful.

“I’ll take care of him,” continued Nicky Staccato’s goon. And just before passing out, but just after being punched in the spine with a pair of brass knuckles, I wondered what they’d done to O.W. Lime, and hoped it was something terrible.

“Sheppard?”

I didn’t move.

“Sheppard?”

I said nothing.

My skull felt as though it had been shattered, with only my bruised and bloodied scalp keeping shards of bone from falling out, and only my cauliflowered brain keeping the bones from falling in. I’d have checked, pressed gently, felt around for floating cranial tectonic plates, but my hands were still bound behind my back. A slick skin of dried blood coated my palms. Twine that had sliced into my wrists now healed into my wrists. When they cut me free—if they cut me free—the bleeding would return, invigorated.

I was still tied to a chair.

I still needed a smoke.

The coiled towel was no longer down my throat. It’s possible I swallowed the damn thing, but more likely it had gone in the other direction. Arid, flaking vomit caked my chin and neck.

I was still blindfolded.

The room smelled of chestnut.

O.W. Lime was not dead, yet. That was encouraging. “Sheppard?” he again asked in a hushed tone of controlled panic. When nobody bludgeoned Lime unconscious, when nobody knocked the teeth from his head, I thought maybe he knew something I didn’t.

“Yes,” I said. “Are you blindfolded?”

“Yeah,” said Lime. “And tied to a chair. Are you tied to a chair?”

“Yes,” I replied.

For a moment, neither of us said anything as the weight of our situation became clear.

“Did you hear the way they were torturing that guy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“They were knocking his teeth out.”

“Yes.”

“One by one.”

“Yes.”

“I think they’re going to torture us like that, too.”

“Yes.”

“All things considered,” said Lime, “I hope they torture you, first.”

“Why don’t you go fu—”

“Do you hear that?” interrupted Lime.

Footsteps approached from outside. Across the room, a man sobbed quietly. The toothless man. “Not again,” he groaned.

A door opened, and I was sure one of the men entering had a gun.

“There’s a gun pointed at your head,” a man said to me.

I was sure the gun was loaded.

He chambered a round.

I was sure he would let me go, and apologize for the inconvenience.

He did not.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“My name is not important.”

“He’s Nicky Staccato,” said O.W. Lime, annoyed.

If weasels had vocal chords—and I wasn’t entirely sure they didn’t—their voices would sound a lot like Nikki Staccato. He spoke in a broken nose Brooklyn drawl, like a furniture mover or racetrack bookie. I imagined a scarred face and dark hair, held together by a blue, pinstriped suit.

The weasel continued, “And you are Mike Sheppard.”

“Have we met? I’m sure I would have remembered,” I said.

“And I’m sure you won’t forget this little encounter,” he said, adding, “Nor will you, Mr. Lime.”

Lime struggled in his seat. “Do your worst, Staccato,” he said.

“I intend to.”

“Well, don’t do too badly,” said Lime, rethinking his strategy. “I’m hardly worth the effort. Sheppard’s not afraid of you, though.”

Lime was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a pistol whipping across his face. Droplets of blood or saliva speckled my cheeks.

“That is for your smart mouth!” shouted Staccato, his voice growing from a weasel to a more menacing, armed member of the animal kingdom.

“I’ve got something for your m—”

Again, Lime was interrupted by steel-to-face contact; again I was sprinkled with Lime juice.

At that moment, more than any other time since I met my ex-wife, I really needed a strong drink and an unfiltered cigarette.

The door again opened. Footsteps. The clicking of stiletto heels. The aroma of burning tobacco drifted across the room.

“You know,” said Nicky Staccato, “I was gonna let you go, Lime. I was gonna let bygones be bygones. You’re a Martian institution, after all. A real hero. When you published that story, I will admit I was flustered. Owning a colonel, indeed. Owning the police, indeed. How dare you? But I am a reasonable man, and when you were fired for writing such slander, I saw no point in killing the messenger, so to speak. After all, your beak was broken, and the only thing you’d be writing was your name at the bottom of a bar tab.”

“I’ll never pay that tab,” said Lime.

“But then the colonel turned up dead—and in such a horrible fashion. He was a dear friend, Lime. And when I heard it was you who had threatened him—did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

“Are you suggesting I killed him?” asked Lime, indignant. “How credulous do you expect the population to be? Is it not enough of a stretch to ask them to believe you’re an honest man—just a ketchup tycoon?”

A punch was definitely thrown, although whether it made contact with Lime’s stomach or face was in question. His subsequent gasps cleared up any uncertainty.

“You can’t,” Lime wheezed, “grow...tomatoes...on Mars.”

Nicky ignored him. “Even after you killed the colonel, I resisted the urge to run your entrails through the town center. No sense in upsetting Boss Barnes, after all. We’re all friends on the Red Planet, right? We’re all civilized men, right? Right, Mr. Lime?”

Lime said nothing.

“But no friend—no civilized man—would attempt to murder my son.”

“Murder?” said Lime through the pants of a punched stomach.

“You’ve killed before!”

“I’d like to kill right now!” he wheezed.

Staccato continued. “Your time is up, Mr. Lime.”

“Boss Barnes—” said Lime, before another punch to the stomach silenced him in a sickening huff.

“Boss Barnes,” Staccato interrupted, “will not concern himself with this matter. Not over my son. You think too highly of yourself. Who should he defend? O.W. Lime the fired writer? O.W. Lime the scandalmonger? O.W. Lime the drunk? O.W. Lime the murderer? He wouldn’t jeopardize the labor union over your husk. Especially not before the planned strike.”

Lime responded in wheezes.

“The colonel’s corpse is buried in a shallow grave, as evidenced by your detective friend, here.” He parted my lips with the barrel of his gun, gently clinking the muzzle across my front teeth, like jailbird running a can across the bars. “Any trails leading in my direction need to be ended.”

“So you did it?” I asked as best I could with my lips wrapped around a pistol.

He responded by withdrawing the gun. I was grateful. He then brought it across my jaw, breaking nothing that I could feel, but tearing a trail of skin leading from my ear to my wits, leaving both frayed at the ends. Blood washed down my chin, joining the dried vomit. My clothing must have been covered in the stuff. My dry cleaner would have a lot of questions.

“I did not kill the colonel,” said Nicky Staccato, as though I didn’t get the message he sent by way of the thrashing. “He was my patron saint, and his death creates a great deal of uncertainty in my business.”

Lime sneered, “The ketchup business? Regardless of who did it, the only magnanimous thing the colonel ever did was die. I expect he’s roasting into high-grade charcoal right about now.”

Sensing Lime’s tactics were not helping the situation, I changed course. “Mr. Staccato,” I said, timidly, “it seems then that you and I have similar goals.”

He stopped beating Lime. When he didn’t start beating me, I assumed he was listening. “We’re both in pursuit of the man who killed the colonel. You want him in concrete shoes; I want him in black-and-white stripes. Perhaps we can help one another.”

“You presume Mr. Lime’s innocence, something I do not. But go on,” he said.

“I’ll find the colonel’s murderer. Once he’s got a room in the Graybar Hotel, I’m sure your connections can help him pay his debt to society, and to you.”

Staccato didn’t hit me. It was a welcome improvement in the conversation. “What makes you think you can find the murderer?” he asked at last.

“Because I want to get paid.”

It was a logic that Nicky understood. I listened for the sliver of a smile to crawl across his face; I would recognize it immediately, as it sounded a lot like me not being beaten.

“Just so you understand the conditions of our little arrangement, my men here will take you to Mr. Lime’s execution. I know you consider him innocent, but you can never be too sure. That won’t be a problem, will it?” asked Nicky.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” said Lime.

“Gentlemen,” said Nicky to his hatchet men, “end the suffering of our friend Lou here, too.”

Lou—undoubtedly the man who’d been tortured—began anew his torrent of cries and pleas.

“That’s what you get, Lou, for getting feely with my girl.” That was Junior Staccato.

Lime, sensing he might soon be joining the choir horrific, said, “Lou should provide a sufficient demonstration, thank you. I’d rather go with Sheppard and find the real killers.”

Blunt force trauma silenced Lime. For a moment, I wondered how badly it hurt. As it turned out, quite badly. A large steel something impacted the back of my skull, sating my curiosity and sending me unconscious. Again.

When I came to, it was dark, but I was no longer blindfolded. I was in the trunk of a car—a late model sedan judging from its spaciousness. (This was not my first time in a trunk.) My hands and feet were no longer bound to a chair, but rather to each other, leaving me in a position generally reserved for rodeo livestock and suburban dungeon slaves.

I was not alone in the trunk. My captors had generously left me the company of a tire iron, which danced joyously with every pothole, and a tire, which mercifully did not.

From what I could hear, the situation in the car was not much better. O.W. Lime occupied himself by complaining tirelessly, being beaten and gagged, chewing through the gag, and complaining even more. As the beatings continued, so did the complaints. This was interrupted only by Lou’s sobbing and incoherent howls of apology, leading Lime to complain about the wailing, and then about being interrupted by the wailing, and then about the car’s revolting smell of urine, and then about the awful mess Lou had just created, followed by a promise to kill Lou if the goons didn’t do it first.

This went on for quite some time. Eventually the car inclined forward and the temperature dropped as we entered a subterranean tunnel or sewer—both splendid places to dispose of bodies. It held course just shy of an eternity, until leveling onto an even bumpier path. Soon the spare tire, a wallflower no more, joined in the tire iron’s waltz, and seemed eager to teach my legs new and exciting ways to bend.

That’s when I had my first stroke of good fortune; my lucky lighter, having fallen from my pockets, found its way to my hand. That’s also when I had the stroke of a tire iron, which had found its way to my face.

An hour passed as I burned through rope and wrists and ankles. By the time the car stopped, the last of my bindings were slackened but not free, and when the engine died, even Lime fell silent. This was where it would happen, and the billowing echoes of a trickling sewer would be his requiem. Doors opened. Nicky Staccato’s henchmen stepped out, their expensive loafers echoing smartly against the concrete.

The back doors opened. A minor struggle ensued. Sensing his end was near, Lime took the opportunity to kick Lou as hard as he could before being wrenched from the car. Sensing his end was near, Lou took the opportunity to beg for his life between sobs, and judging from everyone’s reaction, to wet himself yet again.

The trunk opened, and two powerful hands reached for me, taking hold of my wrist and ankle. I was hoisted and swung to the wet cement of the Martian sewer, where I landed on my knees with a crushing blow, lost balance, and fell forward onto my face. An empire of bacteria staked claim to the bleeding scrapes and abrasions of my cheek and temple, and set about the task of infecting the rest of my body.

The sewers were as cold as an autopsy table.

From my position, and through the stars of a throbbing knee, I could see everything. Lime and Lou knelt in front of the car, blinded by the headlights—white silhouettes against a bleak setting and a messy future. Standing over them were two henchmen of Nicky Staccato, one tall, one taller, both in heavy overcoats, with the brims of their hats pulled low. The shorter of the two held a white handkerchief over his mouth, attempting to filter the stench of raw sewage rushing through yawning pipes, and leaking through slimy cracks. The gangsters chatted idly to themselves. When at last the attention turned to the condemned, the Australian spoke first.

“Since taking this job, I’ve only found seventeen ways to kill a man,” he said, brandishing a five-iron that had been tucked away in the sedan, “but I’m feeling creative today.”

With that, he executed a powerful, perfectly formed golf swing, tearing the lower half of Lou’s face from his head, taking with it his tongue and much of his jaw. A pink mist showered Lime, who grimaced and paled.

“Look at us, Lou,” the Australian continued, circling round for a better vantage, “we just met and we’re already golfing buddies.”

I shuddered and retched, as again the Australian reared back and brought the golf club crunching into Lou’s skull. Lime collapsed in sympathy. Again, the goon raised the club, and I closed my eyes. A suctioned thunk echoed through the sewer, and I caught glimpse of brain matter and bone landing in a sloppy pile on the car hood.

Lou was no more.

The goons howled with glee. The Australian tugged on the five iron, now lodged into Lou’s rag doll skull. When it didn’t pull free, he tried twisting the clubface, excavating a gaping cauliflower hole from which blood vomited in rasping convulsions. Finally, leveraging one foot on the remaining meaty stump of a face, he put all of his body into tearing the club from Lou’s remains, succeeding in a crimson crescendo, splattering Lime with gelatinous chunks of subcutaneous tissue. Satisfied by every measure, the goon wiped the scarlet-stained club head against the corpse’s shirt, smearing a red stripe across the stomach. The other gangster gripped Lime by the shoulders, bringing him again to his knees.

My stomach cramped, and I rolled to my back, in doing so, tearing free of the rope. I stood, concealed behind the open trunk.

Lime steeled himself for the inevitable.

“Any last words, writer?” the Australian asked.

Lime furrowed his brow for a moment, and then closed his eyes before responding, “I’m terrible with deadlines. Could I have a few days to think on it?”

If the gangsters were amused, they didn’t let on, but were much less so as I brought a tire iron across the base of the Australian’s neck. His eyes rolled back and his head rolled forward, and his body fell to the ground as though his skeleton had softened to jelly.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” I said.

The second thug dropped his handkerchief and reached for his pistol—my pistol—clearly unhappy with the unexpected turn of events. I bludgeoned his outstretched wrist with flailing and desperate fury, the tire iron snapping through his bones and ligament. He reeled, and the pistol dropped to the ground. Before he could recover, I snatched it, cocked it, blasted a hole in his skull, and sent one into his partner’s chest for good measure.

Lime scurried back on all fours like the last crab in the tank. A safe distance, he sat panting, his eyes squeezed, his head shaking. When he at last opened one of his eyes, he rolled it to his left. It widened, taking in the remains of Lou. An eyeball coated with specks of dirt sat on the grimy cement, staring back. Lime then rolled his eye to the right, to find the small pile of dead mobsters, each wearing a very startled, very cheerless expression. He then looked at me, before closing his eye, filling his lungs and releasing them slowly.

“Did you have to kill them both?” he asked. “That car only starts on voice print.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

I really needed a smoke.

We continued down the road driven by our would-be executioners. The sewers were dark, a hallmark of sewers, generally. Emergency track lighting flickered overhead. The heat of the fixtures cultivated dense layers of mold and fungus, further veiling our vision with a green pallor.

Lime explained that tunnels facilitated settlement expansion before the construction of the railroad. Cranes, bulldozers, crews and equipment traveled underground, digging ever outward with little regard for the harsh Martian terrain above. When destinations were reached, they would sprout a village and move on.

“The Ant Farm,” I said to an astonished Lime.

“Yeah,” he said. “Very good. Not a lot of people know history.”

After expansion ceased, the tunnels were largely forgotten.

That is, until the Galle Crater incident.

Maybe it was nobody’s fault. Everything went wrong at once: the worst cyclone Mars had seen since colonization; a defect in Galle Crater’s air shield; an explosion at the settlement’s power plant; and total environmental and communication systems failure.

Most residents survived the initial catastrophe, and had emergency rations to weather a long isolation. When the air shield collapsed onto the water refinery, though, it wasn’t long before the Reaper appeared, brought on by dehydration or, the toilets having long stopped flushing, disease.

The cyclone made recovery efforts impossible.

Some blamed the Air Force. Some blamed the Corporation. Most blamed both. The incident transpired not long after the strike ended, and the villagers were again ready to take up pitchforks and torches. The Air Force, cowed, moved quickly to make things right, fearing a slowdown in the uranium harvest from the Belt. The Corps of Engineers converted the Ant Farm tunnels – already connected to every settlement on the planet – into sewers, with a central refinery in Baltia, ensuring an uninterruptable supply of emergency air, water and waste management.

“All roads lead to Baltia,” said Lime, bolstering my confidence that we were headed in the right direction.

Before leaving, we stripped the car of anything useful. Overcoats for our overcoats (courtesy of the mobsters, who wouldn’t need them anymore), a couple of candy bars, leather gloves used in at least one murder, and a pistol for Lime. Lou had little to offer, though Lime suggested we wrack his brain for ideas, seeing as how it was lying next to his body.

Murky water rushed along either side of the road we traveled; pipes dripped from above. We maintained a strenuous pace, breaking every hour for Lime to blame me for the horrible blisters forming on his feet. Several miles into the journey, a stoppage in the roadside canals flooded our path, and we soon found ourselves sloshing through several inches of ice water.

This didn’t please Lime, either, though at least he could no longer feel the blisters.

“I waded through the sewers of Paris once,” he said, “after the nuclear apocalypse. It wasn’t this cold, though, and I wore a hazard suit, of course. Survivors called them home, if you could call such a thing home. If you could call such people survivors. They didn’t have hazard suits, or skin for that matter. It was like a zombie flick. Not a whole lot to eat down there, either, except rats. Rat on a stick is not bad with mustard. Of course I have no idea where they got the mustard.”

Eventually, the water froze over, and we spent the better part of an hour sliding, slipping and falling. When the water level subsided and disappeared, we rested and ate the stolen candy bars.

As he gnawed away at the frozen nougat-and-chocolate treat, Lime stared into the abyss of black tunnels ahead. “You know, during that terrible ride in the sedan, I feared smelling like the inside of Lou’s bladder, and here I am tromping around a sewer.” He sniffed his coat, adding, “It seems I also smell a bit like the inside of his skull.”

“Tell me about Nicky Staccato,” I said, climbing to my feet.

“They will let anyone on this planet,” said Lime as we moved. “And Nicky Staccato is proof. He arrived here a month before New York was vaporized. Like rats and cockroaches, he has a refined survival instinct, and the killer instinct to match. Before he came along, we had our underworld. The Air Force has known about the Mineshaft for decades, the cigarettes, the black market, girls, gaming. All harmless frivolities, really, that fill a certain need, and not in the best interest of a police state to shut down.

“When Nicky Stacatto got here, though, he brought money and firepower, and bought influence and officers. His game is gunrunning and drug-smuggling, and I’m not talking the Sunday school variety. Human trafficking is also a specialty of his. If you don’t think he could have killed the colonel, you don’t know Nicky Staccato. He’s brought higher death tolls than some small wars. “

“Just like he did back on Earth.”

“Exactly. New York is a city of rotting corpses and hideous mutants. Seattle’s a crater. Chicago, well, nobody speaks of it. The governments of Earth are collapsing, civilizational infrastructure is deteriorating, and society is reorganizing itself into a shady game of king of the hill. And it all starts with men like Nicky Staccato. I don’t want that to happen here.”

I don’t know how much longer we walked—hours, years maybe. A lot of it was downhill, and the temperature dropped like a stripper’s top. My teeth stopped chattering, and mind started ungluing. I was freezing, literally. Frost coated Lime’s face and neck, like an abominable snowman in a permanent sneer, and it had been hours since I’d had any feeling at all in my ears or toes. Frostbite was no longer a concern; my fears had turned to death.

We didn’t speak. It hurt to breath. The emergency lights were white again, even the mold disinterested in toughing it out in the cold. We walked, inching along, hands folded beneath our armpits. We could not stop or we would surely die. But fatigue and hunger made every step feel like its own death sentence.

And then I stumbled. My foot caught the ribcage of one of a pair of skeletons. My vision, cracked and spotted, had failed to notice them. Each had a large hole shattered in the forehead. Each had been shot execution-style.

Lime stood over the lifeless duo. “Creepy,” he said. “Bad harbinger.”

The harbingers got worse. Miles later, the corpses stopped decomposing. It was too cold, too dry. A black crust of dehydrated skin draped around bone like bark on a rotting tree. Some were missing legs, some were missing heads, and some had gaping holes in the torso. But they weren’t the scary ones. The real terrors were the bodies with no holes at all. The ones who weren’t killed. The ones who simply froze to death.

That would soon be us. We knew it. We felt it.

And in the distance, a hum spun down the tunnel.

I thought it delirium until Lime parted his blue lips and rasped, “Hum?”

We stopped.

We turned. It came from behind.

The hum reached a crescendo and became a bona-fide rumble, and from the void grew light. Two beams. Headlights. A car.

Lime tried to draw his gun, but his trembling and sluggish hands managed only to pull it from a pocket before dropping it to the ground. I reached into my holster and gripped my piece, the skin of my hand aching and cracking as it stretched around the icy steel. There was no chance of a steady aim. If I didn’t drop it before firing, I’d drop it when I squeezed the trigger—if I could squeeze the trigger. I looked at Lime. He looked at me.

“Thank God they’re here,” he said, “I’ve been trying to die for hours. I just hope they get on with it this time. No speeches. No sporting goods.”

The car thundered forward, a black sedan. The driver could not yet see us; it was too dark, and anyway, he wouldn’t be looking for us, only a couple of frozen corpses.

My instincts were to hide. The car would certainly tear past us unnoticed if we hid. But if it stopped and we somehow survived another execution, it could be our sleigh ride out of a frozen hell. We didn’t move from its path, the car now five hundred yards away. The headlights wrapped a large white ring around the tunnel as it approached. Four hundred. He didn’t slow. Three hundred. We didn’t move. He bore down on us at full velocity.

At one hundred yards, the driver jerked the wheel. He saw us. At 20 yards, he slammed his brakes. I raised my arms, bracing for impact. Lime opened his arms, welcoming it. At one yard, the driver stopped.

“What now?” cried Lime.

The car parked before us, the headlights beating us into blind submission. A rolling wisp of steam floated above the hood. We didn’t move. The driver side door opened. We didn’t move. A stiletto-strapped foot emerged, and the thin slick of ice sheathing the pavement slivered beneath its heel. The other foot emerged, and then a body. And into the white radiance stepped a scarlet haired woman, the slit in her skirt climbing to her neck.

I moved, though didn’t take a step.

“Mr. Lime, Mr. Sheppard,” she said, “get in the car. We don’t have a lot of time.”

The singer drove, her knuckles wrapped tight around the wheel, her attention rapt on the rearview mirror. Babette—the waitress from the restaurant—sat next to her in the passenger seat, one fright away from the fetal position. She was thin in the way fear makes you thin, and inhaled in bursts of hyperventilation when she wasn’t chewing her fingers. She made efforts to turn and offer us sympathetic looks, but her gaze always ended on the back window, and turned apprehensive.

She wanted danger. She got it.

Lime and I offered only shivers from the back seat, bundled in knitted blankets. When his body had warmed enough to feel pain, Lime checked the damage to his feet, howling in disgust as his footprint sloughed off with the sock. Mine would fare no better.

“My foot looks like Lou’s brain,” he said. “But at least there’s no frostbite.”

“Thank you,” I said to the girls.

“We didn’t know what we’d find,” said the singer. “We didn’t even know if this is where they were going to do it. Sometimes they just toss people from the air shield and expose them to the natural elements. Junior used to laugh about it, says they’d freeze and suffocate at the same time. The guys used to bet on what would get the victims first.”

“Some boyfriend you got there,” said Lime.

“He pays the bills.”

“The hospital bills.”

Babette cut in. “When we saw the bodies beside the car, we expected the worst.” Her French tongue glided through her words. “But it was not you!”

“Why are you helping us?” I asked.

“Because you helped me,” said the singer, and silence followed.

“What now?” asked Lime.

“They’re going to figure out what happened,” said the singer. “They’re going to be looking for you. You need to hide.”

“I’ve got a case to solve,” I said. “I can’t hide.”

“But you cannot solve anything if you are dead!” said Babette, leaning across the front seat, pressing her body in ways that helped me forget that I had nearly frozen to death. Not all of her was thin with fear.

“Where?” I asked. “And for how long?”

“I know a place,” said Lime.

“Where?” asked the singer.

“A place,” he said, ending it.

