The Pearl Game

-A Suspense Novel-

By Gary Morton

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* An underground investigator hiding out in a slum and suffering partial memory loss stumbles into a case involving corrupt police and a heavily armed criminal gang. The criminals have gained exclusive control of mind-control technology in the form of a tiny pear pinned in the ear. Using rough techniques and disguises, he tracks the case while fighting for personal survival to a mansion and the violent maniac in control, as he works to rescue three female friends.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Night Walk
Chapter Two: The Sugar Shack
Chapter Three: The Butcher
Chapter Four: Fakeover
Chapter Five: The Ravine
Chapter Six: Carver
Chapter Seven: The Tenants
Chapter Eight: The Incinerator
Chapter Nine: House Surveillance
Chapter Ten: The Sweets Cellar
Chapter Eleven: In Disguise
Chapter Twelve: The Bomb
Chapter Thirteen: The Showdown
The End Game

Chapter One: Night Walk

I stepped out onto my long fourth-floor balcony. Evening was ending, darkness deepened, and a couple of pigeons fluttered up and raced off into the last rays of twilight. A wave of humidity and heat seized me like a grubby mitt. I slipped and caught the railing. "Those dirty pigeons," I muttered. "They got on here again."

Down in the street, full dark crept in like smog, and with the unexpected heat dome over the city, the pavement had moist stains and a rising foul odor.

I stepped back inside, listened to my air conditioner struggle and cough for a few moments, then a knock came at the door. Over at the peephole, I saw the birthmarked face of the building owner, Kenny, distorted into an oval.

I opened the door, and before I could react, he forced himself past me and walked into the living room, looking around. He carried a toolbox like he was going to do some work.

"If you finally decided to fix that bad pipe, how about doing it in the daytime?"

"There have been some complaints about water leaks."

"Yeah ... well, most guys don't wear a suit to check for water leaks. Although that brown suit looks like you found it in the rubbish bin."

"I have classy suits, but no one smart wears a pricey suit in this neighborhood. Look at you, wearing the most expensive hand-stitched tennis shoes." He pointed at the window. "If you weren't the guy everyone was running away from, you'd be in big trouble out there. The bums out there would probably cut your feet off."

Kenny rummaged around, looking in my closet, bathroom, and kitchen, just about everywhere. "I should check the balcony," he said.

"Good, you can clean up the pigeon crap out there. Stop trying to fool me. You aren't looking for a water leak; you're looking for computers."

"Well, you are banned from using computers and the internet due to your hateful online words. The police told me all about it. As an honorary member of the neighborhood watch committee, I have to be sure you aren't breaking the law."

"Ah, so you're trying to find evidence to get me jailed. Let me tell you something. All those guys I got in fights with online made a mistake going to the cops. You know why. I carefully worded all my messages so they skate just within the law. But... their threatening messages nearly all skate outside the law. They're also mostly online gamblers with things to hide. That means that by now the cops have realized they have no case unless they charge the complainants. That means they will drop the charges. My computers, they'll wreck, so if I file to get them back, I'll get junk. But I can buy new."

"You put my building in danger. You have all kinds of creepy enemies who want to bust you up. They could show up here and cause damage."

"Speaking of busting people up, where is your enforcer, Ricky? I didn't see him go to the cops. Maybe that's because he threw the punches first. As a matter of fact, when someone shows up at night, it's him, not you."

"I had to let him go. He was a good worker, but there were problems."

"The only work he did was squeeze people for rent, along with assorted harassment. I'm glad he's gone."

"Don't count your lucky stars. He works for eight landlords. He's around, and he doesn't like you."

"He works for slumlords."

"You have a lot of nerve calling me a slumlord. You broke the law ... that means, by law, I can evict you."

"I pay the rent. Half the others in this building don't."

"My feeling is you should pay me a few hundred for that pigeon netting I put on your balcony."

"The pigeons already broke through it and come and go as they please. Your work was defective."

"We'll see how you feel about defective when I tack the eviction notice on your door. Where are you going to move? Your computers are gone, no more online gambling or whatever other sketchy things you do to make money."

"My computers will be back, so I'm taking a break, enjoying the night streets." Pulling a wad of bills from my pocket, I stripped off four hundreds and handed them to him. His gray eyes, always especially sharp, widened as he counted the bills. He pocketed the bills, turned, and left.

I decided to step out, as my new lifestyle was long walks at night. No computer games, no online world of mouthy jerks, but just the fresh waterfront air of the slummy neighborhood. At the steps, I saw Kenny driving off in his glossy sea-green beater. He had a new car he wouldn't bring here for fear of what angry tenants might do to it while he wasn't looking. I wasn't looking either, and a scooter girl nearly ran me down; I stumbled off the street onto the grass. A girl on a pink stand-up scooter raced off. She was brown-skinned, with bright ginger-dyed hair, wearing a small top and short black skirt to highlight her excellent figure.

"Hey!" I shouted, and then I suddenly stumbled into a hallucination where I was looking through a big picture window of a house. Its curtains were open. I saw a luxury interior, and inside, a group of young people was playing some form of board game. It was a complex dark fantasy game. They were all unique people in varied, expensive dress, having fun, and I felt like a ghostly form at the glass. A young woman with fairy-like beauty looked over at me and tapped the guy beside her on the shoulder. He looked too, and I saw him making an I-see-nothing-there gesture. I knew he didn't see me because his eyes looked through me. Then I was landing in the flowerbed.

I got up and brushed myself off. "It's got to be stress from lack of sleep," I thought. But I couldn't shake the fact that the ridiculous hallucination lasted significantly longer in time than the one second it took to hit the dirt. I wasn't on any medications, booze, or pot, so I feared I could be descending into mental illness. I already had problems with my memories of the past, and didn't need new ones.

After staring into space for a moment, the sweaty night reappeared, and I went over by the building trash enclosure. There, a stretch of wild grass ran off under a hole in the fence to the next building. I pulled out a baggie of dried cat food, and a moment later, a huge and tough grey cat appeared. Kenny and his former enforcer, Ricky, hated that big monster of an alley cat. They'd chased it. They'd cursed it, thrown stones at it, and even put meat out to poison it. They didn't know I knew about the cat because I'd watched them from the balcony.

They failed to poison the cat, but poisoned an area dog and were questioned in a city investigation, where they denied having anything to do with it. I often popped out some food for the cat. With the city at his back and the alley as his home, the cat stayed to torment Kenny and Ricky and keep me smiling.

As I turned the corner, the pink scooter girl came to mind. For some reason, I couldn't picture myself riding around on a stand-up scooter, but it seemed to be a perfect fit for her. The lower street I'd entered wasn't considered a safe area at night. I whistled loudly as I strolled along. Because this side of the street ran along untrimmed bushes next to the rail tracks, I risked someone hostile emerging from them.

No one appeared. I paused. Standing in the dark, I saw a hot chick in a pool of light outside Magic Variety. The only magic on sale in that store was pop and assorted junk food, sold by a Korean lady. The store had closed early. This gal wore an expensive but light summer dress, glittering jewelry, and had nicely styled long blond hair. She wasn't a hooker, so clearly she was lost. Her facial features bore an uncanny resemblance to the fairy-like woman I’d seen in my vision or hallucination.

She also had trouble coming her way. As I scanned farther down, I saw a large coyote that had come up from the railroad tracks across the street into a yard. It was the biggest city coyote I'd seen yet. Even farther down the street, there was shouting. The shouting of a crazy man. It wasn't unusual, as the area contained one of the world's largest mental institutions. Despite its presence, the crazy people usually weren’t in it. They were more like out on the street. The way I figured it, they didn't want them in there because they were too much trouble. It was easier to treat harmless, wealthier patients and leave the nasty ones on the streets and in the homeless shelters or camps.

The pretty woman remained out front of the store, afraid, unable to decide where to go. The crazy guy came into view, and as he did, another woman down that way walked toward him. He suddenly charged at her, screaming obscenities right in her face, and she ran off in a girly run. He didn't chase her, just looked, then charged at a guy who'd come out of his house. He ran back into the house.

The lunatic was about to reach the store, and the classy gal. I stepped out of the darkness into the yellow light spilling around the store and strolled past her. The guy was tall and black, with wild hair, shabby clothes, and a crazy expression that spelled anger and hostility. His sharp, insanity-filled eyes focused on me. As they did, I held up my hand, palm out, and shook my head no, warning him not to charge at the lady or me.

That stopped him and confused him. He looked at me, then at the frightened woman, then at the large coyote across the road, which looked back and growled fiercely, its full, sharp teeth bared. A moment of insane decision followed, and he chose to charge at me.

He came at incredible speed, and I stepped aside just as fast. He ran into the pole I had been standing in front of, then staggered back and around to the grass of the yard next to the store where he collapsed on his rear.

As he sat there dazed and muttering, bleeding from the nose and unable to look up, I glanced over at the coyote. It had its eyes on the crazy man, but those eyes said bad juju, avoid. The coyote turned and went off through a backyard.

I stepped over to the woman. She wore nice perfume, understated makeup, and had big blue eyes. "You're not from around here," I said.

Instead of being afraid of me, she took on an attitude. "You obviously are."

"Not originally. I see it as just visiting. I'm from the far north. So far up, there's barely a road. I travel sometimes."

"Really. Down this street, it looks like I entered a slum that no one ever comes out of."

"Listen, are you waiting for someone, or are you lost?"

She glanced at the stuttering maniac still sitting on his butt in the grass. "Aren't you going to help that man?"

"It wasn't in my plans."

"He could be seriously injured."

"We could be seriously injured with him kicking dirt on us right now."

"You have to call the police and emergency when in these situations."

"I didn't bring my phone. Look at it this way. You can call them in and spend hours in the local police station, which stinks and has a full lobby of his brothers. Then you can sit through an interview where the police try to incriminate us for something, but not him. The reason for that is you can't take him into a courtroom for anything other than an order for a mental assessment. If they do decide to charge him, for a bonus, you get to return to this neighborhood to testify."

Her face pinched with worry. Like maybe she thought getting more involved in this neighborhood meant never getting out of it. "The driver dropped me in the wrong place. I'm going to a club."

"You must've shown him the shining politeness you've shown me."

"You know something. You aren't my type. I prefer men who dress well. Not in cheap casuals."

"These are not cheap casuals. This shirt is wrinkle-free, an expensive cotton blend, and hand-stitched. The casual pants I'm wearing are expensive and Italian, and these shoes are very pricey."

"That's amazing. I mean, amazing that you can spend money and come out looking like an ordinary Joe wearing slacks, running shoes, and a blue plaid shirt."

"My name does happen to be Joe. It's Joe Holiday. I forgot my hat. It helps."

"Let me guess, you own the priciest baseball cap in town."

"What club are you looking for? Clubs are three blocks east. There, the neighborhood gets better, but late at night, there is no safe strolling area for people other than people like me."

"I was supposed to meet a couple of people at Sugar's Nest."

I laughed, and as I did, I noticed a guy farther off watching us from the bushes. I instinctively knew he'd been following her, not me. Night smog rose from the rail tracks, and he sat in the dark under the bushes, smoking. I detected a faint odor of pot. He took a puff, and the glow highlighted his face. Technically, he was a black guy with very light brown skin, wearing a tailored suit. But he didn't come across as black. He was unique, more of an individual, and in the smog and smoke, my nickname for him was Smoke. Smoke had predatory features, close to evil, with stabbing eyes like knives, looking to cut me. It was the sort of face that looked even more evil when smiling, and he did smile. His white teeth were hard to miss. He knew I saw him, though I didn't let on.

"... and it isn't funny," she was saying.

"Okay. I can walk you there. It's not my kind of joint, because I don't enjoy having the sugar drained out of my pockets quite as fast as happens when you meet ladies there."

As we started walking, Smoke vanished. I knew he was moving on up ahead, and I suspected that he knew where we were going.

"I have my doubts as to whether you have enough sugar to buy a drink," she said, giving me a witchy, mocking glance. "I doubt you even have a job."

"As it is, I'm not working right now, but I have money banked. A wealthy man's son went missing. He hired private detectives who used electronic means to find him. They failed. I answered his ad. I did succeed using unorthodox means and earned a lot."

"I'm afraid to ask what those unorthodox means were."

"Good, because due to client confidentiality, I can't reveal anything."

"You mean, not without being arrested."

As we turned the corner into brighter light, I noticed her hands. "You know. You have extremely beautiful hands, fingers, and nails."

"Wow, you really know the pickup lines. What comes next, my beautiful feet?"

"I was just making an observation. That tells me you are maybe someone who paints or an artist of some other kind. Perhaps you play the piano or keyboards."

"We aren't on a date, so stop fishing. Since you won't see me again, everything is on a need-to-know basis."

A motorcycle blasted down the steamy street. A huge bus rattled after it. Three bums were strolling with their backs to us down a dark alley across the road. Smoke lurked just up around the corner. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was there."

"What's your name?" I said.

She stopped and faced me. A slat of light spread diagonally across her face. Then she relented. She figured she owed me something. "Jen is my name."

I had a feeling her name might not be Jen. Farther up, we crossed the road and went down a side street. The buildings here were light industrial; it was a touch bleak, but in the distance, we could see a night crowd milling in the colorful shades cast by the signs on clubs.

"Why are the clubs down here?" she said, addressing me as though I were a tour guide she'd paid for.

"Noise. Most of those clubs make industrial noise. They call it music, but the sounds of an auto wrecker are often as pleasant."

"So, you're a music critic ... let me guess. You like syrupy pop music or maybe horrible death metal."

"Jazz ... all sorts of jazz. What about you, Jen?"

"Classical. But if you want to have friends or dance, you make allowances."

"Ah, a meet-up of friends."

"It’s not your business. Don’t start playing investigator on me."

A couple of minutes later, we were in the human swarm on a street of clubs; a limo forced its way down, and I stepped out. We followed behind it.

I nodded. "Sugar's Nest is over there."

"Shit," Jen said. "How do I get in there?"

Security had roped off the crowd at the front. Huge bouncers were out there. One must've been near seven feet tall. They ushered in people with pricey passes and let in some handpicked people; those they viewed as cool fits for the club. As we stood behind the parked limo, looking over, my old enemy Ricky suddenly appeared in the crowd. He was alone, and the big bouncer gave him a wave in. As he reached the entrance, Ricky paused and turned back to the crowd. Ricky was wearing one of those red summer fedoras. He took it off and threw it to the crowd. The woman who caught it had blue-dyed hair. He’d tossed it straight to her. Then he turned and walked in.

"Who's that guy?" Jen said.

"He's a neighborhood bum. He paid the bouncer and staged his little hat show to make it look like he's a celebrity."

"You'd be the person to know who the bums are."

Suddenly, I fell into a dream and saw some of my recent past. There were a few dark days when my hatred for Ricky was all I had left to thrive on. A has-been boxer, he had moved up to a gutter-level con man. He worked for slumlords, collecting or scaring people into moving out for his base cash stream. Most of the time, he was in local bars setting up cons. His voice was unique and distinct, and he never shut up ... the lies and the BS flowed like a natural sewer stream from his lips. He fooled nearly everyone with fast talk. He was an expert on everything, and his expertise was fabrication. For some reason, he couldn't fool me for a moment. He knew that and despised me. He didn't bubble with talk with me because he knew instinctively I was too smart to believe anything he said.

He'd gotten reckless too. After his wife ran off with the kids and his house was seized, he began to exercise his mean streak at night and often on tenants of buildings he watched.

Kenny, the slumlord of my building, had decided to teach me a lesson and sent Ricky to harass me. He'd done it successfully to many others. He came to my door and rapped hard. When I opened the door, he said, "See this notice." He pointed to a handwritten note he’d just stuck on the door.

I was about to close the door, but he pulled it off. "Let's read it together," he said. "Hereby, due to your failure to pay for plumbing repairs, a sum of 700 dollars, your apartment is being renovated as authorized by the city. You have two days to move out." He grinned as if proud of that childish scrawl he called an eviction notice.

"The landlord is responsible for faulty plumbing. Your eviction notice isn't worth the paper it's written on. I'm not going anywhere, and you're a piece of illiterate waste."

He stepped back and gasped, like he couldn't believe that I'd said it. Then he threw his hardest right at my jaw, which I ducked. His fist struck the metal doorframe. A frame that fit bolt locks that can't be broken. He let out a small yell from the pain, and then he stumbled away, mouthing a stream of curses and promises to finish me. He went down the stairs instead of taking the elevator.

I figured I’d be seeing more of him soon, and that turned out to be true. Rumors went around the neighborhood. Rumors that I had put Ricky down for the count. Rumors he could not live with.

Three weeks later, as I took a shortcut down an alleyway on a high summer night, Ricky appeared walking toward me from the street end I was approaching. I heard footsteps to my rear. A glance back showed me Ricky's pal, Camille, appearing under a dim street lamp as he approached. Camille was gay and mixed-race. His father was black and his mother white. I wasn’t certain whether that made him a black man, a white man, or a little of both. I didn’t despise him because he was black or gay. I hated him because he was Ricky’s stooge. He’d do anything Ricky told him to do. Camille was physically fit, with more arms and legs than anything else. One time, I'd seen him exercising on a tree limb in the park, where he swung and did gymnastics like a beast. He wasn't that big, but to defeat him, you'd need something like a quick, devastating blow to the neck to put him down. Grappling with him would be like grappling with a rough chimpanzee trained in street fighting, where he could wear you down.

I turned left when I should've turned right, into a backyard with a fence I could jump. The dim light had tricked my eyes, and I ended up boxed in a dirt parking lot with a tall wooden fence blocking three sides.

They came in after me fast, but Camille held back and got out his phone. The deal was that Ricky wanted to punch me out and get a video for his friends to laugh at.

I was backed up near a parked pickup truck. The lights in the house over the big fence were off. I'd fallen into the perfect trap. Ricky moved in, and we exchanged blows. He quickly had me backing across the lot, using a strategy of body shots to soften up my rib cage. I didn't allow him to get the gut. A hard left glanced off my cheek. I saw that he was favoring his left. His right hand was still weak from punching my doorframe, and his punches with it were mostly show punches for the camera.

He backed me up near the fence, then rushed in with a shoulder shot to bounce me off the boards and some vines. I nearly went into the dirt and leaves. As I stumbled, a hard left whacked my temple, then he swung around to kick me in the crotch, but I moved back, caught his leg, and threw him over into a mostly dried-up mud puddle. He got up fast. Mud on his shirt. Rage lit his face, and he charged in to knock me to the fence with brute force again, but I swung him around like a dance partner, and he whacked the fence and hit his head hard.

That was it. Ricky was now dazed and stumbling off into the lot. Maybe reliving all those punches that had put him down in the past and made him a has-been boxer.

Camille turned off his phone and put it on the hood of the pickup truck. Then he moved in for a wrestling match. To make it worse, Ricky was recovering. He had blood on his brow, but his eyes had cleared.

As I looked to Ricky, Camille suddenly ran at me, caught me by surprise, and knocked me hard to the ground. He had his legs squeezed on my upper body and began to pummel me. Then the back gate of the house across the alley opened, and two fiercely barking dogs burst out.

Just like that, Ricky and Camille ran off. I heard Ricky yell in pain and crashing sounds. They were going over a mesh fence farther down the alley. I had my head up and saw the dogs, both Dobermans, padding back in my direction.

I rolled over and played dead. The dogs sniffed around me. Then I felt one pulling at my left back pocket. I had a baggy full of dry cat food in there I'd forgotten to dump for the alley cat. The dogs pulled it out, shook it, and ate the contents. Then the gate opened again. A man whistled, and they ran off.

The next moment, I was alert as Jen hit me with a hard elbow. "Will you wake up! Tell me how to get into the club?"

I shook my head to clear it. My long memory of Ricky had lasted only a few seconds, and it baffled me. I looked to the club. I'd been in that club before, but not because I especially wanted to be in it. I took Jen's hand and pulled her across the road. We went around the building next door, and I led her down a path through a broken fence to the back of the club, which was mostly enclosed by surrounding buildings.

The club featured short-skirted hostesses who sat with customers at tables above the dance floor. There they chatted with lonely customers, male and female, often groups of them, and convinced them to buy expensive wines and liquors in full bottles, along with other illicit materials. Four of the girls were out back, as was a big security chap wearing a Sugar's T-shirt.

"Jen's a new girl," I said. "I'm just dropping her off. I'll only be inside for a minute to buy a bottle." My words indicated that I was picking up some of the dope they sold at the back while dropping her off.

Jen gave me a harsh look like she was silently ordering me to stay out of the club, but the big boy nodded, and I pulled her inside before she could say anything stupid.

We pushed through the server gals and others milling at the back between shift change and straight into the seething, perfumed mob. We ended up stuck beside the club's huge, blaring speaker banks. The peacocked black DJ was up there, and a slim, sexy white chick was singing something to a rolling, Spanish-sounding dance tune. Her lyrics, pounding into my ears from the speaker bank, sounded like they'd been fired from a Spanish cannon. They flowed on in a deafening mode. For whatever reason, the unintelligible lyrics made sense in that loud venue.

We had to press through the packed dance floor and the dancing mob to reach the upper tables. I pulled Jen along. The disco lights, in ribbons and swirls of colored spots, danced in our eyes; the ceiling was a mass of floating balloons, with the DJ hitting a button to send more up. Everything was color and noise, including the people's club outfits. Most dancers were bad dancers. In that mob, dancing in the earlier packed hours could leave you covered with bruises from jabs and collisions, and that was happening to us as we crossed the floor.

We made it to the aisle to the upper tables, where a club security guy blocked us. Up there, people snorted dope, and the security often moved in to hide them with their bodies.  A female friend of Jen's waved, which earned us entry. He stepped aside and let us pass.

Jen's friend was hosting a big table in a high section above the dance floor. She shuffled us over, and after embracing Jen, she put us side by side. The other people at the table were three guys who looked like autistic tech geeks, and the club hostess entertaining them was a hot ginger gal in the usual tight little black mini dress. They were drinking wine. Jen's friend and another gal, an attractive brunette, were sitting directly across from us.

It was like two separate groups, with the three guys and the club gal ignoring us. One of the guys glanced at me with unnaturally deep blue eyes, registered me as a zero, and went back to conversing with the others.

Jen's friend said. "Jen. Introduce us to your boyfriend."

"Actually, he's not a boyfriend. He got me here and is sort of tagging along." Jen shrugged her head toward me like she was brushing me off.

"I'm Joe Holiday. I live around here."

"Gabriella," she said. "Call me Ella; it doesn't matter."

Her brunette friend gave me a warm smile. "I'm Layla. Do you dance?"

"I dance. I've been in the clubs on this street. I usually avoid dancing early on when the floor is too packed."

Jen was glancing at me like she didn't like this turn of events. "Joe has to leave shortly, so you might want to dance with one of the other guys."

"Those three," Layla said. "They're the worst dancers alive and, as you can see, in love with our hostess."

"I don't have to dive out right away," I said. "All you have to do, though, is hit the floor, and the guys will approach. Up here, club security is blocking the area off. Let me know when you want to dance."

Jen jumped in, changed the conversation, and in moments, had the three of them on memory lane, talking and giggling about university and old memories and boyfriends, apparently selecting the topics deliberately to exclude me.

The hostess fought off the three geeks long enough to sell me a bottle of pricey wine. I tossed her the cash and her tip, and with a simple hand signal, she had a male waiter at the table with the order in seconds. I poured Jen a glass. She began to sip while continuing to ignore me. The geeks were now smoking pot and creating a big cloud of smoke, which caused Jen to continually wave off the smoke, but it also looked like she was waving me off as she continued to chat with her friends.

Sipping pricey wine, which wasn't my drink, I studied the club. The music was back up loud, but the floor wasn't as packed as many people had hit the long stand-up bar.

Doing a detailed but covert check of what I'd already noticed, I found the situation was the same. Our table was being watched.

At a distant table in the other higher section, Ricky kept a covert watch on us while motor-mouthing to a couple of his friends. Smoke sat at a table with a hostess and a few others, mostly hidden behind shadowy, colored distortion. His watch wasn't covert. When I glanced over, he grinned. More interesting was the third person watching us. At another table, an obviously wealthy silver-haired man in a pricey tailored suit kept a close watch on us. Two ladies and a hostess sat at his table, and they didn't know he'd set it up to watch us. That meant, other than Ricky, who was watching me, they were watching Jen and her friends. I was an unexpected wild card. I hadn't felt so unloved in a long time. Outsiders had hostile eyes on me. At my table, the gals ignored me. To the three geeks, I didn't exist.

There was something else unusual. Ella's drop earrings were price tags, not real price tags, but stylish earrings. Her price was $10,000 in tiny numerals, a touch above my pay grade. But it wasn't that. Ella and Layla each had a tiny pink pearl, barely visible, clipped under the upper fold of the right ear. The three geeks had the same, only in pale blue. I had the feeling they were electronic devices, but I didn't know for what purpose.

Picking up on the geeks' conversation, I found they were looking for rare pieces for a game called War in Europe and a rare copy of Dark Tower. "Hmm... not tech geeks," I thought. "Maybe like weird mommy's boy types who spend too much time playing complex board games." It was not a culture I was familiar with, but I knew it existed. It would be a harmless hobby for most people involved.

As I speculated, the light show, the distorted motion of the mob on the dance floor, and the balloons spun, and suddenly I was looking through that picture window of a house again. It was like a replay of the first vision. Inside, that happy gang was playing a board game. The same complex dark fantasy game. The unique young people in varied, expensive dress were there, and I felt like an outsider looking in on something forbidden. The young woman with fairy-like beauty looked over at me and tapped the guy beside her on the shoulder as before. Except this time she wasn’t Jen; she was more like Ella. The guy beside her made the I-see-nothing-there gesture. But the difference this time was that he was one of the three geeks, the one with the unnaturally blue eyes. Then I was back at the table, and he was staring directly at me with a mystified look.

I refused to allow the sudden disappearance of my sanity, or the drift into another vision, to get in the way of fun. "Let's dance!" I said, rising and downing a full glass of wine. "All four of us, and if your boys over there don't want to come, some other guys will join us on the floor."

Layla was in the game and jumped up excitedly, with Ella following. Jen had no chance to object, and in a flash, the four of us were dancing down the aisle to the floor.

After 30 seconds of dancing, the DJ put a spotlight on our group; a couple of guys and gals joined us, and the chick vocalist sang as the beat pounded.

'Falling through space, I can't hear a sound.'

Jen was actually smiling and winking provocatively at me for the first time.

'Roaring through flames and headed to ground.'

Layla danced in, and I gave her a swing.

'Don't ... you ... know ... I'm on fire?'

One of the geeks had joined the dance, a guy with long dark hair in a comb-back, and he stumbled into me.

'It's burning me, baby, it's life on the edge.'

As I was knocked back, I felt a hard jab in the ribs. Ricky was there with a skinny female partner, and he'd danced left to jab me.

'I'm breathless and thrown into the dark.'

Ella put on a show of fancy moves, her loose skirt flying up. Another guy wearing big plastic shoes joined us.

'A monster is there. It burst from your heart.'

Jen and I were dancing in and out of each other. Having a ball.

'Don't ... you ... know ... I'm on fire?'

At the tables up above, the silver-haired rich guy had stood up to watch

'Swing with me baby, on the wings of the night.'

Smoke, at another table, was staring too, and this time he wasn't smiling. Our dance group had become a steady group of ten people. I let my worries pass, and we danced for another twenty minutes in the flow of the shaking place, the lights, the sweat, and the perfumed breeze.

Back at the table, we were sweaty. "We'll take a break," Layla said, "but I want to do some dancing tonight. We paid a lot to get in this club."

Jen suddenly jumped up and said, "Ooh, Ooh," and dashed off for the ladies' room. Ella followed, but Layla held back and took a gulp of wine.

Silence fell over the table for a moment. The comb-back long-haired geek who'd danced with us was studying me closely from the far end of the table. He had eye makeup, but cleverly applied, and his face was made up too. Makeup that didn't melt in the heat. It gave him a mannequin-like look. He was one of those many in the club who hailed from niche genders. I was pretty sure that gender didn't involve any sex with women. Maybe not even with men or anyone at all. But it didn't matter to me.

He went back to the conversation with others.

"Layla," I said, nodding toward him. "Is he gay?"

"He can't dance. That's for sure," she said and giggled. Then, more seriously, "Bo is more like gender confused. He can't make up his mind what he is. But he does see himself as male at present."

"You know, there have been times when I wished I was confused, like about every day. But... I can't be anyone else. I'm the spirit of a toxic male, stuck in a man's body. Unfortunately, that body obeys everything I tell it to do. Except for a couple of glitches lately."

Layla laughed. "The attempt to make the world gender neutral is like an attempt to make the world boring."

"Jen thinks I'm boring."

"No, Jen likes you a lot."

"Up until the dance floor, she didn't say a kind word to me."

"That's how she shows her love for a man."

"What?"

She spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "It's a psychiatric problem."

"Nah," I said. "In the past, they called that psychiatric problem being a bitch, but today they have a new name for everything."

"No," she said. She continued to whisper, glancing at the geeks like she didn't want them to hear. "Her fiancé ran off with an 18-year-old high school girl. He was thirty-three. She hasn't been the same since. She only wants throwaway guys. If it's a guy she really, really likes, she plays the bitch to drive him off."

"You're kidding. She should've called me. I would've shot him for her."

"Oh, she thought of that too. She went after him and nearly ripped his face off."

"I see," I said. Then Jen and Ella were returning, so we quickly changed the subject.

Jen had opened up, and I thought that maybe the wine had loosened her up. The hostess sold me two more bottles of bubbly for the four of us. Layla was smoking pot, but I avoided it, fearing it would trigger my newly minted hallucination problem. We danced more, and our conversation shifted into bubbles of silliness and humor. We were having a great time; the geeks weren't. I drifted into casual mode and wasn't really listening. Ella talked about Jen joining some exclusive group but didn't say exactly what it was. Even though my mind was floating, I registered that the group, or something to do with it, was why Jen and the rest of us were being watched. Jen was even getting romantic, half-drunk, throwing an arm around me and leaning against me as she talked. For once, I felt happy. I'd been living off hate for a long time, and it was like a sudden vision of another kind, not a hallucination, but where I looked down on myself from the balloons floating up on the ceiling and saw what pathetic person I'd become.

I got up and headed for the men's room, the club's roar and lights now a pleasant dream. I washed my hands and face at the mirror and combed my hair. In the glass, I saw Smoke enter and stand behind me in his cream suit. He grinned.

I turned. "Is there something you need, or are you just sweet on me?"

In the bright lights of the men's room, Smoke's face was rat-like. He was the type of guy who needed the dark and thrived in it. I knew the type. Sleep all day, out all night, up to nothing good.

"Some guys aren't smart," Smoke said. His tense eyes said he had figured me out, and he'd figured me ugly. "Any other guy, especially in this neighborhood, would've seen right away that things would end up bad if he stuck around Jen. But you don't see much, do you?"

"Maybe I saw a lot. Maybe I saw that you're a worm and some other guy's stooge. Maybe you just told me you're setting Jen up for something. Maybe I knew that all along. Maybe it's me looking for you, not the other way around. The rest of the maybes I'll soon figure out."

Smoke reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun, a bronze Glock revolver.

"It figures you'd have the girly model," I said.

Smoke had blocked the entry door, but someone forced it open with a bang. It was Ricky, and Smoke pocketed the gun before he came into view.

Ricky stepped in and paused. He looked at me, then at Smoke, and smiled. "Well, boys, let me apologize for breaking up your romance."

Smoke pulled the gun back out and pointed it at Ricky. "Go back and block that door. You try to run out. I'll shoot you in the back."

Ricky did what he was told immediately, then Smoke waved him over past us. "Stand there," he said.

In the light, Ricky didn't look so hot either. His designer clothes were rumpled, and his face, once mostly handsome, was now pocked with acne and showing age. "What've you been snorting to get that acne, Ricky?" I said. "Rat poison maybe."

"Shut up before I shoot you," Smoke said. "I'm tired of you saying maybe. Say maybe one more time, and you're dead. But guess what, you're dead anyway."

Ricky's eyes widened. He suddenly realized he might actually get shot, and he appealed to Smoke. "Listen. Joe Holiday isn't my friend. I hate his guts. Just let me walk. I don't care if you shoot him. I see nothing."

Smoke pulled out a stainless steel whiskey flask with his left hand and looked to Ricky. "Joe needs a drink. A big drink. You take this flask over and see that he drinks it down. Muscle it down if you have to. Then your job is done, and you can walk."

Cowardice had been heating Ricky's acne, but once he heard that and knew he was going to get to poison me, it faded, and confidence returned.

"If you poison me, he'll shoot you," I said.

"No, he won't. Why would he fire a noisy bullet when you can drink yourself to death and we leave."

The idiot, Ricky, wasn't smart enough to know that Smoke didn't have to shoot him here and now. He could do that later. Smoke reached out with an arm, and Ricky stepped over to take the flask. Smoke knew Ricky wasn't the type he could take his eyes off for even a moment, and his focus drifted off me for a fraction of a second. In that fraction, I propelled myself off the counter for the mirror and kicked with my expensive tennis shoe. One advantage of my casuals was that they let me move easily. I'd even selected them partially for that reason. I kicked the Glock right out of Smoke's hand. It flew up, bounced off the ceiling, went over a toilet stall, and landed with a crash and splatter in the toilet.

That led to a frozen moment. Smoke and Ricky had to make a fluid decision. I didn't care what that decision was because I jogged left, ripped the washroom door open, and got back in the club. The washroom was near the back. I didn't get far before two goons seized me and rushed me to the back door. It was so unexpected that I didn't get a chance to fight back. A police cruiser was out back in the parking lot. I was rushed past a few smoking hostesses on break. A cop muscled plastic cuffs on me and tossed me in the back of the cruiser. He slammed the door, hit the siren, and drove off. Through the window, I saw the silver-haired guy watching from the lot. So he was the one who'd arranged it. I had the feeling that Smoke was supposed to shoot me, and the two cops were on site to do the cover-up investigation, but I had screwed that up and was alive, being taken for a ride.

Chapter Two: The Sugar Shack

You can have plans and opinions, but the world is like that Lark that flies overhead and craps on you. It flies off on a lark in whatever direction it wants and doesn't care about your plans. My plan for the night certainly wasn't to end up on a rough, bumpy road headed for a remote part of the waterfront. But that's where they were taking me instead of the police station.

"Maybe we should put him in the trunk for a nicer ride," the cop riding shotgun said.

"I don't want to stop here," the driver replied.

The driver was black, his partner white. Obviously, they took payoffs to serve the club, but the silver-haired guy may have been at the club without really being affiliated with it. Money talks, and he had money.

We went through a dark area with a few lonely industrial buildings. There wasn't a soul around, and the cruiser pulled up on an empty beach of sand and stones.

"I guess I know where you guys park when you're goofing off," I said.

The driver answered with an angry huff.

The cops got out and opened the back. The driver held a magazine. He opened it and showed me a centerfold of a hot blond. "What do you think of her?"

"She's not bad. I've seen better."

"That's my wife you just insulted. You want to know what I do to guys who insult my wife?"

His partner had opened the trunk and pulled out a huge oak baton. It was the old style that cops don't use anymore because it's too brutal. The black cop waved, and the white one stepped over and cracked me with the baton.

"I want an apology. You apologize for insulting my wife."

"She's a whore. You should know."

That brought a whack down the back of my head that glanced off my shoulder. I went to my knees, felt blood in my mouth, and nearly passed out.

The cop tossed the magazine back in the car, went around, and removed my cuffs. He pushed me down in the sand and kicked me. Then he stepped back toward his cruiser. "Bash his skull in," he said to his white partner.

That was about to happen, but I caught the baton, ripped it from his hand, and thrust it in his gut. He gagged and went down. He was a tough cop, but fat and weak in the belly.

I staggered off in the dark, knowing they'd be on me soon, but it didn't happen. The radio crackled with an officer-down call, and the gut-hit cop staggered in the sand and got back in the cruiser. They drove off with the cherry flashing.

I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, badly bruised with a baton in my hand. I used it as a crutch as I staggered down the stony beach. I knew they would probably return, so exiting the way they'd driven in wasn't an option.

The air smelled of dead fish, and the city lights were far beyond the wall of darkness along this section of beach. I felt seventy years old. Too old to take those beat downs anymore. Hell, I'd been lucky. One of them would mean being permanently crippled or dead for most guys.

If I had to, I'd hide and work my way back to town slowly. I wouldn't chance them returning and finding me. A shack with a tin roof appeared in a sandy area ahead; a mostly sunken wooden pier ran out to the water from it. My head spun, and I nearly went down, but I got to the shack and went in. The place stank. I pulled out a cigarette lighter, lit it, and saw bloodstains on the wooden floor. Chocolate bar and candy wrappers were on the stained floor too. A lot of them.

It suddenly crossed my mind that instead of escaping, I had stumbled into the place where they dumped bodies before disposing of them. I knew because a battered table held a couple of black hoods, pliers, a hammer, some rope, and zip ties. It was hard to believe that Sugar’s Nest and likely other clubs would send bounced customers out here to die, but my eyes told me someone had. The silver-haired man was behind it, so he'd likely paid to have me buried in the sand. The cops had taken me a stone’s throw down the beach. They were likely going to leave my body on the beach for some others to drag off to this sugar shack for disposal.

There were three wooden chairs. It didn't take a genius to guess that they tortured people here. I decided to get out quickly, but as I got to the door, headlights appeared, and a dark sedan drove out of a path I hadn't noticed and nearly right up to the shack. There was no escape, because in my shape I couldn't run fast enough to make it.

Peering through a crack in the boards, I saw the car's interior light up as the engine shut off. Three guys were inside. The one in the back had been bound and gagged. The man on the passenger side got out first. He was a white guy built like a tank, and he walked straight up to the shack.

I got down on the floor with my back to the wall, in the bloodstained area next to the chairs, putting the baton to my side, and I played dead as he entered. He used a flashlight and turned on a battery-powered lamp I had missed. Faint light lit the place. I tried not to breathe. Then, he muttered some foul words and kicked one of the chairs.

"Sully!" he yelled. "Come here."

Moments later, Sully came in, his boots creaking on the boards. He was another ugly heavyweight. "Those fucking cops," he said. "Dumping their garbage on us again."

"They killed him with a baton, the assholes," the other thug said. "They're too stupid to even take the baton with them. Damn, I need a drink."

He was over behind the table, and there was a cabinet there. I heard Sully step over too. Whiskey fumes hit my nostrils. I heard them gulping it.

"Damn, that's good," Sully said. "The other guys were here. They added to the candy wrapper collection. Maybe somebody should sweep them up."

"I'm not a fucking cleaning lady. Damn, it's hot in here," the other guy replied. "So what do we do with this body they dumped?"

"We bring John in first. Question him, give him the works with the pliers. When we're finished, we can hood both of them for the boat pickup. Those cops are gonna pay a penalty for our disposal of their trash whether they like it or not."

"The boat is on the way, so maybe we should get it done fast."

"Not that fast," Sully said. "It was specified that we pull his fingers off with pliers. Kabir might check before he sinks him in the lake, and he might know about the specifications."

"You know what pisses me off, Sully. They never give us any of the women to play with. They always go to that house. All we get is these shitty bums and the odd weirdo."

"Those ladies are too hot for you; just concentrate on earning your pay."

I heard the bottle put back on the shelf. "All right. Let's get the job done. We'll pull John in for a fast workup. I brought ear muffs this time to mute the screaming."

I heard them both step over to exit, seized the baton, rose lightning fast, and bashed Scully on the skull. I stepped back as the other man reacted, turned, and hit him even harder. They both went down like falling sacks of sand, and I paused, went over to the cabinet, pulled out the bottle of Canadian Club, and swallowed a double.

As the whiskey burned, something startled me. I couldn't hear them breathing, but I could hear the faint lap of waves outside the shack and the breeze sighing through the boards. I bent to check each for a pulse in the neck, and then I got scared. Sully was dead. The other man was barely breathing, and he would probably die too. The blows had been hard to measure. I'd had no choice but to knock them out. Any failure up against those heavyweights would have meant the pliers and no fingers. The oak baton was more powerful than I'd thought.

My heart raced; panic hit me, then a solution came to mind. I grabbed a couple of cloth hoods from the table and quickly hooded them, tying them tight with rough string. I removed their wallets and pocket litter. They carried no ID. Combined, they had five thousand dollars in cash.

I positioned the bodies against the wall as if they were ready for pickup. I threw two thousand dollars on one body to make it look like I was paying for the extra, as the boat guy expected only the body of the man bound in the car.

Using a rag, I cleaned every spot where I could've left a fingerprint, turned off the light, and went out to the car. As I did, I heard a boat approaching and got in the car fast. With the lights off, I drove out of sight on the entry path up to a gate. This area of the beach was fenced off as private property. I checked on the struggling captive in the back seat, then got out and walked back in the dark to take a look at the boat.

A tall man was getting out of the boat to the pier. It was a motorboat with a red interior and white exterior with a blue stripe. Just big enough to do the job of dumping up to a few weighted bodies quietly out in the lake. He was brown-skinned, of Indian extraction. I couldn't see him clearly, but as I watched, it looked like things were going fine. He worked fast, mostly in the dark, dragging out the bodies and dumping them in the boat. In the boat's faint light, I saw him counting the cash. Then he took out his wallet and put the cash in it. He got in and headed out into the water at slow speed. Sadly for the thug who was still alive, his pal piloting the boat was probably going to bury him in the lake with Sully.

I was about to return to the car, but decided wiping fingerprints wasn't enough. The sugar shack had to burn so no forensic evidence could be traced to me later. Those cop teams were too good for me to risk it. I used driftwood, and when the place was in crackling flames, I ran back to the car. Form-fitting gloves sat on the dash, so I put them on, wiped the door handle, and drove off with John in the back.

I'd left the headlights off. The path through the bushes emerged on the same bumpy road the cops had driven me in on. I saw headlights approaching, so I pulled off into the long grass behind some sumac bushes. It was the same cop cruiser, now racing to the flaming sugar shack, much too late. That joint, with its old dry wood, was going up faster than a hissing firecracker on Chinese New Year.

I knew they had returned to get me. Knowing they would take time to search the shack area, I pulled out, sped off, and raced into town on lonely outer-city streets. I pulled around behind some light industrial buildings in a dead zone, went around, opened the back, and pulled the gag and blindfold off John. I left his hands zip-tied and got back in the driver's seat.

John was gasping for some time. When his breathing problem cleared, a baffled look formed on his face.

I talked to him. "Alright, John, who are you? What do you have to do with Sully and his pal? Don't try to lie."

"Wait, who are you? What happened to Sully and Carver?"

"Ah, so Carver is the other guy."

"I'm not sure if it's his real name or if Carver is his nickname because he carves people up. Sully was laughing about it when he told me."

John remained puzzled. He watched as I rifled through the glove compartment and found that the car was a rental. "He uses pliers, not a carving knife. Carver is probably his name."

"Are you an undercover cop?" John asked.

"Be thankful I'm not. If I were, I'd probably be burying you as part of a cover-up. I might be anyone, but right now, I'm the guy with the questions. I need to know who you are."

"How did I end up with you? Tell me first."

"Sully and Carver had an accident. They fell down, on the beach."

"Okay. I'm a witness. I'm the maintenance man for a large downtown condo complex. A place for the wealthy. One night, I was there working on a building air-conditioning failure. When I left at three in the morning, I saw Sully, Carver, and another person dragging a resident to a car. They saw me, and Carver pulled a gun, but I ducked into a doorway and got away."

"You didn't call the police and report it, did you?"

"No, why should I get involved? They were never at the complex before. It had to do with one bad guy, a druggie who owned a unit there. Why should I have cared?"

"Sully and Carver cared enough to come back and grab you, and guy number three still cares. He saw your face. If you don't get out of town, he will get you, and it will be the end."

"So what happened to guys number one and two? They said they were taking me for questioning."

"They were going to rip your fingers off and dump you in the lake."

"You killed them."

"Nope. I was on the beach. Another thug with a motorboat came in, and he was the guy who was to dump your body in the lake. They got into a dispute, and the boat guy ordered Sully and Carver into the boat at gunpoint. Then he saw me and raced off, leaving you in the car."

"If that's so, why did you just say it like only guy number three from the condo kidnapping is alive to get me? Why do you look like you were beaten if you weren't involved in it?"

"Cops beat me and dumped me there, down the beach, before it happened. This guy number three. Was he a slim black guy in a cream suit?"

"That's him. So what are you going to do with me?"

"I'll drop you where you want. Pack your stuff and get out of town. Don't go to the local police. They have connections in the police."

"What about you? Don't you have to leave town too?"

"I have some business to take care of. Keep in mind that you never saw me."

Twenty minutes later, John walked off into the semi-dark toward a gleaming condo tower in a wealthier area, like another tiny human insect on a Friday night that had expired. That left me with the job of dumping the car. There was a perfect dump spot a few blocks from home, so I stashed it there and walked the rest of the way. The shadows from the breeze riffling the trees were like dark fingers of death crossing my brow and squeezing out more pain from my shoulder. An exploding headache was rising from the blows I'd taken, and I ended up stepping inside my apartment, staggered. I pulled a beer from the fridge, dropped to a comfort chair, and downed most of it to kill the foul, burning sugar-shack taste in my mouth. It was like blood and smoke that needed washing away.

I fell asleep in the chair, and I didn't wake up until well into the morning. My sleep had been dreamless, and I viewed that as a good sign. I still had a splitting headache. I tossed my clothes in the laundry, and I took a full bath to clean up. During the day, Jen kept coming to mind. I couldn't stop worrying about her, but had no idea what to do. Irritating neighbors from the building kept coming to my door asking for favors and wasted a lot of my time. The tenant association was planning a picnic and wanted donations. I donated but avoided involvement in the association because it would eat up my valuable time. Before I could do anything regarding my worries about Jen, the day was over. One thing did come to mind.

In Sully's pocket litter, I'd found one of those little pearls Ella and the other people wore in the upper fold of the ear, but this one was white. It had a tiny gold metallic fleck on the flattened side, and it seemed like some form of electronic bug. I reached up and placed it in the same spot on my ear, and it stuck there like magic. I tried shaking my head, and it stayed. I didn't hear anything; it was like it did nothing. Maybe it was a status symbol, or a mark of belonging in that special group of theirs. Perhaps it was a microphone or tracking device. Maybe Sully could stick it on someone else to track them. None of it made sense. They could pull it off. I decided to keep it on and see if maybe I'd hear something or get a message from it.

As I polished off a beer, I forgot about it. I made sure the door was bolted, and I locked the balcony door. My unit was secure; I had a door, a bolt lock, and a frame that would be hard to breach even with a battering ram. I was up four floors, and even the first floor was technically about ground as its units had balconies. The only way someone could get to me was maybe breaking into the unit next door and jumping balconies. With that done, I went over, fell onto the bed, passed out, and fell into a dream that I remembered when I woke.

In my dream, I wasn't myself; I was some other man, and the dream house from my visions was off in the background. I was sitting on a smooth boulder in a back garden, by some purple-flowered shrubs. It was a garden of summer flowers and bushes with a bubbling fountain.

The dark had a purple hue, and next to me, Smoke was sucking on a cigarette, wearing his cream-white suit. The silver-haired man was out there in a fancy black silk robe, looking at the flowers with his back to me.

He spoke. "There was a problem. A couple of guys need to be taken care of."

"No sweat," Smoke said. "I can do it with the Iceman."

"I don't know why you insist on calling me Iceman. My name is Florian, Flori for short."

Smoke coughed. "The guys can't get used to it. I mean, when you're dishing out a beat down, you just don't look like a Florian."

The silver-haired man turned. He had a face like a Roman statue and a rich look, and part of it was due to intense plastic surgery. His eyes had an odd look, like maybe he was somehow mentally off or on a drug of some form. "Don't put that out in the garden," he said to Smoke. Then he pulled a photo out of his robe pocket and handed it to me.

Even in the dream, I did not like being a guy named Florian, or Iceman. I was looking at the photo through Florian's eyes. I didn't like the photo at all because it showed the real me. Taken from a camera hidden up in a tree, it was of me stepping away from the sugar shack, which roared in flames. It was blurry, but I was clearly visible. The camera added red-eye, so my eyes looked devilish.

I passed the photo to Smoke. He studied it like he couldn't believe it. Then he said. "Those cops were supposed to take care of him. How can this be? You mean he busted up two cops?"

"I don't care about cops," the silver-haired man said. "He killed Sully, and that idiot Kabir sank his body out in the lake. Carver survived, but he had to kill Kabir."

In the dream, I spoke in Florian's voice. "What? Even in this business, I've never heard of a screw-up that nuts. What about the cops? Do we punish them, Gavin?"

"Nothing for now," Gavin said. He brushed his fingers through his silver hair like he was trying to brush away stress.

"Have we got an address for that guy?" I said, apparently not knowing my own address when I was in Florian's mind.

Gavin flipped a thumb sideways at Smoke. "Your partner knows roughly where it is. I have the full details. That John fellow escaped, too, so there's a mark on him. He's the easy hit. I had the dope on this Joe fellow dredged up using facial recognition. I don't like the details on him. I don't understand why he suddenly appeared."

"It's no mystery," Smoke said. "He suddenly appeared on the street when I was following that Jen lady for you. He's not someone sent to make a play on us. He's an idiot."

"No," Gavin said. "A background check shows he has a long history of suddenly appearing all over the place. When he does, a series of violent events happen every time. He appeared for some reason. I can't figure out why. If someone sent him, we have to know."

Smoke was not convinced. "We eliminated everyone who knew about the setup or worked on it. There is no one who could've sent him."

"What's his name, and what is he?" I said. And again it seemed weird, being in Florian's mind and him not knowing who I was.

"He's Joe Holiday. Here's the slip with his address. His occupation is professional troublemaker or some kind of underground investigator. The details aren't clear on exactly what he is. Once you go back two years, his records have been cleansed. Over the last two years, he's moved from the cleanest working man who ever existed to the violent maniac he is today. He must've paid someone to clean his history and remake him into a new Joe. That would take an advanced, illegal AI cleaning agent and blackmailed insiders."

"We'll find out who he is," Smoke said.

"We may not have time," Gavin said. "My first instinct was to call in Marvin. I already sent Marvin to his place in case he shows up there. If Marvin doesn't slice and dice him, you will take over. Right now I want that miserable John chap out of the way."

"Marvin," Smoke said. "I wouldn't send Marvin after my worst enemy. He will do the job, but Marvin was too gory even for Sully."

Gavin nodded. "Usually I show mercy and don't use Marvin. In this case, I was hit with an attack of high blood pressure. He earned Marvin, so he gets Marvin."

"Alright, let's do it," I said. "We head out now and grab John."

"I want his nose pulled off and his fingers crushed," Gavin said. "Make him talk."