“Give me some time to talk to Junior and Nicky,” said the singer. “I’ll persuade them.”

“What can you possibly say to them?” asked O.W. Lime.

“It’s not what I can say,” she said just above a morose whisper.

“We need to clean up,” I said, suddenly aware that we smelled like a bus station bathroom.

“And I need to get to a phone,” said Lime.

“These sewers end in Baltia, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Lime.

“Take us to the Ritz,” I said.

We sped through the sewers for another hundred miles. It would have taken days on foot; we wouldn’t have lasted another hour. The tunnel emerged outside a scrap yard on the outskirts of Baltia. Traffic was light, and it took another twenty minutes to reach the Ritz. The girls left us a block from the hotel; there were too many witnesses to leave us any closer. They offered no tearful goodbyes; only worried looks and a promise to meet again, soon.

It’s not every day that a washed-up private eye walks into the Ritz-Baltia covered in sewage, blood, and brain, so my entrance caused a sensation. Lime, fearing he might be recognized, kept his profile low, but caused no less a fantastic disturbance. The doorman blocked our way, thinking us vagrants. I flashed my room key and shoved him aside, to be met by the concierge, who wondered if I might care to take the service entrance. I pushed him aside, too. “I’ll send someone up to take your laundry,” he called from across the lobby. A bellhop called my elevator, and tried his best to ignore our cesspool cologne. I thumbed him a buck. It was the best service I’d received since arriving.

When we got to the room, Lime went straight for the phone and began dialing; I went straight for the tub and marinated. Every cut, gash and bruise from the day lit up on contact with the soapy water, before joining my body in a collective sigh. I needed to call Sofia. She needed to know that I had made progress. She needed to know that I was alive and doing whatever it took to help her, to bring her peace, to bring her resolution. And I needed her to know that I’d be underground for a while, working, but that I’d be in touch.

And how I wanted to be in touch. I saw her face, her skin. And then I wished Babette and the singer could have stayed.

With one hand, I reached down the side of the tub for my glass, and with the other, the bottle, and brought them together in creation of a tall Scotch, the drink splashing on ice cubes before reaching the rim. I filled my mouth with a neat Johnnie Walker and my mind with a dirty Sofia Reed.

And was interrupted by a rapping at the door.

“Sheppard,” said the voice of O.W. Lime, “Don’t get too comfortable in there. We’ve got an hour to get to the docks. I’ve just booked passage to the asteroid belt.”

Chapter 10

“If I wanted to die, I could just wait around here for the mob to find me,” I said.

It was an old cargo ship, the size of a garbage truck and detailed with the finest care a Louisville Slugger could offer. Wires hung from places where wires shouldn’t have hung. Streams of blue smoke spewed from cracks in piping joints. Large steel patchwork was bolted to the hull with the precision of someone who had never before bolted large steel patchwork to hulls, and wasn’t sure how many bolts would keep it on, or where to apply the bolts, exactly, or whether it was a good idea to begin with. It was a ship that didn’t look engineered to remain standing on the ground, much less take off, much less fly seventy million miles from Mars to the asteroid belt.

If he was concerned, Lime didn’t show it. “You should have seen what I flew the last time I went to Phobos.”

We met the pilot at a barroom in the manufacturing district of Baltia. He wouldn’t have been out of place in a biker bar. He wouldn’t have been out of place in a liquor store heist. He wouldn’t have been out of place in a rough cellblock in the bad part of a maximum-security prison. He wore a black eye patch, on which a crude round eyeball had been sketched in chalk, fastened to his head by a stapled strap of leather. A long, winding, blistered scar ran down his beef-jerky face, taking a detour through the center of the patch, explaining how he lost the eye. He wore an oil-stained bandana around gray, greasy hair, and a goatee around chapped and peeling lips. Sewn in places across his black leather jacket were Army patches of assorted style and color.

Only the green salad seemed out of sorts, and the way he picked at it with a fork, his pinky extended, but ruggedly so. “I hate ranch dressing,” he said, equally out of sorts with his demeanor, in part because you never expected brawlers to talk about ranch dressing, and in part because he didn’t growl the complaint. He seemed, in fact, very pleased with his hated dressing.

He introduced himself as Elliot Leah, and was a friend of a friend of Lime, who assured me that two degrees of separation was pretty good for him, and not as tenuous a relationship as one might think. He elaborated that he once found himself protected in a Papeete gunfight by an acquaintance of a friend of a second-cousin once removed of a half-sister on his mother’s side. That, he stressed, was not an exaggeration, and a very bad day. But he survived, and felt sure he’d survive this, too.

Elliot’s ship was parked in a disused, roofless warehouse chained shut with a sign reading “Beware of Dog / Attention Chien de Garde.” He complained that the French were scavengers and savages, and needed to learn the language if they were going to live on Mars, and added that they were most certainly not welcome on Mars even if they did learn the language, regardless of how much radiation now covered the Gallic countryside.

I was not an experienced traveler. I lived in New Orleans and that was enough. My knowledge of spacecraft was thin at best, but I felt certain that safety improvements had been made since Elliot’s ship was built. The entry hatch, like all of the ship’s interior doors, was manual. There were no little green lights to signify a good air seal, and no chimes or calm, reassuring female voices to express positive environmental system status. Just a thick, swinging steel door with a rubber liner, and a large arm that winched it shut. On each deck—engine room, cockpit, sleeping quarters, galley, head, and cargo hold—the environmental alarm consisted of caged yellow canaries, smoke capsules, and a can of spray sealant.

“If the birds die, we’re losing air. Just break a capsule, see where the smoke goes, and seal it. Easy-peasy. Each room is air-locked, you see, so if we have a problem, it’s localized.”

“Do the birds die often?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “Nah, I don’t think so. How long could a bird live, anyway? A couple of weeks? They’re my pets. I wouldn’t let anything happen to them. I gave this thing a shake down last year. We’re good, trust me. I don’t want to die either.”

That was good enough for Lime. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “Wake me if we crash. I’d like to see my life flash before my eyes—parts of it, anyway. At least the parts before I met you.”

The cockpit was behind another hatch, two seats and a spread of buttons, displays, and blinking lights. A hairy dog of dubious parentage slept on the copilot seat. Elliot shoed him down, to a plush rug-lined crate in the corner, next to covered bowls of food and water.

“He thinks he flies the ship,” Elliot said, before throwing his body weight into the bulkhead latch, sealing the three of us in.

He climbed into his chair and buckled a series of straps and restraints across his chest and waist. I followed suit, taking the canine’s seat.

“We aren’t, technically speaking, going to be filing a flight plan with the Air Force, so the take off might be a little different from what you are used to,” said Elliot. “Things are going to get a little rough.”

“That,” I said, “I am used to.”

Elliot flipped switches and pressed buttons, explaining with each movement what he was doing, his vein-strewn hands of fading tattoo ink pointing at the displays and readouts. He pushed a blue button, and the floorboards hissed. “We’re pressurized,” he said. “It’s up to the canaries from here.” He pressed a green one, and a deep throbbing pulsed above. “Generators are rolling.” Pushing black, pink, and yellow gave us fuel, gravity, and plumbing. “Don’t ever, ever forget to push the yellow button.”

And then he came to the red button. “How’s your life insurance?” he asked, but before I could answer, he pressed it. The ship rumbled and jerked, and the dog covered his head with his paws. Elliot took hold of the ship’s controls and jerked hard with both hands, like a pageant judge snatching the trophy from a beauty with an uncovered past.

The ship darted vertical, while my bowels bolted down, and the pilot twisted the controls, sending the ship reeling about and my guts twisting into knots. “Gotta work fast, before the federales catch us on radar and decide we’re the sort of thing they’re supposed to shoot at.”

“Are we the sort of thing they’re supposed to shoot at?”

“Usually.”

“Are they ever successful?”

“Not really. I mean, they hit me sometimes, but they probably just get lucky.”

He barreled the ship toward the air shield over Baltia, above the cloud cover and the tips of skyscrapers, miles above the city. At altitude, he mashed forward on the throttle, taking us across town, careening above and below support beams and trellises. “It’s harder for them to track us up here.”

It took only a few harrowing moments to reach the opposite end of the city. Elliot brought the ship to a standstill, and pulled his seatbelt tight. Through hazy gaps in the clouds appeared the spaceport below. “Seriously,” he said, “you might want to close your eyes for this.” He checked that his dog was in its crate, and kicked the gate shut.

Elliot looked at me, and I looked ahead. No sense in closing my eyes now. He shoved the controls forward, and the laws of physics collided with my body like an express train with a stunned cow. Before I could release a breath, or my bladder, we had traveled from sky to ground, and he jerked the controls from left to right, spinning us into the airlock at the edge of the spaceport’s main runway. We tore through it like looters in a blackout, and within seconds, we were out and away from the city.

Meanwhile, the centrifugal, centripetal, gravitational and unknown forces I slept through in grade school had their way with my body, sending skin in one direction, bones in another, and my internal organs sloshing like a working girl’s waterbed. I’d have gotten sick if only my vomit knew which way was up.

Safely floating in the upper limits of the atmosphere, Elliot pulled the bandana from his head and wiped his face. “Whew,” he said, setting it on the console and flipping a switch that had started blinking red. “If you thought that was bad, wait until you see how we get back in.”

He glanced over the displays and dials, and absently fondled a few dozen of his earrings. He again gripped the controls, this time with a soft, loving touch, the way a grandmother holds an infant, or a grandfather tips a stripper. He eased forward, leaning into it like a pianist playing the first notes of a particularly somber measure, and we glided above the city, above the mountains, above the planet. Elliot kissed his index fingertip, and pressed it against a small window to his left, through which loomed an expansive mountain range.

“Mount Olympus, home of the Gods” he said. “For luck.”

We streaked through the upper atmosphere and left Mars with little incident. The butterscotch sky turned black, and the stars became our peers. And Elliot unbuckled, and began to fly.

“Zero-G,” he said, “No artificial gravity here.” He pulled himself down, below the console where he freed his dog from the crate. The dog whimpered and took flight, waving his legs and tail like a canine Pegasus.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked, my stomach still spinning.

“Float? Just unbuckle, really. It’s kind of a physics thing—”

“No, I mean pilot a ship.”

“Ah,” he said, and reached to his boot, pulling a six-inch serrated dagger. He worked it into the collar of his shirt, scratching his back, but very carefully.

“The war.”

“China?”

“No, the last war. The one nobody remembers. The war we won.” He closed his eye, really working the knife now. “I was a dropship pilot in the Army.”

“Dropship?”

“Aren’t you a vet?”

“No.”

“You’re from Earth, right? The States of America?”

“Yes.”

He stopped scratching and cut into me with a laser beam eye, and a laser beam eye patch. “You’re not a draft dodger, are you?” He brought around the dagger, each serration pointier than the last.

“No, no, I did the duck walk. Flat feet.”

“Four-F? Okay,” he said, still looking me over, judging. “Okay. I guess it doesn’t matter, anyway. If a guy in the Air Force can call himself a vet, the word doesn’t have much meaning, does it?”

He replaced his boot knife and continued. “Anyway, I was a dropship pilot for One-Sixtieth SOAR. Over the skies, under the ocean, and nap of the Earth. You lose fear and gain surgeons’ hands when you fly mach 1 at treetop level. And Cayugas—that’s what we flew—have the maneuverability of a pig. You learn things.”

“Are those the units you flew with?” I asked, pointing at the patches sewn into his bomber jacket.

“I flew with more units than that. These patches are for every man who didn’t come back from one of my drops. In their honor.”

I nodded and said nothing. When my draft number came up, the doctors took one look at my feet and told me to kick rocks. My arches weren’t good enough to get blown off on a Beijing battlefield.

Elliot grabbed his flying dog by the paws and twirled it like a propeller. The dog’s tongue hung from its mouth and waved like a streamer.

“So anyway,” he continued, “after the war, I had this brain full of flying know-how and nowhere to use it. A buddy of mine came out here to be a miner, and told me about all the crashing that went on in the Belt. Of course, this was before the union made things safer. But back then, inexperienced pilots would get to the asteroids, hesitate, and die. There’s a lot going on out there, trillions of rocks crashing into each other, all spinning and zigzagging a hundred miles an hour. It’s intimidating and overwhelming without proper tools.” He held out his hands as evidence of a proper tool set.

“How long have you been out here now?”

“Thirty years. You know how most people spend their lives in jobs with no purpose, no meaning. Mining or frying burgers or working an assembly line or delivering mail? This job,” he said, “is what I was born to do.”

I nodded.

He continued. “There was no way in hell I was going to work for the Air Force. I’ve worked for the Man once, got my scars to prove it.” He pointed at the patches. “And I didn’t want to be a bus driver for the union. I don’t care what people say—” and his voice hushed, “—once you’re in, they own you, and I wasn’t trading one uniform for another. There’s even talk that the union’s about to strike. That’s a lot of time without getting paid. No thank you, sir. So I’ve made a place on the outskirts. Getting people what they need, bringing people where they need to go, no questions asked.”

“You’re the first union skeptic that I’ve met out here.”

“Look,” he said, “I don’t know how you vote, and I don’t care. And if they strike, I won’t cross the line. I’m not suicidal. You’d be surprised how many space suits fail when scabs are breaking rocks.”

“What about the mob? Ever do work for Nicky Staccato?”

“Never,” he said. “I would if they asked, because they don’t ask nicely. They don’t ask at all, in fact. But they don’t need people like me; they’ve got half of the Air Force on the payroll. When they move something, it’s in a registered ship with an S.A. flag painted on the door.”

“Where’d you get this ship?”

“Salvage yard on Phobos.” He cuddled his dog, scratching it behind the ears and down the nape of its neck. “They were going to scrap it, so I got a good deal. It’s a Rhino tugboat, although I had to replace the engine with a two-thirty Bevel. Better engine, anyway. It can push more and do it faster. I don’t do much barge work anymore, though. The union took all of those contracts.”

When my lunch settled, I unbuckled my seatbelt and floated from my chair. There wasn’t much room to play, but I laughed at the magic of it all. The muscles of my body from ears to toes tingled in zero gravity. It was like being in a swimming pool without the water to slow you down or interfere with things like breathing.

“First time in space?” asked Elliot.

“Second. First time weightless.”

“You think this is something, try bringing a date up here,” he said.

My ex-wife moved through life with whimsical ease, and lived for moments like this. She would love it. She probably had loved it. She probably had experienced it with someone else. Another love. Another life. My heart sank. My head twitched and my chest tightened. And though I was still floating, gravity returned.

“How long will it take to reach the asteroid belt?” I asked, changing the subject.

“We’re a couple hours from the Express Lane. Another five from there.”

“The Express Lane?”

“It’s kind of a slingshot for spaceships. It hurls us from the Terrestrial region out to the Belt. Saves a ton of time and fuel, which is why the Corporation built it. The Poindexters are working on one from Earth to Mars, too, but don’t count on it anytime soon. Every time they test it, somebody ends up crashing into the Sun.”

“The Sun?”

“The Sun. Turns out it’s very hot and you die quickly.

“Sounds like Southern California.”

The Corporation owned every mine on the Belt. Uranium extracted from the rocks fueled the war effort and the Corporation’s stock prices. Gold and diamonds extracted from the rocks funded the Corporation’s advanced weapons research and manufacturing. Some suggested that the war might have ended decades ago if the Corporation hadn’t been so successful in its operations. Many of those people stopped suggesting such things when mushroom clouds blossomed in their back yard. The rest stopped suggesting such things when the Corporation offered them jobs. After all, big businesses needed smart people capable of spotting trends. Lucrative stock options encouraged those smart people to turn their big brains to other matters.

We joined the queue of ships awaiting entrance to the Express Lane. Monitored and controlled by a nearby space station, the line advanced in ping-pong fashion, with one departure for every arrival. A green vortex swirled from the nothingness of space like water from a draining bathtub, and a tanker passed through and vanished, the vortex sealing in its wake. After a moment’s pause, the vortex again spiraled open—this time in red—and a craft emerged. Spaceships of every make passed through the Express Lane, from medical frigates to personnel carriers.

Elliot stared intently from the cockpit window, checking for any sign of official-looking runabouts headed our way. “The Air Force runs inspections out here, sometimes. I don’t need to tell you that we would not pass.”

A vessel pushing thirty barges arrived from the Belt as we queued forward. With unnatural ease, the city-sized structure appeared from nothing and floated by, as oblivious to us as a brontosaur to a blade of grass.

Our ship’s console emitted an earsplitting whistle, and Elliot pressed a button, unbuckled, and floated to a small display overhead.

“This is Chief Leah,” he said.

“Chief Leah this is Express Lane control,” said a pointy-headed voice. “We are not receiving identification from your beacon. Is this a registered ship?”

“Of course it is,” he said. “My beacon is malfunctioning. My repair guy works on the Belt. It’s why I’m headed there now.”

“Chief, I’m not permitted to send you through without a proper beacon.”

Elliot squinted his good eye, but even his eye sketched in chalk seemed to scowl. “Is Sal in today?”

“Yes sir.”

“Tell him who I am and explain the situation.”

“One moment.”

Seconds ticked by. “Are we registered?” I asked.

“Not technically speaking,” replied Elliot.

Again, the console sounded an alert. “Chief Leah?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve been given clearance to depart. Sal sends his regards.”

“Copy and out,” said Elliot, looking to me in relief. “Old war buddy.”

“Helps to have them around?”

“Then more than now, but it beats selling out to the Man.”

Elliot set a course for the uncoiling vortex. As we penetrated the green energy wave, our ship bobbed like a skiff in a rough dock, and in a flash, we were away.

Zero gravity dropped from wide-eyed wonderment to jaw-clenched terror in the half-hour it took me to use the bathroom. It involved a series of harnesses, tubes, vacuums and buttons that would have been at home in a fetish club or plastic surgery clinic. After the awful deed, I scrubbed my hands like a urologist after a long day’s work, and drifted to the ship’s galley. It was sparse but for a few boxes of oat bran and a covered bowl of apples. It was tidy, but not clean, the floor covered in a fine layer of black dust and engine grease. Elliot and I floated above the table, where he ate his cereal with eager, enthusiastic spoonfuls. Between gaping chomps of bran, he relentlessly fired questions about Earth.

“Chicago?”

“Gone.”

“Baghdad?”

“Gone.”

“San Diego?”

“The Republic of Texas and Mexico have been fighting over it for a year or so. It’s a hole right now.”

“What about New York? I heard it was glassed.”

“Yes,” I said.

He shrugged. “No major loss, I guess. I had a bad experience there once.”

“Everyone’s had a bad experience there once.”

“So why stay on Earth, anyway?” he asked. “Don’t you think New Orleans is next?”

I drew my flask, pulled the stop, and nursed from it like a newborn.

“Who knows,” I said. “It already looks like it’s been shelled; an atomic bomb could only help. Anyway, you get used to the missiles, and in the meantime, life goes on. Men still beat their wives. Wives still sleep with the neighbors. Kids still play hopscotch and dogs still piss on streetlights. The world has been fighting itself since the first caveman picked up the first tree branch. It’s what we do. When someone is ready to fight,” and I pointed at my bruised cheek and swollen eye, “they’re going to fight. Mars will have its turn yet. And besides, I like New Orleans. You can smoke there.”

Elliot crunched on his oat bran. “Mars might get its turn sooner than you think. A lot of people are tired of carrying around Earth’s dead weight. If the union strikes again, who knows how far it might go.”

“Independence?” I asked. “I don’t expect Earth or the Air Force will take kindly to that.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But you’ve got to wonder how much loyalty the Air Force still has to Earth. They’ve been out here longer than the settlers.” He thought for a moment. “Do you know what Mars is? It is Earth’s fading glory.”

“So who’s the first to get hit when that tree branch is swung?”

“Nobody wins a civil war,” said Elliot. “But things become very, very interesting. Old pilot like me might even find some new work.”

It must have been Free Beer Night at the asteroid belt exit of the Express Lane, because ships, tugboats and barges squeezed every bit of space from space. Where there wasn’t a ship, there was a runabout, and where runabouts were too large, spacewalkers wearing little rocket packs scooted from place to place.

Elliot sliced and spun through the crowd and the queue, setting course along a service lane. We passed fuel depots offering cheap burgers, and space stations awash in neon. Elliot offered a running commentary on which place had which girls who would do which things with whom or what. He admitted to losing his eye in one of the bars—”The Stab and Jab”, he called it—though he highly recommended the steak.

Lime awoke from his slumber and joined us in the cockpit, whereupon I unbuckled and drifted into weightlessness, offering him my seat. He thanked me, though played it cool to the flying canine and its enthusiastic, slobbering tongue. Muttering something about wild Afghani dogs, he waved it away, and kept it within eyesight at all times.

After a couple hundred miles—beyond the Express Lane return queue, crowded pool halls and seedy barrooms—traffic thinned to the infrequent tugboat and occasional transport. Another hour’s flight took us into the asteroid belt, where lumbered increasing numbers of rock, ranging in size from moon to pebble.

“It’s the tiny ones that’ll get you,” said Elliot. “You can’t exactly miss a meteoroid the size of a Buick. But one the size of a baseball can put in a hole in your hull that’ll leave your ass on one side of the door and your head on the other.”

Asteroids reached millions of miles in every direction, until the inky black was a forgotten memory to rocks whisking about, spinning, gliding, colliding and generally mucking about in later chapters of physics textbooks. In the distance, however, the rocks slowed, not moving, not crashing, not darting or spinning. Asteroids visible in the very deepest regions were immobile.

“It’s all an optical illusion. Things are just as crazy back there as they are out here,” said Elliot.

Blazed between rocks were wide paths marked with strobe-lighted buoys. Mammoth green signs bolted onto larger, stationary asteroids pointed the way to various mining facilities and colonies. We veered toward Vesta, the largest asteroid in the Belt, and home to the central offices of the Brotherhood of Miner’s Union.

Elliot steered with one hand, and pointed with the other. “We fly mostly by instrument out here,” he said, “but a lot of the smaller runabouts don’t have instruments. They have to fly on sight, hence the signs. This signal here—” and he pointed at one of the overhead screens of the console, “and here—” and he pointed at a yellow-and-red sign screwed to an asteroid, “indicate a blast area.”

“Blast area? For what?” I asked.

“This isn’t a garden,” Elliot explained. “Gold and diamonds and plutonium aren’t grown in freshly tilled rows; they’re found inside of the rocks, and I mean deep. Center-of-the-moon deep. In the old days, miners would find caves in the asteroids and spelunk to the good stuff. They were brave as hell, but that’s a slow process. To speed things along, Earth tried conscripting miners and working them like slaves, but Boss Barnes put a stop to that with his miner’s union. And he proposed instead the process we use today.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“We blow them up with atomic bombs,” said Lime.

“Elegant,” I said.

“Solved all of your problems back on Earth, right?” said Lime.

“I’ve heard,” said Elliot, “that the miners have the largest nuclear arsenal in the solar system. Even China can’t match the union’s firepower. It takes a lot to blow up the moon; Boss Barnes could blow up Jupiter.”

Along the deep horizon—or the place that would be a horizon if we weren’t in space—an asteroid sparked and sparkled before going nova, and in a flash, space blinked white before fading to ink.

“Right on schedule,” said Elliot. “Those sparkles were impact points. They usually fire a dozen or so per rock. The missiles drill deep and detonate in tandem. You see how the remains are still in close proximity? Containment fields keep the pieces from flying everywhere; it lets the miners track each rock. Later, teams of miners and robots will fly out and start spacewalking. If the rock is rich—it’s about ten to one against—the rubble is loaded into barges and shipped to the Martian moons for sorting, and then down to Mars for refinement. The facility is in Panchaia, but everyone out here calls it Poncho Yard. Anyway, it’s from Poncho Yard to Earth.”