We drove off in a luxury black BMW sedan and cruised toward the distant bright lights of downtown. In this part of the dream, I was still Florian and not myself. It was blurry, so all I could learn was that the dream house wasn't downtown. I couldn't read the signs, and everything on the road was ghostly. It was like a night drive in a video game, a simulated version of reality. The buildings looked decades older and seemed to emerge from the haze. I had Smoke at the wheel and told him to pull off into a depressed area of tenant housing and strip malls before reaching downtown. The atmosphere was hot, heavy, and gray, and I looked around. Then, in a courtyard out front of a huge complex that had the stamp of shabby social housing, I saw a guy I worked with and didn't like named Brice.

"Pull over," I said. "I want to have a chat with Brice."

Smoke obeyed, and the BMW pulled over. We got out and walked toward Brice, who was talking on his phone, sitting at a fountain with no water, filled with trash and litter. Smaller litter and some dust drifted through the courtyard. The weak air was hot and humid. Stinky odors wafted over from an area of big metal garbage bins.

We stopped about six feet away from Brice. He saw us and put his phone away. Brice was a black guy dressed in a preppy style, like a white student at a classy school. He did not fit in this setting, but he was big. He wore big glasses that made his eyes look bigger. Ironically, he was a local gang leader.

"Brice," I said. "I see you moved up in the world to the classy fountain crowd." Then I noticed a group of scrubby young black guys a ways off. They were trying to keep out of sight by some bushes under a busted street light. They weren't Brice's gang from this complex. They were sneaking up on him, and he hadn't noticed.

"Florian, I'm surprised to see you. I heard you were in for bottom surgery. I know you can read at least a little bit, but maybe you need glasses because you missed the 'No Florians Allowed' sign when you drove in. Driving in here is not an educated decision. My work for you is separate. You are supposed to maintain compartmentalization."

"Compartmentalization? You really know how to pull out the college-boy words."

Smoke had nervous hands. He knew, and as Florian in the dream, I knew the other armed chaps were creeping up on us fast. Smoke put his hand in his pocket on his gun and looked like he was going to make a fast exit without me if needed. Smoke's presence probably delayed things, because he was somewhat admired in the area, even by other gangs, and as Florian, I knew that.

Now the dream was becoming a nightmare because Florian was not me at all. He lacked the essence of me. Florian was a risk-taker, gambling with bullets instead of cash. But even though I was him, I couldn't force him to move into the car and drive off. He wanted a showdown.

Then the pop of a gunshot broke the languid night air; Brice rolled into the dry fountain for cover, and the gang ran for us, guns popping. Smoke fired a couple of shots and knocked one of them down. If it weren't for the fact that their guns were illegal and useless weapons, we would not have gotten out of there alive.

Florian fired a couple of accurate shots, wounding two others. One kid's gun blew up his hand, and there was a horrible scream that paused the others, giving us time to slam the doors and back away and tear rubber out of there.

Brice was up with his gun out and shot another one of them, and then they retreated, leaving their wounded as Brice's gang raced in from another part of the courtyard.

"God damn you, Florian!" Smoke said. "Why'd you do that?"

"It was you who drove in. You could've said no. I left Brice to clean up. It's water under the bridge."

Suddenly I wasn't Florian anymore, and the dream shifted. Jen's face rose in my mind in incredible detail. She smiled angelically. In the dream, part of it was amazement at how my mind could remember her face in rich detail I could never recall when awake. Every freckle, every line, the fall of her hair over her brow, the twinkle of her eyes came clear. I had a ballooning feeling that she was possessing me. I'd been smitten by a strange form of love that, before the dream, I never knew existed.

She faded away into darkness, and then I stood outside that dream house again. It loomed large; a mansion, and I could see through that same window from farther off. Some people were playing a board game, and I could see the box cover. It said James Bond "007 Underwater Battle," and the image showed an enemy in full black scuba gear fighting Bond underwater. Bond didn't even have a scuba mask, just an upper red scuba jacket and shorts. He had a spear in the struggle and a weird tank on his back.

Two men and two women sat, while others stood around. They were in their 20s and well-dressed, but they were also blurry ghosts; a piano tinkled, and I could see part of it, but not who was playing it. A painting hung on the wall. The man in it had one brown and one blue eye and looked satanic. It was hard to say why. One of the male players, a guy with a silver earring in one ear and glasses with frames highlighted in yellow, glanced out the window at me. Then I looked around and got hit with a shock. Everything was black and empty. I stood on nothing in a starless void, and the house floated in space. A feeling of panic struck.

Chapter Three: The Butcher

I couldn't open my eyes without seeing a camera flash and my vision fragmenting. A distant bell tolled, and I knew it was a bad omen; the nausea I felt made the sound seem like an announcement of some terrible illness that had afflicted my soul.

At that precise moment, I woke. An alarm was dinging. It hadn't been a bell at all, but the alarm trip I'd set on the railing just inside the pigeon netting on the balcony east end. I'd set it there because it was the only way someone could break into my place while trying to be stealthy about it.

It meant that someone had jumped over from the neighboring balcony. I shot up from the bed, and the momentum carried me to the patio door where I clicked the lock and burst out onto the balcony. A man was there, having landed on his knees in the dark. His jump from the lady next door's balcony hadn't worked out as well as he'd planned. He held a huge cleaver. A swipe cut away the pigeon netting stuck to him. The cleaver was razor-sharp and antique-style, with a longer, slightly curved blade.

While he remained stunned from his failed jump, I stepped forward and kicked him in the shoulder, knocking him back.

He jumped up holding the cleaver, then took a couple steps back and grinned foolishly. He had one silver front tooth and looked like someone who'd escaped the containment unit at the nearby psychiatric institution. He was technically a white man, but his face was so swarthy he could be mistaken for black. His eyes brimmed with mania. He had the look of someone who'd been born in a state of general lunacy. Moonlight shone on his face, accentuating the certainty that madness of a psychopathic form was his calling.

There was a pause. I couldn't go after him with that cleaver in his hand. It was razor-blade sharp. He didn't come up short when it came to sharpening his weapon.

He spoke. "I nuh, nuh, need your hands and feet. You won't feel it. You will die fast. Be scared like the others so you can't move."

The babbling idiot thought I was going to wait while he cut off my hands and feet, because some other fools had done so in the past. Knocking over a bike I had parked on the balcony, I ducked back into the bedroom. He stumbled over it, cursing in his odd European-flavored accent, and came after me fast. I whipped a bottle of aftershave at him, and it exploded on his head, causing him to stumble and lash out, slicing a lamp aside. He sliced too hard and stuck his cleaver deep into the wall.

"You're gonna pay for that damage, you moron," I said. But he didn't plan on paying. He yanked the cleaver out of the wall with a maniac's strength and charged. I got out of the way; the force of his charge took him into my small kitchen, where he hit with a crash. No lights were on in the apartment, but he had eyes like a night hawk, and as I blocked him with a chair, he swung the cleaver and chopped it out of my hand.

The deathblow was on the way; at the far end of the living room, I crashed through the screen door to the balcony, and he came out racing to where he thought I'd be, but I'd ducked tight to the wall by the picture window with my leg out to trip him. He flew to the railing and halfway over, getting tangled in another swath of pigeon netting, and he swung the blade. He cut through part of it but was stuck there, hanging over the front of the balcony and over the parking lot. I quickly lifted his legs, threw him forward, and he swung out in a tangle of netting, releasing a guttural cry. The netting broke free in a long rip, and I heard him bounce off a car hood and hit the pavement. I staggered backward and shattered the main front window. A woman screamed. I heard the alley cat hiss, and when I looked over, he lay flat on the pavement and didn't get up.

Later, I stood in the parking lot with my hands in my pockets. Police cruisers with flashing lights surrounded the building. The maniac was on his back, wearing pigeon netting, his cleaver driven into his solar plexus. Blood dribbled from his lips. I felt certain that he was Marvin from my dream. He'd failed to learn that safety must be practiced when using a meat cleaver.

A sober-looking fellow named Detective Gene Fisher interviewed the woman who lived in the apartment with the first-floor balcony. Detective Fisher wore a dark casual suit and was the only one in the crowd of cops not in uniform. Up above, my apartment was like a cop party.

Four cops stood next to me, waiting for the order to cuff me.

As Detective Fisher nodded, the cooperative witness, who hailed from the Philippines, was saying. "I was over there on the balcony because too hot. He swing down like a big spider, waving a big knife, but he couldn't kill me because he bounced off the red car hood and hit the road. The sharp knife jump off the car roof and fall down and kill him. Now he's on his back and can't be sorry for what he did."

"He certainly can't be sorry," Detective Fisher said. "We'll need your full statement." He looked over at me. "Alright, Mr. Holiday, you will be coming to the station for an interview."

They put me in a cruiser, and it raced through the night streets. A blur of confusion passed through my mind with the scenery. I wondered if I was losing my mind. Did I have a dream about Marvin, or was I imagining it? Maybe a form of traumatic shock, where, after the experience, I believed I'd foreseen it. I shook my head. Questioning my sanity wasn't the way to go, especially when being interviewed by police. I wouldn't mention the dream.

At the station, I sat on a metal chair by a metal table bolted to the floor. This was not known as a friendly police station but Station 9, the warehouse. Bright LED lights were overhead, and a weak fan pushed an odorous breeze. Sweat was on my forehead from heat alone. It took a while to interview the key witness. Then another witness from the building appeared, a big, plump Asian man.

Finally, Detective Fisher came in with two men and a thick folder in his hand and sat down across from me. "So, you've been a recent visitor here. The first thing we want to know is what your relationship with Marvin and Germany is?"

"I've never seen him before. I don't know who he is, and I have no relationship with Germany. I assume he was breaking in next door. My neighbor is away on summer vacation. He then jumped over the balcony to my unit."

One of the other cops scoffed, and his partner glared at me. Fisher remained sober, leafing through the thick folder as though acting the part of a serious official. He wasn't reading what he was looking at because he'd already read it.

"I see here that we have your recent communications. They are often of a nasty sort and with characters suspected in numerous forms of crime. It appears that you decided to move from Mr. Clean to the nastiest gambler chap on the street and online. What are you supposed to be, the internet poker vigilante? Why would you be communicating and picking scraps with out-of-town characters like a white supremacist, a car thief, a bank robber, and a suspected pedophile? Then there are foreign contacts like a criminal in Nigeria and others in the EU. Then there is that sketchy Ricky fellow among other locals. What that tells me is you somehow know Marvin. You communicated with him somehow. He hails from Germany, as you probably know, but hasn't been here long."

"The biggest words that Marvin guy used tonight were like duh, duh, duh. He stuttered and had the IQ of a ten-year-old. He told me indirectly that there are unnamed others he killed, and he wanted me to make it easy for him to kill me. As if I would do that. I already told you that. He's more the type who would have to communicate in person. I had a previous internet problem and an online gambling problem. I got in rage fights with some of people online in various forums. I no longer do that. Thanks for telling me who some of them are. That pedophile wouldn't happen to be Ricky, would it?"

"The identity of the suspected pedophile is confidential. Your Nigerian friend was pretending to be a hot white lady, trying to get your address and other details. We have extracted and packaged all your data. Your connection to Marvin is somewhere in there. Trying to hide it won't help. I have officers going through that data right now."

"You're a plainclothes officer. That tells me you're assigned to organized crime. That means Marvin is somehow connected to some investigation of yours, or you are opening a new file. I'm a loner, not organized crime. Maybe it was just a mistake. Some gang has me mistaken for someone else."

The three of them gave me cool stares. I could see they felt that I might be the worst liar on the planet.

Detective Fisher got up. "You do have the profile of a one-man wrecking crew, but there is no chance they mistook you for someone else. Your file shows a slippery slide downhill. Whenever I see that, I know involvement with organized crime is usually there. These two officers will verify your full statement. I will get back to you. Do not leave the city. The evidence collection in your apartment and the apartment next door is nearly done. You can enter it soon."

As I walked out of the station, nearly every cop in it glanced at me. I was becoming a magnet for police attention. The other people held in the waiting area weren't particularly interested in me. Maybe the cops hadn't wanted Marvin dead right now. Maybe I upended an investigation into him. There were many possible reasons. It was a good thing I didn't mention that I helped Marvin the rest of the way over the balcony.

I casually walked away from the police station. The station and its huge parking lot buzzed with activity, cruisers, suspects being brought in. The division was like an oasis of light in the middle of no man's land. The nearby buildings were silent, dark, and light industrial. This wasn't a station to go to if officers didn't like you. Too many lonely places were nearby where they could administer a private, solid beating.

A heavy cloud and smog cover prevented daytime from arriving. An undercover car soon tailed me and the taxi I flagged. The driver, who had a French accent, kept glancing in the mirror, so I didn't have to look to know the cops were following close.

I also knew Detective Fisher hadn't rushed to collect the evidence in my apartment as a favor to me. He wanted me to go back there, where I'd be watched, rather than maybe a hotel where it would be easier for me to slip away. He hadn't tried to hold me because he wanted to follow me. It indicated he'd flagged me as a dummy, but one who would somehow aid his investigation into whoever Marvin might be connected to.

When I arrived, two cruisers sat in the taped-off parking lot. I went up and noted that Andrea's next-door apartment was sealed with yellow tape. I pressed my ear to the door and heard two voices, so two cops were in there, maybe hoping someone else would come by, pay me a pleasant visit, and advance their investigation with an arrest. I looked at the sad mess of my apartment. There was a hole in the picture window. I needed a whack of sleep, but first I ate a chocolate bar and drank a beer. I took off my shirt and looked in the mirror; I now had more ugly and painful bruises from my encounter with Marvin.

I hit the bed, passed out quickly, and had some unsettling, nonsensical dreams of the type I get when burned out. Jen appeared in front of an odd-looking building and waved me over, but the more I tried to talk to her, the more she brushed me off. In the dream, I knew she had called me, but why, when all she wanted was to get rid of me? I couldn't figure it out. The building was in a garden like the one I'd been in when I'd dreamed of being Florian. Jen suddenly turned, walked into the garden, and disappeared like mist.

I was suddenly drawn to glance left at the house window and saw that painting with the satanic man in it. He had one blue eye and one brown. I turned back to the odd garden building and, with X-ray vision, saw an array of equipment and computers beneath it. X-ray vision was new. I'd not had that before, even in a dream.

Loud knocking woke me. I was a mess of sweat, aches, and pains. Kenny was there.

"The damage to your apartment ... do you want me to fix it?"

His face was white, like something terrified him. I had a feeling he no longer wanted anything to do with this building; maybe he'd sell the building to new owners, which would be a good thing. His showing up to offer repairs was unusual, to say the least.

"You know what, Kenny. I'll pay, but phone those contractors you have. I need the glass replaced. I need the wall that guy chopped up fixed and new netting."

He nodded. Cleared his throat. "Uh. You don't suppose any more of those people will come here, do you?"

"Since I don't know why he showed up, I can't answer that," I said, realizing that the cops had sent him to weasel out some information.

"He did damage next door. Andrea wants it fixed before she comes back. She will sue you if you don't repair it."

"Okay, the contractors can fix her place tomorrow. I'll pay."

Kenny left. I knew Andrea, and she would threaten to sue him, not me, so he lied.

Marvin had made a mess crashing around in the kitchen, but he hadn't chopped my fridge, so I whipped up a meal and was eating when loud knocking came at the door again.

This time it was an officious-looking female cop with her hair in a tight chignon. Another officer, a skinny guy, dropped a box. "Are you Mr. Holiday?" she said, studying me coldly and closely.

"I am indeed Mr. Holiday. So what's in the box?"

"This is the return of your computer equipment. I need ID, and I need you to sign release forms and a copy of this investigatory report."

I signed and brought the box inside, where I left it untouched. My lawyer, Jackie, and a police lieutenant had already signed the forms. It meant Jackie had been busy clearing up the accusations against me. Essentially, in police bureaucrat speak, it was notification that I wouldn't be charged with anything regarding my online activity. I knew the police didn't personally return seized computer equipment. I'd already checked that before. You had to go there and sign it out. It meant the cops had hidden monitoring tools on the returned laptops, cellphone, and router, and hoped I would hook them up.

Instead, I slipped down two doors to a neighbor's door and tapped faintly. Bruce answered. He was a smiling gay musician. I raised a finger for silence, and he ushered me inside. Bruce knew about the seizure of my equipment. He thought it was funny, but he also thought I deserved it. He didn't like cops or talking to them. He had a record for theft. Many guys in this building had records. It took a minute of hushed whispering to get him to let me use his phone for a few calls. He breathed on me, listening to every word as I ordered a new internet connection, router, and laptop. That would give me about a couple of days before the police bugged that too, but that's all I needed. I didn't plan on doing anything illegal online anyway.

"Bruce. You can stop whispering. They can't hear through the walls."

"Kenny's watching everything on the hall cameras. They'll know you're in here because he'll report it. The cops are extremely interested in that guy that showed to kill you."

"You going to tell them anything?"

"I'm not going to tell them anything. I don't know anything. I'm in a permanent breakup with the police. They beat up my boyfriend at the station trying to get him to confess to stealing a woman's purse. Pulled a chunk of hair right out of his scalp because they wanted to hear him scream. I don't want them in here asking about you."

"They'd play sweetheart with you to get information. The station is different. It's in the perfect location for them to play rough."

My apartment became a hub of repairs and activity. In this poor neighborhood, they responded quickly to paying customers. Workers carried in the new window glass and installed it. The chop hole in the wall got smoothed and painted. I swept up a lot of glass. Some kitchen damage was repaired, and I tossed a broken lamp, chair, and the remaining pieces of old netting into the bin. A cleaning lady showed up and polished everything. New netting was going up when the internet chap showed up. I'd ordered him from a small ISP, and he arrived in an unmarked van, carrying everything up in a vanilla box. I did it that way so the cops wouldn't notice him or that I was doing a new installation, not reinstalling the old.

Chapter Four: Fakeover

When night fell, I decided to go out and test the police's tracking ability. I had a blue Mustang EcoBoost parked in an underground garage three blocks away that I eventually wanted to use. Even if the cops had tracked it, they would have seen that it was buried in dust and hadn't been used for about two months. As the nightwalker, I'd been using foot, taxi, or subway, but mostly foot, and they'd know that.

I strolled out the front door, showing no concern and not looking around, and went up the avenue. A plainclothes cop followed, and he was skilled at tailing. Very few people would ever notice him. I decided to take him for a walk. Outside the nearby bar, which was humorously called The Brown Beaver, I chatted with a couple of punks and a hooker. I didn't enter the Beaver. It was a piss hole. I walked on, looking in the windows of empty shops. Now and then, I caught a glimpse of him. It occurred to me that he'd make a good mugger, stalking the victim on soft-soled feet in the shadows, usually just out of sight. Considering the police division he hailed from, there likely wouldn't be much difference between him and a mugger if he decided to move in for a collar.

Up around the corner was homeless heaven with numerous drunken bums, some sitting on the sidewalk and drinking. The liquor store was half a block off. They'd seen me before and knew that trying anything above aggressive panhandling with me wouldn't be healthy. I had trained them, and I stopped to chat it up, gave them a few bucks, and moved on.

My shadow, I knew, was getting frustrated. Cops always want evidence, not a tour of the area's human wreckage. They weren't worth questioning. Even smelly bums can smell cops and wouldn't tell them anything about me, even if they knew anything. You could pay them, and they'd spit out lies. So far, I wasn't giving him anything to put in his notebook.

The liquor store's large windows cast an oblong of bright white light onto the street, and past it, the Wine Depot added color, like walking out of a dark stain of night into a spotlight, then into neon colors. The street was crowded there, so I pushed through, then back into a greyer area, stepped out, and made like I was looking back down the street for a bus. In doing so, I caught a glimpse of my tail. The liquor store light highlighted his strong, plain facial features. I could see that he was a big white cop, dressed generically in a short-sleeved medium-blue shirt and plain navy casual pants. No hat, neat brown hair. Detective Fisher used him because he could handle himself in this neighborhood. Get in his way and get busted.

I decided to lead him to the subway and walked several more blocks. As I approached the entrance, the girl with the pink standup scooter appeared, racing toward me and past me. Her hair was still dyed bright ginger, but her outfit had changed to tight shorts and a teaser top to feature her breasts. I had been seeing her around, and suspicion rose, which I hadn't had before regarding her.

I went into the subway and down to the nearly empty platform. People avoided this particular subway stop at night. Most of the line was safe; this area wasn't. I decided to play a game with the generic cop following me. I walked down to the end of the platform. He had no choice but to come down onto the platform, linger at the other end, and pretend not to be watching me. At my end, a wino and another bum, smoking something, sat in the aisle against the wall.

I waved away the smoke; the wino took a sip. "Ah, good stuff," he said, looking up at me. He wasn't drinking wine but strong beer in a can. Apparently, it was cheaper now that it was on sale.

I ignored him; a breeze whipped up, and I heard the train rumble and saw its headlights as it raced into the station. I stepped over; the doors opened, and I stepped backward to the wall instead of inside. The doors slammed shut a second later, and a man had to force his way out.

The people strolled to the exit, and I noticed I hadn't tricked the undercover man into getting on the train. He was still up there on the platform.

"They always slam the doors right away. That's discrimination against us in this neighborhood," the drunk said in a slightly slurred voice.

"Discrimination is a big word for a bottle jockey. Are you a former professor?"

"I am an expert in the study of human beings. Nevertheless, discrimination is a word we learn on the streets."

His pal, high on the smoke, snorted out a laugh.

"I can prove it," the drunk said.

"I'm just hanging out; I got time," I said. "Give me a demonstration."

"See those two men on the other platform," the drunk said, squinting. "One is wearing an expensive suit and looks to be in the wrong neighborhood. But... inside his suit pocket, he has a gun because he came here for a reason that isn't honest. Like he runs some kind of game here. The other man, dressed in worn but clean working clothes, is down on his luck, but he's an honest guy. The two men see each other and don't like each other. The rich man sees the poor guy's cheap shoes. He looks down on him because he sees him as a taker, not a maker. Rich guys believe they make everything and others take. But the poorer working man sees the rich guy's expensive shoes, and he hates him. Because he sees him as a rich-guy taker. The working man slaves and then ends up with a pink slip and an unemployment check while the rich guy takes everything."

"That's amazing," I said, glancing sideways to check on the plainclothes cop. At that end, the pink scooter girl appeared, racing down the subway aisle on her scooter. On the other side, the train came in and pulled out. I noticed the rich guy was still standing there because what the wino thought was a rich guy was actually another cop.

A crackling announcement came over the PA, notifying us of a train delay on the eastbound lane. The scooter girl rode up and down the platform, then slowed and said, "You're in for it now."

She raced off, and as I followed her with my eyes, I saw two men running toward me. It was Ricky and Camille. There was nowhere to go, so I waited for them.

Once they were close, they stopped and walked up. Camille swung his arms like he was itching to throw a punch. Ricky had a big smile.

I stepped out. "I didn't know you guys had moved up to being the subway muggers."

Ricky walked forward with his arms back, bumping me with his chest. He kept moving forward and chest-bumping me. "Come on, take a swing. Take a swing."

The nearby camera would record it if I swung, so I didn't. The cops were both taking great interest in this turn of events. Ricky and Camille had not noticed them.

"That was a neat trick of yours, having the scooter girl follow me."

"I don't think you understand. In this neighborhood, I'm the boss. You're an out-of-town loser, and before I'm finished, you'll be leaving town in a box."

I had an eye on Camille. He looked drugged. Ricky angled around so the camera got a shot of my back. He jabbed my ribs hard with his finger. I could have grabbed and broken it. He wasn't going to go away because he knew I'd soon lose my temper and take a shot. On his right hand, he wore understated, flesh-toned brass knuckles. It meant the weakened hand wasn't fully healed or had a bone-structure problem, but the brass knuckles would more than compensate.

The standoff ended when the drunk's stoned buddy suddenly jumped to his feet, did a short dance powered by dope, and said, "Let's go."

He leaped at Camille. They grappled and spun around; Ricky tried to hit me with his right hand in a way the camera wouldn't see. I countered because if I didn't, he would have fractured my jaw.

Ricky lost control and started laying into me with his best punches. For a has-been boxer, he was good. Now I had to avoid his right more than his left. I managed to step back, taking a couple of hard body blows. Then I connected with a solid right. It staggered Ricky. It looked like his lights were going to go out. He took wild swings in the air, and then Camille threw the bum into the wall and put him out.

Camille then let out an idiotic war cry and lunged at me, but I dropped to my knees and nailed him with a hard punch to the solar plexus. He staggered, hit the hard marble floor, and started crawling on his knees, stunned.

The undercover cop was running down the platform toward us. The other cop, the well-dressed one, ran down the other platform, went up the stairs, and crossed over to our platform. He hurried down to join his buddy. Ricky was recovering, and while I was distracted, he got me with a nasty punch to the shoulder.

Then the cop was shouting, and Ricky turned as he ran up. Ricky started throwing punches at him. His partner was farther up, running down. I heard a train coming on the other line, so I jumped into the subway, dashed across, and jumped onto the other platform. The train raced into the station; I got on board, and it rolled out. Through the window, I saw Ricky grappling with one cop, and Camille had gotten up and was scrapping with the other. Ricky and Camille were not winning the fight. I had sufficiently softened them up.

I got out at the next stop. When I'd been at Bruce's apartment, I'd called a friend named Sam who owned a novelty shop called Fakeover. It was popular online. The customers were anyone who wanted a costume or a disguise, which meant many legal and illegal uses. Sam had registered it as a novelty and costume shop to stay legal, but other costume shops didn't size up with Fakeover. He did sell Halloween costumes too. The cops would never shut it down because they used it.

The street was nearly empty. Two drunks up ahead staggered under dim slats of light to reach the corner and a wine store. Steam rose from sewer grates. I stuck to the shadows and hugged the doorways. Even my reflection in the windows looked like a shadow. Suddenly a bright pink light hit me, and I went to my knees, seeing a vision of Jen. Her face floated up and faded, and then I was looking in a window again. This time the vision was blurry, surreal. It felt like I was looking into the past. People in their twenties were again playing a board game as a piano tinkled. I blinked and saw the game box again, but this time it was The Elvis Presley Game, with a stylized picture of young Elvis on it.

The vision didn't hold; it vanished, and I was staring in a dark shop window at my own face. There had been no pink light, and it scared me. A pink light beaming things into my mind could be classed as stage seven schizophrenia. I shivered in the heat. I was losing trust in myself.

The last thing I needed was a cruiser to come along. I thought about the fight. Ricky and Camille were toast. Even so, they likely wouldn't be charged with anything. They'd be cuffed and taken to Station 9, also known as the warehouse. Detective Fisher's hangout. They called it the warehouse because of its location. People considered that whole area the police station at night and avoided it at all costs. By early morning, a roll-up door would open somewhere in the warehouse area. Ricky and Camille, all busted up, would be thrown into an unmarked van and dumped somewhere on the waterfront. They would walk or crawl, depending on how much was left of them, and try to get back into the city. They'd reek of booze poured down their throats. No one would believe their tales of a cop beating. That would be the outcome for appearing in Detective Fisher's investigation and then, under questioning, having nothing to offer because they were two idiots and not connected to Marvin or whoever Fisher's real target was.

I slipped down the alley to the back door of Sam's shop and pounded hard with the bronze knocker. Sam opened it, looking tired and rumpled. He wasn't a tough type but more like a brainy type, eccentric and sloppy. His face was a touch droopy like a bulldog. He ushered me into the small apartment he had at the back. He owned a house in the suburbs but was often at his shop at night. Most nights, in fact.

"You scared me off the couch with that knock. You know, I was dreaming about you, and you were with a woman. Behind you I saw a cloud of trouble."

"What does a cloud of trouble look like?"

"You have to be in the dream to understand it. I saw you and a woman on a night street and then the cloud."

"It's going around, the weird dreams. I've been having them as well. With me, I was thinking maybe some minor brain damage from a punch. In some dreams, I seem to be seeing the future. But later, it seems like maybe my mind made it up from what I already know."

"If it's punch damage, give it time, and it'll clear up. I packaged up the things you wanted. The wigs, clothing … everything. The stuff's in that pizza takeout shopping bag over there. Cash only."

I handed him the money. "You look beat, stressed, like you got problems, Sam."

"Cop problems. A gang of cops working out of the warehouse rents my disguise equipment all the time. They pay peanuts and constantly threaten me."

"A Detective Fisher or his boys wouldn't be involved in that problem, would they?"

"Not him. Detective Fisher is the honest one. The others are afraid of him. The rotten ones use disguises for dirty operations. For the sake of self-protection, I make sure I never learn what those operations might be."

"I've seen the quality of some of the others working out of that station firsthand."

"You look like you've been having firsthand experience. Why are you using equipment? I thought you were in a new phase of life, as you called it."

"Sometimes things pop up."

A loud knock came at his back door. "It might be one of those cops. Take the bag and go out the other side."

He ushered me into his shop and pointed to a side door on the left.

I stepped out and found myself standing behind a stinky garbage bin. I walked over and peeked. A generic brown Ford had parked there. An undercover cop, so I simply waited until he left five minutes later. He was a black man wearing jeans. I remembered his face from the station, but he wasn't one of the guys following me, so he was on some other operation.

Taking a circuitous route, I went back to my apt, bought a pizza along the way, and put it in the bag. I walked in carrying the pizza bag and went up. An undercover cop was parked across the road. I took the pizza out, stashed the bag in the closet, and a minute later loud knocks came at the door. I answered, holding a slice of pizza.

Detective Fisher was there with two grinning cops. Fisher simply snatched the slice of pizza out of my hand, and I was muscled over and cuffed. They took me down to the parking lot roughly, practically throwing me down the stairs instead of using the elevator. I got thrown in the back of a car. Fisher got in the front and took a bite of my slice of pizza while the two uniforms threw elbows into me from the left and right.

"Is there something you want?" I said.

Fisher told the other two cops to get out and watch the front. Once they were gone, he pulled a photo from his pocket. He showed it to me. "Do you know her?"

"Yes, I know her. I saw her on one of my night walks. What happened to her?"

"We think she's missing."

"She's either missing, or she isn't."

Detective Fisher paused to chew another bite of my pizza. "It's a time thing. She was reported possibly missing. Soon she will be missing. We act fast in these cases. Others have gone missing over time. So where did you take her?"

"She was lost looking for Sugar's Nest. I took her there, but I didn't leave with her."

"You're lucky you were honest."

"How do you know I'm honest?"

"First, there was your incident on the street with the screamer. That's what we call him at the station. A street camera showed you walking away with Jen after the screamer ran into a pole. That's a crime you failed to report. We know you went into the club with her, but you didn't come out with her later at the front. So what happened to you?"

"I got rolled and thrown out the back door. My lucky date with Jen sort of ended on asphalt."

Detective Fisher showed another photo. "Who is that guy?"

The photo showed Jen leaving with a man I had not seen at the club. "I didn't see that guy in the club. There was a clown in a cream suit watching us at the club. He may have been at his table because I couldn't see the others at his table due to the lights and obstructions. He was nearby when the screamer came at us. Maybe your camera didn't pick him up. He's a black guy. I don't know who he is. I nicknamed him Smoke. In the washroom, he threatened me. When I left the restroom, the bouncers tossed me. I had entered the club illegally through the back with Jen. They don't toss out gals, so somehow that guy hooked up with her once I was dumped. You have camera surveillance even on a dead-dark street. Why didn't you grab the camera surveillance inside the club and at the back door?"

"The surveillance got accidentally destroyed."

"You know everyone in this area. Why don't you know who that guy in the photo is?"

"We think he was wearing a disguise and is likely a player from out of the area. It occurred to me that you come from out of the area. That places you at the top of the suspect list. If I find out you delivered that girl to him, you're done."

"I don't deliver gals to other guys. What I find, I keep. If I hadn't been tossed, I would've kicked his ass."

"Why did you appear in this neighborhood not so long ago? Most of the continent is high-tech and robots now, but you show up here. Healthy guys like you don't show up here. They do everything they can to get out of here. They go where the real action is."

"I don't have to explain why I'm here. A lot of guys down on their luck live here. You shouldn't be here either. But you're here."

"I'm here because I grew up here. I saw this place fall through the cracks into a slum where sometimes it looks like 1958. Then a self-driving car, or the sight of new tech, brings me back to reality. I'm here to clean this place up. If you came from out of town to dirty it up, you're finished."

"So what now? Your special questioning at the warehouse?"

"What now is I want to know about anywhere you go, especially on your night walks, so I can verify it. If you see Smoke, if you see that man in the photo, you contact me. If you happen to learn anything or see anything, you inform me."

Detective Fisher then called the other two back, pulled me out of the car, removed the cuffs, and escorted me back to my apartment. Alone, eating a slice of pizza with a beer, I considered what I already knew. Detective Fisher didn't trust his own cops. Maybe Fisher had a motive of his own too.  He was focused on this case for an unexplained reason. He probably forced other guys on the street to report to him. Since he couldn't trust most of his own men, he was building a network as part of his mission to clean up the neighborhood. If I didn't do what he said, he would throw me to the wolves. He was gambling that I might be innocent and told me about Jen to motivate me to look for her. For a moment, I wondered if he had Ricky working for him. The answer was no. Ricky would've failed Detective Fisher's little trust question because, by nature, Ricky told lies even when there was no advantage in telling lies.

I decided to take a chance using my reconnected internet. I did a quick setup with the laptop I'd gotten from my contact at the ISP. When finished, I started looking for guys named Florian, just in case the dream was accurate. A bunch of guys with German backgrounds came up. I scanned the photos and felt none of them was the Florian I was looking for because in the dream, Smoke said he didn't look like a Florian. Florian had the nickname Iceman, which I didn't search for, since I figured it would probably bring up weird music celebrities or a thousand convicts. I couldn't really look for a guy when I wasn't sure what he looked like. The man in Detective Fisher's photo didn't look like a Florian either, but more like a cop in disguise. Sam had mentioned cops using disguises.

I had illegal access to a facial reconstruction program. With it, I slowly reconstructed the face of the silver-haired man from Sugar's Nest and the dream. My memory for faces was solid. Few could equal me. It took a while, with many close matches. Then I hit the real jackpot. A photo of a man who'd spoken at Dice's Board Game Convention was a near-perfect match. He was a chap who got much of his wealth from crypto, but before that, he'd been a medical technology investor. No hard details came up about much of his past. Then I found something from years back. A tragic fire and the death of his wife, Gloria, down in Florida. He probably had grown kids somewhere, but nothing showed on that. He had either stayed out of the media or wiped most of it using the power of his money. His love for board games and classical piano meant he was too vain to remove references to him in a couple of magazines. He was now known as a quiet but very wealthy eccentric man with no listed addresses, phone numbers ... everything was hidden. It told me he had enemies or dark secrets. His name was Gavin Q Flint.

He was sometimes known by a gaming name he used across multiple games. He'd left the business world and seemed to exist in an alternative world of games. Card games too. Rare ones, as he was a game collector. If he owned the dream house, he'd likely bought it through a front company, since no listing showed him owning a house in this city. I didn't have access to all the necessary databases. Some required an application or payment to use.

A reference came up to a friend who owned an offbeat tech company and lab. Both no longer existed. The company, NeuraSweep, had been liquidated after failed attempts to develop devices that worked with brainwaves. It worked on devices from AI glasses to headphones, burned through cash, and closed. Its CEO, Jake Warner, died. He was mugged after leaving a party. The crime remained unsolved.

The idea that Jen might be missing troubled me deeply. I realized she reminded me of my mother and began to fear it was something psychological. My mother dissed me a lot when I was a boy, just like Jen did when I met her. My mother loved me but didn't like the way my father raised me. She was a gentle person, too kind to exist in this world. My father wanted me to be strong. When I came home after losing a fight one day, he grabbed my shoulders and told me to be happy, not cry. Some months later, people thought I was weird. If I got into a scrap, I'd smile and fight harder. In adulthood, I got rid of that mental quirk. My mother had known about it. She used to look at me with a sad expression and say, "You're your father's son." Those were times when I really did feel like crying. My mother wanted to raise me as a gentle person, and it would've been better if my father hadn't gotten in the way. Despite my father, I still see myself as a lover, not a fighter. I see myself as my mother's son, not just my father's son.

I decided to wait a day and leave in the evening on my search for Jen. Shutting things down, I went to bed, and the pizza and beer led to flashy dreams. I woke a couple of times, but the dreams were nonsense until the last one.

The alien pink light had returned to blast me, and it became a bright white light in my eyes. I was sitting cuffed to a table. Through blurred vision, I saw some rogue cops in the room. I was being questioned. Detective Fisher's face appeared, but it was like a distorted rubber mask that moved up fast and haloed the light... Why did you appear in this neighborhood... a high-tech world of robots and prosperity... You show up. Why? Why?

His voice echoed. His face expanded. The rubber mask burst and flew apart, and there was another light, a searchlight from above. I saw a helicopter approaching over black, choppy water. It was headed for a burning yacht. A man in flames fell from the bow to the water. Fire and smoke rose with fury, filling the air with the pungent odors of a bad fire.

Suddenly, I was running along a modern waterfront. A man yelled something in French. Four men pursued me in a long race along the concrete edge above the water. Black, oily water lay below; I had to get to higher ground. A shot, mostly silenced, cracked against metal as I went up through rows of large containers. I'd gotten out of the yacht-slip area and into a shipping area, but not a large one. On the far side, beyond a tall fence, a housing area sat at the water's edge.

My feet pounded over stained concrete; the men were getting closer, and when I should have been terrified, I was exhilarated. It was me smiling again when I should've been crying.

A uniformed security guard emerged from behind stacked drums and stepped into my path. He'd been alerted by the shot, and he was making a big mistake in trying to apprehend me and assuming that the guys behind me were law enforcement.

I moved left to avoid him and waved with my right hand as I ran, trying to warn him to duck out of the way, but as fast as I did that, a bullet whizzed past me and turned his forehead into pulp. It was a sight for nightmares, but I didn't see it all. I ducked left through more containers before he could hit the ground.

My pursuers spread out, corralling me into a back area of containers and stacked blue drums with no way out. Within seconds, I was stuck. I'd ended up in an enclosed area of rust-red containers that ended at a rough brick wall too high for me to climb.

The men came slowly out of the darkness. They weren't running now, and they weren't shooting. They knew they had me. The man out front was a big, ugly thug with gold earrings and a face like weathered leather. He had been punched too many times. His eyes were sharp and gray, reflecting the night light, giving him a supernatural look. For some reason, I knew his name was Brand. I didn't know how I knew him or his pals. All four of them had a hardened convict look.

Fury burned in all of them too. It was with great restraint that they kept from shooting me, and they all had guns: Beretta M9 pistols.

"I've been waiting a long time for this, Joe," Brand said. "Get down on your knees and prepare to die."

I gave him a defeated nod and complied.

"We've got all night. You're gonna tell us who sent you and why you fire-bombed the shipment and the boat. You've been in our hair for too long."

"Fuck you," I said.

A shot from Brand's pistol missed my knee by an inch. "The only reason that didn't hit is I need you talking, not screaming. The screaming comes later. I've been hunting you a long time. We're going to put you in a drum and carry you to a nicer place for questioning. The ways I use just never stop hurting, and pain goes up and up like a rocket. You're working for someone. I've never been able to figure out who it is. But tonight's my lucky night."

"You're wrong about that," I said.

"What ... are you blind?"

"No ... I'm hoping it's my lucky night." As I said it, I pulled a gun from my back belt and leaned sideways on my knees. I fired four shots, and in the dream, time had slowed. I got all four with body shots before they could fully react. I could see their guns lifting. Brand's gun was already up, and he got off a shot that wounded my shoulder. The other three stumbled from the hits they'd taken, firing wild shots and missing me. I delivered some finishing shots as I shifted and rolled on the concrete. All four went down dead.

In the dream, I had reflexes and shooting skills that seemed impossible. I'd taken the ultimate gamble. I checked the corpses, and then staggered off, bleeding and wincing with terrible nerve pain as I headed for the housing area and a hidden safe house.

The dream shifted to another place, another time. Many frightened faces, a running crowd, and then a bomb went off ... it threw me through a dark space in the dream, and suddenly I was a loner wandering in a train yard. I knew my name was Joe, but not much else.

Chapter Five: The Ravine

I shot up in bed, holding my head; it felt like it was going to explode, and I knew some of what I had wanted to forget. A lot of my past had been wiped from my mind and from the records too. I had too many gaps in my memory. Whenever memories appeared in traumatic dreams, they didn't match the Joe who showed up on paper. Week by week, more was coming back to me. I'd come into this decrepit neighborhood to hide from an uncertain past. The dead neighborhood was like the last stop on the line. A place no one would expect me to be. Enemies that I couldn't remember existed as shadows in the darkness and deep in my dreams. Brand had been a shadow and a skeleton up until the dream brought him back. He was dead, but some of the other shadows probably weren't.

During the day, the nagging feeling of unfinished business haunted me, as if I had something important to do but couldn't remember it. To get rid of it, I pressed on and, by early evening, I was ready to go out. I walked through the empty lobby out onto the street; an undercover car was across the road, and the cop looked directly at me, then back to the phone he was monkeying with like he didn't recognize me.

I was dressed as a woman, but as I'm not a woman, it put me in as a member of the cocks in frocks brigade. I had an excellent female disguise and a blond wig, but being too tall meant the illusion was harder to maintain up close. From a distance, it worked as people saw a hooker.

I drew stares as I walked down the street on a snakes-and-ladders night walk to where I had my car parked in another building. It was a large complex that I didn't have to enter because I had a fob. I went down by the roll-up door and into another side door. My blue Mustang EcoBoost was there, covered in dust, so I drove it over to the wash-up area. As I gave it a quick cleaning, a man approached. As he came out of the gloom and glare, I noticed him looking around, studying things like a scout for car thieves tagging vehicles for targeting. It pissed me off. This was supposed to be a secure garage in a classy condo complex, watched and patrolled by security. I didn't want to pay for poor service.

The man was close, watching me as I washed the car.

"I can help you," he said in a strong Indian accent. He wore a suit that looked like he'd borrowed it from someone much bigger. To complete the look, he wore shabby running shoes with a yellow stripe.

I ignored him, said nothing, and kept washing the car with the hose. When I wasn't looking, he walked up, grabbed a fistful of my ass, and tried to snatch my purse.

I shrugged him off, turned, and sprayed him in the face with the hose.

He staggered back. "You are a bad woman," he said. "Not a good woman."

As he stepped up, I let the purse slip from my arm to my hand and gave him a purse whack to the temple. He staggered off, stunned. My purse had a tight package of weighted sand and tiny lead pellets at the bottom. It was perfect for a knockdown without causing serious head injuries.

I stepped over and pressed the alert button for a silent alarm that went to the security desk. The groper stumbled farther away from me, leaned on the hood of a compact car, and set off a car alarm. I put the hose back and started buffing the car. At the same time, a security guard burst through a stairwell door and ran towards the car alarm and the suspect. That alerted the suspect, and he ran. As they disappeared deeper into the lot, I got in the car and drove out.

I headed out of the neighborhood feeling that the female disguise was too effective. If I ever used it again, I would need to tone it down. Out in the suburbs, I felt like a little plastic man in his toy car, driving through a big forest of dominoes. The amount of condo towers they'd built recently was incredible. Most were variations on a single generic plan, but others were close to elegant. I had to drive through them to find the housing areas. I had a strong feeling the dream house was in a tiny, isolated residential area. I cruised slowly through many small neighborhoods. Most of the houses in these little oases of peace were dream houses to the people where I was living. Their dream was to get out here to beautiful, green, manicured blocks with clean parks, rarely seeing anyone nuts or dangerous on the streets... but getting here would require winning a lottery.

The night breeze came in through the open window, and I felt my plan wasn't solid. I needed some way to narrow the search. Even worse, I was putting faith in dreams that could be completely wrong. Maybe Jen was really somewhere else. I decided to head back and got lost in a street maze designed to keep out traffic, but also kept it in if you didn't know the streets. Finally, I emerged into a much sleazier area of light industrial, public housing, and strip malls. It was darker because many streetlights were broken and the roads were potholed. I'd somehow gotten down into the Off-ramp Junction, a dull neighborhood surrounded by freeways and a huge rail yard.

I calculated the fastest route to the freeway, and then I saw something. The housing complex, with the litter-filled front fountain and large courtyard where untrimmed weeds grew through the cracks, was off to the left. I could see at least forty people outdoors, backed by the large, shabby apartment complexes. They moved in dim light, mostly young black males.

Brice, the preppy black gang leader, had been sitting on the fountain in my dream. He wasn't there now. I decided to pull in partway and park. My idea was to close my eyes and picture where Smoke had driven from to reach this joint. I calculated north. I knew from my drive that there were numerous housing developments farther north. Then I opened my eyes and saw a gang of ten teens approaching, pulled out fast, and drove off.

I felt I had accomplished something. If the place was there, it meant I wasn't nuts. I slowly cruised through the slummy area, looking around. The streets were full of night people like scarecrows. Empty faces, nothing to distinguish them. It was like product-of-this-slum was stamped on their faces. Near the end of the dreary area, I spotted something: a black BMW sedan, just like the one in the dream, parked out front of a dead-end industrial park. One of those places with ten businesses in small units, each with a roll-up door and a front entry.

I cruised in and past with the lights off. No one was in the sedan. The units had no lights on. I drove right up to the side of the complex, into the weeds and ruts between the wall and the fence, and got out. I stood in the dark, with a good watch on all the front units. Ten minutes passed, and since no one emerged, I was deciding on another plan, but then a roll-up door opened. It was the business door off to the left of the parked sedan. I remembered the sign read Blackjacks Plumbing and Mechanical.

No lights came on, and three men emerged, with one of them thrown out the door and tumbling onto the concrete. I did not recognize him. His hands were zip-tied behind his back, and I heard him groan. He was a compact guy, maybe five feet six, with a soft belly, a bland face, and unruly brown hair. The second man emerged and kicked him, telling him to get up. That man was Smoke. Smoke carried a large, dark satchel, nearly bursting with goods I was sure had nothing to do with plumbing.

To save energy, the lot was lit more by moonlight than by other lights, creating a faint sepia-yellow effect. The third man emerged and closed the roll-up door. He wore a long dark coat tight down to the waist and flared at the bottom to his knees. It was some thin linen or other fabric that could be worn even in summer. He was bald and wore a tight, fitted skullcap. He walked over, grabbed the man, and threw him easily into the trunk of the car, which Smoke had opened.

As he stepped away from the trunk, I saw his face clearly. He looked something like Pinhead without the pins, but the only way you could tell he was a man, not a woman, was by his size. His face was ambiguous, like it could be a guy or a gal. He looked like a movie vampire or a real-life sadist. Tiny silver earrings glittered in his lobes. If he claimed a gender, I couldn't guess it offhand. He also wore black boots with thick soles that would pack a mean kick. Without doubt, that was Florian, also known as Iceman. He looked as cold as ice, like someone with the empathy of a shark and like a hitman, so Smoke's nickname, Iceman, worked for him.

I preferred Florian. It worked for me, so long as I wasn't him in a dream and being called Florian. Neither Smoke nor Florian had seen me peering from the shadows, but I ducked back with the odd feeling that Florian had X-ray vision. As I waited, I heard Smoke yell. "What are you looking around for? Let's get out of here!"

"Something doesn't feel right," Florian replied. His irritating, breathy voice and footsteps indicated he was almost on me, and then I heard him test the entry door to the last unit. If he stepped around, he'd see me and my car, so I prepared to ambush him, but he didn't show. I heard his boots hitting the concrete as he walked back to the car.

Strange, movie-like images of me dressed as a woman, scrapping with Florian, appeared in my mind as their car started up. It helped clarify things for me. Getting cornered on their terms was too dangerous; the odds of torture and death were near certain. If I confronted them, it had to be on my terms.

I nearly lost them because I stayed too far back while following their car. They took me on a long, slow drive that ended at an obscure ravine park named Cedarwood Trail. The entry road down into it was just off a service station and a remote fast food joint called Glados Burgers & Beef. From the look of the dumpy place, I had my doubts about the quality of the beef, but it had a parking area at the back by the road down. The place also had customers, maybe because it was the only restaurant in the area. I couldn't follow them down the road into the ravine by car, or they'd spot me, so I pulled in behind the burger joint and walked toward the road.

Three men sitting in a booth in Glados were paying special attention to me. They ogled me through the large window. A few other customers went about their business and paid me no attention, which was normal. The three were rough types and white. The restaurant decor was low-budget. They were eating in one of the cheap padded orange vinyl four-person booths. I hoped they didn't think I was a transvestite, but a woman. I didn't want them to come after me. One of them had long, hairy arms like a gorilla.

As soon as I was clear, I ran down the dark, curving road to the bottom of the ravine park. Some globe lights lit a parking area, and the BMW sat there. It was the only car there. I arrived just in time to see them leading the man across the grass, deeper into the park, in the moonlight.

It required a fast, zigzag stealth follow, with dashes to cover. I had to move silently because Smoke and Florian were heavily armed and I was not. I could hear the little man pleading with them and see Florian shoving him. He fell a few times and got up after Smoke kicked him. The run had me sweating, but the night air down below was cooler. The fragrance of the woods, the sound of the creek, and some bird song didn't fit with the shadowy images of Smoke and Florian moving deeper into the park and up the remote ravine side. They were like a force of evil, or zombies risen from the dead, that contaminated the peace of this pristine area. They did it effectively, too. The air developed a creepy, crawly feel, and I felt itchy.

Florian clicked on a flashlight, and it took a while for me to get close enough to see. From behind a big maple tree, I saw them farther off. As he jerked the flashlight around, it was almost like seeing frames from a comic book. A story unfolding. In it was a fold-up spade they had carried from the car. The little man was not cuffed now, but was being forced to dig with the spade into the soft earth. The grave had already been partially dug before their arrival because he couldn't have dug that deep that fast on his own. That meant that Florian and Smoke had prepared the location in advance. They planned to kill him, but it was partly a psychological operation to terrify him so he'd talk.

The small man kept pausing, weeping, and pleading.

"One last time, Anderson," Smoke said. "Where is the other pearl, and who are you working for?"

"I gave you the one. I can't remember where I put the other one. You have to believe me. I work for myself, no one else."

I could see the pleading in his eyes, but I felt he was lying. He couldn't tell them where the pearl was, or they'd shoot him. He had to gamble, but the dice had probably already come up snake eyes. Unless I did something, Anderson would be dead soon. They would kill him and then have his shop taken apart piece by piece to find the pearl.

Florian lifted his gun and shot him. I hadn't expected it that fast. It was a silenced shot, right through the center of his forehead, that delivered instant death. He dropped down into the shallow grave.

"What in the fuck did you do that for? He was about to talk?" Smoke said, obviously pissed off.

"I don't like him. He's a worm. He's not worth torturing. We have no use for him. He wasn't working for anyone. He's a lone operator. Anderson didn't have a dime. We checked him out. If he was working for someone, he would've been flush with cash."

"He had to be lining up customers. He wouldn't do it for nothing."