We drifted through the labyrinthine channels of the asteroid belt like phantoms through a haunted house. The dog had fallen asleep and floated feet-up, legs spread, like a dead cockroach, or a model in a skin mag. Lime took to tapping his fingers on the console in false indifference, betrayed by his eyes, which monitored the displays, Elliot’s jewelry, the dog—anything but the view of space. Elliot tracked our progress on a map while munching on cracked wheat snacks and wiping greasy crumbs on his pant leg. He stared and studied intently, hunched in like a football fan catching a bowl game on the tubes.

When we reached a clearing in the Belt, dense huddles of rocks were replaced by dense huddles of starships. They orbited a colossal, oblong asteroid the size of a planet that spun like a pinwheel in Chicago. My stomach turned, my throat constricted, and my eyes shut in long, choking blinks.

“You’re feeling the Void,” said Elliot. “Space does a number on the stomach, and worse to the brain.”

I nodded, opened my mouth to reply, and then closed it, uncertain whether words or lunch would win the race.

“Rookie miners and pilots get it,” he said. “Humans came from the primordial ooze seeing small things: fish, berries, fruit, maybe a rodent or two, and large things like saber-toothed tigers, or mountains. Even then, it’s all on the ground, in the air or in the sea. But in space, it’s all nothing, everywhere, and where there is something, it’s big and can move like a hummingbird. Our brains don’t know what to make of it. It takes a while, but you’ll adjust. Or go crazy.”

He pushed the throttle forward, and drove the ship toward the spiraling planetoid. It seemed inconceivable that he could land on something moving so quickly, so uncontrolled. Lime said nothing, still tapping, his eyes glazed in concentration, his hand massaging his stomach.

And all at once, the asteroid stopped spinning. It stopped spiraling. It stopped wobbling and whirling. It was stationary, and clear, and bustling with a fleet of ships coming and going, darting about like flies on a cow.

“What the hell was that?” asked Lime.

“We just passed through Vesta’s gravity well.”

“And it made the asteroid stop spinning?”

“No, it makes us spin with it.”

My stomach settled. And then my body settled, and gravity returned, and I knocked my chin against Lime’s seat before knocking my forehead against the floor. The dog landed in Elliot’s lap. Given the choice, I’d have still taken the floor.

“Sorry,” said Elliot.

Vesta was no less developed than the Moon back home, though with fewer golf courses and more industrial manufacturing plants; the kind of places where salty workers wore steel-toed boots and hung girlie calendars on toolboxes. In stationary orbit, fleets of tugboats tied to dozens of barges bobbed in the gravity waves, while men in spacesuits jumped from vessel to vessel, checking seals and closing valves, some holding clipboards, some holding monkey wrenches.

A shipyard of crews and cranes orbited below, with teams busy rebuilding two tugboats and a cruiser. As robots positioned steel girders, humans in gravity boots walked along the sides of the crafts hauling welding torches and riveting tools.

“The union has its own fleet of a couple of hundred ships. They range in size from runabout to heavy hauler. Do their own repairs, modifications, you name it. It’s a real first class operation.”

Elliot brought the ship about, to a vacant dock on the lowest level. His ship was just large enough to seal against the airlock, and he escorted us to the exit hatch. He pulled the bulkhead lever, and our eyes turned to the canaries, which were just as relieved not to asphyxiate.

“I’m not technically welcome on the docks,” he said, “but there should be a foreman out here who can get you where you’re going. I’ve got some friends on a nearby rock, and I’ll be there for the next week. If you need a haul back to Mars in the meantime, give me a call. You know how to reach me, Mr. Lime?”

He did, and we parted ways.

The docking bay stretched a football field in every direction, without the pleasantries of freshly mowed turf, or nubile, freshly mowed cheerleaders. It was austere and dark, with walls of black rock and floors of gunmetal tile. A petroleum tang lingered in the air, like breathing the inside of a gas can. The floor absorbed our footsteps, and our voices carried only a few feet before fading and dying.

Dozens of cranes wrapped in dusty brown tarps lined the walls, their booms resting atop steel storage boxes the size of railroad cars. A row of rusting crew boats with paint falling away in flakes lined the opposing wall. They were parked with military precision, as though it were someone’s job to make sure everything lined up properly, and he was very, very good at his job, and probably said so to everybody, all of the time. Or a robot did it.

“Have you been here before?” I asked Lime.

“To the Belt? Yes, decades ago when I was writing for the solidarity movement, but never to Vesta,” he replied. “It’s only a few years old—the development, that is—but I have a lot of friends out here.”

“And they’ve clearly laid out the red carpet.”

I had the distinct feeling that we were being watched, but chalked it up to the painful lessons I’d learned after only a week on Mars. Blisters the size of snowshoes covered my feet, and where I wasn’t bruised, I was cut, scratched or scraped.

“Do you ache as much as I do?” asked Lime.

At least I wasn’t alone in my misery.

“You know,” he continued, “since meeting you, Sheppard, I’ve been kidnapped by the mob, clubbed unconscious—twice—bound, gagged, beaten, nearly bludgeoned to death, and now I’m being forced to hide from the most powerful gangster in the solar system.”

“And you’ve only known me for forty-eight hours. I do this every day.”

“I wonder if we’re supposed to be here. I’d have expected security of some sort.”

When I noticed the security guard sneaking up behind us, arm raised, truncheon wrapped in a white-knuckled fist, I knew that we were going to be clubbed unconscious again for the third time, and I was right.

Chapter 11

“Mr. Lime, sir, of course you have our deepest apologies.”

They were huddled around Lime in fearful concern, not for his mortality, but for theirs, as though he were a pudgy Caesar drunk with power and eager to offer a thumbs-down. He played the part well, sprawled across a divan, one hand clutching a three-olive martini, the other holding an ice pack to his head. He listened carefully as they each took turns apologizing, as though it were a contest of who could feel the greater pangs of regret. The lion cages would soon be rolled in.

Only the security guard stood over me, his head bobbing in shame, a baton wagging impotently in his hands. I was left in a slump on the floor, a small pile of private eye, my hat resting on my chest. The back of my head pulsed, and I felt out the damage, finding a knot the size of a watermelon and traces of dried blood. It had been that kind of day, though, where I wasn’t sure if the dried blood had come from this particular beating, or another.

“I’m so sorry,” said the security guard to anyone who would listen.

“Boss Barnes is very embarrassed by this,” said another sycophant, to Lime.

“But we feared you might be an Air Force spy.”

“Or from the Corporation.”

“Or even with the mob.”

“Nobody would have expected O.W. Lime to sneak into a loading dock.”

“And O.W. Lime wouldn’t have expected you to club him cold,” said O.W. Lime.

“I’m so sorry,” wailed the security guard.

I stood up, and looked down at the security guard, who continued his head-bobbing routine. I pushed my way into the huddle of apologetics, and snatched the ice pack from Lime, pushed his feet out of the way, and sat on the divan, daring anyone to say anything.

“Ah,” said one, “you’re okay,” but he said it as a statement of fact. If I were not okay, he would not have sounded much different.

“Sheppard,” said Lime, “We shall be attending a gala this evening as the guests of Boss Barnes. It is his wedding anniversary.”

“Twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” said a bootlicker with pride, as though personally responsible for their nuptial longitude.

“You don’t know how sorry I am,” sobbed the security guard.

“Get me another martini, will you,” said Lime to a toady, downing the glass and passing it off, but not before sliding the olive-laden toothpick between his teeth. “Want something, Sheppard?”

“Aspirin,” I said. “And water.”

“Got anything to eat?” asked Lime.

“I’ll call for a menu,” said another.

“And a tailor, comrade,” said Lime. “We must look good for tonight. And find me a masseuse—a good masseuse. Get what I’m saying?”

They nodded. They did.

“Oh, and get out, will you?” said Lime, dismissing them with the wave of his hand.

They tripped over themselves squeezing though the door, each walking backward, bowed, eyes closed, as though in prayer or worship. “I’m really sorry,” said the security guard as the door closed.

“What,” I asked, “was that?”

Lime leaned forward, his expression stony, sad, and drunken. “I think,” he said, “they like me very much.”

“Well they didn’t seem to have much love for me,” I said.

“Nonsense. They were just busy nursing me back to health.”

“And what about you?”

“I was busy nursing a martini,” he said. “It’s the circle of life, you see.”

We were in a four-star suite of what looked like a fancy hotel, the kind of place that bad musicians could get good publicity by smashing the furniture with expensive guitars.

“Are we still on the asteroid?”

“I think so,” said Lime. He pulled open a curtain, to reveal black, and stars, and rocks. “Yes.”

The room was one koala shy of being declared a nature preserve. Where there wasn’t silk-upholstered furniture, there were potted plants and trees, hanging vines and palms, cacti, ferns and ivory. Vases brimming with freshly cut flowers festooned the dining table, coffee table, end table, and even the pool table. I felt sure that if a constable walked in, he’d have a flower on his lapel.

“I think they’re compensating for something,” said Lime.

“When’s the last time you spoke to Boss Barnes?” I asked.

“Not since the old days, really,” said Lime. “After he founded the union, we went our separate ways. It’s been decades, but we’ve maintained a robust correspondence. All of this,” and Lime waved his hands about the room, “is because of him and me. That’s why they love me out here. Of course, if I knew how much they loved me, I’d have come here a long time ago.”

“We are supposed to be hiding.”

“And we are.”

“By going to a party?”

“We’ll be hiding in the open.”

“And what if mobsters are hiding in the open, too?”

“You’ve seen the security at this place,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”

“You said that at the club,” I said.

“And we’re not dead yet.”

The tailor entered without knocking. I knew it was the tailor because he wore measuring tape around his neck and carried a garment bag over his arm. The waiter entered behind him. I knew it was the waiter because he carried a menu and pushed a silver cart of appetizers. The bartender took up the rear. I knew it was the bartender because I liked him. By the time they left, my stomach was stuffed with lobster, my body was stuffed into a tux and my brain was stuffed into a martini glass.

The ballroom was a converted docking bay scrubbed clean, carpeted and wrapped in streamers. Where otherwise might have been spaceships landing or launching, there were no less than fifty round tables with seating for six, each decked in flowers, water glasses and cutlery. From a stage at the room’s focal point, projections of holographic fireworks detonated and whirled in time with a string quartet below.

It was the kind of place where the fabulously wealthy could rub elbows with the merely very important, and the powerful could spot an up-and-comer and have them put down. These were the gatherings where deals could be made over Cabernet, vows could be broken over champagne, and wives could be swapped over port; where enemies could compare guns, gals, and genitalia over boozy smiles and raised glasses. This was the place where civilization happened.

And there was a vibe in the room. A tension. It was the way everyone talked and walked and moved and drank, a nervous excitement shared by all, as though a common goal was now within reach. It was more than merriment for a wedding anniversary. Maybe the rumors of a strike were true. Maybe it would be announced tonight.

“O.W. Lime,” said O.W. Lime to the hostess. She wore black from head to toe, accessorized with dark rings beneath her eyes. Her curly brown hair was pinned up for a long night’s work, while still looking nice enough for a long night’s play. She didn’t know O.W. Lime, and she definitely didn’t know me, and seemed a little afraid when she found our table in the book. Had she kept us waiting too long? Had she looked at all unprofessional?

“You’ll be seated with Mr. and Mrs. Barnes this evening,” she stuttered, and escorted us in.

As the three of us sauntered to the table—not too slow, not too fast—some eyes widened and some eyes narrowed. Thin lips brightened and tightened. Nobody noticed me except to wonder how I had landed such valuable dining real estate, but everyone noticed Lime. He enjoyed the spectacle, and being the spectacle, and fiercely avoided eye contact. From the back of the room, a smattering of applause cut above the chatter, and the applause spread and grew, until it consumed the hall.

This did not often happen when I entered a room.

Lime acknowledged the applause with a false casual wave to the four corners, and took his seat, held out by the hostess. She did the same for me, before waiters overran the table, moving dishes and filling glasses, placing napkins on our laps and pressing bottles to our faces. When the cloud of hospitality cleared, the inscrutable expressions of an aging man and woman stared back at us from across the table.

“Mr. Lime,” said the white-haired man with British teeth and accent, “I was wondering when you might pay our facility a visit. Your timing is exquisite.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic about Lime’s exquisite timing.

Lime bobbed his head in reply, but said nothing through a mouthful of bread.

“And I see you brought a friend. You are?”

“Mike,” I said, and stood, offering a hand, which he looked upon with one eye. The other eye was busy having its brow furrowed.

“And what do you do, Mike?”

“Shake hands with people I meet,” I said, withdrawing my hand, tempted to offer a solitary finger in its place.

His date wrapped her arms around his waist in a dubious impression of an ill-at-ease squirrel. She was too young for him, less coy than she pretended, and likely less faithful. He wore a wedding ring. She did not, but she did wear a mink stole and diamond earrings.

“This is Geoffrey,” said Lime, after washing down the bread with a glass of red, “He is the chief lawyer of the union. And what a lovely date he has brought!”

She forced a smile. She had to and Lime knew it.

“Wife feeling unwell this evening, Geoffrey?”

“Influenza.”

“So this must be your favorite great-granddaughter?”

She shook her head no, but before she could change the subject, Lime continued.

“Let me guess: one of your lawyers, eager to fill in—for the sake of Boss Barnes, of course. Wouldn’t want an empty seat at his table. And since she’s filling in right now, perhaps you could return the favor later?” He cast sullen eyes in her direction. “New to the team, darling?”

Her expression flickered recognition of a possible out, and she replied, “I just started. I’m handling contract law for our dealings with the Corporation.”

“A real up-and-comer,” said Lime, falsely impressed. “Geoffrey’s an up-and-comer too, with the right medicines.”

Geoffrey sipped his water through clenched teeth, and then spoke through clenched teeth, “I’m surprised you could find your way here, O.W. Is it on the way to a bar? Or perhaps a jail cell.”

“Why not both, Geoffrey? The night is young.”

At a table across the dance floor sat a stubble-headed man wearing an ill-fitting suit. Like most of the ballroom in eyeshot, he focused his creepy mug on us. Unlike the rest, he wore a detached, businesslike face, as though he were being paid to watch us. When he noticed my interest, he averted his eyes.

“I’m sorry we could not offer you representation after those nasty accusations about the colonel, but I didn’t want the union associated with a murderer. How did that whole thing ever work out? Are you...on the lam, as they say?”

“It worked out fine for me,” said Lime. “It didn’t work out well for the colonel. How’s your life insurance, by the way? Is your arm candy here in the will?”

Geoffrey’s grin was betrayed by one blink too many. He didn’t trust Lime—indeed seemed unnerved at Lime’s very presence—as though he really thought the writer had it in him to pull the trigger. Lime elevated the tension by boring his eyes into the lawyer, with a little extra set aside to bruise his date. She clutched tighter, her squirrel act a little more authentic, and Geoffrey comforted her with a pat on the leg. The mink stole also hugged tightly, but there was no comforting it now.

The lights dimmed and a spotlight swept across the stage. Holographic fireworks reached a crescendo of explosions, and the quartet segued into a spirited number. The audience leapt to its feet, and everyone cheered.

Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Barnes had arrived.

He was a large man, a vending machine on two legs. Clean-shaven with hair slicked back in a greasy luster, he had the kind of toothy grin that could bite a football in half. He wore a tux with a red tie barely visible behind folds of fat hanging from his chin, and a cummerbund that could catch fallen trapeze artists.

His wife was a concrete blonde whose body fought valiantly against aging and gave in only reluctantly, and only in the absolute minimum. She was the perfect package of lipstick too red, curves too high, body too lean and dress too short. She had me by a few years, but moved in subtle and mysterious ways that transcended age. She was a woman who could hurt me in all the right ways. She was a bottle of wine, and this was her year.

Bathed in the spotlight and adoration of the ballroom, they strode to our table, stopping halfway in tribute to the musicians. The crowd erupted into new heights of ecstatic applause, as Mr. and Mrs. Barnes joined hands and danced. He was light on his feet, and moved nimbly on tiptoes, embracing his wife and sliding and bending, twirling and dipping. She was lithe and sensual, and wilted into his arms.

At the number’s finale, he bowed and waved and worked the crowd, shaking hands and slapping backs to our table. The spotlight followed them every step of the way, until it came to rest directly above. When Boss Barnes caught sight of O.W. Lime, he held out his arms like a long lost brother, and the two embraced. Again, the audience erupted. Over Barnes’s shoulder, Lime shot Geoffrey a mocking glare, and everyone took a seat.

A momentary quiet settled on the table.

Geoffrey’s date gazed at Boss Barnes.

Boss Barnes ogled Geoffrey’s date.

Geoffrey eyed Mrs. Barnes.

Mrs. Barnes glowered at her husband.

Everyone began to speak.

“My name is Celia,” said Mrs. Barnes to me under the table’s crosstalk of greetings and laughter. She offered her hand, casting a furtive glance at her husband. “And you are?”

“Michael,” I said, taking it.

“A friend of Mr. Lime?”

“We go way back,” I said.

“And what do you do, Michael?”

“I help people get what they want,” I said, approximating charm as best I remembered it.

“Then I might need your help at the end of the evening,” she said, in the best approximation of hers.

She fired a glance at Geoffrey’s date.

Menus, wine bottles, bread baskets, and hors d’oeuvres descended upon the table, as did well wishers and photographers. Lime scoffed at the reporter from the Martian Sentinel who asked for a quote, shooing him away and throwing a dinner roll at him. “Away with the aristocracy. No quotes for your Air Force masters today! And tell them I’m still owed back pay for the last month.”

He, Geoffrey, and Boss Barnes were, however, convinced to pose for a picture for the union newsletter. Geoffrey offered the kind of pearly, manicured grin that won over juries. Barnes’s squinty-eyed smile transformed his face into everyone’s favorite uncle, the kindly old widower with the big yellow dog. Lime mustered a smirk, and didn’t bother to set down his Scotch glass.

“That’s a nice suit,” said Barnes to Geoffrey, as the photographer positioned them.

“You know what they say, Boss. The clothes make the man.”

“They must have subcontracted you,” said Lime.

Celia held her martini glass by the stem, leaving crimson prints where her lips touched the rim. By the time it was drained, they’d come full circle. “I like it dirty,” she said.

“Martini glasses or martinis?”

“Neither,” she said.

“So twenty-five years, huh?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Of what?”

“Marriage.”

“Oh,” she said, “yes. Twenty five years.” She fixed a stare at her one-and-only as though sizing him up for a coffin. He and Lime were engrossed in conversation. Boss Barnes spoke with an equal mix of Alabama inflection and sonic boom, drawing in air with giant gasps and drawing in the air with his giant fingers. When he made a point, he snapped his fingers, clapped his hands, or pounded the table for emphasis. It was easy to see how he unionized a planet. Geoffrey’s date mooned at him.

Celia rolled her eyes and crunched on an olive. A waiter swept in and replaced her drink with a refreshed glass. Over the rim, she met my gaze and looked me over. Her eyes stopped on the my bruised cheek, and the cuts on my chin and temple.

“It looks like you’ve seen a battle,” she said.

“It feels like I’ve seen a war.”

“Well if you’d like to see some action, just say the word,” and she winked, though her meaning was pretty clear without it. “That is, if you don’t mind a few more scratches.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, and downed my glass.

In my line of work, troubled marriages mean paying the rent. Murderers aren’t always reliable, and don’t always leave a corpse when I need to pay the light bill. Big shots don’t always need a hired gun. And sometimes claimants aren’t out to defraud the insurance company; sometimes they just want their honest due.

But spouses are always cheating—always and everywhere. It’s never the ones you’d expect, and never the ones you’d expect them to be cheating with. A good banker doesn’t make deposits in the cute accountant with a mind for numbers, even if she spends as much time holding down her miniskirt as pulling it up. He’s more likely to be paying a stripper’s car note. The housewife with a hair lip who packs her hubby’s lunch every morning is having her box stuffed by the mailman every afternoon. And the glamorous trophy wife married to the decrepit oil tycoon who just hired the young, buff Tahitian pool boy? She’s faithful. Lust, after all, can’t cover the down payment on a Rolls Royce.

Celia Barnes saw my wedding ring. I knew it was meaningless, but she didn’t, and a career spent photographing husbands dictating to the secretary after hours told me she wouldn’t have cared either way. But I cared. I had taken a thousand photographs of a thousand wives “working late” with the boss over mimosas and mattresses, and I still saw my wife. That night. When it happened.

Celia’s hand brushed my leg casually. It could have been an accident. I glanced about, but nobody saw it—not even the staring, stubble-headed creep across the dance floor.

Waiters and waitresses descended upon each table holding silver platters lined with gourmet delights. It was a Broadway spectacular of steak and lamb and lobster and fish and vegetables and pastas, filling tables and noses and taste buds and expense reports. The popping of a hundred champagne bottles rippled across the banquet hall, and cork mortars fired in every direction. The quartet ruffled, and the spotlight swept onto Boss Barnes, who stood and carried his flute of bubbly to the podium on the raised stage.

The fireworks faded. The diners hushed. The quartet concluded. And Celia’s hand brushed against my leg again. An accident, I told myself. My eyes locked onto her husband.

“My friends,” he said, like a bellowing southern oak tree, “Twenty-five years ago, I married a girl named Celia Monroe at a little ceremony in Monte Patera. Some of you might have been there.” Applause. “We courted, though, for a little longer than that. We first met after I got back from a forced rotation out here on the Belt. The same rotation where a defect in my hazard suit cut off my air, and I spent the longest four minutes of my life waiting to die. Today, I bet the Air Force and the Corporation wish I had died. But I didn’t, and instead went home and caused a little trouble on the Red Planet.” Applause. “I started a movement that gave us what we have today, and I did it so my wife could live in a safer, better world.”

Cheers, whistles and clapping. A foot brushed against my ankle. I pulled my ankles beneath my chair.

“Safety.”

Applause. A hand on my knee.

“Fair wages.”

Approving cheers. I brushed the hand back.

“Shorter rotations off-world.”

Some of the diners stood in continued ovation.

“And a future. And as many of you know, and many of you will soon find out, it’s going to be an exciting future.”

The hand returned, inching upward.

“My dear friend O.W. Lime is with us this evening.”

The ovation resumed, and I swept the hand away.

“Some people think he got rid of a pesky problem for us.”

Murmuring and polite applause.

“But believe me when I tell you that it was all my doing.”

Murmuring, and then reluctant, and then rapturous applause.

I looked to Lime. He looked at me. I raised an eyebrow. He twitched a shrug.

“For our reporters present, I only mean, of course, driving the colonel to a guilt-stricken suicide. For my comrades present, well, you know what I mean.” And he winked. But like his wife, he didn’t really need to.

The hand returned, now knowledgeable of the terrain, and moved quickly. I was a spurned husband, but I was still a man, and she was a woman. And in a social decorum-driven society like Mars, perhaps this was a friendly greeting. A Martian hello.

“I vow to remain at the forefront of the great future that awaits the workers of Mars. And by my side will always be my beautiful wife Celia.”

Her hand detached itself from my leg just as it was about to find new territory to explore, and it waved to her adoring fans. I, meanwhile, nudged my chair away, filled my wine glass, and promptly emptied it.

The refrigerator frame of Boss Barnes hoisted his champagne glass. “To Celia, and to our next twenty-five years.”