Florian ignored Smoke, and the conversation ended. Florian took the spade and buried Anderson carefully. Smoke held the light. He wore a pissed-off look. The burial didn't take long. Florian patted down the earth and covered the grave with leaves and branches. During that time, it felt like death was crawling on my skin. Florian repulsed me the most. Smoke was more like an organized-crime killer who would ruthlessly kill people if he had to. Florian simply killed people if they offended his creepy preferences.

Considering the location, the grave could go unnoticed for years. It created a dilemma. If I reported the murder, the police would never believe that I was a witness who just happened to come up from a crime-ridden waterfront neighborhood to witness them rubbing a guy out in a hidden ravine area. They'd most likely think I was in on it, but for some reason had decided to frame the others.

A lightheaded feeling came over me, along with a sudden fear that I'd see a pink light and vision and get caught with my pants down. I crept away and, once clear, ran quickly out of the woods and over the soft grass. I went up the dark ravine side to my car before they reached their car at the bottom. It was difficult because I had to avoid being seen and be very quiet. I hid in the woods as they drove past me, then rushed to my car so I could follow them.

I burst out of thick bushes near my car and the back of the restaurant to find three guys hanging out by my car. One of them sat on the front hood, smoking a joint. I had my car alarm disabled because when I parked in covert spots, I didn't want a sudden alarm to expose my car. The man on the hood was the one with gorilla arms from the restaurant. He wore a gray short-sleeved shirt that accentuated his arms, which weren't tattooed but covered with grotesque curly black hair. He had matching gray pants and a four-day growth of whiskers. Nothing about his dress distinguished him as anything more than a generic thug.

His two buddies were thin, wiry, and lean, wearing loose jogging pants that repulsed me because they weren't clean but were grey with dirt. To me, wearing dirty pants was a sign of the lowest intelligence. They did have expensive Nike shoes, a brand I didn't wear unless it was part of a disguise. One had 666 tattooed above his right knuckles, and the other had a cartoonish tattoo of the satanic goat on his inner arm.

"Honey," the hairy guy said. "Why go down there looking for it from the bears when you can get it right here?"

His wink told me that he thought I was a female hooker. One of his buddies, 666, shuffled toward me and pulled out a switchblade. It was a feature vision of low-budget hell with three slummy human demons, my car, and farther off, the cheap decor of Glados Burgers showing through its picture window. Off to my left was an oily area at the back of the service station.

666 grinned, showing yellowed, rotting teeth. It meant maybe opiates or meth kept him thin. He made a couple of mock slashes with the blade and seemed to be enjoying the silver light the motion cast.

With my practiced female voice, I said. "You keep your knife clean, but the rest of you needs three baths."

The hairy-arms guy spoke loudly from the car. He was still sitting on the hood. "That park is our turf at night. No whores are allowed unless escorted. I'll tell you what, we'll escort you down for a nature walk. You're going to love it."

The picture in my mind from those words was of Florian phoning ahead to make sure no one was down in the ravine, so they could drive in and do their dirty work without issue. The nature walk would probably involve being beaten, raped, and buried next to the last victim.

666 was unhappy that his knife hadn't terrified me. He stepped forward, swinging some more slashes to force me back to the bushes. He wanted to force me to cover at the edge of the ravine where there would be no possible witnesses. I decided it was time to put my weighted tote bag to work. One fast swing knocked the switchblade out of 666's hand. It flew and skated into a pothole. He yelped and held his sore right hand with his left.

I swung down to his neck, where it connected to his shoulder. His mouth flew open, expelling spittle; he dropped to his knees, then fell forward. His lights were out.

The big man got off the car hood. At the same moment, the goat-tattooed guy ran straight at me, throwing a hard right as he closed on me. I hadn't expected it. It was a smart tactic, but I dodged the punch enough to avoid getting anything worse than a fat ear.

His charge knocked me back, and he kept coming, expecting to take me down, which he did, but I rolled with it and came up on top of him. He grabbed for my right ear to rip at the earring, but I forced his hand back.

I got up fast because the big man was closing in. The goat man got up fast too. A hard purse swing to the temple put him back down. He remained down and groaning. He stuttered some nonsense as he crawled on the asphalt and spat blood.

The big guy moved in. He had boxing skills, long arms, and the ability to ward off blows from the purse. His ugly grin told me he probably thought his two pals going down was funny, but nothing like that would happen to him. We exchanged blows; he hit me a crusher to the chest and staggered me. I ducked a couple more fast punches and backed off. I landed a few body punches, but they were ineffective. His rib cage was made of steel. I may as well have been the girl I was dressed as; my punches had about the same effect as girly hits. This guy was an iron man. One with a lot of hair.

He was slowly backing me up toward the back wall and the restaurant window. Each blow was wicked. A hit to the shoulder nearly spun me around. A glance told me people were watching. Not that they'd do anything. They were probably the gorilla's friends. They were likely placing bets on the fight, and the bets weren't on me.

He suddenly charged to take me into the back wall of the restaurant, but I managed to swing him as he bodied into me, and a blow from his left arm cracked the window as we struggled. He'd staggered me, and I was hurting and tired. The run up the ravine side had left me too weakened to last in a fight, especially against an opponent like him.

Then he made a mistake, pausing to glance at the window he'd cracked. It let me slide the purse strap down and swing the bag quickly into his temple. It staggered him, weakened his knees, but he didn't go down.

I turned, sprinted to the car, got in, and started it. He recovered and reached me as I was pulling out, delivering a hard bang to the trunk that shook the car.

Back on the road, I knew I had little chance of finding Florian and Smoke, so I decided to return to Blackjacks Plumbing and Mechanical to look around. I wanted to know if Anderson had an occupation other than plumber. On the way, I pulled over on the roadside and removed the wig and sweaty disguise. I had a summer T-shirt and shorts underneath. My regular tennis shoes were on the passenger-side floor. I stepped out, removed the fake eyelashes, and washed my face off with a bottle of water. Minutes later, I pulled back around to the ruts and the weeds at the side of the small industrial park.

I didn't walk out to the front of the building but put on thin leather gloves and went around to the back. The place had no back lot, only a continuation of the mesh metal fence, more weeds, and trampled earth. Each unit had a back door, and the back area was mostly used for smoking and snacking, judging by the litter. One battered picnic table and a big trash can sat there. I didn't have to force Blackjack's door because it was already open, and I walked into a back room that was lit by an overhead light with a screwed-on, glazed white glass cover. An orange cat was there up on the table, tearing at a sandwich. It hissed at me, ran out, climbed the mesh fence with incredible speed, and headed toward the backyard of a house on the other side.

The remains of a tuna sandwich were there on a paper plate and had attracted the neighbor's cat. I went to the door, flicked the sandwich off the plate and over the fence, and closed the door. Anderson had a lunchroom and washroom in the back. Another table held a deck of cards. A nearly full glass of red wine was on his Formica-coated lunch table. Beside it was a huge brown glass jug full of the wine. It had no label like wine people might buy in bulk. I sniffed the wine, and my nose said it was dry claret. It was hideously cheap, meaning Anderson wasn't exactly flush with cash just before his death, but was living on a wino diet of tuna and hooch.

I opened the battered fridge door and found a tub of margarine, a jar of instant coffee, five cans of tuna, a loaf of white bread, a pitcher of water, and nothing else. His bathroom had been searched. The medicine cabinet had been torn off the wall, but nothing was behind it. Shards of the shattered mirror were on the floor along with numerous pill bottles. The pills were various forms of drugstore painkillers. I wasn't sure if he had a pain problem or if he used them for hangovers the wine he drank created. One thing was certain: I had a personal pain problem and nasty purple welts from my boxing match with the gorilla. My ribs hurt with each breath. I went through the bottles, opened a couple, and grabbed a few anti-inflammatory pills and a few pills of a mild opioid. I went back to the fridge, swallowed them with water from his pitcher, and gagged from the horrid aftertaste. The water was tap water and tasted as if it had come through the dirtiest pipes around.

I went through the door to the main shop and found it wasn't a plumbing or mechanical shop at all, but rather an electronics repair shop. An advanced one too, and it had been tossed by Smoke and Florian. That was hard to tell, though, because the place was such a mess. A long metal table stood against a wall, with six monitors mounted on it. The table had multiple metal drawers, two laptops, and a server beside it. Various circuit boards sat on it, along with fine tools. Cables and wires in several colors snaked from various pieces of equipment. Some were attached to tools used to read circuit boards.

A wall shelf next to it held metal toolboxes, an assortment of meters, and other tools for reading electronics. It had fine screwdrivers, picks, and tools. Another table against the other wall held a boombox and a bank of equipment. I couldn't figure out what that bank of equipment was for, but I knew the place wasn't a business because there was no setup for customers. He'd set the phony sign out front and kept the door permanently locked and the blinds closed.

Florian and Smoke had emptied some of the metal toolboxes onto the floor, creating a mess of tools. Every kind of circuit board or odd-and-end electronic device you could imagine was also spilled on the floor. No wall separated the area behind the roll-up door from the work section. A battered Ford was parked there. Two of the car doors were still open; it had been searched.

Before Florian shot Anderson, Smoke had wanted to know where one of the pearls was, and in this place, where I couldn't take a step without trying to avoid crunching things underfoot, it would take a long time to search for something that small. It meant they would return or send someone else to conduct a thorough search. They would clean the place out completely.

Anderson had somehow managed to get hold of one of the pearls and had obviously been trying to examine the tech inside, but it seemed out of his league. His setup couldn't analyze tech that small and advanced. He'd tried anyway.

I'd likely never find the pearl, so first I focused on anything paper. I read every scrap I found on the floor and on the tables; nothing seemed relevant. Over by the roll-up door, I found a box of papers on a shelf and dumped it. As I righted the box, I noticed it had a false bottom. I lifted it and found three letters from a man in China named Zhang. One threatened to stop payment if there was no progress. Progress on what wasn't mentioned, but considering Anderson's diet, payment had been stopped, and he was trying to get the cash flow turned back on. I figured Anderson was a cheap freelance thief, stealing Western intellectual property and currently being paid off by China to do it. This was obviously not his first job.

I folded up the letter and pocketed it. Then I went over to his main computer setup. The equipment was still on, but the login was super secure. It would take a professional to extract the data. I knew enough from the letter. Some evil forces in China had gotten hip to the pearl mind-control tech and wanted it, but Anderson hadn't been able to crack it and had been working on it.

I stepped back into the lunchroom and sat. I wondered what I should do. A sellout to China appearing in this case wasn't what I expected. Smoke and Florian obviously hadn't figured it out yet. They weren't the brightest, but Smoke proved to be the brighter of the two because he'd wanted to make Anderson talk. They would also be back, probably bringing someone to crack into Anderson's computer while the rest of the place was searched in detail. I wondered what had been in the bag Smoke had carried when they'd kidnapped Anderson. Maybe Anderson had other things of value that they'd grabbed or other secrets he was trying to sell.

Lost in thought, I nearly took a drink of the foul wine, but I put it down quickly when I noticed it. As I did, I saw a huge ant go under the card table and down a crack. I walked over and moved a chair aside. A thin line revealed a small area cut into the floor with a fine tool. I went back into the shop, got one of the fine screwdrivers, and slowly pulled the piece of wood out. Underneath, I found a velvet-coated ring case, and inside was a tiny pink pearl. I put the case in my pocket and made a decision.

I went back into the shop over by the roll-up door and grabbed a can of gasoline. I checked through the blinds to make sure the front was clear, then spread it through the whole shop. When that was done, I lit a piece of a discarded pizza box, tossed it in, and quickly stepped out the back door and closed it. Then I dashed through the weeds to my car. I drove out quickly. No one was around, and the place was exploding in flames as I left.

I hadn't expected the fire's fury. It roared and blew out the front window like a hateful beast. The electronics stuff inside must've boosted it. The burn felt necessary. Anderson could have had some info stored on the pearl technology, so I wanted it destroyed to make sure no one else, including Zhang from China, got it.

Florian and Smoke wouldn't be certain who burned the place, but if the gorilla mentioned his fight with a woman or transvestite, whatever he thought I was, to Smoke, he would suspect it might be me behind it. He wouldn't be certain, given the nature of Anderson's dirty business. It would have them looking around for who Anderson was working for, and if they found some Chinese spies and iced them, I didn't care. It would mean I put them up to some good work. I was certain that the gorilla hadn't taken my license plate, as he would've never expected me to get away from him. He wasn't that smart.

Chapter Six: Carver

I decided to head back to Sam's place and parked around the corner from it in an alley. Cloud cover had moved overhead; it was very dark. A teen gang was out late and gathered between a closed drug store and a closed NorthBoy discount clothing shop. A black SUV pulled over, and one of them went to the window. They would probably target me if they saw me, and I wasn't in the shape to run from a gang. I went around a back way and down another alley to get to Sam's and banged on the back door.

Sam was there. "You again. Each time you show up, you look worse for wear."

"There have been some problems, but I'm clearing them up."

"What do you need this time?"

I put a fistful of cash down on the table. My internet connection may not be secure. I need you to do some checks for me. I need everything you can get on a dead company named NeuraSweep, a board game enthusiast who used to be a big investor named Gavin Q Flint, an intellectual property thief named Anderson, and a detective named Fisher who works out of the warehouse division."

Sam took the money and pocketed it. "I can't do it with you here looking over my shoulder."

"I didn't plan on staying, but how about offering me a fast beer to kill the pain?"

He went to the fridge, pulled two beers, and passed me one. As we opened the beers, Sam sat on the edge of the counter, lost in thought for a few moments. "Detective Fisher, I don't have to research. He's an open book, and it's a dark story. I guess you haven't been around in this city long enough to know. At one time, Detective Gene Fisher was known as the exterminator. His son Danny died in a supposed suicide. On the street, the word is that it wasn't a suicide, even though it was ruled as one. The Detective's mind snapped. He launched a personal crusade to clean up crime, using legendary, brutal tactics. In the joint, cons brag about how they went through the warehouse grinder and lived to talk about it. Others disappeared. When word on the street was that a con had left town, it often meant Detective Fisher had got him, and the bus he'd left on went down that dark, rocky way to meet the man in the red suit."

"Yeah, I did pick up that Detective Fisher is a crusader. He told me so."

"He told you so," Sam said in a shaky tone. "I think you should leave town. If you're playing with Detective Fisher, it won't end well."

"I have this impression that the other sweet boys down at the warehouse are the corrupt team, while Fisher is playing against them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suffering from a delusion that Detective Fisher uses clean tactics. Probably just smarter, more effective tactics."

"One time, Detective Fisher ruthlessly gunned down three guys on Indian Boulevard at night. There were like twenty witnesses. None testified against him. He got suspended. They took his gun and badge, but brought him back because he's a hero at City Hall. The cons he shot had killed an innocent woman and nearly killed the lousy son of a city councilor. The thing is, by the time Fisher was reinstated as senior detective at the warehouse, corruption had dug deep in that division. Most of the uniforms working out of there are on the take. He relies on a few undercover men he trusts, but they're more dangerous than the others if you get targeted by them."

A horn suddenly honked out front. "That guy again," Sam said. "Stay here; I'll deal with him out front."

Sam grabbed a small paper bag, went up through his shop, and out the front door. I swallowed my beer, went to the fridge, grabbed another, and sat down in an old recliner. I could hear Sam talking excitedly to someone out front, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. The mess of painkillers I had taken was boosted by beer and fatigue; pain was easing, and I felt relaxed. I took the case with the pink pearl out of my pocket and slipped the pearl behind the fold of my ear. I had my hand ready to pull it off if anything happened.

Nothing did, so I took a couple more swallows of beer and drifted off to semi-sleep. Suddenly I was in a dream or a vision, but I wasn't sure which, as it was like a dream where you know you are dreaming, but a step more where you're not even sure it's a dream but just something not real.

I floated through the window of the dream house and up to the painting on the wall of the man with one blue eye and one brown eye. I got the feeling again that he was someone evil staring at me. The man had deeply sunken eye sockets and an ashen skin tone. He was a lot like a painting of death in the form of a man. Then I saw a game box behind the painting, and the game was Zombicide: Black Plague. The box showed some zombies against a fiery red-and-yellow background.

The box opened, and I floated into the game, but I didn't end up in the game, which disappointed me. Instead, I was a woman, looking in a dusty full-length mirror. I could see that I was an attractive blonde wearing a maid's cap and a sexy black-and-white maid uniform. I knew everything in her mind, but she wasn't aware that I was in her head. A voice called, and she turned. Her eyes showed me a large basement room, or dungeon. I saw a bench of torture tools and a wall-mounted whip. A man across the room, sitting in a chair, had addressed me. The lights were dimmed to near darkness, and all that showed in that part of the room were a lit cigarette and the outline of the man smoking it in the chair. He took a puff, and as the cigarette end glowed bright orange, his face came into view. It was a long face with a beaked nose, an overly wide mouth, and large, bloodshot eyes that looked sinister in the light. The chair was a large, battered antique piece.

"He's ready to come down, honey," the man said. His voice oily. "I want you to clean and bag him, and then we'll have some fun."

Off to his side, a naked man hung on a rack on the wall. His flesh was pale. He was obviously dead from torture. The maid was repulsed by what she was doing, but said, "Oh, that is so wonderful. Do you want me to wash him thoroughly before putting him in the bag?"

The man took another drag of his cigarette. "You know how much I enjoy seeing them washed."

Ridiculously, the maid then curtsied to him, went over and unclipped some shackles, and stepped back as the body fell and smacked the cement. I felt like I was floating over her head, observing the scene. A washtub was already set up on a stand, and a body bag stood next to it. She took the bag and laid it out, then rolled the washtub over, pulled him onto his back, and began washing his feet with a soapy scrub brush. A glance back, and the man was taking another drag, staring with the creepy look of a peeper enjoying every moment.

Then a door opened, filling the room with bright light, and a man stepped confidently inside. The glare blinded me, but the man's shape and size indicated it was Florian. He lifted his pistol and fired three silenced shots into the man in the chair. His head exploded like a melon, and his corpse fell off the chair to the floor.

Florian looked to the maid. "Bag those two corpses. I'm taking them out to burn in twenty minutes."

Through force of will, I made the maid speak and started what she said, but she finished it. "Why did you shoot Mr. Smithers? He played so many fun games with Mr. Flint."

"What?" Florian said. "The pearl must not be working. You're supposed to obey, not ask stupid questions."

"It was wonderful you shot him. It made me so happy to see his head blow up."

Florian smiled. It was a deathly smile, and he was the sort of man who rarely smiled. "Happiness is what I feel too. When I shoot people, I feel warm inside. I shot Smithers because he was playing a forbidden game. He planned to cheat us out of money, but we found out about it, so I sent him to Wonderland."

In that moment, the dream vanished; I suddenly woke, yanked off the pearl, ran to Sam's bathroom, and threw up.

A few minutes later, my head was spinning. "You can't start believing things you see in those visions," Sam was saying. "They're probably based on past trauma to the head. Start eating properly for a start and stay out of fights."

I shook my head and took another swallow of beer. "I always try to stay out of fights. It's not something a health food diet cures. I feel better now. The creepy vision made me sick. I'll go home, get some sleep, and it should lift."

I checked the street from the back before walking out. It was really the dead of night, and the only thing still out in the area was a mangy stray dog. The local gang had gone elsewhere, and I found my car untouched in its hidden spot. I hid the case with the pearl in the car and drove home, passing heavy police action as I entered my neighborhood. Nearly every cruiser from the warehouse station was there. That would mean a shooting or a major heist. I counted twelve excited cops rushing about in a cordoned-off scene that stretched a full block. It had me wondering if Detective Gene Fisher had decided to gun some guys down again and get suspended for an investigation.

I didn't care enough to stop and look, so I drove on, parked the car without incident, and walked to my building. I went straight up to the front in my shorts and T-shirt, but before I could reach the entrance, two men rushed out of the dark and confronted me. One of them was Carver, and the other was the white cop who'd taken me to the beach from Sugar's Nest. The cop had his gun out.

"Carver. I thought you went for a nighttime boat tour."

His angry eyes burned into me like cigarette ends. "You tricked me into killing one of our men. You're going to pay a high price for that. Sully is dead because of you. I strangled the idiot Kabir when he tried to throw me in the lake. I woke with a screaming headache on the boat and thought he was you. The hood you put over my head blinded me."

"If they're dead, maybe it's because they deserved it. Maybe people who torture and kill people at a shack while eating chocolate bars deserve to get shacked themselves."

"Shut up," the cop said. "Carver, you shut up too. You aren't supposed to be confessing to murder when you're with me, and I'm in uniform." He glared at me. "Unless you want to get shot here, you're going for a ride, and you're going to answer some questions. First, we'll want to know who the hooker was driving your car up in the Off-ramp Junction?"

"So, you're looking for a girlfriend, are you? Tell me; do you kill them out of uniform or in uniform?"

"Your license plate was taken, and your car was sitting in the courtyard of Brickwell Towers."

"Oh, I see. Working with Carver isn't enough. You work with Brice's slum gang too. What are you supposed to be here for, to give me a ticket?"

"Mr. Carver is on the neighborhood watch committee. You are suspected of committing crimes in the Off-ramp Junction."

"You're all mixed up. Carver is on the neighborhood organized crime committee."

"Start walking," the cop said, gesturing toward the parking lot with his gun. I walked around to the lot. Carver cuffed me with zip-tie flex cuffs, which every cop and criminal in this town now seemed to favor. The cop kept his gun on me, then I was thrown in the back. They slowly pulled out, but as they did, a brown Ford raced in and partially blocked them. The undercover cop who'd initially followed me to the subway got out and came up to the window. He was still in his undercover uniform: a short-sleeved, medium-blue shirt and navy casual pants. No hat, neat brown hair.

"Hold on, Sandy," he said to the driver. "You can't make grabs in the warehouse jurisdiction. Detective Fisher doesn't allow it. You have to go through him first, if you want to remove anyone from this neighborhood."

"Fuck you, Brent," Sandy said. "This clown is wanted for questioning. He was planning on fleeing the city too."

"Who is that guy?" Brent flicked a finger at Carver.

"He's a witness and captain of our neighborhood watch committee." Sandy then backed up, pulled around Brent's undercover car, and sped off with his cherry flashing. The first thing on my mind was Sandy's fabricated story that I was planning on fleeing town. It told me they planned to rub me out and then claim I'd escaped and ducked out of town. I didn't plan on being disposed of and knew I'd have to use some brains. The odds didn't seem good. Carver was built like a pickup truck; everything was square. Sandy was a fat, piggy brand of cop, with receding hair. He was mostly chest and belly, with short legs like a walking beer barrel, but one with big fists.

I noticed right away, from the drive, that they were taking me back up toward Brickwell Towers. Neither of the two said a word. Calls were coming in on the radio. They were following the crime scene in the warehouse division. At one point, Detective Fisher's voice came over the radio from the scene. They drove past Brickwell Towers. It was off to the left, against the night, in semi-darkness, like a snapshot of a crime-infested housing project. The destination was the Kipple Train Yards, and as they drove in, a security guard gave them a friendly wave, which was a bad sign. Voodoo bad, as it meant they had security covering beatings or killings at the train yard.

They drove in and down deep into the yard to an area with a huge arch of webbed steel and green glass high above. They parked the car, forced me out, and led me down a long platform under the arch. Four sets of tracks were just off the platform, but a parked train was ahead.

"I heard you lost your oak bat down on the waterfront," I said to Sandy.

"He's got a mouth, real mouth," Carver said. "What I do to big mouths is bash them in."

"Yeah, but I got something special first," Sandy said.

In an abandoned area, a few cars along the train, they halted. A green door led to a storage area, and Sandy opened it with a key. A minute later, he emerged, towing a chain with a pair of padded gloves in his other hand. He laid the chain over a railing and put on the gloves, grinning at me as he did. Carver pushed me to my knees, and Sandy came around to me, puffing out his chest and holding out his hand in mock strangler fashion. He moved the gloves in and out to play with me.

"I bet you've never been hit by shock gloves. They don't leave a mark, but they hurt like hell."

"Glove him," Carver said. "If he mouths off, I'll bash his teeth with my brass knucks. It's going to happen anyway, but he'll talk clearer when his mouth can move."

Sandy hit me with the gloves. A grab to the neck. Pain stabbed at my neck and shoulders like a knife. I shook my head, trying to shake off the paralyzing feeling. He hit me again, and I gasped. For a few moments, I really was paralyzed.

Sandy spoke softly. "You sent some broad up here fishing around. Maybe you sent other people, and were up here yourself. What are you looking for?"

"You forgot to search me. There's a letter in my pocket. I'm looking for a guy named Zhang."

They looked at each other. Carver came over and found the letter in my pocket. He unfolded it, and they both studied it closely.

"So this Zhang guy," Sandy said. "Who is he and why is he up in this area? What does he have to do with you?"

"He killed a friend of mine. I found out he was tracking a guy named Anderson and watching another man named Mr. Gavin Flint, but I never managed to find any of the three."

Carver whistled with amazement. Sandy nodded. "This is worth a lot. If Florian wants this letter and this news, he's going to get Flint to pay out big time."

"You got it. We split fifty-fifty," Carver said.

Sandy then hit me with a super-long shock using the gloves. I fell forward on my knees, but they kicked me until I got back on my feet. Carver went over and got the long chain. It had a harness on it.

"You want to play with this guy?" Sandy said.

Carver looked at his watch. "Shit, we're short on time. We have what we want, so let's get rid of him."

I dropped back on my knees.

Sandy then looked at me and said, "Stand up, or I'll glove you again."

I stood up slowly and managed to remain standing, but barely.