Cheers.

Barnes returned to the table, and Celia met him with a loving kiss.

“We need to talk,” I whispered to Lime.

He nodded.

Celia returned, and took her seat.

“We need to talk,” she whispered to me.

I hope Lime knew my intentions with him were different from hers. I’d be giving him no Martian hellos.

We met in a corridor that would have made an art student misty-eyed, a white, reaching hallway with cold black lines that extended forever, meeting at a single point in the distance. Hundreds of black doors led to hundreds of small rooms, each spaced ten feet apart, easily measured by the twelve-inch checkered floor tile. The corridor was a level below the ballroom, and a safe distance from busybodies and snoops.

It took some doing to dislodge the union sycophants from Lime’s doughy flanks, and they eyeballed me accusingly, as though I were their favorite uncle’s gold-digging fiancé. Celia Barnes threw a wink my way over her husband’s shoulder, a wink I ignored in my brain, but couldn’t ignore with every organ. Winks were not in short supply in the Barnes household.

“Did you hear what he said?” I asked.

“Who?” said Lime.

“Boss Barnes.”

“About what?”

“The colonel.”

“Him again,” spat Lime.

“Barnes said his ‘comrades’ knew the truth,” I said.

“So?”

“You’re his comrade.”

“And?”

“You know the truth.”

“I’ve told you everything I know,” he said, flicking a pointed fist to my chest. “Nicky Staccato is your man.”

“That’s your story. Barnes has a different one. Were you contracted to kill the colonel?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Did Barnes contract someone to do it, then?”

“Of course not,” said Lime. “This is birdcage liner. It’s muscular posturing for the workers. Barnes is no fool. He’d never jeopardize his kingdom to kill a mere sheriff.”

“What’s in his ‘exciting future’?” I asked.

“New stationary? I don’t know, Sheppard. I don’t work here.”

“Well can you find out?”

“I’m not a union insider,” he said. “I’m a writer. I report things. If they don’t want something reported, they won’t tell me. You saw how the lawyer treated me. That’s how the circumference of the inner circle feels.”

“Even Barnes?”

“It’s been a lot of years since he and I shared cheap booze and planned a Better Tomorrow. I don’t know how he feels.”

“Well I need answers,” I said.

“No you don’t,” he replied. “You think everyone is a murderer.”

“That’s because everyone wants to take credit for the murder. When a man insinuates he’s a killer, I take him at his word,” I said. “Did the police investigate him?”

“The Air Force doesn’t spend much time in these parts.”

“Then it’s up to us. I want to look around his office.”

“It is not up to us. And do you think he jotted ‘Hire contract killer’ in his calendar, or had an invoice typed up for the ammunition?”

“I don’t know what he did. That’s why I want to look around.”

“Well I want to go back to that party and get toasted and be toasted,” he said.

“So does everyone else. That’s why it’s the perfect time to look around.”

We cast our eyes down the hallway, which had doubled in length since we entered.

“I’m sure he’ll have a corner office,” said Lime.

“Top floor,” I agreed.

There were no corner offices on the top floor, because, as we soon discovered, there were no corners in the round facility. So we spent the better part of an hour looking around without looking like we were looking around. The complex was empty but for courier robots delivering the mail, and the occasional android pushing a mop around.

It didn’t help that every hallway looked the same—white with checkered tile—and no maps were posted, or signs, or arrows or riddles. We found the corridor by accident when Lime glanced at the mail cart of a robot taking a break to plug in, or oil up, or whatever it is robots did on break.

Double sliding doors of fist-thick transparent steel opened as we approached a distinctively large and ornate office. A vacant reception desk and three vacant, plush, chartreuse sofas sat in the dark. Behind the desk was another door, made of cherry, to an interior office, and in the corner rotated a hologram of miners in spacesuits, crawling down the side of an asteroid. The dim security lighting rendered it twice as vibrant.

“This is it,” said Lime.

The doorway to his private work area was locked, secured by a brass thumbprint pad which gleamed a reflection of the hologram. I produced my penknife, and extended the scanner, which billowed waves of black light. I moved it along the door, the doorframe, the receptionist’s desk, chairs, and the wall. It found nothing.

“This place is clean,” I said.

“Is that bad?” asked Lime.

“It’s not good.”

I swept the scanner along the magazine table circled by the sofas, and along the lamp and baseboards. Nothing. Fearing the penknife was malfunctioning, I closed and opened it, and shook it, tapped it, flicked it, and wiped it against my shirt. Another sweep of the room, and yet again, it found nothing.

I needed a smoke and a drink, and I plopped myself into the sofa, sinking into the cushions. I rested my head, and closed my eyes, frustrated, inhaling deeply through my nostrils.

Click.

I turned to find O.W. Lime, his bowtie loosened around his neck, his sleeves rolled, his stout frame crouched before the thumb plate, tiny silver tools in hand. The door was swinging freely.

“How did you—?”

“It’s a skill I picked it up in an Albanian prison. When you’re locked up with an illiterate lock pick who speaks only Albanian, there’s not a lot to talk about, except the obvious.”

Boss Barnes was a large man and lorded over a large empire of loyal workers. He led a Martian revolution against an oppressive government, military, and industry, and carved for himself veritable ownership of the asteroid belt using nothing more than political wiles and personal charisma. For all of this, his office was the size of a shoebox, the kind of broom closet an assistant postmaster in Cousinlove, Alabama might spend a career lobbying for, the kind of cage in which political prisoners might be incarcerated between torture sessions. Data pads and computer disks stacked several feet high covered his desk. Atop one of the stacks teetered a lonely pair of eyeglasses. This was the desk of a workingman. A window along the back wall overlooked the Belt. Rocks moseyed by, spinning idly, and in the distance, a vivid green strobe signified a ship launching into the Express Lane. Books of real paper stocked a shelf to one side of the desk. To the other, a small one-way window overlooked the sitting area.

“This is it?”

“This is it.”

“Take lookout, will you?” I said to Lime, who stepped outside to better keep an eye on the sliding door. He pulled a book from the shelf and thumbed through its pages.

“I could always tell from our correspondence that Clifford was well read, especially for a miner. He came from very little, you know. A pugnacious boy from Deimos.”

Again, I pulled my penknife and scanned for fingerprints. Again, it found nothing. “The robots here must scrub like slaves.”

“Or everything is print-proofed.”

The only offices I tended to snoop belonged to bookies, pimps, or gangsters, and print-proofing loomed somewhere above their paycheck. It loomed above the banks where their paychecks were deposited. I pulled the top pad from the pile, and powered it on.

“Please press thumb here.”

I pulled the next one, and the next one. “Please press thumb here.” They were all secured, and short of taking a cleaver to Barnes’s hand, I wouldn’t be gaining access. I drove my fist into the desk, and the pads and disks leapt, and the reading glasses hit the ground.

The penknife beeped.

It beeped again when I waved it over the left lens of the eyeglasses, and chimed when it struck oil.

“I’ve got it,” I said to Lime, too loudly and too excitedly. He closed his book in a thump, and leaned into the office.

“Well you’d better have more than that,” he said, “because somebody is coming.”

“What are—?”

“Just get under the desk,” he said, pulling the office door closed. Through the one-way window, I watched him step into the waiting area and take a seat on the sofa.

It was six somebodys, led by Boss Barnes and trailed by Geoffrey the lawyer. They were deep in conversation, though nothing could be heard until the soundproof doors slid apart.

“—why tonight?” asked Barnes.

“Our man on the inside says the jammers on Mars are down for maintenance. It has to be tonight,” said another.

“I’m gonna catch hell for this, boys. He can be a surly son of a—Lime,” said Boss Barnes.

“Lime,” said Geoffrey the lawyer.

“Lime,” said a beetle-faced man I did not recognize.

“Lime,” said O.W. Lime. “Got anything to drink, Boss?”

“What do you want, Lime?” asked Geoffrey.

“I want you to go f—”

“Chivas Regal on a pile of rocks?” asked Barnes.

“I’ll just have a vodka tonic, thanks,” said Lime. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey.

“No,” said Barnes, who fired an armor-piercing stare at Geoffrey. “One of the reasons we are here today, boys, is because of Mr. Lime. If I can’t trust him, hell, I can’t trust anyone.”

Everyone looked at everyone. Everyone looked perturbed, except Lime, who just looked. Barnes prepared the drinks at a cabinet behind his receptionist’s desk, and then joined the men at the sofas.

“To what shall we toast? To a strike?” asked Lime, accepting his glass. “I’ve heard the rumors.”

“We toast to Lexington,” said Barnes.

Lime’s brow raised somewhere above his receding hairline.

“You are gonna be part of history, tonight, O.W. But I gotta have your absolute confidence, your absolute trust and your absolute faith.”

“Seems only fair, since you gave me your Absolut vodka.”

“I think this is a mistake, Boss,” said Geoffrey.

“Geoffrey,” said Lime, warmly, and putting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tenderly, “nobody cares what you think.”

Barnes stood, his frame dominating the room, like a giant sculpture or shaved grizzly bear. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and unbuttoned his jacket. He downed his Chivas Regal. Meanwhile, one of his lackeys walked over to the hologram of the asteroid and miner, called up a settings menu, and typed numbers and letters.

“We’ve reached a crossroads,” said Barnes, “We got the workers. They’re loyal to the cause, to the Brotherhood, to the job. What they’re not loyal to is the Air Force, or the S.A., or Earth. And we’ve got the resources. We’ve got a fleet. We’ve got the weapons. And boy do we have money. Up until three weeks ago, all we lacked was political support. But the colonel’s dead, now, and the new overseer hasn’t been chosen yet. Now is the time.”

“For what?” asked Lime, although he already knew.

“Like you said earlier. For the union to strike. But the other meaning of strike. To attack. Secession. Revolution.”

“War,” said O.W. Lime.

“War,” said Boss Barnes.

And Lime laughed. It was a nervous, astonished chuckle. “Clifford,” he said, “You don’t know anything about fighting a war. You’re an orator and an organizer.”

“You’re right,” said Boss Barnes, his Georgia twang deepening. “I don’t know the first thing about war. But he does.” And he pointed to the hologram, which transmitted the granite-etched face of Archibald Chang.

Chapter 12

“General Chang,” said Boss Barnes, “Sorry for the late hour, but we got a secure line, and we got a lot to talk about.”

The room’s acoustics rolled Chang’s growl like thunder over Kansas.

“I can’t believe what a great job you’re doin with that loony bin act. I saw a special about you on the tube last week. Real sad ending.”

“What I can’t believe is that you’re taking so long to get me to the Belt. My wife and I are sick to death of living in this squalid shanty and carrying on this schizophrenic charade. And I had a visitor earlier this week. Some detective is asking questions about the late colonel.”

It was a one-way window, but I crouched down all the same, an evolutionary response to genocidal warlords invoking your name.

“What was he asking?” asked Barnes.

“About the murder. He was feeling me out. I don’t think he knows anything, though,” said General Chang.

“How far do you think he could go?” asked Barnes.

“I don’t know,” Chang replied, “but I’ve got someone taking care of him.”

Great.

Boss Barnes bobbed his head politely, thoughtfully, to show appreciation for the General’s gesture, and to move the conversation on to more important things. “We’ve begun putting out feelers,” said Barnes. “Trusted advisors are reaching out to trusted managers and supervisors, who are reaching out to trusted workers.”

“That’s a lot of trust. Some might call it credulity.”

“Well I’m here because of trust,” replied Barnes. “But if you want solid numbers, I have them.”

Geoffrey handed a data pad to Boss Barnes, who examined it closely before stretching his arm and examining it from afar. He squinted his eyes, first the left, then the right, and then both, and tried again. “Eighteen percent—is that an eight?—Eighteen percent of the Brotherhood are veterans from the war on Earth. I—”

Making little progress, he tilted the pad to an angle. When that didn’t work, he relented to old age. “Let me get my glasses,” he said. “They’re in my office.”

Which was this office. Lime snapped his head in my direction. I snapped my head in the direction of the door. The door snapped in no direction, but would have if only it had a head. My discovery would lead to a bad day for the janitor and a closed-casket funeral for me. I swan-dived beneath the desk and curled fetal, pulling his mammoth office chair behind me.

It was a cozy cave, or tomb, and I felt protected by a thin sheet of security, until his eyeglasses, which I had replaced as I found them, atop a pile of data pads, dropped onto the floor. A shiver of terror traveled down my spine, into my bowels, and proceeded to liquefy most, if not all, of my internal organs.

The door unlocked, and the security system chimed. Beep. I took hold of the glasses. Ding. And tossed them up. Click. The door squeaked open. Footsteps. One, two, three, four, stop. Though I couldn’t see him, I could feel him, looking, scanning, scrutinizing. Was something out of place? How did—

“Must I be kept waiting any longer? I am tired, Boss Barnes. And I am frustrated.”

“One moment, General.”

Silence. I could all but hear his eyelids creaking narrow. Something was snatched from the desk, and then he pivoted. One, two, three, four footsteps and a slam.

Slowly, I inched the chair back and uncoiled my body. Taking a deep, quiet breath, I offered my eyeballs above the desktop, and eased them across the room. Empty. Closed. Dark. Safe. No bullets flew. That was good. Through the window, Boss Barnes was back on the couch, next to Lime, recounting statistics and figures to the sneering face of General Chang.

“You’re not giving me much to work with here,” the general said.

“But it’s more than we expected. And these numbers will grow; this is just our base,” said Barnes. “Your own private army.”

“This is no army. At best it is a Division.”

“A Division with a full fleet, experienced pilots, nuclear weapons, and thousands of battle-hardened and loyal soldiers.”

“More loyal to you than the S.A.?” asked Chang.

“More loyal to me than to God,” said Barnes.

Eyes looked about, away from the man and the hologram, away from each other for fear of betraying a thought, an emotion, a doubt.

“And,” said Barnes, “Our friend Mr. Lime might be able to drum up some support amongst the people for this little adventure. Like the old days, partner?”

“Like the old days,” said Lime, offering up his drink before downing it.

“Then I must get to the asteroid belt immediately. It’s time I laid eyes on my new army,” said General Chang.

“Our new army. I’ll send a man next week. He’ll visit in person, and will identify himself. You and your wife will have little time to move, so be ready and pack light.”

“Very well.”

“Great things lay ahead of us, general.”

“Indeed, Boss Barnes. Or should I say Mr. President?”

“I’m leaning toward ‘chancellor,’ but we got plenty of time for—”

Chang hung up.

“I want him dead the minute this revolution is over,” said Boss Barnes to the beetle-faced man, who would have flitted his antennae in agreement if he had any, and I wasn’t sure he didn’t.

“He may be planning the same for you,” twitted the Beetle.

“I’m counting on it.”

“Speaking of killing,” said Geoffrey, tiptoeing, “It might be a good idea to lay off of the colonel from here on out. Any more insinuations that you had something to do with the murder, and people might start to think you really did it, especially now that an actual murder suspect, Mr. Lime, is here. We don’t need the Air Force to start snooping.”

“It sounds like they already are,” said Lime. “Should I look into this guy asking General Chang questions?”

The face of Boss Barnes filled with a smile that could have doubled as the grill of a Buick. “So you’re on board, O.W.?”

“I’ve already got the story written.”

“See, Geoffrey?” said Barnes. “Everything is falling into place.”

“Is the Corporation in?” asked Lime.

“Officially,” said Barnes, “they’re neutral. But you know those boys. They’re already making a killing pumping out weapons for the war on Earth. But two planets? Two armies? Under the table, these guys are tickled pink at the thought of another war.”

And then the door opened, and in staggered Celia Barnes. Her blonde locks were unlocked, standing in directions that would have curled a hairdresser’s toes. Her dress was torn at the collar, haphazardly concealed by a mink stole that would have preferred to be anywhere else. Her eye shadow reached across her face in the beginnings of a nasal eclipse. She carried her left pump, broken at the heel, and hobbled along on the right one, fortunate for Barnes because when she threw the damaged shoe at him, he had time to take cover as she reloaded.

Lime walked to the wet bar, and refreshed his drink.

“Celia, baby,” asked Boss, “is everything all right?”

“Everything is not all right!” she shouted, and landed her right heel against his stomach.

The beetle man stood, and reached into his jacket, but Boss gestured that he stand down, and he did. Inching forward like a safari hunter facing down a mountain lion, Boss Barnes approached his wife.

“I know all about her!” Celia continued.

“Who?” asked Boss Barnes, his eyebrows raised like someone trying to convince someone else he was clueless, but obviously was not, and was hoping to think of a really good reason this was all a big misunderstanding.

She replied by raring back and delivering a blow across his face that would have caused a prizefighter to rethink his career. “How long has this been going on?” she screamed.

“Twenty-five years with the woman I love,” he said, and tried to hug her.

“She’s only twenty-four,” said Celia, deflecting his hug with a kick to the shin.

“Where’d you get the mink?” he asked, his elephantine leg unaffected.

“From the floozy Geoffrey brought to the party. She stole my man, I stole her dog.”

“Minks are otters,” said one of the suits on the sofa.

“She was my date, and she’s just a coworker,” said Geoffrey, now rising to his feet.

“Go to hell, Geoffrey!” replied Celia.

“Yes, Geoffrey,” said O.W. Lime helpfully, “Go to hell.”

“She didn’t offer it willingly,” Celia said. “So I took it. There might have been a photographer there. Or ten.”

“Sweetie, let’s talk about this in private,” said Barnes, who took her hand and pulled her toward his office.

I scrabbled beneath the desk. If he saw me, I’d be a dead mean. If she saw me, she might mention our close encounter at the party. That would make me a dead half-man, with severed key appendages.

I needed a cigarette.

Beep. Click. Creek. In they struggled, slamming the door behind them. Her breath or her clothes or both reeked of dry vermouth, cheap gin and olive juice.

“How could you embarrass me in public?” she asked.

“I’m not the one wearing a stolen dog.”

“Otter.”

“Or a torn dress,” he said. “You smell like an Italian whore.”

“Martinis are American!” she proclaimed, and punched him in the stomach.

“You’re embarrassing yourself right now. Who told you those lies?”

“About martinis?” she asked

“About Geoffrey’s date,” he replied.

“Geoffrey,” she spat, “is a bastard.”

“I agree,” came the muted voice of Lime through the door.

“She was liquored up and spitting gab. She said Geoffrey only brought her at your instruction, and that you bought her this mink stole.”

Boss Barnes sighed. “She’s lying, honey. She’s trying to climb the social ladder. You know how it is out here.”

“Well I’m tired of it. I want out of here,” said Celia, “I want to go to Mars.”

“Baby we’ve talked about this.”

“I want to go to Baltia and I want to shop and I want to go to parties and I don’t want your spies anywhere near me.”

More sighing.

“And I want to take the Cruiser,” she said.

“But that’s my ride, sweetheart.”

“It’s mine now. You’ve had enough riding.”

Checkmate. “When do you want to leave?”

“When I’m good and ready. Have a driver waiting,” she said.

“Tonight?”

“When I’m ready. Goodnight Clifford.”

“Don’t wait up,” he said, and the crack that echoed across the room was the sound of her slapping him, hard. The crack that followed was the door opening. The slam that followed was the door closing. The sigh that followed was Boss Barnes expressing relief at twenty-five years of wedded bliss.

He left the office, closing the door behind him gingerly, and joined the others. I climbed from beneath the desk, and watched. Nobody seemed particularly moved or rattled. This was nobody’s first time facing down an angered Celia.

“You should have known her before she mellowed,” said Lime to one of the suits.

“I’d best not return to the ballroom,” said Barnes. “Sounds like there was a ruckus, and I don’t wanna answer any questions tonight. Geoffrey, tell your ‘date’ to meet me in my apartment. She got me in trouble, but at least she knows how to make me feel better.”

Geoffrey nodded, though his eyes said he had hoped she would make him feel better tonight.

“Need anything else from us, Boss?” asked the beetle man.

“Nothing this evening, but let’s all meet here tomorrow afternoon, boys. I’m not gonna get much sleep tonight,” said Barnes. Again Geoffrey winced.

When Boss Barnes stood, everyone stood, and shuffled toward the door. “How do you like your room, O.W.?” he asked.

The door slid open.

“A bit on the smallish side, but I can manage,” he replied without a trace of sarcasm.

“Who was that friend you brought to the party?”

“An old acquaintance. It took me forever to lose him so I could meet with you. Terrible breath, that guy. He’s an orthodox monk. Did you know they practice self-castration?” and the door slid closed.

I spent the next two hours hunched over Barnes’s desk, reading his private diaries and journals and correspondence and calendars. His letters to Lime read like essays for the University professor everyone hopes they don’t get. They dealt in the ideas and abstractions of unions and solidarity, but the two never discussed the Brotherhood in practice, even decades after its establishment. It was as though Lime always knew it would work, and needed no confirmation, and Barnes knew how to work it, and needed no help.

And though they never mentioned the colonel, they each expressed distaste for the authoritarian dominion of the Air Force, and the S.A.’s refusal to allow Martian sovereignty. Nothing hinted at conspiracy, and nothing hinted at revolution.

Barnes was too smart to leave footprints or fingerprints. If he gave the colonel’s execution order, it was verbal, and delivered to a trusted hatchet man who promptly disappeared. The killer was gone. There was no killer.

By the time I put the data pads away, I had not blinked in over twenty minutes and had begun hallucinating translucent horses locked in a furious round of volleyball. It was time for sleep. I had no evidence to offer Sofia, no leads to follow, and was trapped on an asteroid thirty million miles away from the nearest clue. And there was always another clue, always another witness. Somewhere, something in somebody’s eye was the key. I just needed to find that somebody.

Chapter 13

O.W. Lime hunched over the glass coffee table of our smallish luxury suite, his jacket draped across the sofa. His tie hung from his collar, and his collar was unbuttoned to mid-chest, wherefrom a pelt of hair sprung forth. An open bottle of Scotch sat next to a drained glass, which sat next to a data pad on which he scribbled feverishly.

When I walked in, he looked up, said nothing, and continued scribbling.

“Planning to take over Mars?” I asked.

He said nothing. I walked to the kitchen and fished a glass from the cabinet and two ice cubes from the freezer. I rejoined him in the sitting area, collapsed on a plush leather chair, leaned forward only long enough to fill my glass, and collapsed again.

“There was nothing in his office,” I said.

He nodded, though more to suggest I shut up than go on.

I sipped from my glass.

He scribbled.

I sipped from my glass.

He scribbled.

Someone knocked on the door.

I sipped from my glass.

He scribbled.

After pushing myself from the chair, I downed my drink and set it on the table. I rubbed my eyes. It was an exhausting hour of the night, but the planning of bloody coups was exhausting work. More than anything else, I wanted a cigarette. It seemed only right that revolutions were planned in smoke-filled rooms.

I pulled the latch, and thumbed the lock. The door opened to a trench-coated Celia Barnes, fragrant with lilac and martinis. She stepped past me, pushed shut the door, pulled loose the belt of her wrappings, and dropped it to the floor. She stepped over the coat, now clad only in a silk robe that covered little more than a postage stamp covers an envelope.

Lime stopped scribbling. I stopped thinking about whether bystanders of failed revolutions were hanged along with the revolutionaries. She stood there, giving the two of us time enough to take in the situation. I had a few questions, and felt sure that Lime did, too.

Celia turned to me, slowly. “Well aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” she asked, and no sooner had she finished asking it than Lime was standing there holding out a tumbler.

“Straight up or on the rocks?”

“On the rocks,” she said, and he dashed to the kitchen.

She looked at me, a long, longing look, and then threw her arms around my neck, pulling me into a kiss. Lime returned, narrowed his eyes, shrugged, and started sipping her drink. He returned to the couch, and began scribbling yet again.

I pushed Celia away.

“Don’t you want me?”

“Does your husband know you’re here?” I asked.

“He doesn’t care,” she said.

“Do you know where your husband is?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” she said, though she did.

“What do you think this is? Who do you think I am? Who do you think you are?” I asked.

“I am a woman,” she said, and moved her body only slightly, and in slight places, and got her point across.

“You’re a scorned woman. I don’t know what kind of a marriage you’re working, but one minute you’re running your hand up my leg, and the next you’re running your fist across your husband’s face—for cheating.”

“Not everyone shares the same definition of wedded bliss,” she said.

“But I’m pretty sure everyone spells ‘contract killer’ the same, and your husband looks to have them on speed dial. I’ve got enough people aiming for my head. I don’t need anymore.”

“I’ve only got one person after me,” said Lime. “So, I mean, I’m good for more.”

Celia looked at me again, the delicate features of her face smooth and begging to be touched. My gaze drifted down, and down and down, up and down, back up, lingered, and back to her face. I had done some difficult things over the years. Put down a beloved dog gone decrepit; left the police force; buried my mother; eaten the fifty spicy buffalo wings to get my picture on the wall. But turning down Celia Barnes’s desperate playground was a painful act of self-denial. I felt it in my heart, and head, and slacks.

“Get a hold of your life,” I told her.

“Or of your Lime,” said Lime, offering up a glass.

Celia turned up her nose, and wheeled about to Lime. She swayed to the left and right, her calf muscles rippling under the tension of stiletto heels. When she reached him, she reached down for the drink, brought it to her lips, and downed it in a single tilt. She absently tossed the tumbler over her shoulder. It landed on the marble floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Make sure that doesn’t end up on our bill,” said Lime, before being muffled by Celia’s lips. The kiss lasted a moment, and when she withdrew, he added, “seriously.”

As she started for the summit of Mt. Lime, I pulled my revolver and hat from the coat closet, put the one on my head and tucked the other in my waistband.

“Knock before you come back, would you Sheppard,” said Lime, and Celia interrupted him with another kiss.

“Or just come in and join us,” said Celia, before it was Lime’s turn to interrupt.

“Knock,” he said.

On the way out, I dimmed the lighting and locked the door. To my left, there was empty hallway. To my right, the same. Comfortable that no union goons lurked in the shadows packing Tommy guns and aiming for revenge, I set for the elevator, and the bar.

“When he found out someone was asking questions, he went crazy. When he found out that I was the one who hired you...” The dewy-eyed Sophia Reed paused. She lowered her head. “He was red faced. White knuckled. It was the most horrible thing.”

It took three seconds for the signal to bounce from the asteroid belt to Mars and back, so I waited a moment before speaking. “Did he hit you?” I finally asked.

“No. But he wanted to. He raised his fists, and I could see it in his eyes.”

“Has it passed? Are you safe, now?”

“It never passes with him,” she said. “And I don’t know if I am safe. I don’t feel safe. When he is not at work, he sits in the study with the door closed. He doesn’t drink. He just sits there. He says nothing. He ignores our baby. And when he sees me, he trembles, like a rabid dog. I am afraid of what he might do to me.”

What he did to your father. “Is there somewhere you can go?”

“No. But Captain Stanhope has been checking in to make sure nothing terrible happens. He says he spoke with you about everything. But I would feel safer if you were here,” she said.

“I’m sorry that I am so far away,” I said.

“How long until you return?”

“I don’t know. Not long,” I said.

“But I must know,” she said, lip quivering, presaging tears withheld by a flurry of blinks.

“Soon. Tomorrow. I will leave tomorrow,” I promised, immediately regretting a vow I doubted I could keep. But someone needed to dry those tears. “If I return, I will need to lay low until my investigation is complete.”

“Of course, Michael. Just come back. Tomorrow,” she insisted.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

I hung up the paytube and stepped into the canteen. It was empty but for the barkeep, a couple of drunks dotting the bar, and a guy leaning over a pool table shooting a solo game of eight ball. The back half of the barroom was closed and darkened, overturned chairs resting on tables. A yellow Wet Floor sign adorned the white linoleum tile.

The place was sterile and corporate and serviced pencil pushers and chair jockeys after a long day of bean counting. A banner hanging from the ceiling read, “Take care of the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood will take care of you,” and posters extolling the virtues of safety and teamwork lined the walls. Only the tiny bar tipped a friendly air. A toy hula-girl with swivel hip action guarded the cash register, above which hung a SAFE BENEATH THE WATCHFUL EYES poster, though somebody had drawn a mustache on the security camera. A tube tuned to the headline newsfeed streamed video of a battle in Shanghai between the S.A.-Australian alliance and the Chinese forces. A blow-dried talking head reported body counts and casualty figures, before a perky blonde in a tiny blouse reported on the weather.

“Whaddaya having?” the bartender asked.

Before I could answer, the guy shooting pool said, “Beer on me.”

“Coming up.”

The guy was a bruiser, tall, square, a jaw line that could carve notches into diamonds. He was pale and topped by a stubbly shaved head. His tuxedo was ill-fitting, too small at the shoulders, too long in the seam, and he wore combat boots instead of the usual glossy affair. His tie dangled around his neck.

“Thanks,” I told him, uneasily. I didn’t recall meeting him at the ball, but recognized him all the same. People weren’t nice to people without a reason—not out here. Not in this place.

“Here you are,” said the bartender, sliding a frosty mug with a foamy head at me. I turned to the drink, gripped the handle, and brought it to my mouth. I wasn’t a beer man. It sat in my stomach like a lonely schoolboy. Gin went to work like a cable repairman. Vodka was the angry neighbor who dumped trash in your yard. Tequila showed up with all of its friends and tore the furniture and broke the windows. Only Scotch could be trusted to do the job right.

“You Mike Sheppard?” asked the stubble-headed man.

Out here, only Lime knew my full name, but he only name-dropped famous acquaintances and spent the rest of the time talking about his own celebrity. This guy didn’t look like the sort to join my fan club. This guy shouldn’t have known who I was.

The mirror behind the bar saved me. The stubble man’s reflection reared back with his pool cue, like a caveman hoping to drop a tiger, and drove it forward with full force. I dove to the floor, spilling my drink, and watched as the cue disintegrated across the bar where I had been seated, shattering into a hundred plastic shards.

The stubble man snarled. I panted. The barkeep stood there, frozen, like a poodle in a pit bull cage. The rest of the drunks kept drinking, and one commented on the weathergirl.

I scurried back, my hands tearing for floor as fast as they could find it, and when I hit a wall I pulled myself upright. The goon tossed aside the remains of his pool stick, and reached into his jacket for a gun.

“Don’t run, Sheppard. You’ll just die tired.”

He drew a pulse pistol, a silver job topped by a green cartridge of molten plasma. It probably had a pet name engraved on the slide, like “Old Bessie” or “Equalizer.” He pointed, and I threw myself back to the floor, behind a table for cover. He squeezed the trigger to the sound of ten thousand chirping crickets and the sight of an emerald laser bolt, which tore across the room and punched a hole inches from my head. He aimed again, and I scampered to the next table, and the next. Again the crickets chirped, and again he missed, the bolt singing a tile next to my hand.

I reached into my jacket and pulled my revolver. I pointed and squeezed off a round. The acoustics of the room, well designed for a Friday night two-for-one-ladies-night-special band, magnified the gunshot into cannon fire. Through ringing ears, I listened for a gasping, moaning or thud. When it never came, I knew I had missed, and dove to the next table. I inched my eyes above the cover.

The drunks got up from the bar. One complained that he couldn’t hear the news. The other groused that the bartender had swooned, and couldn’t refill his glass. The other just grumbled about what lousy shots we both were. They shuffled from the canteen.

The stubbly-headed goon, meanwhile, peeked from behind the pool table.

“Who are you?” I shouted, still deaf from my cannon.

He let the crickets respond on his behalf, and they were in no mood for conversation. When again I survived his marksmanship, I took no more chances and bolted for the exit. The last glimpse I caught was of the graphitized poster.

SAFE BENEATH THE WATCHFUL EYES.

I ran. He was in better shape than me, muscular, the kind of guy who spent hours a week downing protein drinks, curling barbells, and saying things like “Feel the burn.” I, however, had the advantage of being chased by a crazed gun-toting killer. You don’t need personal trainers to get in shape for that.

Beating feet into the promenade of the Vesta central planning office of the United Brotherhood of Miners Union, I eyeballed for a place to hide. I had thirty seconds on him at best, but also thirty years of smoker’s lungs and a spare tire. Taking refuge behind a large ceramic pot supporting a large artificial tree, I got my bearings. Psychotic behind me. Check. No psychotic in front of me. Check. I looked up for divine guidance. Instead of the Lord, I found placards hanging from overhead beams. Straight ahead: the Vesta tram system, and escape.

Chirp! A green laser blast blew a hole in the wall the size of my head with inches to spare. I stepped into a sprint. I had never run so hard, never panted so deeply, and never wanted a cigarette so badly. My footsteps outpaced my breath, which outpaced my pulse, and my blistered feet cracked further and bled into my socks and insole. The darkened corridor yielded to a lighted corridor. A sign marked C TRAM guided my way. I craned my head round, and watched as my assailant moved at no more than a modest jog. He knew I would never escape. He had my number.

The hallway opened into a tram station. Three embedded tracks ran the length of the terminal—though I wasn’t fond of that word in the present context—with only one tram present. The vacant, automated passenger car waited, doors open, welcoming. A red departure countdown mounted to the ceiling blinked 10... 9...

I leapt over the empty C station turnstile. 8...7... The door began to slide shut. 6...5... I narrowed my body and hurled myself though the sliding panels. It sealed. 4...3... The goon glowered, and stepped into a sprint, aiming at the train. 2...1... Chirp!

The blast impacted the stainless steel siding of the tram with a sizzle, but had no effect. It took only seconds for the car to gather speed, and a large illuminated ceiling map displayed the route and progress.

C Tram covered two hundred miles and thirty levels of the asteroid, and took 45 minutes to complete a circuit. The cabin was empty but for me, so I curled onto a seat in the back row. I could get off at any stop, anywhere; he’d never know where to look, and I knew he wouldn’t look any further. I decided to stay put. It was four hours until morning, when commuters would join me. In the mean time, it was a perfect place to rest.

I closed my eyes to the flaring nostrils of Archibald Chang. “I’ve got someone taking care of him,” he said about me. I guess I knew who that someone was.

I had to get out of here.

Chapter 14

“We have to get out of here,” said O.W. Lime over the remains of a Belgium waffle. He drained a glass of OJ and wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger.

“Things not go well with Mrs. Barnes?” I asked. There was a crick in my neck from the body contortions required to sleep on a tram bench seat. It hurt to stand, and sit, and move and look any direction but straight ahead.

“Things went fine, if you consider a night of uncontrolled sobbing a success.”

“Did she hurt your feelings?”

“Thirty seconds after you left, she started crying about her husband, and her lot in life, and aging, and her biological clock, which has undoubtedly stopped ticking long ago, or is attached to a bundle of dynamite. She had an existential crisis on that very sofa, and I had to listen to it.”

“Were you comforting?” I asked.

“Excruciatingly,” he said.

“So what’s the hurry to leave?”

“Revolution is coming to Mars.”

“And you want to be part of it?” I asked.

“No, Sheppard,” he said, “I want to stop it.”

“But don’t you support the ideals of the revolution? Down with the Air Force, up with the Brotherhood, all of that?”

“It has become clear to me that for all his talk about trust, Boss Barnes is no longer one to be trusted.”

“What gave you that idea? The part where he wants to start a nuclear war?”

“It was when he offered me Chivas Regal.”

“The Scotch?”

“Never trust anyone who drinks Chivas Regal. It’s what The Man drinks.”

I nodded thoughtfully, though thought very little. Then I sat on the very sofa where Celia Barnes had an existential crisis.

“So I need to get back to Baltia and talk to my old editor. I’ve got a story that’s going to upend the social fabric of the universe. Literally.”

“Last month you were fired for writing a story critical of Air Force corruption,” I said.

“Yes,” he said

“This month you’re going to write a story that saves the Air Force’s dominion over society, while critically wounding the labor union that you helped found.”

“It’s a turvy-topsy world, Sheppard. I already told you, I’m against corruption. But I see no reason to trade one Martian dictator for another. When the revolution comes, it’ll be from the bottom up, not imposed by megalomaniacs with atom bombs. That’s how Earth was ruined. Besides, the Brotherhood will survive; it’ll just get new leadership. Hopefully leadership married to a more emotionally stable woman. What did you do last night, anyway?”

“Got a drink. Almost got smashed.”

“Johnnie Walker?” he asked.

“Archibald Chang,” I said.

“He’s here?”

“His goon is.”

“Goon singular?” he asked.

“Who knows? But he’s serious about his job.” I dropped the empty shell casings from my pistol on the table.

“You shot him?” he asked.

“I shot at him. We need to get out of here.”

“I’ll call Elliot. I think it might be best if we tiptoe out the back door,” he said.

The back door was the same disused docking bay as our arrival. Elliot sat in the main hatch of his docked craft, waiting, tossing a rubber ball across the hanger that his dog enthusiastically chased, caught, and returned. The dog’s ears and tongue flopped wildly.

Lime and I moved with guarded urgency. He wore my hat, the brim pulled low, and an overcoat, the lapels pulled up. It had the effect of making him look exactly like someone who was hiding, but did conceal his face. He wasn’t worried so much about being followed than being recognized. Word traveled fast, and if he was going to derail Martian nuclear devastation, Boss Barnes could not know he was leaving.

Stubble Head never saw us, or if he did, never made his presence known.

“Hey guys,” said Elliot, who then turned to his dog and pointed inside the ship. “Inside.” The dog complied, toting its mouthful of slobbery racquetball.

“Quick trip,” Elliot continued. “Trouble smooth over back home?”

“Worse trouble boiled up out here,” I said.

“Happens,” said Elliot.

“Did anyone see you?” asked Lime.

Elliot shook his eye-patched head. “Nobody unusual. An inspector dropped by. Stern fellow. Saw my ship docked, wanted to take a look around. At first I thought he was Air Force or Corporation, but he was just a Union boy. After the inspection, we started talking about the war, and he let me go without even breaking out a pen. It’s a vet thing. So are we ready?”

We were, but before we could load the craft, a hatch at the far end of the dock clanked and creaked ajar, and three security guards entered, batons drawn. They started toward us.

“Don’t move!” one of them said, sheathing his baton and drawing a pistol.

Lime cringed. Elliot frowned. The dog growled. I remained expressionless, but only because I was used to the pattern. At least when they beat us unconscious this time, we’d see it coming.

“What are you doing here?” the tallest guard asked Elliot.

“Picking up my friends,” he said, itching for his piece, but drawing only a grin.

“Well you’re not authorized to be here.”

“I’m new here,” he said. “Where should I be?”

“Passenger dock, three levels up.”

The guard puffed imperial, like an extremely unimportant man doing an extremely unimportant job, but enforcing it with every serif of the law. He did it because he could, the asteroid’s version of a bureaucrat banishing a patron to the back of the line for signing a form in duplicate rather than triplicate, or the guy stopping the kids under forty-eight inches from riding the Tilt-O-Whirl.

“Well since he’s here, and we’re here, can’t we just load up and be on our way?” I asked.

“No. Passengers depart three levels up. He can meet you there, but you’re walking, and he’s flying.”

“Do it for an old war vet,” said Elliot.

“What’s that got to do with it? I didn’t make the rules. Now get moving.”

We hushed out an agreement to meet on the passenger level, on the furthest and most isolated docking culvert. Elliot didn’t want an Air Force incursion. Lime didn’t want a Barnes intervention. I didn’t want a Stubble Head incident.

Elliot stood, stepped into his craft and sealed the airlock. When he released the docking clamps from the terminal, his craft fell backward into space before wheeling about and navigating to the new destination. Turning our backs on Vesta’s finest, Lime and I set for the door. From beneath the lapel of his overcoat, O.W. Lime fumed but said nothing. The security guard, I knew, was proud of his effective law enforcement skills, valiantly upholding order against the bohemian hordes.

He was a smug prick, but at least he didn’t hit us.

The passenger departure level of Vesta was everything we had hoped to avoid. Far from tiptoeing out the back door, we waded full-bodied into a teeming Persian bazaar of travelers. Most were boisterous miners, dirty faced in grimy boots, completing yet another relentless three-month tour. Some were Brotherhood officials, glancing down at watches or checking expensive, leather-bound portfolios filled with notes for upcoming meetings or clandestine revolutionary espionage. Others were Corporation collars and sleeves, ready to hit the business district and strike deals, raise stock prices, and find ways to make the little guy work more for less.

Lime kept his head down and hand pressed to my back for guidance, certain that he’d be spotted, and celebrated, and rushed to the principal’s office. I kept my head up, eyes alert for my stubbly-headed friend and his plague of crickets. A thousand yards of round docking culverts lined the departure deck walls, each frantic with ships and passengers arriving and departing. An overhead status board indicated the last dock open and available was number thirty, and we shuffled in that direction, at the far end of the terminal, past the luggage lugging families and travel-weary travelers.

A half-mile was a long way to walk when lurking psychotic killers and genocidal madmen wanted to plant you in the marble orchard. By culvert fifteen, though, the crowds trimmed light, and few were interested in who we were or what we had planned. By twenty-three, we were all but alone, easy targets but hard to identify. Dock twenty-eight was taken by a massive yacht, sleek and black like a pricy shoe or remote control that also worked the stereo. It stretched like loaf of French bread into distances exceeding propriety.

We waited at number thirty, staring through the window for Elliot’s ship, which came into view a kilometer out and closing, drifting on impulse to our bay.

A hundred meters down the line, somewhere around culvert eighteen, a queue of patient travelers shuffled into the confines of a passenger ship. The group was unremarkable and uninteresting, save for one person, who stood out from the crowd filing in. He carried no bags, wore no miner’s jumpsuit, and dressed in jeans and a shirt buttoned below his chest. Sunglasses sat on his forehead. On his scalp grew little more than stubble. The killer. He looked my way before disappearing into the shuttle.

Elliot Leah’s ship backed toward our hatch, deftly spinning about to dock. And then his craft stopped. Through cracks splitting along the hull, lights pulsed in garish, epileptic patterns.

“Lime, something’s happening here,” I said stupidly, but Lime knew. Anyone who saw what was happening would have known. We clambered for the window, and pounded on it with our fists, “Stop! Turn around, eject!” but the laws of physics conspired to keep him from hearing any of it.

When the pulsing lights stopped, spurts of steam and gas coughed from his ship like a cancerous old man enjoying a Red. Porthole windows revealed billowing orbs of fire rolling from bow to stern, blasting chunks of metal, wiring and glass into every direction of the abyss. When the ship lost pressurization, the remains of Elliot’s dog squirted though a penny-sized hole in the hull before the vessel dissolved into a tight eruption of fire and death.

In all, it took only seconds for Elliot Leah, war veteran and pirate, to be no more.

Meanwhile, the shuttle down the line quietly departed, Elliot’s murderer safely aboard. A salty gloss of anger and guilt welled in my eyes, and my jaw clenched. Elliot was a bystander. It should have been me.

“Glad it wasn’t me,” said Lime. “I wonder if the canaries said anything.”

Because of the interminable silence of space, because of the few windows with little visibility, and because of the tremendous activity of the busy passenger level, few noticed the boiling away of a man into space, with the notable exception of his killer, who also knew we were still alive.

“This is great,” said Lime. “This whole terminal’s going to be shut down when Emergency Services arrive. We need to get out of here. Now.”

Nearby, the culvert seal of dock twenty-eight hissed. The door of the highly polished, carefully detailed yacht spiraled open. An access ramp extended. A silhouette emerged.

“Mr. Lime, Mr. Sheppard. Perhaps I could interest you in a ride.”

It was Celia Barnes, her face spread in a wide, sorrowful wire of a smile.

Under his breath, Lime whispered, “Where was that offer last night?”

Chapter 15

Plush cabernet loveseats surrounded a black lacquer table in the parlor of Celia’s yacht. She sat across from us, wrapped in a pink fleece blanket, balancing a bone china coffee cup on a bone china saucer, her feet folded beneath shapely thighs. Through white plumes of fragrant patchouli incense, Celia gave the impression of being very cozy and very tired, the kind of state where the best thing to do is watch the late night feature and fall asleep over a bowl of popcorn.

Lime, too, wore fatigue, only the kind better illuminated by torches in a secret meeting hall beneath the library.

“I’m headed to Baltia, but I can take you wherever you’d like,” said Celia.

“Baltia’s good,” I said.

“But you cannot let your husband know where you’ve taken us,” said Lime.

“I won’t. You’re an angel and a gentleman, O.W.,” she said, “You haven’t changed a bit in forty years. Thank you for listening to me last night.”

“Don’t let the news of my better angels get out,” he said. “I’ve got a reputation to keep.”

“There are people who would like to see us marinating in soil and worms,” I said, “and we don’t want to drag you into the soup. Tell your pilot to drop us at a nice, discreet part of town. We’ll make our way from there.”

She nodded.

“I’m going to sleep,” I said.

“It’s the third door on the right.”

When I awoke, I carried my naked body from the bed to the shower, dressed, and found Lime in the galley. He sat alone at the table, rocking his chair on its two hind legs, never acknowledging me except to announce that he was composing “the most important written work since Hammurabi.” He mentioned a special delight in composing it on the personal yacht of Boss Barnes.

Celia emerged from her room as we approached Mars, decked in white and poised for an elbow-rubbing expedition through the society pages.

Entering the Martian atmosphere lacked the knuckle-blanching anxiety that accompanied its exit, or at least an exit as flown by Elliot Leah. Air Force fighters flanked the yacht as we descended into the stratosphere, an Official Welcome escort that, again, Elliot would have been unfamiliar with, unless the jets unleashed a torrent of hot lead. After a safe journey thorough the city’s airlock, the escort parted ways, and Celia had our pilot set a course for Alexander Park on the perimeter of Baltia, a safe distance from the skyscraping towers of downtown and the dusty hangars of Old Town. The ship came about, extending hydraulic landing arms and setting down behind a thicket of trees.

Celia stood and embraced Lime, who copped a feel that she only reluctantly stepped away from. She offered me a hand, which I squeezed, and kissed, unable to cop a feel of my own for lack of opportunity. The ship’s exit hatch uncoiled and its ramp extended, and as we stepped into the park, she offered us a tearful goodbye.

The sky was overcast, dark, and on the verge of rain. A gentle thunder rolled across the hazy city. Mist flurried against our faces as the yacht launched in a windy rush.

The weather kept most away from an otherwise beautiful common area of shrubbery, lakes, and trees. Only an elderly man sat on a bench along the lake, tossing handfuls of bread at a gaggle of ducks appreciative for his generosity, and for his willful disobedience of the DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS sign. A bronze statue of Alexander, first man on Mars, stood thirty feet in the air, hand reaching to the sky.

If anyone noticed us, they didn’t seem to care.

Lime’s eyes darted about. “They can see us here,” he said.

“Who?”

“The Watchful Eyes. The police cameras. They’re everywhere, and they’re looking for you, right? I’m sure Jack Reed is seeing to that. And since the mob owns the cops, they’re after me, too, courtesy of Nicky Staccato. So how are we going to do this?”