Sandy removed the gloves, went behind me, and removed the restraints. "See the chain Carver has. Here's how it works. We fasten the harness and chain you to a train car. It pulls out. Ten minutes from now, to be exact, you get thrown loose and dragged under the wheels. The harness releases, and it and the chain leave with the early train. You end up another bum who decided to end it under the wheels of a train. Don't worry, you won't feel a thing. I shock you out before it happens."

Carver laughed. "I love that story every time you tell it." He had part of the chain hanging around his neck and was preparing to fasten the harness on me. I pretended to stagger and slipped my foot under a kink in the chain portion on the ground. As Carver stepped up to harness me, I kicked up the length of chain, caught it, and staggered back, yanking it hard. It pulled Carver with me, and I tripped him, sending him face-first onto the platform. Sandy came in with the shock gloves, which he'd put back on, but I stumbled aside.

Carver was slowly getting up.

Sandy threw off the gloves and went for his gun, but he never got it drawn because Brent suddenly appeared from between the train cars, jumped to the platform, and hit him with a sap on the side of the head. He went down and out. Carver was now up and staggering with the chain still around his neck, but I got to him with my hardest punch. He followed Sandy to the hard concrete.

The train engine started up farther down; it was getting ready to pull out. Carver was getting to his feet again, but Brent stepped up, muscled him over to the wall, and zip-tied his hands behind his back. Brent then pulled a black hood from his pocket, put it over Carver's head, and tied it.

He talked over the sound of the train as he pointed to Sandy. "Leave him. He's out, and he'll never know what happened. Help me drag this guy to the car."

A few minutes later, we were at Brent's unmarked car. He opened the trunk, hit Carver with his sap again, then we threw him in with the shock gloves. The train was chugging out as we left the train yard.

"We have to make a stop before heading into town?" Brent said.

It turned out that the stop was Brickwell Towers. Brent pulled into the courtyard fast. We got out, opened the trunk, and carried Carver over to the dry, litter-filled fountain, dumped him, and drove off. Looking back, I saw three black guys running to the fountain. Brent used a shortcut back into the neighborhood. He raced along a narrow road by the river with a nest of freeways over the embankment to the right. The road went under an old suspension bridge with a homeless camp and ended at an obscure exit back into town. A call crackled on the radio. Brent was on call, so he sped up as he entered the neighborhood. Near my place, he told me to get out and sped off. The walk back was five blocks. I walked in as the sky was lightening with morning glare. So many things had happened in one night; I hoped I'd never see another night like it. It was like a speeding car had absorbed me, and either I was at the wheel, or someone else was escorting me on a flash tour of every ugly part of the city. Inside, I took off my clothes and did what I could to clean up bruises and abrasions. My ribs hurt, but I felt them carefully, and none were broken. I'd been in a similar shape before. In two or three days, the worst would clear.

Chapter Seven: The Tenants

I slept like a bruised beast and didn't wake until well past noon. Aside from the ugly aches and pains, I felt a lot better. I had Detective Fisher's private number, so I called him and drummed my fingers while I waited for him to answer.

"I'm working on a lead, but I need breathing room. A cop pal of Brent's named Sandy is giving me problems. Sandy is doing jobs for that Brice gangster farther up north. I need him pulled off my back. Sandy has a friend named Carver who's on the neighborhood watch committee up in that area who is an irritant as well."

"I have little control up there. My guys have to work around them. We know about Carver. He's in the hospital, according to my morning report. A hospital up there. So he's out of commission for the moment. Sandy is an enforcer for that area, and that division and the warehouse don't often cooperate. He's doing jobs for whoever pays him. I can't do anything about him at present. I can keep him out of this neighborhood, which I will do."

I stepped out onto the balcony; it was a sunny day. I knew the tenants were having a picnic at the tables in the side patio. I decided to go down, but when I opened the door, my beer delivery was there, so I took in two cases and grabbed a 12-pack to bring down as my contribution to the picnic.

I stepped out into beautiful weather. The heat had lifted for a day, and a southern breeze was rolling in. About thirty tenants were there. It was a tenant association free meal, and an old man with a raspy voice was reading out a list of demands they had drawn up for the building owner and manager, Kenny. Kenny was not present. The bent-backed old chap looked a few months short of being admitted to a nursing home. The other tenants were mixed-age and mixed-race. I was mainly studying the hot Ukrainian gal who'd moved into the unit above me. Her baby blue shorts looked painted on. Then my eyes landed on a few more hot women in sun-shade hats, loose summer dresses and beach shoes. I spooned some potato salad onto a paper plate, but my stomach was sour, so I didn't eat much. I was taking opiates for three days to soften the rib pain, and they didn't go well with my stomach, which preferred only coffee, beer, or small amounts of liquor.

The rather boring meeting dragged on. A few kids were playing and shouting, and I couldn't hear what the old man was saying. I was feeling lazy, so I moved to a table closer to the street.

A black guy sat in the open lawn chair near me. I knew him. Jerrell was an outpatient from the nearby psychiatric institution. He spent most of his time there. The city paid his rent. He was big, with red-rimmed eyes, likely from meds. He always managed to be three days short of a shave and wore big work boots, partially tied, with the tongues loose. He had a gap between his two front teeth, and the right one crooked right and the left one crooked left. He gestured at me with one hand and at people who weren't there with the other, as though others were sitting in lawn chairs that didn't exist.

"I haven't seen you lately," I said.

He again gestured with a big hand at me and some invisible people to his right. "I was with the Italians," he sputtered. "A whole town of big fat Italians. I had to make those people learn. It took a whole mess of pills. I put pills in the wine. I put pills in the water. I put pills in the olive oil. I put pills in the pasta. How would you like your spaghetti, with a blue pill or a red pill?" He put his open hands in front of him and pulled them apart. "Boom! I blew their minds. Boom! That whole town of fat Italians started singing songs. That whole town was singing happy songs."

I was about to get up, but Jerrell rose first and headed for the food. Kenny pulled up in his sea-green beater, got out, and looked over at the tenant association banner. His birthmark seemed to be spreading purple to the rest of his face. He walked over and past me, shouting. "You can't put a banner on my property! It's against the building rules!"

The people jeered and booed. Two kids ran in a circle around him, and a little girl kicked him and ran off. A young guy with wild red hair and horse teeth yelled, "Get out of here, you robber!" A few other tenants stood up, and it looked like they were going to go after him.

Kenny backed off, appearing utterly surprised when he shouldn't have been. Perhaps he had hoped for applause. As a cover, he pointed at me. "I need to talk to this man. He's bringing police and dangerous criminals to the building. For your protection, I have to settle this. Other tenant matters have been ruled secondary."

Some of the people kept shouting and cursing. The little girl who'd kicked him made a face at him. The old man was hobbling toward Kenny to hand him his list of demands. Kenny backed off farther, raised his hand, pushed air at him with his palm, and said, "I'll look at your list later when it is properly presented. I have to deal with security problems first."

He waved to me to follow as he walked back toward his car. I was going to ignore him, but decided it would be better to find out what he was up to, so I went over.

Kenny spoke in a hushed voice. "Listen, you owe me one for all the trouble you caused. I'm giving you a chance to make it square. You're not like those other people. You're more like me."

"I hope that isn't true."

"What I mean is, you live in the most expensive apartment."

"If that's so, I'd hate to see what some of the other apartments look like."

He continued in a low voice. "That new tenant association is going to bankrupt me. I need a man inside and close to their head honcho."

"I don't see any head honcho. I see an old man and some ladies on the committee. The people want repairs and service."

"The head honcho is Mr. Raddick. He's the brains behind this."

"Which guy is Mr. Raddick?"

"The old man with the list. Can't you see?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Let me see if I understand this. You want me to get in close to an 80-year-old man so I can betray the tenants. I have no plans to pop over to watch ancient movies or serve up his dementia pills. You have to face up to reality. You can't escape your responsibilities."

Mr. Raddick was again hobbling across the grass with his list. Kenny saw him, snorted at me, jumped in his car, and drove off.

I went back, opened a beer, and some of the ladies joined me at my table to pump me for information. They wanted to know every word Kenny said, so I fabricated a tale. I was enjoying it tremendously. Then my old enemy Ricky came down the street. He was on foot, and he stopped to look at the banner. I knew, without a doubt, that he saw it as an opportunity. He would pitch Kenny on returning to the building to act as an enforcer and break up the tenant association.

The others hadn't noticed him standing over on the sidewalk. Ricky was with a new pal, a neighborhood thug named Jerry. His street name was Runt. Runt was short and thickset. He was a thief. A shoplifter. He often prowled the club area at night, knocking down drunks and rolling them. I had chased him off one night when he was doing a roll, so he really didn't like me.

Ricky scanned the crowd, then his eyes landed on me, and he walked over with Runt. He wore a mauve-pink short-sleeved shirt, matching knee shorts, a straw fedora, and loafers. Runt was wearing a similar outfit in a tan shade, with chunky elevator sneakers to look about three inches taller. Ricky also wore a partial shiner and bruise on the side of his face. I could see scrapes on his shins reaching under the bottom of his shorts up to his knees. They stood a few yards from my table, and the other tenants noticed them. Everyone hushed up.  All eyes switched between him and me as they waited to see what would happen.

"You won't escape me for long, Joe. I'm only being civil because you're on Kenny's property." Ricky then addressed the crowd. "Joe took a beating from me the other night on the subway."

Some people laughed, mainly because Ricky looked like he'd fallen into the subway.

"We live here. You don't. I heard you were fired, so get lost," I said.

"I can go wherever I want. I may stop for a hot dog and some salad."

Runt growled at me and stared with beady eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kenny's gardening shovel propped against the building wall. A baseball bat would be my favored Runt extermination device, but the shovel would do in a pinch.

The little girl who'd kicked Kenny ran up and kicked Ricky, and he shooed her off.

"It's tenants only. See these lovely ladies I'm with. You're offending them and their children. They don't like picnic crashers. Your classy new friend is another issue. He'll have to rock'n'roll somewhere else, because he isn't going to roll anyone here."

I stood up, and a fight was about to begin. A couple of the other younger men stepped over to back me, and then Detective Fisher pulled up at the front. Runt spread out a ways from Ricky, preparing one of his runt assaults for the balls. Detective Fisher slammed the car door, and Ricky looked over and saw him.

Instantly, Ricky and Runt headed diagonally across the grass for the sidewalk and speed-walked down toward the waterfront. Some people cheered, a few women clapped, and then Detective Fisher came over with Brent. He came straight to me.

"What was that about?"

"We had a couple of picnic crashers."

"Listen, I need to talk to you. I'm going to lunch. I want you to come along." He looked to Brent. "You stay here. If they come back, arrest them."

"With pleasure," Brent said.

As we walked to the car, I said. "Wait. I have to go up to my apartment and get my wallet and ID."

As I stepped into the apartment, my face lit with rage. I went into the bedroom and began pounding on the punching bag I had set up, unleashing my fury over Ricky. Shooting pains hit my ribs, and I stopped and cursed. Then I went down and got in Fisher's car.

He drove a few blocks away to a place called Bobby's Corner, nearly hidden on a side street. I'd never noticed it even on my night walks. I must've missed the street. I followed him into the place, which was a restaurant, grill, and bar, and bigger than it looked from the outside. He took me back into the food section to a big square table with padded stools mounted on silver support poles.

We were the only two people at the table. The other people at nearby tables were mostly alternative types with piercings, tattoos, and pink-and-blue hair. A few were artist types. An effeminate male waiter came over immediately, and Fisher ordered two Ribeye Plates.

"You look like you need a real meal," Fisher said. "This place has excellent food, and the good thing is cops won't eat here. I can do private business here in the daytime."

"Judging by the crowd, I can see why cops won't eat here. It's not exactly their social order."

"It's more than what you see now. On Friday and Saturday nights, this bar is a hangout for straight-looking gays. It's the only gay bar in this neighborhood. We don't have gay liaison officers at the warehouse. You might have noticed that the warehouse is a more old-fashioned division. Of course, there are gays at the clubs. Generally, gay bars won't locate in this neighborhood."

"There are a lot more than gay bars that won't locate in this neighborhood. It only has the clubs because they make industrial noise here that they can't make elsewhere."

"Things are picking up. We have plenty of grocery stores, small businesses, medical clinics, even the hospital. More businesses are looking to locate here as crime is cleaned up."

"Yeah, but the grocery and other stores are discount stores. The medical clinics are for drug addicts, and the hospital looks like it was built in the 1850s. The most modern building is a mental institution. Then there's that hotel up around the corner from me. I went to book a room once and found it converted into a place for drug addicts. It still has the hotel sign up. Maybe it should be changed to Dope Motel. I noticed that your division has cleaned most hookers off the street, but the thugs and crazies are still out there."

"What you need is optimism. Every day can be brighter. It just takes more work..."

Detective Fisher droned on, and in my mind, the work that needed to be done seemed monumental. Finally, he stopped as the steak dinners arrived. The steak plates were good. I devoured mine and then had a beer. My stomach felt much better.

"There were some happenings uptown. There was a flash fire and a violent fight at Glados Burgers & Beef. A body was uncovered in a ravine up there. You weren't involved in any of those incidents, I hope."

"I wasn't aware you cared about fights up there or fires. If they have a body, they should have some idea who did it."

"An anonymous tip got sent to the warehouse, not the station up there. So we have an idea who did it, but we don't have a witness."

"Sometimes witnesses just don't want to testify."

"There was a trans or transvestite person in a violent fight at that burger joint near ravine. We didn't get the plate or the type of car. A woman in the restaurant called it in long after. That interests me because a trans woman or transvestite was seen around the time a couple girls went missing. This new trans person is a completely different description. My radar says maybe the two are connected. Not many women get in violent scraps with big men and get away."

"That's interesting. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe one of those trans people is the late Marvin's sister." I didn't believe that, but I wanted to distract Fisher from thinking that I had gone out disguised as a woman. It hadn't occurred to him yet, and I didn't want it to. Florian having some transvestite working with him was highly possible, so I'd watch out for that.

Detective Fisher studied me closely, as if he knew I was the tipster and witness to the murder. "I've been taking a long look at that area. My business is about something more. It's about my son."

"What about your son?"

"My son Danny died. He was on an investigation into the disappearance of two people and the supposed suicide of another. He traveled to Vancouver. One thing I uncovered was that the three people he was investigating were connected to a company named NeuraSweep. The investigation never focused on NeuraSweep because the three had moved on to other companies. One of those companies ended up under federal money-laundering charges. One suspect was dirty: a corporate spy. I believe this entire investigation into companies and people other than NeuraSweep went down the wrong road and led to its closure. I now feel, after two years, that it points back to NeuraSweep."

"Why?"

"Because everyone connected with that now-defunct company is dead or gone. Most of the deaths were never tied together but viewed as random deaths … suicides, accidents, disappearances, muggings that led to death. This happened over three years in various locations."

"What happened to your son?"

Fisher's eyes nearly teared up. He looked away to the bar, waved the waiter over, and asked for the bill. A moment later, he said, "They claim it was suicide, and I can't prove otherwise."

"Tell me what the evidence is so I can give you an independent look at it. Even if that independent look hurts. I know that no man wants to live with the suicide of his son."

Fisher looked at me like I had a lot of nerve. For a moment, I thought he was going to slug me. Then he relented. "The details are fuzzy and extremely lacking. Danny went to a house in West Vancouver. Shots were fired. A woman named Barbara was shot in the heart. Danny was found with the gun in his hand. An illegal Colt pistol. The ruling was that it was a lover's quarrel or murder suicide. He'd been seen with her in bars by numerous witnesses. The case was closed lightning fast by officers with sketchy records. They ruled that Danny shot her, then himself. My belief is Danny was with her in bars and maybe even having a relationship with her, but that both were murdered. Danny was a very happy person and not emotional. He wouldn't shoot himself or her, and he did not favor Colt pistols. Later I found out that Barbara was once a secretary for NeuraSweep."

I sipped my drink and thought it over. Detective Fisher had nervous hands. He was waiting for an answer. "I've been in Vancouver before. The police there do extremely detailed investigations into killings. The city has a large organized-crime element, and it takes time to rule out organized crime involvement. The fast closure could indicate bribes or political pressure. Politicians like to hide organized crime if they can because publicity is bad for the city's image."

"That I know from personal experience."

"My answer is that the case needs further investigation because the murder-suicide story is unlikely. The first reason is that your son was a cop. The second reason is that it looks too neat. He shot her in the heart and then shot himself. A killing made to look like a murder suicide would be set up to look exactly that neat. I see you are investigating on the side as much as you can. Barbara also puts a big hole in the official police narrative. She had been a secretary for NeuraSweep, and that is suspicious. Tell me, if everyone is dead from NeuraSweep, who is the suspect?"

"There is one person who isn't dead, Gavin Q. Flint? The middle name is Quentin."

"Do you believe he's in this city?"

"I do, but I have to be careful. Conducting a personal investigation could put me off the force, and I'd lose the power I have."

"So what do you need from me?"

"That mysterious killing in the Cedarwood Park ravine fits the pattern of the disappearances. It's a body that wouldn't have been found if not for a hidden witness, who may have seen more than he's revealing."

"All I can say is that I'm looking into a few things. There is a good chance that something might come up. If something does, I'll notify you."

"I want immediate notification if, as you say, something comes up."

Chapter Eight: The Incinerator

Detective Fisher dropped me off at home, and I went upstairs, watched silly TV shows, and rested. As evening arrived, I got a text from Sam, whom I'd told not to text me. He said he had something I wanted, that someone was watching his place, and that he was worried. I went out and walked over to pick up my car. Darkness was falling as I arrived on Sam's block. The street was bustling with people under shopfront lights. I cruised slowly by. Sam's area was mostly vintage stores, set in a streetscape of old, semi-dilapidated buildings. The shops' individuality and exterior design gave his block its color. Most of the storefronts were in pastel shades of green, yellow, and blue. His store had a red canvas awning and dark red paint; some costumes and novelties were displayed behind the barred front window. He had a heavy wooden entry door. A pastel pink coffee shop was to the left of his shop, a busy discount clothing store to the right. Across the street, one person appeared to be watching Sam's place. He was an Asian guy with a ponytail from the teen gang I'd seen the other night. He was loitering in front of a book-and-collectibles shop.

I parked down the street and walked up slowly, seeing the teen drifting off down the street with his hands in his pockets. Maybe he hadn't been watching the place.

I didn't enter from the front; I went around to the back alley. I didn't see anyone, but I looked around. An old, green-painted board fence stood on the left just before Sam's, and I heard people talking on the other side. I stepped around some oily puddles and peeked, seeing an intense man arguing with a scrawny woman. The rest of the alley was lined with garbage bins, locked shop back doors, and dirty brick-and-stone walls, some covered in graffiti. I was beginning to think Sam was paranoid, then I noticed a sliver of light ahead at his back door. The door was partly open, and I knew Sam didn't leave his door open.

I moved up cautiously and peered in the open door. I couldn't see Sam, but I saw a big man. He was opening cabinet doors and tossing things out in a fast search. I got a full view of him as he turned. He wore gloves, a black hooded sweater with a blue-and-white hockey mask over a ski mask, cheap string-tied black jogging pants, and cheap Walmart-style black athletic shoes. He saw me at the door, so I burst in and went for him.

Lightning fast, he grabbed a pry bar and swung it, but I was already on him. The pry bar flew from his hand. I heard glass shatter as we struggled. He was strong and grunted while we fought. We knocked over a table as I threw him to the floor and punched him. He reeked of sweat and looked stunned, and that's where I made a mistake.

I moved to pull off the hockey mask, and he hit me on the side of the head with an ashtray that had fallen to the floor. He threw me off, but I got up, and we exchanged punches. He knocked me back, and I was nerve-shocked by his rib punch. Seeing an opportunity, he ran out the back door and down the back alleyway. I pursued him and was the faster runner. I was catching up fast. He turned right, racing across the front of an auto garage, and I would have had him had I not slipped on an oily puddle. I went down hard and nearly out.

Two people from the garage approached me as I slowly got up. One was a burly black mechanic, and the other was a skinny white kid who managed the customers.

"Was it a mugging?" the mechanic said.

"A break-in and maybe more. I have to go back and check the costume shop to see what he did. Stay here."

The kid was scared, but the mechanic was not. He followed me down the alley and inside the shop, and moments later, we found Sam in the front, brutally beaten to death. The mechanic turned away and shook his head. "If I get my hands on that mother in the hockey mask, he's dead," he said.

"That makes two of us. Phone the cops. I want to check that side room."

As I looked around, I noticed most of the place had been tossed. The mechanic was out back using his cellphone. As I walked back, I saw a scrap of paper on the floor and picked it up. It had a name and an address in Sam's handwriting. The name was Gavin Q. Flint. I memorized the address and ate the scrap of paper.

A minute later, I waited with the mechanic out front, and three police cruisers arrived. The uniforms drew guns on us both and cuffed us. They threw us into the back seat of a cruiser. Twenty minutes later, Detective Gene Fisher arrived with Brent, and they took us out and removed the cuffs.

The skinny kid from the garage had shown up, and Fisher took him and the mechanic aside first for basic questioning; then he returned to me.

"Alright, Joe. Who was the hockey man?"

"I can't confirm the identity because I saw as much of him as they did. But I know it was Carver."

"Did he say anything? Did you identify his voice?"

"He grunted, and that was all I heard. I know his body type. He wore a complete throwaway burglar's disguise and had a pry bar, which he used to force the door and kill Sam. My evidence is essentially useless in court. You need a lot more."

Brent stayed with me as Detective Fisher walked off and made a phone call. He returned twenty minutes later. "Beau Carver has an airtight alibi with three witnesses who say he was at a pub at the time of the killing. I will seriously check that alibi out."

"How far is that pub from here?"

"The Miller Pub is about a ten-minute walk from here."

"I'm pretty sure Carver doesn't live near here. What does he do anyway?"

"He owns a funeral home, and yes, he doesn't live near here. I doubt he arrived here wearing a hockey mask and burglar's outfit. He had to put it on somewhere near here. I'll have to check every store and possible witness who may have seen him arrive."

Brent gave me a knowing glance that told me they both knew Carver did it, but at this point couldn't do anything about it.

A forensic team, dressed in white scrubs, blue masks, and gloves, was entering the shop. Fisher glanced at them, then back at me. "You have a lot of explaining to do about what your business was with Sam." He then turned and walked over to Sam's shop.

A long, detailed investigation kept me locked in my building for three days. Even though I'd spent a night under the cooker at the warehouse station, various cops and detectives kept arriving at my door to ask a few more questions. They arrived at random times during the day and evening, even near midnight. I started wondering if it was a strange strategy to break me or trip me up. I called Detective Fisher.

"If you don't have something new, don't call me," he said.

"How long do you want me locked in my apartment? What's with the endless other investigators showing up from various departments? Often not from the warehouse station?"

"It's about the Murder Book. Every detail from you, witnesses, other people questioned, and the forensic team has to be documented. The book includes various forms. Their additions should be done today. Then I can continue my investigation. It's also about Sam. Turns out he had connections to some big people, including at City Hall. They want a quiet investigation that doesn't involve you traveling around, breaking things, or keeping it in the news. Obviously, they have things to hide, which I will uncover for personal satisfaction and bury. If you aren't home, you will be immediately suspected of fleeing, but I doubt you could leave without being followed. Soon, the ongoing investigation will be fully handed over to me. At that time, you can go out and do your shopping."

Time worked to my advantage. I healed fast with a lot of rest, but nightmares haunted me. I kept seeing the painting of the man with one blue and one brown eye, with different things appearing in the painting. Deathly things in the details. Sometimes it was guns with silencers, and other times knives with blood on the blade, or simply ghostly faces floating out to haunt me. I kept waking up.

I started to dream about Carver. In the first dream, he was back in the 1920s driving a black electric hearse. It was all black with a big square front windshield and square side windows. It had round, gold-rimmed headlights and rolled on big black wheels. The car's roof was slightly arched, and the rear was a touch rounded. Carver wore a black suit and tie. His powdered face showed behind the windshield as he traveled through town to a funeral home. He had had his servants unload a coffin, carry it inside, and place it on a dais covered in black. The servants left, and alone with the coffin, he opened the lid and grinned. The person inside the coffin was me. I awoke, startled.

I had similar nightmares the next night of Carver embalming corpses. In those dreams, he smiled proudly with a big tube stuck into the groin of a naked corpse, pumping in embalming fluid, and when I saw the face of the corpse, it was me again, and I woke, shocked again. I went back to sleep and fell into the same bad dream, and now Carver was in a room with his cremation oven, a big square machine of stainless steel with two rows of colored push buttons and a long bed that could slide into the open oven door. Carver had a body in an open wooden box resting on wood chips. He walked over and hit the green button to pull it into the burner, and I saw the pale white face in the coffin, and it was me. This time, I woke up cursing and walked around the apartment, stamping my feet. I heard a shout from below telling me to cut the racket.

On the final night, I didn't want to sleep, so I played a complex computer game. In the game, I was a sniper, using strategy to take out the bad guys. Despite that, I still fell asleep at four am and dreamed of Carver's funeral home. It was night, and a dark night. The funeral home had a flower garden with red and purple blooms on its left side. A man's head and shoulders appeared. He jumped the fence into the scraggly evergreen scrub at the end of the garden and moved through the outdoor tables. He was dressed as Carver had dressed when he killed Sam, in a black throwaway burglar's outfit with a ski mask but no hockey mask.