“Stay low, keep our heads down,” I said.

“We need to get to the Sentinel across town.”

“I need to get to Sofia Reed,” I said.

“I think Jack Reed will find you if you go to his house.”

“She might be in trouble.”

“We might be in trouble,” he said. “Do you know where the police take prisoners?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. Neither does anyone. That’s why I know it can’t be good or healthy.”

I scanned the park for cameras, but saw nothing.

“If they spot us, how long will it take for them to arrest us?” I asked.

“Minutes, maybe.” said Lime. “If they arrest us at all.” He gestured as though rocking a machine gun.

“I need to call Sofia, then, at the very least,” I said.

“The Sentinel has phones.”

A gust of wind brushed through the tree line. I tightened the belt of my coat. Lime folded his arms, and tucked his hands beneath his armpits. “Not as bad as the sewers,” he said. He stepped out of the brush, and I followed. The cool breeze and mist gave us an excuse to keep a low profile. We walked across the park, to a gravel pathway that led to a sidewalk along a lightly traveled road. Cars floated by. One of them was a taxi.

I waved my arm to get the driver’s attention, which had little effect but for cardiovascular benefit. Lime took a different tact, and stepped in front of the oncoming cab. It came to a veering halt, inches from flattening him.

“Glad that worked,” he said.

Lime climbed in front, I climbed in the back, and he proceeded to chastise the robot driver for not answering my hail.

“Why don’t you two go to hail,” the robot said, pleased with its pun.

“Why don’t you go to the Sentinel,” said Lime. “Get moving, Cuisinart.”

The driver complied, but muttered something under his breath.

“What’s that?” Lime stabbed.

“Nothing, meatbag, just talking to a friend.”

“What friend?” I asked.

“A friend. I have those, and you should try getting some too, Mike Sheppard,” it said into the rearview mirror, “instead of lurking with shifty drunks like O.W. Lime.”

“I am not shifty. And you’d best not gossip to your friends about us. I know how you machines are.”

The driver steered every turn as though he were ducking the law, and plowed into every pothole along the way. At the Sentinel’s portico, he threw open the cab doors and gave us the boot. Lime thumbed him the fare and the driver floored it, catching Lime’s wrist in the window. The writer twisted in pain and fell to the sidewalk in a muted thud.

“Was it something I said?” asked Lime. “God I hope something awful happens to him.”

Green-glowing machinegun fire rang out, answering his prayer, zipping above our heads and into the taxi’s engine block, stopping it cold. I turned. Lime scrabbled to his feet. Two men in black overcoats and wide-brimmed fedoras stepped from behind the colossal pillars of the Sentinel steps. Dark glasses covered their eyes and large weapons filled their hands.

To our rear, a security policeman armed with a pistol sprung from a row of bushes.

The first goon fired. A bolt whizzed over our heads.

“He missed me!” said Lime triumphantly.

“He wasn’t aiming at you,” said the cop, who fell lifelessly to the ground.

“Mr. Lime,” one of the gangsters called. “We’ve been waiting for you. Nicky Staccato sends his regards.”

The mobster brought the riflescope to his eye, drew down on O.W. Lime, and squeezed the trigger, sending two slugs into Lime’s chest. Blood spurted like a garden sprinkler tied to a fire hose. Lime’s eyes hollowed and fixed at the sky above. His lungs made a valiant effort to inflate. Blood gurgled through his mouth, and bubbled through his sucking chest wounds.

The cab driver stepped from his car, and watched the events unfold expressionless, his polymer-molded face incapable of expression.

The mobster turned his sights on me. “Mr. Sheppard,” he said, “you brought this on yourself. The Staccato Family had no issues with you until you killed one of our own. Make peace with your god.”

His fists tightened around the forward grip of the sniper rifle, and his eye sharpened through the scope. He slid his finger into the trigger weld. I shut my eyes and tried to recall one of the Latin prayers I had learned at boarding school, but couldn’t get past the gunman sighting me in. This was an inopportune time to make peace with God.

Four shots rang out, four explosions of gunpowder-driven ballistics. I opened my eyes to see the mobsters fall. I reached for my chest, feeling, and then my face and groin, testing, checking. I turned and saw the lanky figure of Claude, courtesy driver of the Ritz-Baltia, blowing smoke from the barrel of a .357 Magnum.

“Let’s go, Sheppard,” he said, climbing into a sedan. “We need to move. Allez!”

“What about Lime?” I asked.

“Lime’s dead.”

Claude floored it. The city streaked by as we darted through an alley, around a bend, onto the Loop and above the city. He weaved between cars, making liberal use of the emergency lane and center line. The accelerator never lost contact with the floorboard, and Claude’s eyes zipped from mirror to mirror, taking in every cranny and gap, every vehicle and plate number. He eyeballed every driver.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To safety,” he said.

“Is this the kind of extra-mile service that earns the Ritz-Baltia its five-star rating?”

“I do not work for the Ritz. I’ve never worked for the Ritz. Until last week I didn’t know where the Ritz was. I held a sign at a spaceport with your name on it. You assumed the rest,” he said.

“Then who the hell are you?” I asked, fear racing up my spine. I reached into my coat to pull my revolver, but changed my mind when he pressed a pistol to my forehead. He aimed with the rearview mirror, never slowing down. This was no mere driver.

“I already told you, I am Claude. I work for General Chang. He has ordered me to take care of you.”

“You’re going to kill me?”

“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I’m trying to take care of you.”

None of this made sense. “None of this makes sense,” I said.

I withdrew my hand. He withdrew his pistol. “General Chang wishes to know who killed the colonel. His death leaves a powerful vacuum and a dangerous imbalance of power. The union is planning a revolution, but there’s no evidence that the union did it. Which means whoever did might have their own plans to change the world.”

“So General Change is afraid of someone stealing his thunder?”

“You know less about my boss than you think. Keep it that way,” he said. “The police won’t pursue the killer, so it could be the mob. Or maybe the Corporation is making a play for world domination. Nobody knows, and nobody can be trusted—except for you.”

“Why should I help Boss Barnes’s little revolution?” I said. “Lime said that it would be trading one dictator for another.”

“You will not be helping Boss Barnes, and that is all I shall say on the subject. Do it for Mars.”

“For Mars? I’m not interested in your politics or your political intrigue. I’m from New Orleans; I’ve got my own problems.”

“Mr. Sheppard, the Watchful Eyes know everything about me and everything about everyone else here. But their knowledge of you lasts exactly one week. You’re a free agent. Everyone is working against everyone right now. For whom are you working?”

“Justice,” I said.

“Then serve it.”

“How can I trust you?” I asked. “Your boss had a henchman try to kill me on Vesta two days ago.”

“That wasn’t a henchman of General Chang. It must have been one of Nicky Staccato’s men,” he said.

“For someone taking care of me, you’re noticeably absent when I need help most,” I said.

“Mr. Sheppard, I specifically told you to come looking for me when you needed to go anywhere. You didn’t. But even so, I have to assume that you have a minimal capacity for survival. And when you needed me most, I was there, no?”

“What about O.W. Lime?”

“Not my concern,” he said.

“Well it was damn well mine,” I said. Pressure welled behind my right eyeball, and blood pounded through the arteries of my brain. I scraped my teeth and clenched my fist. A thin trail of blood leaked from the scabbed slices of my wrists.

“Grieve later,” Claude said, his French accent thickening with annoyance. He cast a long stare into the rearview mirror. “We must hope the Watchful Eyes have not yet found us.”

The Loop fed into Mountain Town, where the translucent dome protecting Baltia gave way to the dark and hollow mountain interior. Streetlights attempted valiantly to illuminate the highway. With little exception, they failed. Traffic congested as we sped toward the heart of town, and Claude exited the Loop, steering his way down a remote and desolate street on the outskirts, empty but for the infrequent house and occasional liquor store. The street led to a yet bleaker, blacker road of even fewer houses and fewer liquor stores. Somewhere along the line, vandals had shot out the streetlights, making the neighborhood perfect for a hideaway or bungalow, and an ideal place to bury the bodies.

We pulled into the carport of a dilapidated shanty at the far end of the farthest road, where even axe murderers avoided for fear of being axe murdered. We climbed from the car. A garage door slid down behind us, and Claude pulled a latch hammering two deadbolts in place.

Assured of our security, he rapped his knuckles against a door leading into the house, and waited. I looked on stupidly.

There was no response.

Again, he knocked.

Nothing. He reached his hands into opposing sides of his fraudulent Ritz-Baltia jacket, drawing a pistol with each. In his left, a .357 Magnum. In his right, a military-grade plasma Beretta, brushed in desert finish.

“This might get messy,” he said.

I drew my revolver. “It’s been a messy week.”

Claude reared his boot and drove it into the door, which gave in with little resistance. He swept the splintered remains aside and stepped forward, pivoting from left to right, pistols crossed at the wrist, aimed at the ready, fingers poised to squeeze.

“Couldn’t you have just used a key?” I asked.

The kitchen was dark, vacant. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a table next to a half-eaten salad and a cold bowl of soup. Someone had been unexpectedly interrupted.

“Do we have friends here?” I mouthed.

Claude nodded.

The question was whether we had enemies.

We crept to the next room, guns raised. The parlor showed no sign of foul play. A sofa bed had been extended, the sheets folded over at the foot, two worn pillows at the head. The hallway was empty, as was the bathroom, though Claude nearly put holes in a vanity mirror.

Only the master bedroom remained. We each took one a side of the doorframe. He pointed at the door, and extended three fingers from his pistol grip.

Then two fingers.

Then one.

Again, he drove his boot into a door, again tearing through a frame, and in we stormed, barrels searching for targets or threats. But there were no slick-haired hoods with grease guns or goons nursing itchy trigger fingers.

Instead, lying on the bed, each with a bullet in the forehead, were two naked women—one with scarlet hair, the other blonde. The bodies marinated in blood. They bore signs of rape.

It was Babette and the singer.

Claude’s lip curled and his face blanched. “I found them after they saved you from the sewer. I knew that Staccato would be after them.”

“It looks like he found them.”

“I didn’t know this would happen. I promised them protection,” he desperately explained to the corpses as much as to me. He moved to cover the bodies with a sheet.

“Don’t,” I said, grabbing his wrist. “You’ll contaminate the scene. I—”

We startled to a blue light that flickered and whirled across the room through thin slits in Venetian blinds hanging from the windows. I pulled open a slat, tenuously, pistol handy.

“It’s the cops,” I said.

“How many of them?” asked Claude.

“All of them, I think.”

Outside were a dozen Air Force police cruisers, and scores of Air Force police. So struck were we by their number and force, that we didn’t notice the cop step into the room behind us. We didn’t notice him take aim until he had put two silenced bullets in Claude’s head. He dropped backward, but not before squirting an arch of blood across the room, across my face and coat, across the bed and the bodies.

The cop looked at me, roscoe extended. I could have dropped my pistol, but it would have made no difference. It was getting to be a bad day, and I couldn’t see it getting much worse. So I aimed the judge at him, and squeezed. And he squeezed.

Chapter 16

The area just above, between and behind my eyes pounded, like a tiny carpenter was hard at work with a sledgehammer, taking down a cranial wall that just had to go.

I needed a smoke. I needed a pack of smokes. I needed a carton of smokes. I needed North Carolina. If Sofia Reed had never called, if I had not taken the case, if the phone company had only cut my line like they promised, I’d be reclined in my chair right now. It was winter back home, where the cool mix of Creole and urine breeze would wisp through my office window. My feet would be propped on the desk. A Lucky would be dangling from my lips. I might have found a bottle of hooch, and might be nursing it. I might be showered, I might be dressed, or I might just be greasy, stubbly, and wearing my underwear and a robe. Or maybe no underwear at all.

But I wouldn’t be here.

My right shoulder distinguished itself from the rest of my body as being the only place not surging with pain, which was comforting; at least I had that going for me. Then I touched it with my left hand, and realized that my right shoulder had no feeling at all. It was as numb as a hooker’s rig, as though major dental work were about to be performed by an oral surgeon who got his degree through a correspondence course. It was wrapped in gauze, clean and tightly bound.

I guess the cop hit me, though I was surprised he didn’t finish the job. Police don’t take lightly to being shot. Or shot at. Or talked back to, or looked at funny. I don’t know if I hit him. By the time I got off the round, everything went red and my hearing collapsed into a faint whistle, like a hospital flat line played through a kazoo. That, I learned, was what it was like for a bullet to enter my arm without permission. It could have been worse, though; I could have learned what it was like for a bullet to enter my head.

Wherever I was, it was cold. Not refrigerator cold, or shoveling-the-driveway cold or waiting room cold. It was morgue cold, stagnant and dry. A hint of bread wafted in the air, like this was some sort of dungeon-themed bakery in hell. And it was bright, like beaming phosphorescent bulbs were mounted just above my head, or I was at the dentist’s office—the correspondence course dentist. The light bore through my eyelids, making the thought of opening them unbearable, like I was coming off of a three-day bender.

I opted to lie there. Wherever I was, I was alive, which was more than I had expected. Unless I was dead, which was better than I deserved. Perhaps this really was a bakery in hell, although I expected more fire, and possibly scaly, black taloned creatures to devour my entrails and excrete them back into my mouth. Either way, I had endured worse. My ex-wife prepared me for this.

After patting my stomach, I delighted to find my entrails intact. And I doubted the existence of local anesthesia and gauze in Hell—but who knew? Father O’Malley, at St. Sebastian Boarding School for Boys, my alma mater, delighted us with stories of impending and eternal damnation for inappropriate thoughts. I expected that I had a long eternity ahead of me.

Clang! Clang! Thunderous knocking on steel reverberated in the tiny room, and joined my intracranial construction worker in maximizing my headache.

“Take one of these,” said an expressionless, muffled female voice, and there was a tiny creak and a tiny clack.

Fighting my physical, mental and emotional impulses, I turned and opened my eyes. It hurt to open my eyes. There was a steel door with a mail slot near the bottom. She had deposited a white pill, which landed on a tray holding a glass of water and a small loaf of bread. I looked about. The ceiling was no more than four feet from the ground, and I was right about the light fixtures. There were no windows in my cell and no furnishings but for my mildewed cot and an aluminum pail in the corner, presumably, for doing what the animals do.

The walls were glossy and old, with peeling spots of white revealing peeling spots of white. The cell was three feet wide and five feet long. It was too short to stand and too narrow to exercise or move about. All I could do was lie on my cot, sit on the pail, or hunch over the tray of food. The white pill, I guessed, was for the pain.

My stomach growled like an angry dog and waves of pain pulsated down my arm and into my head. Rolling to the floor, I inched my way to the tray on hand and knees. My injured arm hung lamely in a sling.

The water washed down the pill, and I tore into the stale bread, taking great mouthfuls, chewing gratefully. It tasted like a steak dinner topped with ice cream and sprinkles. And when the bread was gone, I picked for crumbs and licked the water glass for any last drops of moisture.

How many days had I been here? Or had it been hours? My watch was gone, and my satchel, and my clothing. They had dressed me in a threadbare jumpsuit, blue, with the number 229 stamped across my chest in fading ink.

This was the case from hell.

I lay on the floor for ten minutes before the medicine’s witchcraft took hold. My mind and stomach swirled lightly in circles, leaving me nauseous, but too relaxed to care. I drifted into my thoughts, deeper, deeper, to my ex-wife, to her beauty when she was kind, and the great currents of emotion that rolled across the ocean of her heart. I thought of her hair—sometimes dyed merlot, sometimes indigo, sometimes blue or red or yellow. She colored by mood and whimsy. I saw the little tattoo on her shoulder. She was nature but not natural, and felt at home in the opera or the wilderness.

They hadn’t taken my wedding ring and I rolled it round my finger.

I yawned. The medicine.

Poor Lime. After all we had been through. And the mob would never get their due for his murder. I could nail Jack Reed for killing the colonel, but I’d never beat the mob. Nobody would, ever. Too much of civilization depended on the mob. We want the touch of a woman, but only by the hour. We want the pleasures of narcotics and the focus of powdery speeds. We want to gamble away our fortunes for the chance of garnering a greater pot, and we want it now—not over years through war bonds and mutual funds. We want things we don’t need, and shouldn’t need. Things of which we can never speak aloud in mixed company. We need the mob. We need the seedy underbelly. We are the seedy underbelly.

I drifted off, and came to when two very burly men wearing black hoods, black jackboots, and black uniforms wrenched me from the floor and tossed me into the hallway, where I collided with the opposing wall and slid to the floor. Again, they grabbed me by the arms, one taking special care to apply pressure against my gauze wrap. Through the hazy anesthesia, my mind reeled with what it knew should hurt, but didn’t.

They dragged me down a hallway lined with more and more cells, hundreds of tiny prisons of discomfort and solitude. The same overhead lamps that blinded me in my room blinded me here, so I closed my eyes, and hung my head. The drug made it easy. After a while, I stopped moving my feet and just let the hoods drag me along. There was no sense in fighting, no sense in resistance.

The interrogation room was larger than my lodgings, a stadium by cell standards, and consisted of an aluminum table and two plastic chairs facing one another. It was blissfully dark, except for a yellow bulb that dangled from a string above the table.

The men dropped me in a chair and left. I slumped over the table, eyes closed, unable to shake the numbness or the fatigue, unwilling to try. The weariness left me comforted, like a strange and soothing dream.

And then she stepped in.

She wore the black uniform and the jackboots, but no hood, her raven hair pulled and wrapped into place. The syringe she drew from her pocket was filled with a yellow chemical, and when she rolled my sleeve, I didn’t resist, or help. I just lay there, relaxed. Floating. Dreaming. Comfortably alive.

She pushed the needle into my skin and I didn’t feel it. She plunged the chemical into my bloodstream and the world ended.

My arm exploded in pain, as though a serrated stake was being sawed in and out of my bicep with frenzied persistence, and my mind uncoupled with terror and mania and unyielding and unbearable agony. Every nerve ending in my spine surged into a torrent of grating devastation, unable to cope with the sudden and all-consuming despair. Everything hurt everywhere and every molecule in my body wanted nothing more than to spin out like a firecracker and die. I darted my eyes about for anything, anything to murder myself with. Anything. I’d slit my throat; drive a blade through my eyes and into my brain, anything. It had to stop. The pain had to stop. Anything. It had to go away.

I collapsed to the floor and writhed, tears streaking, streaming. I couldn’t sob, I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t move, and I could not contain the fire of anguish.

The woman stood over me, and drove her jackboot into my stomach. She kicked again, driving it into my groin. I would have fallen unconscious if not for the searing clutch of death tearing through me, keeping me alert, awake. I could no longer breathe but for ragged gasps.

“I can make this stop,” she said quietly.

I wanted to beg her to make it stop. I wanted to plead with her and worship her and do whatever it took to make it end. But I could not speak. I could not gather the air to form words, or collect my raging and ragged thoughts to form sentences.

“I can make this stop, but you have to help me.”

And she walked out of the room. The two hooded bruisers returned, pulled me from the floor, and dropped me in the chair. They held me there, and she reentered, holding a tray with a rack of vials, a cup of pills, and bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.

She set them in front of me, filled a syringe with one of the vials, and again plunged it into my arm. The pain vanished like the morning haze lifting from a cornfield. My breathing leveled. My head steadied, my arm relaxed. She nodded at the bruisers, and they left.

Raven Hair poured a short glass of Scotch, and set it before me with another white pill. “Bottoms up,” she said.

I clawed for the pill, fumbling around with my cloudy fingers until I managed to catch hold of it, and flicked it into my throat. I washed it down with the drink.

“That was today’s lesson,” she said. “I will see you tomorrow.”

I followed her back to my cell, climbed onto the cot, and fell unconscious.

Another pill next to another loaf of bread and another glass of water rested on the tray in my cell. A faint pulsing rippled from my bullet wound and inched its way toward my head, so I rolled to the floor and crawled to the tray. The bread was fresh, a thick crusty coating that cracked open to reveal a soft and melting core.

The pill was labeled 1000MG and nameless, and while being drugged by captors was an unpleasant thought, not being drugged was worse. I downed the pill and water and crawled back to my cot with handfuls of food.

At some point during my slumber, they changed my gauze. They wanted me alive, and wanted me healthy. But what else did they want? Did they know about the revolution? Did they think I might be a part of it? If they searched Lime’s body, they would have discovered the data pad containing his story, which would have exonerated me. So it couldn’t have been that, unless it was guilt by association. They didn’t fiddle around with things like due process on Mars.

Did they think I raped and murdered those girls? A DNA test would have cleared me by now, at least of the rape, and a ballistics test of my gun would have cleared me of the murder, or at least raised doubts.

And I only fired at the cop in self-defense, or at least I had a fair argument in court. If I saw a courtroom, which judging from my cell and treatment, was not high on my captor’s priorities.

And what sort of prison was this, anyway? Surely not the standard for wife-beaters and car thieves. Word would get out. Even repressed societies are still societies. This seemed more like a political prison, but I had no political enemies.

The door clanged outward, and the two masked bruisers strolled in, tore me from the bunk and dragged me into the hallway. They threw me to the ground while one locked the door behind us. No identifying marks on the wall; white paint, clean tile floor, and doors in every direction.

Back to the interrogation room we went, and back into the chair I was placed. The bruisers left. A slight booziness descended upon my brain, my clarity of thought hazing to an unfocused smear. The one thousand milligrams were taking effect. I wanted to fight it, but didn’t want to resist the medical magic that dulled the pain in my arm.

She entered, her raven locks following behind in lockstep. She wore the pallor of someone who avoided sunlight, or found darkness unavoidable. Her uniform was carefully manicured, boots glistening with high polish and care. She wore glasses, which I had not noticed before, and she bore a silver tray with a rack of vials and a syringe.

I shuddered. Not the kind of passing shudder that comes from a tragic story on the ten o’clock news. This was the gag reflex of every cell that comprised Mike Sheppard, a full-body heave that started with my split ends and ended with my toenails.

The raven interrogator smiled, not deviously, not sadistically. She just smiled, fire engine painted lips spreading across her face.

“Happy to see me?” I slurred, my brain softening.

“Always. I enjoy playing nurse.”

“If you want to play doctor,” I said, “just let me know.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

She placed the tray before me on the table, the vials rattling in the rack as she moved it into position. The syringe rolled in a neat arc.

“Why am I here?” I asked.

She raised a leather-gloved fist and drove it across my face, splitting my bottom lip in two and flicking spittle and a shower of blood across the room.

“I’m asking the questions here,” she said evenly, as though we were on a second date, and she were dabbing tomato sauce from my face.

I didn’t feel the beating, courtesy of one thousand hard working milligrams. My fingers wiggled, but only because I watched them wiggle. I experienced no sensation in my extremities.

The interrogator reached for the syringe, and pulled the middle vial.

“This is the good stuff,” she said.

My eyes begged her to leave me be, but the words that fell from my throat were grunts and gibberish. She rolled my sleeve, and then plunged the needle into the vial, drawing a green chemical.

“Remember yesterday?” she asked.

I nodded, or tried to nod. I moved my head, at any rate.

“That was the weak stuff.”

She pierced my forearm with the needle.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Michael Sheppard,” I mumbled, but the words couldn’t find their way over my deadened tongue.

“Private investigator, I hear,” she said. “Not a very good one, though. I heard about the alderman.”

Word traveled fast in the universe.

“I hear a lot of things about you. Your ex-wife—do you want to know about your ex-wife?” she asked.

Less than anything else in the world. I tried to shake my head. I tried to mash my eyes. I moaned objection, but she only smiled.