It wasn't Carver. He was big but didn't have Carver's build or walk. He went to a nearby electrical box on the wall behind a bush and cut the door alarm; then he moved lightning-fast to the door and popped it with a pry bar. The dream shifted, and I was watching through a window as he moved through a dim room full of funeral urns and vases of flowers. He opened a swing door and crept over to a staircase, moving slowly up to the funeral reception area above. A chandelier lit the area on low, but it felt brighter because the couches, walls, ceiling, and reception counter were white with brown wood trim. Carver sat in the lounge with vases of fresh flowers on tables around him, drinking a bottle of wine and watching a disgusting movie with corpses on a wall-mounted screen.

The dream changed, and I became like a spirit, floating above the scene. The intruder caught Carver by surprise, and he could have simply killed him with the pry bar from behind, but didn't. Instead, he said something I couldn't hear, and Carver looked behind and got up quickly. Carver was drunk, staggering, and the fight that ensued was brief. The intruder didn't use the pry bar but had set it on a couch. He got the better of Carver in a boxing match, and then Carver went down, and the dream switched to the crematorium room. I saw the hot oven and Carver in a low metal box filled with wood chips and strapped to the bed. The box began to move into the oven, and I could see Carver struggling desperately as he went in.

It was hot in the room. I could feel the heat; the intruder was hot, too, and he removed his ski mask. It was Detective Gene Fisher.

The next day I rose and puttered around in the apartment. The police showed up at the door with a warrant. They seized my laptop, cellphone, and router. They wanted to search for any communications I'd had with Sam. The only electronic communication was a message he'd sent to me, saying he had something I wanted and he was being watched. If they uncovered it, it would mean hours more questioning about what Sam had that I wanted.

I walked down to the front with the cops to check the situation around the building. They drove off, and I strolled around the block. The watch had ended for the present unless they were watching from an apartment across the road.

I picked up a pebble and stopped at the mailboxes to check my mail. A letter from Sam was in the box. I quickly stuffed it into my pocket and went back up to my apartment.

The letter was Sam's scribbling on a sheet of lined paper.

It was simple and said. "Thought a note was best. No one checks paper mail. The company N and the investor GQF were involved in creating medical devices. By sheer luck, I found info on one odd device. Everything about it has been buried. N company was developing this piece with GQF's funding. It was a tiny bioelectronic ear device. Simply put, it used nerves or stimulation to communicate along the neural axis. It worked to build certain neural pathways and cause something called neuroplasticity. It would rewire the brain and, over time, put fatty sheaths around certain pathways, making them faster and more efficient. The uses would be many, like for disabilities. A hidden use mentioned in the document I found was mind control. An obedience device capable of controlling people through voice commands. The tech they had would never pass regulatory scrutiny. The potential for brain damage was ultra-high. In fact, they may have fried some brains developing it. It became worthless as a medical device. It would be invaluable to criminals, but N and GQF destroyed the tech completely. Nothing remains of it. N later went under."

I burned the letter and envelope on a plate, then poured the ashes into the toilet and flushed it. I decided to work on my disguise. I had most of the elements. I practiced changing my posture and walk. I used medical tape to get the smooth pebble into the right spot on the sole of my right foot, then put on shoes and practiced again. The pebble forced a natural limp. I pulled a walking stick from my closet. It was a quality stick with a bronze-plated handle and an oak shaft, and it could double as a weapon. I practiced walking again with the patio doors open, walking from the bedroom along the balcony, back in the living room in circles.

I added a hat and a scarf. I used some hair products to boost my hair's thickness and styled it in a foppish look. I put some wax padding inside my cheeks and put on a pair of tinted glasses. I practiced an altered voice but figured I might not need it, since the man I wanted to trick hadn't heard my voice. Mannerisms would help, so I practiced gestures that lacked my usual manly flavor.

I had it almost perfect, but I needed special makeup only Sam had, and the police had taped off his place. I'd have to get it somewhere else. This deal looked dangerous to operate without a weapon. So I had to consider that too. Now that I had the address, I decided to make a night trip up and get it under surveillance. Only then could I be sure of what I would need.

Chapter Nine: House Surveillance

I left shortly before dark, strolled to the condo garage, and checked my car for any tracking devices that might've been planted on it. Once satisfied, I drove out and did a quick runaround of a few streets to make sure I wasn't being tailed. It looked clear, so I went on the long drive out. Even with the address, the house was hard to find. I went through a suburban street maze where the houses looked so alike it felt like I was driving past endless variations of the same house. I'd gone the wrong way, but I found the area, a wealthier neighborhood. The house was isolated at the end of a maze of streets, on a long, curving dead end … and at the end of the curve. It was a place I likely never would've found on my own. It was the dream house because I recognized the garden.

The house rested behind a large front yard. I crawled by with my lights off to the dead end a ways beyond the house. A series of posts and a sign marked the street's end. I turned left, hid the car behind some bushes, and got out. The plan was to scout for a way to put the house under observation. An embankment dropped to a ravine, which was why the street ended. Through the trees, I could see a distant pathway down there with some faint pole lights and a jogger running by. I wondered if it was part of that same ravine system where I'd witnessed the murder of Anderson. I could find the entrance. Park down there and walk up the ravine next time.

First, I waited to see if anyone from the house had seen me go by. Five minutes passed, and no one showed, so I moved along the dark roadside. A strong breeze rustled the trees and rifled through the leaves. The noise would cover my movement. Mosquitoes were thick in the trees, but I had to wade through the foliage to get into position to view the house without being seen.

Finally, I came to an open area under a large oak tree. The ground was slightly elevated, and I climbed to a low, heavy branch, from which I could see the house from the side. I scanned the perimeter and spotted a rise behind the back garden, beyond the fence, that would be perfect for watching the back of the house.

Next, I used my binoculars to study the grounds and the house. Two pathways of large, irregular stones gently curved to the front of the house and around to the back garden. It had a wildflower-and-weed garden at the front. The paved driveway also led to the back area. The remote house was nearly big enough to be titled a mansion. Its walls were smooth beige stone, yellowish in the night light. A large circular area of columns stood over the front entrance, topped with a red-tiled roof. The main house's upper roofs were also red-tiled. The back garden had a sculpted fountain, encircled by large stone tiles, with a walkway leading to it. One of those fountains had two smaller bubbling basins above the large bottom basin. The garden had flower gardens and numerous large planters growing with various flowers and grass arrangements. The back garden and patio were large and dense with sculpted bushes. Wilder bushes and tall ash trees grew over the fence at the end of the property.

I didn't spot any cameras other than one at the driveway entrance and one at the front entrance. I could see the house better from the back, so I climbed down and moved slowly to the area I'd spotted. I walked through bushes over ground covered with fallen red berries. I stayed low so my silhouette wouldn't be seen from the house. Reaching the rise behind the back garden fence, I positioned myself for a detailed look with binoculars.

I checked the house next door. Its lights were off. They were likely on vacation. It wasn't close, and its yard was mostly open lawn. I couldn't set up a watch there. I shifted focus back to the dream house. The large window from my dreams was there at the back, off the patio. Seeing it made me feel like I might be dreaming. On the far left of the garden, I spotted the little stone garden building from my dream and wondered if it was a tool shed for plants or something more. Maybe it led underground like in the dream. Electric pole lights on deep bronze stands lit the garden, each with a single frosted white globe on top. They were set to provide minimal light.

Through the open drapes of the dream window, I could see the gaming area I'd seen in my dreams. A chandelier dripping with crystal was over the center of a lounge or living room. It hung from an embossed white ceiling with gold trim. Two other smaller gold-and-crystal chandeliers were in the room.

The central gaming table was large, opulent, and made of red wood with bronze trim. It had large drawers on all four sides for storing game pieces and game sets. It sat on a large central throw rug that covered that part of the polished wood floor. The gaming chairs were padded wooden chairs with rounded backs, designed for comfort.

On two sides of the gaming table, expensive couches and lounge chairs in classic white with bronze trim let spectators watch the games.

One of the gamer geeks, a guy with glossy black hair who had been with Jen at the nightclub, was setting up a game as the other players and spectators entered the room. He was setting up Warhammer Quest. From this angle, I could see more than in the dream, and I saw Gavin Flint briefly pass the doorway. I was sure he'd be going in soon to play. I could also see the piano, and Jen standing beside it. She looked beautiful, wearing a light summer dress and white sandals. I felt happy to see her. It was better than finding her dead or not at all.

I didn't get to watch more because events changed. Light appeared at the garden building, and the door opened. Three men emerged. The one in front had been pushed through. The other two were coming up the last steps from below. I now knew it led to something underground. Without doubt, they ran criminal operations in that underground area.

Florian shoved a short man ahead of him. His hands were zip-tied behind his back. A feeling I knew well. The man was dark, slick-haired, and Chinese, dressed in a business suit. It startled me because it had to be Zhang, the spy. I'd underestimated Smoke and Florian. They'd found out about him and found him. Maybe he'd tried to put this house under watch like I was doing. I'd have to worry about that.

Zhang had been beaten; his face swollen, bruised, pained, and worried. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Since they hadn't killed him already, they were either taking him in to see Gavin Flint or somewhere else. At that moment, a car pulled around and parked near the back garden. The car's lights shut off, and a man got out. At first, he was a dark shadow against the lot, and then he stepped toward the garden and under a light.

It was Brice, and he walked into the garden, talked briefly to Florian and Smoke, kicked Zhang in the rear, laughed, then handed Smoke the keys. Zhang was forced around to the car, hit on the head, and dumped into the trunk. They pulled out. Since they were taking him elsewhere, I assumed Zhang had talked, and they were going to search some location, or maybe he had a partner they planned to grab.

As they drove off, I focused on Brice. He'd pulled a gun from his sweater, and it wasn't a pop gun like those gang kids used at Brickwell Towers. It was a Glock. Brice began to patrol the garden slowly, and I had to duck as he looked over the fence. Satisfied, he patrolled to the side and around to the front of the house. I thought he might have captured Zhang on another patrol. I did not want to know what Florian and Smoke were going to do to Zhang, and I didn't really care what they did to him. I decided to remain and try to work around Brice.

I observed him do two full patrols of the entire house and grounds. He never altered his patrol or doubled back. It was always the same path. Technically, he was a poor-quality security guard, but he certainly knew how to use his gun. A game was underway at the table, and I could see Gavin Flint straight on as he sat facing the window. The three other players were people I hadn't seen before, all in their 20s. Two were women. The spectators were in their 20s; only Gavin Flint was older. Despite that, he played like a kid. He smiled, laughed, was quite animated, and very enthusiastic about this game, which would probably go on for hours.

An attractive brunette in a sexy maid's outfit served glasses of wine, and everyone took one, including the spectators. From time to time, they all paused and toasted to things Gavin Flint said. I couldn't hear what he said but could guess some words by reading his lips. He was always smiling. I could see Jen tinkling the piano keys, a glass of wine beside her, but I couldn't hear anything from the house because the wind rushed through the trees. Jen wore glittering jewelry, like when I first met her, but it was new.

Periodically, I ducked as Brice always looked over the same part of the back fence on his patrols.

A close look revealed that each person had an ear pearl. The women's were pink, the men's blue. Gavin Flint wore no pearl. Studying the people one by one, I found the women to be attractive, but the men, except for one chap, were distinctly unattractive, freaky gamer types. They looked mostly more interested in each other than in the women. In total, ten people plus Flint. Ella and Layla were sitting with the spectators, so they were still around. Bo, the combed-back geek who couldn't dance, was there as well. A guy who looked like the brother of one of the other two geeks who'd been at Sugar's Nest was also present. Gavin Flint kept a surplus of players and probably favored different people for the various board games he played.

As I watched, it felt like studying a strange corporate team playing a game. Gavin Flint was like a corporate CEO and boss, and the kids were his sycophants, laughing at his jokes and raising their glasses when he called for a toast. The entire room was under his full control. The scene was sillier than offensive when viewed from my position outside in the dark. Gavin Flint was like a man in his second childhood, and all his friends, whom Peter Pan had saved from growing up, were there at his birthday party, playing his party game and having a ball. I didn't know much about Warhammer Quest, but it was only one of many games Gavin Flint played. It was a game where the players played against a dungeon. Since I strongly suspected that one of Gavin's basement areas was a dungeon, the game suited him.

Spiritually, it was deeply offensive because I knew Flint was controlling them via the ear pearls. Although the whole thing looked harmless, there was, without a doubt, a darker side, and to find the bigger skeletons in the closet, I needed to get into that house. Gavin Flint's life of leisure at the dream house, surrounded by an ass-kissing younger crowd with beautiful women, was probably the dream of many people. It wasn't my dream. I've never been able to stand rear kissers, and knowing their obedience was synthetic mind control would turn me off totally. With women, the Jen type who played hard to get fit me better than easy types.

The scene absorbed me. My watch became so intense that I failed to notice Brice return. This time he'd made an alteration and climbed the back fence over by the parking lot. If he hadn't made noise, he might have gotten me. At the same time, Florian and Smoke pulled into the lot.

Brice patrolled toward me with a flashlight, but I moved deeper in and worked around him silently. He passed. I felt certain that Zhang had tried the same watch as me and been nailed. Brice didn't see me and jumped the fence to the garden farther down. I paused and watched. Smoke hurried into the garden underground and then quickly returned. He paused momentarily, spoke to Brice, and then drove off with Florian.

I reached the oak tree and climbed to a branch to observe Brice. As he went down the north side to patrol the back garden again, I jumped down, crashed through the wind-whipped foliage to the car, and drove off past the house slowly with my lights off.

I cruised home, studying the night streets of this area of the city, replacing my night walk with a drive. The mostly suburban areas had little action beyond bars and clubs, though I did pass two house parties. At home, I slept deep into the day. I kept dreaming of different crowds of young people, drinking sparkling wine, filled with happiness. In every dream, Gavin Flint was there, soaking up the sycophancy and silly laughter, but the young faces always changed: the men rarely handsome, the women always beautiful.

In the afternoon, I went out to do some shopping. Randy, a neighbor down the hall, had his Big Wheel electric scooter parked on the front walk. It was the size of a motorcycle, and considering his 250 lbs, he needed the big wheels. He was whining to a couple of other tenants. Though he was big, his voice was small.

I stepped up to listen.

He glanced at me. "You heard about Ricky?"

"Nope. I don't spend time searching for news about Ricky."

"He's back. Knocking on doors. Threatening people. It's a reign of anti-tenant terror. He demanded the membership list of the tenant association. I told him every tenant is in it. That's the list. He's lucky there's a camera in the hall, or I would've broken his arm."

I knew it was talk. Randy, being a musician, wasn't a fighter. He was big and could knock a little guy down, but Ricky knew how to box and street fight.

"He didn't come to my door."

"What are you gonna do if he does?"

"Close the door in his face. As you said, there's a camera. If I get him, it'll be somewhere else."

Randy started talking to another tenant, an old black man with a wheeze. I remained and turned to check the street front. I looked around carefully. The pink scooter girl had passed by going south. She returned on the sidewalk. She was watching the front of the building for Ricky. I left and walked down to the drug store. The scooter girl passed me and looked back. I started sprinting after her, and she raced off and didn't return.

Back at the apartment, I watched TV and relaxed. No cops, no landlord, and no Ricky showed up at my door. I figured that loneliness sometimes has its own glory. I switched to the local news station and the crime report. Eight teens, four black, two white, and two of Indian extraction, had been busted in a firearms and stolen vehicles investigation. They hailed from Brickwell Towers. A suspect was wanted in a nearby nightclub assault at Sugar's Nest. Police had no description. I suspected Runt. The next report got my undivided attention. An employee of the Chinese Embassy, Jian Zhang, had committed suicide. Video from the scene was available, and a female crime reporter was set up under a bridge. It was the same suspension bridge that Brent had passed under on his shortcut when he drove me home from the train yard. Jian Zhang hadn't jumped into the river. He'd jumped from the bridge into the homeless camp, landing on the roof of a parked car that belonged to outreach workers who'd brought meals and supplies to the homeless people there.

The reporter, standing with a scrubby group of homeless people, said police had labeled the death as apparent suicide, and had ruled out foul play. The Chinese Embassy was apparently making loud noises and demanding a federal investigation. I knew that if Zhang had put on Icarus wings and flown from the bridge, it was with Florian's help. The death was obviously his idea of fun. A federal investigation would turn up nothing. The police were already closing it. Florian and Smoke could easily pay off or make any witnesses from the homeless camp disappear. They could even end up in a cremation oven.

Chapter Ten: The Sweets Cellar

I went out again as night fell and drove to the dream house. The night was moody, with a sighing breeze and small, puffy white clouds drifting across the sky. The sky was darker out by the house. I could actually see stars that I rarely saw downtown, but I didn't spend long looking at them. I feared that viewing the expanse of space would bring on an unwanted vision.

I'd parked down in the ravine and walked up to avoid any chance of Brice, Smoke, or Florian spotting my car. I worked my way to the oak tree again, and from there I could see Smoke and Florian out front of the house engaged in an animated conversation. I had a strong feeling Gavin Flint might have seen the news. If so, he'd be ultra pissed off. I knew I would be. They were getting more than reckless. Rubbing out Zhang in front-page news style may have been funny, but they could end up laughing at that Plexiglas front wall of one of those new jail cells if a witness, say someone in a passing car, had seen them. There could even be more than one witness. With their disposal ravine under police investigation, maybe the bridge suicide was a new idea they came up with and a dumb one.

I worked my way around back, and this time, I went through the entire back area beyond the garden. There was enough night light to see once my vision adjusted. I found the two spots where Brice had jumped the fence on his patrol. They were at each end of the garden. In each area, there were cigarette butts. The spot near the back parking area had two empty rum bottles on the ground.

Brice wasn't around. Florian and Smoke did one patrol at the back, which mostly involved them standing around and talking in the garden, and then went into the house. No game was on, and Gavin Q. Flint had the curtains open in a large upper room. They were open enough for me to see inside. With the binoculars, I could see him sitting at a large desk. I could see part of a shelf with trophies on it. He had a golden trophy of a gladiator holding a die in one hand and a game piece in the other. I wasn't sure what game the piece was from. He had another weird engraved silver trophy. The picture I got was that gaming trophies were cups or featured heroic figures, game pieces, or dice. To me, it suggested that gamers saw themselves as dramatic or heroic characters, but it was really fantasy. They lived in a deep fantasy world or practiced the art of escapism, similar to guys focused on anime. Some people don't like the real world, but they love their hobbies, and the hobbies take over. Gambling had taken over my life, so I ended that hobby.

I decided to take advantage of the patrol gaps. If I waited, Brice would show up. I saw one camera over by the back parking spot. Another camera focused on the garden's central fountain, probably because people sat there. I figured I could work around those two cameras. I jumped the fence and moved in a crouch, using planters and bushes for cover. The garden building had a walkway of large square stones leading up to it. Up close, it looked more like the entrance to a tomb than garden storage. It was made of buff stone. The first door was closed but unlocked, and inside I found garden equipment and supplies on shelves to the right and left. Concrete stairs led down in the center. They ended at a locked metal gate. The lock was electric, and I could see the box up on the wall just out of reach. Through the metal slats of the gate enclosure, I could see into a room of electronic equipment and over to another interior door. I couldn't see most of the room, but it was my key target. Without doubt, it held the computer software and tech that broadcast to the ear pearls. Documentation of the secret technology they killed people to protect was probably in there too. I would need tools to get in and destroy it. The other door would lead into the house basement, so there was a large underground area.

I moved back outside and crept over to a dark window. It had been left slightly ajar to catch the garden breeze. I eased it open the rest of the way and climbed into a dark room mostly used to store spare furniture and other items.

I moved to the door, opened it slightly, and realized that I'd been lucky. An entrance to the basement was right across from it, but I heard piano notes. It was classical piano, Chopin, and I felt drawn. I moved softly down the hall toward the music and peeked in. Jen was there playing the piano, and a few of the people were present, including Gavin Q. Flint. He'd come down from upstairs and was leaning back in a chair with his eyes closed, listening to the piano with an expression of ecstasy. If his eyes had been open, he would've seen me. I eased back, went to the basement entrance, and went down.

Fearing that I might encounter Florian and Smoke, I took a deep breath and stepped up to a large, heavy wooden swing door. It wasn't locked. I eased into a spacious basement room. The light was faint and blue-tinted. I looked around, and the name that popped into my mind was the sweets cellar.

Gavin Flint had wine bottles set into a large rectangular section of the stone wall, stacked horizontally in five neat rows of holders. They were expensive sweet wines like Riesling, sherry, port, sparkling sweet, red sweet, but nothing dry. He had a few sweet liquors too, so he was mostly a connoisseur of sweet wines. He didn't have any beer, which marked him as someone I wouldn't like.

There was more than wine. He had a huge fridge full of fresh pies and pastries. It would require delivery every few days. The fridge door was glass with a silver handle, allowing me to see the pies and pastries inside. He especially favored cream on his pies but a sugar crust on blueberry and cherry pie. His sweets cellar featured a huge custom machine for chocolates, candies, and chocolate bars. I walked up and pressed a button, and a bar of dark chocolate popped out. I put it in my pocket. The candy wrappers on the floor of the sugar shack during my earlier troubles matched many of the items on Gavin Flint's machine. It indicated to me that bodies or victims had been taken straight from here to the sugar shack in the past for disposal in the lake. For a moment, I wondered how a man could eat all that sugar and not weigh 300 pounds. Someone was eating because the stocks were fresh. Maybe he only tasted different items, but not the wine, because I'd seen him drink wine heartily.

My next thought was the psychological profile of such a person. Games, candy, and sweet booze, a happy crowd; the profile was early-onset senility. Smoke and Florian were psychopaths. Gavin Flint would be one too. The three were highly intelligent, but in a dangerous, immature way. They served their own desires and ruthlessly destroyed others. They had never gotten over the hump that turns a person into a mature, responsible man. They felt that they could grab anything they wanted and do anything they wanted.

Personally, I knew the world to be a complex machine of corruption that beats you down, but there is only so much cheating a guy can get away with. You can push the envelope, but existing as a murderous psychopath and living in a fantasy world would bring about that day when you're up against the wall of the real world. You can't win a war against reality; it will find you and destroy you.

Two heavy doors stood at the far end of the sweets cellar, and only one was marked with "Games Room" embossed in the wood. The door far off to the right had no markings. Both doors were locked with heavy bolt locks. I would have to return with tools to get inside them. This basement was very large, and I strongly suspected that what I would find in those two recreation rooms would be a nightmare come to life. I couldn't hear any sound coming from the two rooms, but the doors looked soundproofed.

I'd achieved my goal for the night, and I had other things to do, so I went back to the window and was already formulating a plan to return as I scanned the area. Smoke and Florian were outside the window, way down to the left. I'd nearly failed to see them. I waited for them to move around the front, then made a fast escape over the garden, the fence, through the bushes, and down the ravine side to my car. I drove out of my hidden spot and a short way over a paved pedestrian path, into a parking lot, and up to the road. I headed back toward the late Sam's costume shop, Fakeover, and cruised slowly around the nearby blocks and streets of this older area, looking for police activity. I found it fast; a cruiser raced by, siren and cherry on, headed out of the neighborhood. Things were going down somewhere else.

I cruised Sam's street and his shop, which was sealed with police tape. The same teen gang was loitering, but farther down the street this time, at the front of an old gray-painted rooming house with crumbling shingles on its front overhang. I could see a back section built onto the brick front, with several boarded-up windows. More dark figures loitered in the alley. The place was like a gang squat. I parked out of sight and went around to Sam's back door. Before I got there, I surprised a black teen at the back door of another shop. I also surprised myself because I hadn't noticed him in the dark door recess jimmying the door. He burst out and swung a pry bar at me, which I ducked. His swing took him halfway around. I kicked him, and he stumbled but didn't drop the pry bar or come back at me. He turned his stumble into a run and took off down the alley. Loose clothing over a bag-of-bones body indicated addiction. I didn't bother chasing him.

At first, I was pissed that my failure of observation had nearly led to a fractured skull and death. Neither had I popped by to work as a crime-stopping vigilante. I paused as he disappeared around the far end of the alley and decided it was to my advantage because, as a burglar working on Sam's street, he'd be the one likely to be arrested if my entry to Sam's got detected. No cop would believe him when he said it was some other guy.

The back door was taped, but I temporarily removed it and entered. The goods were still there, and I made a quick shopping trip to get a few items I needed for my disguise. I put the tape back in place and left, making my way back and driving out without incident. Then I headed to another location. That location was the same suspension bridge in the media report on Zhang's death.

The old Northern Gateway Bridge and its cables stood against the sky and the river like a rusting ghost. It was long overdue for replacement. It wasn't something I wanted to see, but it was the location my old friend Shawn had picked. He would be under the bridge on the other side of the river from the homeless camp. I had to pass the bridge to find the rutted road down, and at the bottom drove along a dark, potholed road so worn that most of it had been replaced by packed dry mud and sand. I checked my watch; I was exactly on time.

A battered dark-blue pickup truck sat in some flattened weeds under the bridge. I got out and walked toward the pickup. A light shone in my face, and a man got out. He stopped, lit a joint, and then walked up to me.

"Shit, you're lucky I didn't take off. Look at those cops across the river searching that homeless camp. They can't see this dark spot, but it spooks me."

"There was a suicide. I guess you missed the news. A Chinese chap jumped from the bridge to homeless heaven. It looks like they're raiding the homeless camp now that it has attracted attention. I was unable to contact you to change the meet-up spot."

"I'm not surprised. This bridge has regular jumpers. They put mesh on the section over the water, and now they jump off the ends to the ground. I was doing a meet here a year ago, and a guy jumped and landed right in front of us. We had to take off. That's why you found me well under the bridge. I don't want some guy to land on me."