“She’s madly in love with a very successful surgeon,” the interrogator said. “Planning the wedding and everything. They were even busted last month for indecent public acts. She couldn’t get enough of him, and wanted him right there, on the Ferris wheel at an amusement park.”

My eyes watered. They could still do that.

“I know you believe me, because we’re the government. We know everything. I didn’t see any indecent public acts in your record. Guess she didn’t find you much of a man.”

The interrogator left the needle hanging in my arm, stood and walked behind me. She pulled my chair away from the table, and reached down for my faded blue trousers. She pulled the waistband away and had a look.

“Small wonder,” she said. “I’d have left you for a bigger man, too, in every way.”

She spun the chair about, and drove her boot into my groin like a piston in a combustion engine. Blood and saliva spewed from my mouth like a pilot abandoning a fighter jet. I collapsed to the floor, the needle still in my arm. She knelt by my side, and plunged the chemical into my veins.

The pain erupted into my system all at once, and my heartbeat raced until I felt it could only explode, and I cried out until I was hoarse, and voiceless, and paralyzed with agony. And then my body overloaded, a fuse tripped, and I fell out.

When I came to, I was face up on the floor of my cell. The white lighting beat into my eyes like pickaxes. There was no pain. An ice pack had been strapped between my legs, and my bullet dressing was clean, wrapped with a different type of bandaging. At least one wound was progressing.

I removed the ice pack and checked the damage wrought by the interrogator. There was no major swelling or tenderness, but that could have been the medicine. I just hoped nothing permanent was severed or crushed or twisted. And again, a white pill sat on my tray, next to a loaf of bread, a glass of water and a cigarette. A cigarette. I scurried for it, only to find no lighter to ignite the joy I had so longed for. More torture.

And the pill. It rested next to the bread, next to the water on the tray. I wasn’t hurting, yet, but I would soon feel agony. And they knew it. And they wanted it.

I ate my bread, drank the water, and resisted the urge to swallow the pill, choosing instead to drop it into my breast pocket. Pangs of agony climbed from my arm to my head, and I climbed into my rack.

Twenty minutes later, my bicep felt larger than my thigh, and every beat of my pulse was accompanied by the beating of a tire iron. Red searing strobes crossed my vision, but I maintained awareness. I examined my forearms. She had injected me three times, maybe four. But I had track marks running up and down both arms, fifteen in total. This had been going on for longer than I remembered. They were drugging me and questioning me. The beatings were to break me down.

The door clanked ajar, and the bruisers entered. They tore me from the bed. Shock and pain penetrated my body like a railroad spike driven from my tailbone into my skull. Maybe avoiding the medicine was a bad idea.

Down the hallway they dragged me, into the room, and into the chair. And they left. I made not a sound, not a whimper, not a flinch.

The doorway opened, and I feigned a gentle wooze while fighting the urge to collapse from pain. The black-haired embodiment of evil entered, holding her beloved tray. She set it before me. Three vials. One syringe.

“How do we feel today, Mr. Sheppard?”

“Sterile,” I said.

She returned a rosy smile.

“How long will you keep me here?” I asked.

“Have you forgotten about your previous lesson? About who asks the questions?”

I had not.

And then she answered. “Forever. I don’t know. Until he forgets about you. They don’t tell us that. You are here as long as he wants you here.”

“Who?” I slurred, wobbling my head, lowering my eyelids.

She clenched her fist. She pulled back, and swung madly for my face. But I was not the drugged ragdoll she expected. I was the nicotine withdrawn, painfully sober, agonized gunshot victim gumshoe with his wits about him. I stood, caught her fist, and twisted her round until I had her mouth covered and her body restrained.

She clawed desperately for the table, for the syringe, for the vials, for anything. But I beat her to them. With one hand I picked a vial at random and filled the syringe with its contents.

Her eyes widened to the size of tombstones and she intensified her flailing. She shrieked under my muffling hand. When I forced the needle into her neck, her eyes widened to cemetery plots, six foot deep with room to spare. She froze, petrified.

“Yes or no,” I said. “Will this chemical kill you?”

She shook her head, no.

“Will that vial kill you?” I asked, pointing at the first of the two remaining bottles in the rack.

Yes, she nodded frantically, shuffling her feet, jerking her body.

“And will that one make you feel better?” I asked, gesturing at the last.

She nodded, yes, yes, like a puppy eager for a treat.

“But this one won’t kill you?” I asked again, wiggling the needle in her neck, a ring of blood gurgling around the point of entry.

No.

I plunged the chemical into her body, pocketed the needle and the unused serums.

She collapsed to the floor, shrieking madly as though possessed by an unholy banshee, and writhed haggardly. She looked like death, like someone eager for death, like someone desperate for death. She looked perfect.

Stepping around her, I pounded against the steel interrogation room door. Through the small observation window, one of the goons had removed his hood and was wiping his neck and forehead with it. He startled and mashed his face against the window, rolling an eye around the room, wide and cartoonish like a hairless, hornless bull.

“She just collapsed!” I shouted, waving my hands madly. “I think she’s having a seizure!”

The bruiser turned to his friend, a pall of panic covering their faces as the hoods had done earlier. They wrenched open the door, threw me aside, and knelt beside the ailing woman.

“Karen,” said one, “Karen can you hear me?”

She writhed, her eyes and eyelids fighting for stability.

“Elevate her feet,” said the other, but she kicked them madly.

As they worked to stabilize her, both completely ill-equipped and undertrained to handle a seizure, let alone a chemically-induced seizure without the antidote, I crept from the room, my bare feet slapping against tile as I tore down the hallway, looking for something, anything. My arm pulsed. I ignored it. My groin ached as though every step swung a croquet mallet against it. There was no ignoring that.

Exit. Exit. I needed an exit, or a locker, or a hiding place or a storage room or a staircase, somewhere to catch my bearings, somewhere to catch my breath, somewhere to catch a ray of hope. And when I came to a stairwell, I craned my head, but nobody followed. They didn’t care about me; their friend was in trouble. I pushed open the heavy red door, and a gust of frigid air penetrated my body as though I wore nothing at all, which brought slight relief to my privates not to my piercing ears.

Up or down? Down, I settled, and began working my way. Fourth story, third story. I paused to catch my breath. Second story, first floor.

Peeking through the window of the staircase exit, I saw nothing. No one. The lights were out, the hallway vacant. It was night outside. Having long since lost track of time or day, a sense of chronological disorientation settled upon me. Shaking my head to rattle my mind into position, I burst through the door.

It was a short hallway leading into a wide lobby. Everything seemed familiar—desks, counters, shelves with trophies and photographs. It looked eerily like a high school main office. Only when I saw the door labeled PRINCIPAL did I realize it was a high school main office. Thick plate-glass windows and doors offered a glimpse of the outside world, freedom from this bizarre, covert and makeshift prison. A reeducation camp indeed.

Beyond the door, though, could hardly be called an improvement. Furious gusts of snow and ice swirled about with the force of a blizzard as propelled by a hurricane. The silhouette of a city amidst a glacier hinted through the ice storm. The Interstellar Airways pilot was right; it really was a chilly minus one hundred fifty-four degrees, and I hadn’t brought my jacket, and it still wasn’t funny. From the door to the horizon lurked only blue and white and blue and white and blue and white, all covered in the curtain of night. Split-second lulls between gusts revealed jagged windows and collapsing streetlights and buildings crumbling under the harshest of Martian elements. Where was I?

A torrent of wind brushed away a pile of snow twenty feet from the door, where sat four snowmobiles parked side-by-side. At two-per-person, that meant there were as few as four and as many as eight captors roaming the halls of Paulk High, as was stenciled on the doorway.

Snowmobiles were short distance vehicles, which meant there was safety close by, or at least, less imminent danger. If I could get to the snowmobiles, I could find sanctuary, and maybe freedom. But my threadbare rags would see me dead in ten feet. I needed clothes and shoes and a coat. I needed a disguise or supplies or a miracle.

I scurried the room, checking cabinets and desks, twisting doorknobs and kicking lockers. A blast of wind rattled the exit, and only then did I notice the path of footprints leading to an office labeled VICE-PRINCIPAL.

Which was locked. I found a key in the form of a large red fire extinguisher, which I tore from its wall perch and drove into the door at its latch, the first bash denting the door, the second cracking it. The third drive split it open, swinging its remains inward at the hinges.

There were no weapons in the supply room. There were no flares. There were no matches or torches or survival gear that would take me very far. There was, however, a snowsuit and a pair of boots two sizes too small, which I squeezed around my feet like glass slippers on a wicked stepsister. A rack of hand radios seated in chargers glowed green, and I pocketed one. It could be useful to listen in on my trackers, when they tracked me, if they tracked me.

Stepping back into the office, I swallowed my fear of the unyielding snowstorm beyond. Either this would work, or this would be the end. I pulled the fur-lined hood over my head, and buttoned the fur-lined coat down my chest. I tightened my gloves.

This was it.

I didn’t think.

I didn’t focus.

Wrapping a glove around the door handle, I twisted and pushed, and was walloped across the face by the frying pan of winter. Visibility vanished from beyond the plate glass door, and snowflakes swarming like hornets peppered my cheeks, stinging, blinding, and blistering.

There was never a gust of wind, because the wind never stopped; it was like crouching into a tornado. Five feet from the office, the snow reached my knees. I shoved forward, acutely aware that it had been some time since I’d eaten more than a small loaf of bread. A subzero blast penetrated the seams of my gloves, and travelled up my sleeves, down my chest, into my pants, and down to my ankles. Everything was freezing. Everything froze. Each footstep crunched further into the snow. Five more feet. The snowmobiles must have been close, though I could not see them. My eyes burned, frozen into dry, leathery orbs. I tried to blink, and then tried to open. Forward I pressed, forward. Forward.

My knee collided into something it barely registered. I bent, slowly, wearily, and felt. It was a snow-covered seat, and I swept my arm across it before mounting the snowmobile. I felt for the handlebars. They were there. I felt for the ignition, and it was there. I felt for the key, and found nothing.

No key, and no fire extinguishers close by. A gust of air as though blasted through a fire hose torched icily against my face. My hood swept back. All feeling in my head vanished. It no longer hurt. It no longer stung. And then nothing hurt at all, as I fell from the snowmobile onto a mound of snow.

It was the end of Mike Sheppard, and it didn’t hurt after all.

Chapter 17

Kyrie, rex genitor ingenite, vera essentia, eleyson.

Kyrie, luminis fons rerumque conditor, eleyson.

Kyrie, qui nos tuæ imaginis signasti specie, eleyson.

Christe, Dei forma humana particeps, eleyson.

I remembered the prayer.

When my mother could no longer afford to subsidize forced worship at lauds and vespers, my eighth year of boarding school ended with a transfer to the loving care of the New Orleans public school system. I was never much for prayer, but one week of urban education inspired me to pray freely and ardently at lauds, vespers, ante prandium, post prandium, and any other time of the day someone wasn’t forcing my head down a toilet, body into a locker, or fist into my stomach. On bad days I prayed through broken teeth and cracked bones. After a while, I didn’t pray at all, and wouldn’t pray again until my wife left, and then only for her to stay. When that didn’t work, I gave up on the enterprise entirely.

High schools and Mike Sheppard did not get along. This high school did not improve relations.

But I was warm. Alive. Ten fingers and ten toes wiggled at the ends of my appendages, and my nose was intact, though I had lost the sense of smell. I checked my trousers and nothing was missing. For the second time in a week, I had survived frostbite. There was a fresh bandage over my bullet wound, but it was little more than a pad, now.

I was back in my cell. There were no phosphorescent bulbs this time, leaving me in the pitch of darkness. A blade of light sliced through cracks of the doorframe, silhouetting a tray of food. Starving, I rolled to the floor, and duck walked to the meal after first knocking my head against the squat ceiling of my prison.

I devoured the food and awaited the beating to come. Nobody would be happy with my stunt, least of all me, in the very end. After picking through the stale remains, I sat on the floor, legs folded, and rocked like a metronome in largo time.

It would come.

It would come.

It would come.

It came.

The lock clinked as the bolt hammer clanked back into its seat. The door creaked open. Light crept in, inching from a sliver of white to a consuming glare. My eyes narrowed, and while they adjusted, I shielded them with arm and hand.

The black outline of a figure standing in the hallway stepped forward. He wore an Air Force uniform, chest painted with colorful ribbons, his shoulders glistening with silver bars. His piercing eyes bore through me in a vibrant, unflinching blue.

Captain Alan Stanhope.

“Mike,” he said, “this is the second time I’ve found you hiding in the dark.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

“Long story. Let’s go.”

A two-man shuttlecraft lifted from the frozen launch pad, its engines straining to crack free of the ice bonding the ship to the ground. Stanhope piloted, and I hunched in the copilot seat, checking my pockets for valuables returned by my captors. And for the pill I had pocketed.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Galle Crater,” he said. “It was an old outpost town whose shielding collapsed.”

“I’ve heard the story.”

“Perfect place for a prison; we converted the whole thing over. It worked out nice and saved the government money.”

“I’ve seen the inside of a prison. That was no prison.”

“Well, a special prison for special people. It’ll be our little secret,” he said, but not like a pal confessing to chasing skirts on the side. He spoke like a man who would see me ineligible for the census if I broke confidence.

My face coiled.

“Things are different out here,” he said. “Some people need to disappear, and some people need to be killed. It’s all about order. Be thankful that he only decided to make you vanish.”

“Who?” I asked, adding, “Why?”

“You know who and you know why.”

“I shot that cop in self defense, and I don’t know who you’re talking about. Nicky Staccato? Boss Barnes?”

“Boss Barnes?” asked Stanhope, firing his China blues my way. “What do you mean? Have you met him? What do you know about Boss Barnes?”

I wasn’t playing that game.

“Who sent me here?”

“Jack Reed. Seems you’re an attempted cop killer.”

My face uncoiled from disdain and twisted into disgust. “So what now?” I asked.

“You’re off the hook. I vouched for you, and Higher Up pinned the rape and murder of those two girls on the Frenchman. Good thing you’re a lousy shot; you missed the cop completely. We pinned that on the Frenchman too.”

“But Claude didn’t do it. Any of it.”

“Claude is dead and he’s not going to complain.”

“But Nicky Staccato is alive,” I said.

“You got proof he did it?” he asked, stabbing a finger in the air. “Did you see him do it? Or order it? Leave it alone, Sheppard. He owns this place. He owned the colonel, and he owned the colonel before him. He’ll own the next guy, too, and the one after that. But there is one criminal you can stop. You’re close, Michael. Jack thinks you’re onto him. He knows people, and those people know how to erase a person.”

“He’d better be ready to pencil me back in,” I said. “He should have had me killed.”

“He got away with one murder. Two would be pushing it.”

“How is Sofia?” I asked.

“She’s making it. Living in terror of her husband—but all of our problems will be solved if you can get him locked away.”

“What do you mean ‘our problems’?”

Stanhope stammered. “I won’t have to play babysitter, looking out for her at every opportunity. I have a squadron of my own to run, you know. I’m not a bodyguard. You need to finish your job here, and leave Mars before the mob finds you.”

“Are they still looking?”

“They never stop looking.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to Baltia. And book me a flight home. Three days and I’m out of here.”

I fingered the pill from my pocket, and dropped it into my mouth. I swallowed, and the pain dissolved.

Chapter 18

The last drop of the bottle trickled down my tongue, and I dropped it next to the bed. It was late, or early. Streaks of sunlight broke through the curtains and into my room. Pulling the covers over my head, I turned my face into the pillow.

The name Mike Sheppard meant something. To felons festering in the hoosegow, it meant payback in five to seven. To hoods plotting behind closed doors, it meant bringing along a little extra ammo and a bag of cement. To the buttons walking a beat, it meant someone to look up to, or look down upon. To the public, it meant someone, somewhere, who’d take the case for a flat fee plus expenses. To half of the detectives at the New Orleans Police Department, it meant the guy whose wife they were railing.

It had gone on for most of the marriage, except the time when we were on the altar, although three of the guys standing there would get a shot at it. It was an old and pathetic story, and I wasn’t the first detective blind to the crime scene behind his bedroom door. But to be betrayed by the wall of blue—my friends, my brothers—was almost worse than the betrayal by my wife.

It was a good evening, that evening. When we fished that revolver from the canal, the case was finished. A month of late nights and early starts, of shakedowns and false leads was now airtight. The only question was whether he’d get solitary or a sharp needle. The captain slapped my back and shook my hand, and sent me home early to that wife of mine to celebrate.

A cool breeze whipped around the city that night. A full moon hung above. I walked home, stopping at the drugstore to pick up a bottle of red and a box of chocolate. Turning the corner of Magazine, I saw it: a man, an open bedroom window, and a woman leaning forward. He was leaving, but she waved him back for something. And when he turned to her, everything stopped making sense. They wrapped in a long, lingering goodbye kiss. I knew the hair, and recognized the robe. It was my wife. I stood there, paralyzed and confused. I felt no pain. No hurt. No betrayal or astonishment. It simply made no sense, and I gawped like a dog staring at algebra.

I turned and walked away, mind blank and bemused, but turned back. There was an explanation. There must have been an explanation. When he was gone, I watched myself enter the house as though from the third person. I stepped down the hallway, fast, faster, and opened the bedroom door. She stood before the dresser pinning back her locks, and turned to me, not quite surprised. She looked exasperated and exhausted.

My addled brain formed words, primitive and desperate, but as they passed through my lips, bafflement finally cooled to manic hurt. “What did I just see?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

She looked through my skull, through the wall, through the planet and brought down the full force of her collective fury—and though she asked, “What are you talking about?” her true response was: “I hate you for asking that question.”

I backed away from her, from the room, and she closed the door behind me, like I was a pizza guy with the wrong address.

The truth came out eventually, from the neighbor, a gossipy broad who had never before so much as borrowed a cup of sugar. She knew that I knew, and she knew that she hated my wife, and she wanted me to know everything, and she shared it in stark, graphic detail. Every revelation was more sordid than the last, man after man, tumble after tumble, names—and she hated every one of them, too—dates, times, everything. She would have been the perfect witness to a murder, the kind of eyeballs detectives dream about but never encounter, until now, when he least wants it.

The names were familiar, because they were on the force. Flashes of Christmas parties, my wife dancing with one here, chatting with one there; at the time, I was proud to have such a woman, who would humor me by playing the good host to men beneath her—and everyone was beneath her. It never occurred to me that she would spend such considerable time beneath them.

I left the force, but didn’t leave her. One license, one office, and a secretary later, I was a private investigator. Away from those who had corrupted her, and those who had betrayed me, I thought the two of us could have a new beginning.

And yet after everything, I was still surprised when she left. She was the first case I could never solve, and would be the first of many.

All cops were dirty, but even the clean ones couldn’t be trusted. Jack Reed was a cop. He was a murderer. He flat lined Sofia’s father—another dirty cop—for money, and he almost got away with it. His buddies on the force soft-pedaled the investigation, fingering the mob and the only guy on Mars who hated dirty cops as much as I did.

Jack Reed almost got away with, but Jack Reed didn’t count on me.

Rolling over and tossing the blanket aside I realized two things. For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t need a cigarette. And secondly, I knew I was going to solve a case. A real case. A murder. It was going to happen.

Downstairs, the hotel launderer had repaired the bullet hole in my coat, and managed to remove the bloodstains and raw sewage. His suspicious looks might have been for either, or all three, but he dared not say anything. Men with bullet holes, bloodstains and sewage in their laundry are not men to be questioned.

Standing outside the Reed estate, I felt the unfamiliar but unmistakable electric surge of confidence. When I knocked on the door, the rapping of my knuckles crackled with lightning.

The doorknob responded by twisting with thunder, and the door stormed inward, not to the narrow and penguin-suited Jeeves, or the slender and curved Sofia, but to the tall, marble frame of Sergeant Jack Reed. He glowered down from the summit of his mountainous figure, saying nothing, but seeming both to ask who I was and tell me who I was at the same time.

“Where’s Sofia?” I asked with the confidence of a man backed by Horace Smith and Dan Wesson.

“Out,” said Jack, his cardboard brown eyes homing first on my piece, and then on my modest, snappable build. I sucked in my gut.

“Give her a message for me, Jack,” I said, stressing the Jack. “I know who killed her father. I’ve got proof, and when she gives me the go ahead, he’ll be trading lavender-scented bath oils for soap-on-a-rope. Have you got that, Jack?” Again, I stressed the Jack.

His eyes narrowed, the irises darkening to a deep chocolate fudge. His buzz cut bristled, his eyebrows furrowed and raised, and his muscles—and there were many—rippled, pulsed, and ballooned. Just before his biceps threatened to tear his shirt at the seam, he said, “Here’s a message for you, Mike,” stressing the Mike, accentuating it with a jab to the chest, his finger knocking the wind from my lungs. “It was a suicide. Leave this thing alone.”

Gleaming from his left hand, index finger still buried in my chest, was a buffed, golden ring encrusted with large, jagged diamonds. Only pimps and millionaires could carry the look.

“Glad to see you’re enjoying your new lifestyle,” I said, before turning and leaving. As I climbed into the taxicab, I could feel his searing stare; it threatened to burn a hole through the car door and drill a hole into my skull. When he slammed the door of his mansion, the car shook.

“You handled that well,” the cabbie said. “Where to?”

The original plan called for Sofia to answer the door, and my spending the day impressing her over consoling drinks, holding her close, and rubbing her shoulders to relieve the unbelievable stress she must be feeling. But since Jack was not amenable to a massage, it was probably a good idea to find some evidence, a hiding place or a cemetery plot. He’d be coming, and soon. “Take me back to the hotel,” I said. I needed to regroup.

Regrouping involved lying on my bed and draining a bottle of shine. When I couldn’t feel my eyelids anymore, I flicked my lighter open and shut, open and shut, striking the flint each time, sometimes sparking a flame, sometimes fanning sparks. Amongst the suspects and witnesses and events and alibis of the week lurked a killer. Nary a single person on the whole damn planet liked the deceased, and everyone had a motive to kill him. It was like working a murder at a Butlers Convention.

I traced the rim of my drink, and washed it down. My teeth were numb, now, and the room wobbled. It steadied itself, though—and quick—when someone pounded on the hotel room door.

“Just a minute,” I said, pulling my gun from the nightstand and checking the chamber. Again, pounding, though it might only have been my chest. I cocked the hammer, and twisted the doorknob, inching the door open to a distraught Sofia Reed, her right eye blue, her face red, and skin white. She was a July Fourth picnic of battered woman, and tears streamed from her emerald eyes. She tumbled in, wrapping her slender arms around my waist. I sucked in my gut.

“Who did this?” I asked, holstering my piece and closing the door. I knew who did it, and she knew that I knew, but I needed to hear it.

“Jack,” she said, and sobbed, holding me tighter, her tears staining my shirt. We moved to the bed. She cried for a bit, and I stroked the back of her head. “I was shopping with Jeeves. We got home”—sobs—”and he was there waiting. He was furious that you had come by.”

She wasn’t accusatory, but I apologized. “No,” she said, “don’t,” and she placed a manicured hand on my unshaven face. “He said you knew who killed my father. And he became enraged. He just started shouting, calling me things, terrible things, and then, then,”—her tears pumped like a hydrant—”He punched me!” and she uncorked a bottle of tears that could have drowned barnacles.

When she couldn’t cry anymore, she looked up at me. She was helpless, lost, alone, breathing deep, heavy sighs. Our eyes locked, faces transfixed, and we kissed. She was the first woman I had kissed since my wife, but I still remembered how to do it. With my eyes closed, it felt the same, like she was my wife. When our lips finally parted, we held each other close.

“Help me,” she said, her eyes a traffic light green, flashing, “go.”

I stood, strapped on my holster, donned my coat and hat, and lay my hands on her shoulders. “Stay here,” I said, and left.

The ride to the Reed estate was long, and the cabbie said nothing. Maybe my face told him the story. Maybe it was my tone, or maybe it was the way my back hunched and fists squeezed and jaw clenched. But he knew. It was sunset, and people flooded the streets of Baltia, some going home, some going shopping, and some going to dinner. I was going to save Sofia. Jack was a murderer, a wife beater, and a dirty cop. Now he was going to be a convict.

Towering buildings of the city gave way to modest homes of the outskirts, which gave way to the immodest home of the Reeds. “Don’t go anywhere,” I told the cabbie, who just pointed at the meter and gave me a thumbs-up. It would be an expensive fare, but I was about to hit the jackpot, and Jack.

My pistol was loaded, the cylinder spinning evenly with brass. Beating it against the door, I would have someone’s attention—and soon.

Jeeves answered. He looked down at me, his nose looking up. My gat said step aside, and I assisted with a push. He fell like a straw hut in a Kansas twister, saying nothing, the smartest thing to ever come out of his mouth.

I stepped into the lobby.

A suit of armor stood to my left.

A pile of Jeeves sat to my right.

A tower of Jack Reed stepped to my fore.

He was taller than before, shoulders wider, muscles bulgier, and his hair bristled with excess bristle. He had less to say than the butler, but said it much louder. Not even the baby in his arms could soften the monster in his clothes.

“You like to hit women?” I said, drawing down on him with my pistol. “Put the baby down and try to hit a man.”

His eyes puzzled, but his biceps were certain. “Big man with a gun,” he replied, and held the child closer. Coward.

Sofia Reed filled my mind and rage filled my veins. He was bigger, but this was for my life and Sofia’s life. Our life. I dropped the pistol and kicked it away from the two of us. In turn, he handed his child to Jeeves, who remained cowering on the floor. At least now the butler had an excuse to hide in the corner.

My fists rose to the challenge, bobbing before my face. I had been in a scuffle or ten, and knew—

The first punch tore open my right cheek, and the second sent me to the floor like a sandbag from stage scaffolding. He towered, and glowered, I’m sure, although I could see only his feet, which paced circles around me. They stopped at my stomach, and took turns rearing back and kicking. The first one drove the wind from my lungs, and the second taught me a lesson for gasping. The third was just for kicks. Throughout, my face remained planted to the hardwood floor in a pool of red pumping from my cheek.

When the kicking stopped, I didn’t move, but cast an eye about. Jack’s legs had walked to Jeeves, and he bent over to collect his child, who remained calm and slightly humored at the spectacle. The baby looked at his daddy, giggling, and then looked at me with big, batting, crystal blue eyes.

And then I solved the case. It took a moment to re-inflate my lungs, which were hesitant after the lesson they had just learned. It took another moment to will my arms into a position to prop me upright. It took the longest moment of all to convince my brain to speak; it just wanted to get the hell out of here. Jack Reed moved into position to close the hole in my head, but let me talk, hoping I’d say something that would inspire another thrashing.

“Mr. Reed,” I said, spitting blood and wheezing, “call your wife and tell her to come home. Then call the station, and have a cop sent over. I know you didn’t kill the colonel. And I know who did.”

She was like my ex-wife, all right. My hand slipped forward, lubricated by my spreading puddle of blood. My arms buckled, and my face collided with the floor.

Sofia Reed sat on the sofa, calm and collected. Her eyebrows twitched with nervous exuberance. Jack paced the living room, his arms crossed. Alan Stanhope came personally from the police station, his uniform starched and official, his badge and rank insignia highly polished. This was a high-profile case and he wanted to look good for the evening edition. Jeeves brought in a tray of drinks and offered them to each of us. On duty, and ever the noble and vigilant policeman, Alan declined, as did Jack, who had no mind for drinking. I did, very much so, and had a glass of Black Label.

My cheek throbbed in time with my head. I held the cold glass to my face. The colonel, the girls, Claude, and O.W. Lime might have argued that I had little room to complain.

Tension vibrated across the room. Upon arrival, Sofia fell into hysterics and refused to be in the same room as her husband. I talked her down from the ledge, vowing to protect her and begged her indulgence and patience, and when at last she settled in, I requested the second half of my payment. She had long legs, but I had a longer list of creditors. Jack stomped around throughout the transaction, which served only to encourage her payment.

Alan spoke first. “Mr. Sheppard,” he said, “tell us what you believe happened.” He wore the self-assured kind of smirk worn by a loan officer staring at a credit score that could go either way. The fingers of his right hand danced on handcuffs on his belt.

The Scotch washed down my throat, and I set down the empty glass. “Love happened. More than money, more than power, love makes people do crazy things,” I said.

Everyone eyed everyone, and I showed my cards before the mansion saw another dead body. “Sofia, you married Jack out of spite. You were a rebellious teenage daughter—a military brat. You thought it was love, and you were wrong. It’s an old story.”

She didn’t say anything. I continued, “Your father was an up-and-coming officer from a family of great wealth, and as everyone seems fond of saying, this is Mars. His daughter marrying an enlisted man was not politically savvy. Imagine your surprise when he cut you off. No more dresses, no more mansions, no more soirées, and no more vacations on the moons. You went from royalty to commoner, overnight. And he even cut you out of the will.”

“He didn’t love me,” said Sofia.

“No,” I said. “He did. It wasn’t personal. I think it was a test. He wanted to see if Jack really loved you for more than your money. He wanted to see if your marriage would stand the test of time. Your father was corrupt, but he was clever.”

“What has this got to do with his murder?” asked Alan Stanhope, his smirk drooping. He leaned uneasily on the sofa, and seemed to both sit and stand at the same time.

“After O.W. Lime published the link between the colonel and Nicky Staccato, the colonel realized that he might soon be the target of a mob hit. And so the time for games was over.”

“He never said that,” said Jack, “but I think you’re right. He came to see me at work, and offered an olive branch.”

It was the most I had ever heard Jack Reed say that didn’t end with me bleeding.

I continued, “The two of you spent his last days alive building a relationship. He even added you to the will before he was killed.”

Alan finally settled on standing up. “So did the mob do it as revenge? Or did Jack do it for the money?”

“Neither,” I said, and turned my back to him. “Jack, for over a year, your wife has been having an affair.”

Jack bristled, something at which he was very well practiced.

“With whom?” asked Alan Stanhope.

“With you,” I said.

“That’s a lie!” shouted Sofia, springing to her feet.

Jack rushed to Alan as though eager to start swinging. It was as if he already knew, or had always suspected it. He froze though, at the sight of Alan’s rank. You don’t hit an officer, especially on Mars. Alan sat down, secure in the warm blanket of military protocol. Neither seemed to know what to do or say.

“Can I offer anyone a drink?” asked Jeeves.

“Yes!” cried Jack, Alan, and Sofia.

“Yes,” I added, although he seemed to know that. I continued, “I’m thinking Sofia met Alan through you, Jack. A department picnic? Maybe a Christmas party? It was love at first sight.”

Sofia took her drink from Jeeves, and glared at me. “How could you, Mike? How could you make such horrible accusations! After what happened to me today, after what Jack did to my father,” she trailed into tears. “I hired you to help me, not accuse me of horrors!”

“Go on, Mr. Sheppard,” said Jack, flatly.

“Alan loved Sofia too. But there was a problem, a major problem, pun intended.”

Nobody laughed.

“Sofia could not leave Jack for you, Alan. It would be fraternization, and would either kill your career or send you to prison. Regardless, it would be criminal, especially if evidence of an affair were discovered.”

“But there was no affair, and certainly no evidence. This is all nonsense,” said Sofia, looking at Jack with teary eyes. When he didn’t return her glance, she sipped at her drink.

“How do you know all of this?” asked Jack, at last.

“There is evidence of an affair,” I said, stepping back. “Your son.”

This didn’t go over well with anyone in the room, and six fists curled in anticipation of finding my already overworked face. “He’s got Alan’s eyes,” I continued quickly, rounding behind the hulking shield of a plush leather loveseat, “and a blood test, I suspect, will confirm he’s got more in common with Alan than that.”

It was all Jack needed, and this time when he walked over to Alan, he threw a punch with enough force to knock a horse out cold.

Stanhope’s head flopped about like a speed bag, and the room hushed with the indecorum of it all. When at last Alan inched his head up, eyes closed, jaw clenched, he inhaled slowly through the nose, just enough to mutter, “You are through, Reed. Daring to strike an officer?”

“I doubt,” I said, “you’ll be an officer much longer. Mr. Stanhope, I bet you hated Sofia’s father, and with good reason. You were a good detective, and mostly a good person, and your boss was on the mob payroll. If he were to die, the world really would be a better place.”

I turned for dramatic effect. It worked, I think. Eyes followed. “It’s pathological around here; everyone wants to make the world a better place. And everyone does their part to make it worse. A year ago, when Sofia discovered she was with child—your child, Alan—the stage was set. You wanted to be with your woman and your son, and two men stood in the way: Jack Reed and the colonel.

“It was a brilliant plan. You’d murder the colonel and pin it on Jack. With him in prison, Sofia could divorce without arousing suspicions and the two of you could be together. You were patient, waiting until your son’s birth, and even until she was back in the will. As lead detective of the investigation, you could easily steer things in Jack’s direction. But before the case was closed, you were reassigned, and the police—buddies of Jack—ruled him out as a suspect, even in spite of overwhelming evidence. It was just bad luck that O.W. Lime linked the colonel to the mob. They had nothing to do with the murder, but the timing looked suspicious enough to give the case unexpected complications.

“That’s where I came in. When Jack was exonerated, you needed a way to re-incriminate him without looking obvious. At the same time, you didn’t want someone so good that they would see through your story. The first two dicks you hired were bums, but they lived on Mars and were spooked by the Air Force. So you looked for a bum on Earth—and found me.”

Nobody spoke.

“I had already made headlines for fingering the wrong guy in a high profile case; I was just the man for the job. But one bad case does not make a bad private eye.” My chest swelled the size of my cheek, and I turned to Sofia Reed. “The next time you fake a punch, get it right. Your husband swings first with his left hand. And that ring he’s wearing would have torn your face clean off.”

My face pulsed to punctuate my point. “There was no breaking and entering, Sofia, because you had a key. There were no witnesses because you knew the butler’s schedule. Alan Stanhope murdered the colonel with your help, Sofia. But you chose the wrong private eye, because I know evil, I know psychopaths and my divorce attorney would tell you that I know bitches.”

Sofia leapt to her feet and screamed in rage at Alan Stanhope, “You said we’d never get caught! You said it was best for our son! You said it was best for Mars.”

“So considerate,” I said, “thinking of others like that. And Alan, since you’re the one who had me sent on that little vacation to Galle Crater, it’s only fair that I offer some advice. Don’t ask em too many questions. They hate that.”

“Jeeves,” said Jack Reed, “call the station. Tell them I’ve arrested two murder suspects, and I’m going to need a squad car to take them downtown.”

The room descended into a deafening cacophony of sobbing and shouting. Everyone spoke and nobody listened. Alan and Jack and Sofia and even Jeeves joined in, and cries of “What now?” and “How could you?” were cast about like racquetballs on a small court, with ricochets hitting everyone in every direction.

In the corner, Sofia’s love child wobbled on all fours, and crawled in a circle, oblivious to the ruined world he had inherited.

I moved to cradle the child, but Jack saw him first. He disengaged the furor, which only intensified, and lifted the baby by the torso. He held the kid out, and made a funny face, crossing his eyes and poking his tongue from the side of his mouth. The child giggled and squirmed in approval. Jack embraced the child, and rocked from side to side.

It was Jack’s turn to cry now, and he did, the quiet tears of a man who just had his life ruined by a wicked woman and a corrupt police force. I knew those tears; I always would.

Chapter 19

The Intensive Care Unit on the third floor of the east wing of Lawrence Rounsaville Medical Center in upper Baltia was quiet that day. A patient had been brought in almost a week prior in critical condition, saved only by the quick reaction of an android cab driver that realized he’d been shorted on the fare, and was going to keep that jerk alive until he got his money. The robot stripped itself naked and used its tie-dye scarf and plaid button-down as bullet dressing, and initiated chest compression for a full hour until the paramedics arrived.

I knew this because by the time I left the Reed estate—after exhaustive questioning by the buttons that included everything but my shoe size and first kiss—my cab was gone and I had to hail another. And the hero android arrived, promptly demanding payment for O.W. Lime’s avarice. I thumbed him the fare plus some, and he handed over a data pad he had stolen from the body as collateral. The android told me the story and took me to the hospital.

It was the first time I saw Lime quiet, or sober. He lay in a hospital room that was every hospital room, allegedly sterile but crawling with disease, smelling of bedpans and vomit and air freshener and freshly laundered sheets.

Nobody cried at the bedside of O.W. Lime. He lay there alone, eyes shut, his vital signs skipping across a display panel. At the sound of my footsteps, his eyelids twitched, and he rasped in a weak tenor, “I need another sponge bath. And please, sweetheart, last time you paid little mind to places that are in urgent need of your attention. Bring much soap.”

“Is that how you always get the ladies?” I asked.

His eyes opened. His mouth curled. “Oh Sheppard, it’s you,” he said, his rasp cured, his strength returned. He sat forward on the bad, propping himself on elbows. Tubes running into needles ran into his forearms, and green fluid ran through the tubes.

“How’s the chest?” I asked.

“Of the nurse?”

“Yours.”

“Yes, my nurse,” he said, “Phenomenal.”

“And your bullet wounds?”

“Ever been shot?” he asked.

I pulled down my shirt at the collar to reveal a bandage.

“Mine’s worse,” he said. “But you have some idea. They gave me this wonderful bottle of white pills. I’m supposed to take one every day, or every couple of hours, or something. I just had two a moment ago. They wash down very well with vodka.”

“I solved the Reed case,” I said.

“Nicky Staccato?” he asked.

“Actually, it was Sofia Reed and Alan Stanhope.”

“My second guess,” he said. “Money makes people do crazy things.”

“But love makes them do crazier,” I said.

Lime nodded.

“I didn’t bring flowers,” I said, “but thought this might cheer you up.”

I tossed him the data pad, loaded with the expose he had written on the union and the planned civil war. He opened his mouth to thank me before the wobbling of an approaching cart cut him off. He collapsed into his pillow. In walked a knockout. She was a blonde with fair skin, brown eyes, and high cheekbones propping up a slender face that slid down to a long, unblemished neck. She wore no lipstick or eyeliner, and a perfume that could not be found in stores.

Lime cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he rasped, “but I am in desperate need of a bath.” He closed his eyes, and coughed. “I am weak, you see, but I just know that in your hands, I can feel better than I have in a very long time.”

Her lashes batted. Her head cocked to the side. She pouted her lips and stood akimbo in mock disappointment. “My shift is over,” she said, adding, “but I know how awful you must feel. Robert will be in shortly to give you a bath.”

She left. I looked at Lime. He looked at his data pad and then back at me.

“We’ve got a story to finish,” he said, and sat up.

“But what about Robert?”

“He can finish someone else,” Lime said, and attempted to climb from his bed.

“Lime,” I said, “you’ve got wires and tubes and who knows what else running into you. You need to recuperate.”

He looked at the green liquid flowing through the tube into his arm. “There’s not supposed to be anything green in me,” he said, and pulled the tubes with a queasy, sucking slide. “And what could these wires possibly do that these pills can’t?” he asked, shaking the bottle. He wrenched the wires from his chest, stood, and mercifully started looking for pants.

“It’s been convenient,” he said, but didn’t elaborate. The displays monitoring his vital signs flat lined, and a whistle echoed through the room. When nobody came running to his rescue, he harrumphed to the closet, producing a change of clothing and shoes.

“Before we hit the Sentinel,” I said, “we’ve got a stop to make.”

“Are the strip clubs open at this hour?” he asked.

“Strip clubs never close. But I think there’s one more angle to your story that needs elaboration.”

The old black cat curled on the garbage pail outside the Chang residence recognized me immediately, and offered a yawn of sympathy. Since last we met, much of my face had been battered purple, and blood had scabbed over cuts and scrapes on my cheeks and chin. My wrists were sliced to the muscle. I walked with a limp, was pale from a bullet hole in my shoulder, and had feet blistered to the bone.

Lime felt great, and at the slightest hint of any possible decline in his ebullience, swallowed another pill and washed it down with my flask. He didn’t offer me one, though, because it would be a felony to share prescribed medication with anyone, and felt terrible allegiance to the rule of law.

Mrs. Chang opened the screen door.

“Remember me?” I asked. “I’m Mike Sheppard.”

Her lips pursed and her forehead furrowed. “Oh, it’s hard to keep faces straight at my age,” she said.

“Drop the act, grandma,” said Lime, pushing the door open. “We’re looking for the general. Do I smell cookies?”

We crossed into the kitchen, where I apologized for Lime’s entrance. Mrs. Chang waved off my explanations. “We’ve been expecting you, Mike. He’s in the back.”

General Archibald Chang sat in his recliner in full Army dress uniform. Ribbons hung over ribbons, medals draped over medals, stars and valor devices and wings and sashes and collars and cords made his black fitted jacket look like a firework spectacular, each award undoubtedly won over a firefight spectacular.

“Claude is dead,” I said.

The general nodded.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” I said.

“You’re welcome. Did you do what you came here to do?”

“Boss Barnes didn’t kill the colonel. Neither did Nicky Staccato. It was the colonel’s daughter and her lover.”

He diverted his eyes in thought, and again nodded. “That means the union is the only group gunning to take down the government.”

“What the hell is going on here?” asked Lime.

“Were you really accused of treason and blackballed by the colonel?” I asked.

“No,” said the general.

“Were you really going to join Boss Barnes?”

The general pulled a pistol from behind his back. “For a few days,” he smirked in the most bone-chilling grin this side of the Reaper.

“So you’re not—” asked Lime, before Chang stood.

“A traitor? Of course not. I don’t like Mars and I don’t like the way it’s being run. But I’ve seen enough war for one lifetime. When Barnes approached me, I approached the colonel. I really did hate that bastard, by the way. He told me to get on the inside of Barnes’s operation, and keep him informed. Of course, when he got slabbed, I figured I’d just do the job myself, give Barnes a bad case of the deads. But I was worried that the mob was making a play for power, too. That was your job, Mr. Sheppard, and Claude’s, to find out for me. Well done.”

Lime stepped up. “Boss Barnes has a guy coming to bring you to the Belt. What are you going to do?”

“The guy already came,” said the General. “He’s fertilizing my flowerbed right now.”

“You’ve got him doing your gardening?” asked Lime.

“Not exactly.”

“Ah,” said Lime, and bared his teeth, swallowing a wave of nausea, and then swallowing another white pill. “You’re going to make some fine headlines, general.”

“Make them small ones,” he said. “I’m retired.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lime, and we left.

Chapter 20

BOSS BARNES ARRESTED FOR TREASON

Vesta, the Asteroid Belt – Union founder Clifford “Boss” Barnes was apprehended by Air Force authorities yesterday on conspiracy charges to overthrow the States of America colonial government on Mars. In a daring expose (see page A2) Martian Sentinel columnist O.W. Lime infiltrated the union and uncovered a plot to build a nuclear weapon-backed army to strike against the Martian colonies.

“These accusations are outrageous and unfounded,” said union lawyer Geoffrey Adams. “We intend to fight them to the last.”

Said O.W. Lime, “Is the penalty for treason still by hanging? I expect Geoffrey to twitch a few minutes longer than Barnes. I’ll be there, and will be timing it for those interested.”

The story below that, however, was the one that mattered.

PRIVATE EYE SOLVES OVERSEER MURDER

(By O.W. Lime) Baltia City, Mars – In a case that found him shot, beaten, stabbed, and brutalized, private detective Michael Sheppard of New Orleans, Earth, solved the shocking murder of the highest-ranking officer on Mars. The perilous investigation took him from the sewers of Monte Patera to a secret prison on Galle Crater (see page A2), where he faced down the worst of the criminal underworld and most corrupt of union overlords.

Captain Alan Stanhope and heiress Sofia Reed conspired to murder her father in a grisly conspiracy that left one man exonerated, three innocents dead, and led to the downfall of the Brotherhood of Miners Union leadership.

“This is what I do,” said Mike Sheppard before departing Baltia City for Earth. “It’s what I’ve always done.”

“You look like hell,” said Dolores Yu from behind the checkout counter of the K&B Drugstore. A rack of newspapers streamed live coverage of events unfolding on Mars. “Is there anything in your medicine cabinet that wasn’t fermented in a barrel?”

“Nail clippers,” I said.

She dropped a few items from shelves into a sack. Mercurochrome. Gauze. Bandages. Ointment. A carton of nails. A bottle of Scotch.

“How’s graveyard shift?” I asked.

“You’re the second customer tonight,” she said. “I think, anyway. I’ve been asleep in the stock room.”

“You’re a credit to the store.”

“Well I’m hoping for Employee of the Month.”

“So you want to come back and work for me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Graveyard shift at the K&B is a prestigious responsibility. There is literally no one else who would do this job.”

“Well I guess I could post an ad in the paper,” I said.

“Not necessary. Let me get my coat.”

“Don’t you have to wait for shift change, or something? I was thinking we could start tomorrow.”

“No,” she said. “Tonight’s good.”

She left a note at the register saying that she quit, and asking shoppers not to steal anything from the store. We sat on the stoop of the Hurwitz-Mintz building on Royal, and shared a bottle of Johnnie Walker.

“The Times-Picayune ran the headline LOCAL P.I. SAVES THE WORLD. I thought it was a bit much,” she said.

“Shameless sensationalism,” I said.

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

I lit an unfiltered Lucky Strike using a matchbook with “Mineshaft” monogrammed in silver. A crown of glowing orange burned its way down the cigarette, and I closed my eyes, dragged and exhaled. Bookies were after me, leg breakers had my number, and I owed the local gangster a bucket of greenbacks.

“We ought to get the door re-stenciled,” I said. “The letters are peeling.”

Dolores drained a finger of Scotch. “Reminds me of when we first opened for business.”

“Long time ago,” I said. She was younger. I was younger. Things were better. I looked down at my wedding ring.

Dol noticed and handed me the bottle. The wet rim found itself at my lips, the musk of firewater winnowing up my nostrils—but I didn’t drink. I set down the bottle and took another drag from my smoke. Dolores fished a smoke from the pack and lit up.

“Things are better now,” she said.

A cop came along and threatened to charge us with mopery, but left us alone without much hassle. This was my building. “Where’s your sense of civic pride?” I asked as he walked away. “This is New Orleans, where we chain smoke, drink from the bottle, and wait for the end of the world.”

MY THANKS

to Kelly, Alexander, and Amelia,

for your love, patience, and support.

to my mother,

for instilling a love of reading.

to Tom and Meg,

for advice along the way.

to Kris, my Ideal Reader,

for keeping me honest.

About The Author

D.B. Grady is a graduate of Louisiana State University and lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with his wife and family.

He is a former paratrooper with U.S. Army Special Operations Command and is a veteran of Afghanistan.

Grady is a member of the Authors Guild and Bayou Writers Group.

Previous publications include short stories and essays. Red Planet Noir is his debut novel.

http:\\www.dbgrady.com