I laughed. A person jumping wasn't funny, but the way Shawn said it conjured a comedy-movie image.

"Sorry about the light," he said, "but I had to confirm it was you. When Sam told me you were here and wanted to meet, I didn't believe him."

"No one expects me to be here or even alive, which is a reason I am here. The guy who killed Sam has been taken care of. I found out about it in a roundabout way."

"Good. I'm glad that bastard was taken down. I heard two stories about you. In one, you were killed by an explosion. In the other, you were buried in the desert way down south. How is it you happen to be here?"

"Problems. Big ones. I suffered memory loss. People were out to kill me, and I couldn't figure out why or who they all were. I relocated to a nowhere area where no one would look, and I wouldn't be visible. News has spread of my death, so keep in mind that I'm dead. I don't need old enemies showing up here."

He nodded. "So it was an explosion. PTSD is what you probably have."

"Not quite that. Guys with it can barely stand the pain of the dreams and hallucinations. Mine are bearable, and slowly the missing parts of my past are coming back in dreams. Other things get in the way. I have visions and dreams. Always weird stuff tied to this city."

"Your dreams must be accurate. There's always weird stuff tied to this city, like what you're probably up to now. That's quite the list of dangerous stuff you ordered. I brought it. Before I hand it over, I need to know that this isn't some crazy vision you're having. I also need to know if you brought the money."

"It's not a crazy vision. It's real, and it's private. It's a necessary demolition job. Nothing will be traced to you. You know I'm always careful."

"Someone found you, that's it, isn't it?"

"Maybe."

Shawn looked deep into my eyes like he was trying to see if I still had my sanity. He furrowed his freckled brow. He was a big redhead and, even past 35, still looked a lot like a big freckle-faced kid, but a smart one. Suddenly he smiled and hugged me. "You're the same old Joe. You'll get it together. Give it time. Be careful with this stuff. You know how dangerous it is."

I nodded and passed him a packet of cash. He didn't check it but just went to the truck, took a large pack out of the back, and handed it to me.

"If this doesn't go clean, you won't be seeing me again."

"I guessed that already." He raised an invisible glass with his left hand and said, "Let's toast to success."

"Okay, the toast is some Jack, not wine," I said, raising my own invisible glass. Then I took the pack back to my trunk, and Shawn drove off first, as he always did.

I had no plans to keep the equipment with me, so I drove back to the ravine, pulling in slowly with the lights off to watch first, in case any police patrolled at night. The only thing I saw was a rabbit, so I pulled over in the bushes, carried the pack up the ravine, and hid it under some brush. Back in the neighborhood, I parked in the underground garage and walked back. Coming up the side, I could see the apartment building across the street from mine and spotted something in the dark. A man was sitting on the dark balcony four floors up. He was positioned to watch the entry to my building, and I was pretty sure it was Brent. He hadn't followed me. Detective Fisher apparently wanted a heads-up if anyone unsavory showed up at my building.

I slept soundly, waking up only once from a dream. It was a dream of flowing images. I saw a drunken homeless man with booze stained pants and greasy long hair fed into Carver's cremation oven. Flames rose in black smoke, and I was running along the ravine with Florian chasing me. I dodged behind a tree; a bullet cracked and missed, and the next dash was over open grass. I glanced back, and he was raising a compact scoped rifle. He wouldn't miss. I dived and rolled in the grass, ended up in a steamy alleyway, ran through puddles and pouring rain, and heard a shot. It tore some rotted brick off the wall just ahead of me. I glanced back and turned onto a street of bright neon lights blurred by the rain. Water poured in the gutters, and a name came to mind. It was the name of the man chasing me. His name was Spider Dubois. Sitting up in bed, I remembered the whole deal. Spider had been sent to exterminate me on behalf of another wealthy man. They now believed me to be dead. I would need to deal with it soon, but I had time. I'd use Shawn to notify me if Spider appeared in the city.

Chapter Eleven: In Disguise

The day was long and irritating. I practiced with my disguise, trying to get it right. I'd brought the few things I'd taken from Sam's back to the apartment, a big risk, but they likely hadn't documented every item in the shop yet to find anything missing. I practiced with the slight limp and made a stick-on piece to alter my hairline. With Sam's makeup, it was invisible. My goal was to look like a male gamer geek, but one who played board games. Gavin Flint preferred those types. A more normal-looking man who gamed wouldn't fit in Gavin Flint's house. I had to look younger too, aiming for about twenty-nine.

I used large glasses with mauve frames and some scraggly facial hair. I decided to part my hair in the middle. Light brown short pants below the knees, held up by suspenders, looked alright with an ill-fitting checked short-sleeved shirt, a bow tie, and retro high-top sneakers tied at ankle height. I didn't like the bow tie, so I switched to a small tacky neck scarf. I chose a retro Casio watch as part of my disguise. With my cheeks altered with wax, I practiced walking with a limp, holding the walking stick more like an ornament than something functional. Finally, I decided it was perfect and watched comedy shows on TV for the rest of the day. The dramatic disguise distracted most people from the real me. People believe what they see at first impression, and it sinks in, so they rarely realize it's a disguise. Once they believe the disguise is real, they keep believing.

Humid air oppressed me. The sky had clouded over. The hot summer night dropped kisses of raindrops as I walked down the road. It felt like a long, slow night was coming. If long, I hoped the night would be something better than my experience with the ravine, hairy arms, and the train yard. This time I parked my car a block over, out of the rays of the lone streetlight, and walked.

Reaching the front of the dream house, I watched the front yard through some bushes, saw no one, and moved farther along to another spot to check the parking lot down to the rear of the house. The BMW sedan Smoke and Florian used was gone. Four other cars were there, the same ones as on other nights.

Five minutes later, Brice came out the front door and stood under the front porch arches. From the street, Brice was an effective guard because he hid his gun at the front and looked like a strolling black college boy. He began his patrol covering the front yard right out to the road. He was thorough on patrol but didn't spot me in my hiding spot.

I checked the time, then moved down toward the dead end, and waited under a tree. I checked my watch again, then limped up the road and up the stone walkway to the porch overhang. The large front doors weren't locked, and I'd timed it to coincide with Brice's rear patrol so he wouldn't notice me. The timing worked perfectly.

I didn't ring the bell; I walked straight in and found no one in the opulent entry vestibule. A small chandelier hung overhead, and abstract paintings lined the walls on either side. A white-paneled door with gold trim stood in front of me; it was unlocked, so I stepped into the hallway, went down it, and looked left and right. This house was ultra-clean, with deeply polished reddish floors, highlighted by throw rugs in various areas.

I heard the piano, and the sound drew me down the hall. The notes were from a Debussy piece. I passed the stairway that went up to Gavin Flint's office. It had beautifully carved post ends and a railing of dark reddish wood. I looked in the room. Nearly all furniture and floors in the house were made of red woods, either cherry, mahogany, red oak, or redwood. The piano was again a deep red wood that fit the house's decor. The floor apron around it was in a square pattern of black-and-white marble-like tiles. The woman at the piano was not Jen, and it worried me. She wore an elegant light blue dress. I couldn't see her face, but she had beautiful legs and long dark hair. I walked in quietly, and she didn't notice me. She wore the usual pink pearl in her ear and was new. I could see enough of her to know she wasn't one of the women I'd seen during my nights of window peeping. That meant she'd just arrived.

The game lounge connected to the piano room and was much larger; both rooms held silver and crystal vases filled with fresh, fragrant flowers. I could see a thin chap setting up a game. He wore absurdly tight pants, short at the ankles, to highlight his fancy diamond-patterned socks. He was perhaps a better geeky gamer type than I would ever be. I could have modeled my disguise on him. He had the game box leaning against a cabinet. The game was titled The Shadow Game. I wondered where the others were, then the painting of the man with one brown and one blue eye drew my attention. That painting, perhaps a young version of Gavin Flint's creepy father, had haunted my dreams. I was pulled just as I'd been pulled to the piano notes. The woman at the piano remained absorbed and didn't notice me. She had probably been commanded to play the piano, so that's what she did. Apparently, the pearl's control didn't interfere with her piano skills.

I walked quietly over to the painting, avoiding the window so Brice wouldn't see me from the garden. I was out of the guy's line of sight in the gaming area, so I took a moment to study the painting. Close up, it looked like an expensive work, probably not of Flint's father but a piece of pricey art he'd purchased. I saw a slight indentation at the side of the frame, reached up, and found that the painting swung open like a cabinet door. Behind it was a recessed safe with a small silver handle and key slot. I had no key, but tested the handle and found it unlocked. A long metal box had been slotted inside. I slid it out quietly. Then I noticed a jewelry case behind it, opened it, and saw ten large loose diamonds inside. I took them in my palm and pocketed them. I figured it would take Flint a while to notice they were gone, and even then he would think Brice or someone else took them.

I opened the box lid. It was a box of large 5x7 index-like cards. One card was partially pulled out. It would be the card that had just been accessed, likely by Gavin Flint, who'd just been here and opened the safe. The card had a blank area for a small photo insert, but there was no photo. Other than that, it described one of the male gamers. This one was Bo, who'd been at Sugar's Nest with Jen. It had some details about him in fine type. He was actually from the EU. I quickly grabbed another card from the back. It did have a photo. A tiny photo of a man in a business suit with a large hunting knife planted in his chest. He was dead, with staring eyes. The eyelids hadn't been closed. The details on him said he'd worked for NeuraSweep. I quickly pulled a few more cards and studied them. I didn't recognize any of them. One man had half his head blown off. They were all time-of-death photos. One was a grotesque shot of a lady who had fallen or been pushed to her death. My first thought was that Zhang probably had a card by now. I feared Jen might be in there, dead.

I heard a door slam in the hallway, quickly put the cards back in, and closed it, leaving the safe as I'd found it. My thin, stylish gloves meant I didn't worry about leaving prints. I stripped off the gloves and pocketed them. With the painting back in place, I walked out of the room. No one had noticed me. I felt like tossing up my dinner. The entire collection of dozens of cards was of people that Gavin Q. Flint had murdered in hideous ways. I desperately wanted to go through them all, especially to look for Jen, but I didn't have time.

I realized Gavin Flint didn't just collect games; he collected death cards, shaped with playing-card borders. He could actually photograph them and print them out in a reduced size as a hideous deck of playing cards. I had to get into that underground and see what skeletons were in his bigger closet, but first I needed to check the rest of the house. My plans were getting complicated. I couldn't call Detective Fisher yet. I wanted the equipment and the tech destroyed before any police intervention. Gavin Flint had killed everyone connected to it, so all I had to do was finish the job. I didn't want the tech existing because no one could be trusted with it. It was too dangerous for any group to have absolute control over people. Destroying Gavin Flint without burying the tech would almost certainly mean the whole thing would happen again, only with it used by some other corrupt gang.

I limped past the piano girl. She never looked up even though I glanced at her. She had an angelic face. I went in and spoke with the chap setting up the game. I noticed a group of games stored on a shelf. They were the games they were currently playing.

"Let me make your acquaintance," I said. "I'm a visitor. I've heard so many great things about this house. It's a gaming legend."

He took his eyes off the game pieces he'd been studying and looked at me with amazement. "You aren't wearing the honor. How did you get in here?"

"I simply dropped by. Any chance I can get in on a game?"

He slowly examined me, looking me up and down like I was a big game piece from some unknown game. I didn't feel human when he looked at me, but more like an object he was reviewing to assess its collectability. His eyes were small, with dilated pupils; his forehead was overly large, his ears large, and his nose straight and small, as was his thin-lipped mouth.

"Well," I said.

"No. You can't play unless Gavin invites you, and you're one of the select few. You look familiar. Didn't I see you at the Warhammer Fest down in Florida?

"You got it. I'm Malcolm, a long-time gamer."

"I'm David. Listen, you'll have to talk to Gavin. No uninvited guest has ever come here for the games before. Only gardeners and delivery people come. Gavin is upstairs in his office."

"When are the other players arriving?"

"The others are here. They're down there in the dining lounge." He pointed without looking.

"Listen, I have a friend named Jen who plays the piano. I heard she might be here."

"Not now. She just advanced to new venues and moved on with a couple of the other gamers. No one stays here permanently. I've been here the longest because I do things for Gavin. The players and the games change."

"I see. Listen, I'm going down to say hello to the others and then see if Gavin will let me in on a game. I'd be so proud if he did."

"Don't count on it." He went back to what he was doing, and I walked off. I realized he wasn't in a normal psychological state. Something was off in his eyes. The eyes are the windows of the soul, and his eyes led to something other than a soul... something not real, like no one was really behind them.

I went down to the dining lounge he'd pointed out and went through the swinging doors. The room had a long wooden table with a chandelier of fake candles above it. White couches and other tables sat off to the side, and two glass fridges, smaller than those in the sweets cellar, were full of pies and pastries. It was elegant and again spotless. The rest of the gang was at the table, each with pie slices or pastries before them, laughing and chatting. All of them wore pink or blue pearls, including the two servers, who were other female gamers in sexy short-skirt server costumes.

I walked up and sat in an open chair. They didn't notice me right away, and I listened to some dumb chatter more suitable for teens about 18 years old. They didn't talk about games. One woman was talking about a dance party she'd been to in France, with others giggling at her story. Her name was Leah. The standard of hot women and unattractive males had been maintained, but the eyes of the women sparkled. At times, it was the light of laughter as they giggled, but when I watched a redhead with a chignon take on a serious look, it was more like a bright sparkle of evil behind those eyes.

As they passed around a cellphone, laughing at a silly video, a brunette with a pale, moon-like face that came off as lovely sat down beside me. She was the first to notice me. "I'm Laurel," she said. "You're new here?"

"I just arrived. I'm Malcom."

"Oh, I'm so happy. I just got here too. I feel so small beside the other big people."

Her eyelids were too heavy, and her gaze looked drugged. They all had a stoned look and dilated pupils, but hers was more pronounced. Despite that, except for the anemic chap I'd seen setting up the game, they all looked young and healthy. Their permanent cheerful mood masked any character flaws. As far as I knew, they weren't big people of any type, but people who played games.

"How do you advance in the games here? I haven't been fully filled in on the rules or selected for a pearl yet?"

"Oh. Once you are chosen, you have full access to all amenities and can play. There is a huge advantage to winning and being favored by Gavin because he really likes to play board games. It makes him so happy, and we want him to be happy. If you are good enough, you can eventually move to the special card and other games in the lower games room."

"Have you been in the lower games room?"

"It is downstairs somewhere, but none of us see it. Again, it's only the select few who play and then move on as new players arrive here at the never-ending game."

"Why is this called the never-ending game?"

"Gavin explains that when you're selected. He views this house and the people in it as a board game. We are the pieces and characters of the house game, and we play other games."

"That's great. Say, why the pies and pastries? Is there no main course to the dinner?"

She slapped me on the shoulder. Her eyes sparkled. "Silly you. The only thing Gavin and the rest of us eat is sweets. You really are a tinhorn."

I noticed that some of the others had now seen me and were looking at me expectantly. The drugged gazes and smiles came across as sweet and pretty on the women and creepy on the men, as they had the effect of gay come-ons.

Since I'd been singled out, I decided to introduce myself, stood up, and outstretched my hands in a sweeping but friendly gesture. "Listen, people. I'm so happy to be visiting the house. To me, it's like a living dream house. I really hope I'll be allowed to play. I'm Malcolm, a long-time gamer."

One woman giggled, the other people politely clapped, and I felt a gun at my back. I realized they hadn't clapped for me; they'd clapped because Gavin Q. Flint had entered the room.

He spoke to everyone. "Malcom is coming up to my office for a chat. Please continue to enjoy your evening."

They did exactly that, without any questions, as Gavin Q. Flint led me out, down the hall, and up the staircase to his office. He kept jabbing me in the back with the pistol as he ushered me in and ordered me to pull an antique chair out front of his desk and sit down.

I obeyed, and he went to his desk and sat down. Flint's desk was a huge executive desk; it looked like hand-carved cherry wood in the American style, with a matching hand-carved chair. A chandelier high above cast soft light, and a wall of library books backed him, with more trophies and small sculptures on hand-carved redwood shelves built right into the wall. A painting that looked like a place in Venice sat at the center of the shelves. His entire office was luxury at its finest.

The gun he held was a specially designed Wilson Combat pistol, a collector's item, not the sort of weapon an ordinary person would use. Gavin Q. Flint looked like a handsome TV doctor, a silver-haired actor with plastic surgery to enhance his looks. He'd been a sort of doctor as an investor in medical devices. For most people, that would inspire immediate trust, but I didn't accept that working in the medical establishment meant a person could be trusted. Medical fraud and quacks have been around since the days of cavemen. Gavin would have inspired distrust even if I had just met him, because I knew that often behind a handsome facade, a slimy weasel existed.

Flint looked me over carefully, his cobalt-blue eyes filled with suspicion, and then, with some wonderment, said. "Didn't I see you at the Warhammer Fest down in Florida?"

"I was there. So yes, it was likely me."

"I could shoot you as a thief, because that's what you must be."

"No, you're mistaken. I've long known about you from gaming circles, so when I heard about this house, I decided to pop by for a looksee."

"I've heard about guys like you. You scout game shops, and later your guys move in for nighttime looting."

I put on my best defensive look. "Not at all. I wouldn't think of stealing, and I brought you a gift. Here, let me get it out."

"Move your hand very slowly," he said, waving the combat pistol at me as I reached into my pocket, pulled out a deck of shrink-wrapped cards, and held them out.

"Toss them on the desk," he said, then he picked them up. He set the gun within easy reach on the desk, tore off the shrink-wrap, and looked over the cards carefully, pausing a couple of times to watch me with a wary eye.

As he examined the cards, I noticed a weird pink wig up on a shelf. It struck me as odd, but I shrugged it off. Maybe another collector's item; some pop star's wig.

Finally satisfied, Flint said, "A rare deck of Netrunner Android cards, very impressive. Where did you steal them?"

"I didn't steal them. I have connections. I bought them from a guy in a legit purchase."

Gavin pursed his lips and tilted his head from side to side as he studied me further. "You do look familiar, and you don't look like a thief or even a scout. Don't take it as an insult, but that takes nerve, and the only nerve you seem to have is that of a game crasher. Where did you hear about the house and my games?"

"I didn't hear about the house through the usual grapevine. As it happened, I was in an Irish bar when a police officer and a young black chap in preppy clothes were talking about a special house where board games were played, and they mentioned the name Gavin and a street name. I guessed it was you and came up here, looking around, hoping to get in a game with some top players. On the first trip up, I couldn't find you and forgot about it for two weeks. Tonight I was bored, gave it another try, found the house, and walked in."

Gavin Flint frowned, picked up the gun, and stepped up and over to the window. "This place is hard to find. Everyone, even delivery people, says that. It makes it a perfect location for privacy. Come over here."

I obeyed instantly, knowing that Gavin Flint was an obedience dog who'd shoot me if I didn't. From the window, we could see Brice standing under a pole lamp in the back garden, smoking. He didn't notice us. "Is that the man you heard talking?"

"Well, how about that. It's him?"

"You just came up the walk, and he didn't stop you?"

"No, Mr. Flint. He wasn't at the front, and the doors were open, so I walked up and came in."

Flint waved the pistol again, ordering me to sit back down. "I'll deal with that fool later. Let's deal with you. You want to get in for some games. This is my house, my rules. My absolute unchallenged rules."

I nodded. "Of course." At the same time, I felt relieved he wasn't going to call Brice up to question him.

Gavin continued. "You have to be selected and wear the honor. You can't just walk in. I want to know a bit about you. Then if you're lucky, I'll contact you."

"May I give you my card?" I said. He nodded, and I pulled a business card from my shirt pocket and tossed it on the table. The card was as phony as the counterfeit Netrunner Android cards I'd given him.

"There's nothing but contact information on this card and your name. I need details."

"Yes, certainly. I'm a humble pastry chef, though I have some inheritance money that allows me to game. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived and saw your amazing display of pastries and pies. The fragrance alone was heaven, and it told me they had the finest ingredients and were the work of a chef with superior mastery. I doubt I could ever equal that chef."

"You're right about that. Go on," he said, appearing to be amused.

"I do some gambling. Cards. I also play some unusual card games like Mythos, WWE Raw Deal, Pinochle. Gambling, though, is usually poker. I excel in strategy games and as a team player. Games like Warhammer Quest, Advanced Civilization, or Be-A-Manager, and many other games."

"I see. You have some credentials, but to be more than a party crasher, I need to run a check on you. I'll get back to you if it works out. If so, one of my men will pick you up and put the honor on your ear. That won't be for a week or so. The honor is the tiny blue pearl you saw the boys wearing downstairs. I have collector's editions of the games, with all the original pieces, playable components, and original boxes for every major and rare board game. Keep in mind that this house is under heavy security. My key security was out tonight. You could have been killed walking in here. You're very lucky you weren't shot. Don't try it again, or you probably will be shot. Valuables are heavily secured. No petty thief could break in and get them, and petty criminals wouldn't come here. We have protection, including police protection. Despite that, you still have to keep your mouth shut. If you talk about this house after you leave, you won't be selected. I do not want more party crashers."

"Fair enough. I have no reason to talk about the house or do anything that might reduce my chance of being selected."

"You know some things about me from gaming magazines and perhaps my talks at conventions, but there is more. I did have some inheritance like you, but I was an investor. Originally, I invested in medical devices and made millions. I'm retired now. As I said in my interview with Gamers War World, I'm a man who indulges in pleasure. Tell me, Malcolm, are you religious?"

"Not really. I played with alternative religions. First, it was neo-paganism. I thought about joining a Wiccan group with some other gamers. I attended one ceremony of the Church of Lucifer's Light, but I didn't commit. My religious sojourns didn't work out."

Gavin Flint openly scoffed at that. "Piffle, that's what faddish Wiccans and most Satanists are today. I am a classic Luciferian. Satan is the ultimate and ideal rebel, and he is real. He runs the game. He set the rules. The rules are absolute, and others obey. I do the same. I despise anything that could be called work. I drink sweet wines, ports, and other sweet beverages. I eat only sweet pies, pastries, chocolate bars, and candy. Life should be sweet and about only those things a man enjoys. I enjoy soft piano music, but most of all, I enjoy board and card games."

"Bravo!" I said, clapping lightly as those in the dining room had done. "For myself, your lifestyle is desirable but nearly impossible to obtain. I lack the money and influence. What about health? Isn't a diet of sweets unhealthy?"

"It would be impossible for you to obtain my stature, as only the few can obtain greatness. Having been in the medical field, I can tell you that everything you've been told about health is a myth. Health rises from sensual feelings. When you savor a taste, your health is boosted. Now, with me, it's sweets that work because they hold the most power. A miserable man chewing like a bovine on vegetables and fake health food that is really more suitable for animal feed will die sooner. As lord of this Earth, Satan punishes those who avoid pleasure. They die in their misery and at a young age."

"Interesting. That's something I've not heard before."

Gavin's face took on the imprint of a condescending snob. "Of course you've not heard it before. Those who believe popular pap are unlearned. Tell me, what do you think about women?"

"To be truthful. I've been somewhat confused by them. They are hard to read. I'm not married."

"I knew you wouldn't be married. I don't select men for the honor if they are really interested in chasing women. Women here belong to me. There is a simple truth every man knows inherently but fails to grasp. Women are ornaments."

"Pardon me."

He continued. "Ornaments, women are interior decorations here at the house, just as the flower vases, sculptures, and other luxuries are for decoration. They are, of course, animate and do those things a woman does. A woman's true desire is to engage a man in polite conversation and clap when he speaks. They do play games, piano, and more, but here I've put them in their true natural roles as pleasant servants of the master. Now there is one woman, a bitch who is bringing me trouble, but she will be dealt with."

"It would be nice if I had your power over women," I said, while wondering who the woman bringing him trouble could possibly be, when he had them controlled with pearls.

"Many men wish that. There is a difference between my sort of man and others. Some men think they can build their way to success by making things. Others are petty thieves. Most work hard all their lives and gain little more than sustenance. They all lack understanding. The ultimate man is the Satanist. This house is a separate reality. I no longer exist in the everyday world. I live in the game, and I don't play by rules others set. If I need or want anything from them, I step off my property, often taking my trusted security men with me, and it is given to me. There is no deep consideration or morality in it. As the superior man and Satanist, what I want automatically belongs to me. I seize what is mine by birthright, as it was gifted to me."

"It certainly is a philosophy that has worked for you."

"There is nothing else that works. I do play card games, but they are only for the select few. If you do well in the board games, you could move to some high-stakes card games."

"You have a lot to offer. Any chance of me watching a game tonight?"

"No." He looked at his wall clock. "I have to go down. I'm late. I'll escort you to the door."

Flint waved for me to rise, and I did as commanded, going down the stairs with him behind me. The others were now in the game room in spectators' seats; the piano was tinkling. At the door, I thanked Gavin Flint for seeing me and limped down the walk with my walking stick, missing Brice again. Flint hadn't brought the pistol with him to the door. I felt his eyes on my back as I walked off. Turning at the hedge, I knew the disguise had worked. I'd seen what I needed to see and would return without a disguise. Gavin Flint, being a man fully engaged in his pleasures, probably wouldn't get around to checking me out for a couple of weeks. I planned on doing the main job in one night. If I could get around his nutso security men, it would work out.

I walked around to my car and waited to see if Gavin would send Brice to follow me, but he didn't. Without doubt, he was playing his version of The Shadow Game and no longer concerned about me. For a moment, I paused and wondered about that guy in Florida that Gavin and his pal had mistaken me for. He was a lucky charm who helped me fool Gavin.

I took the shortcut along the river, and as the road passed under the suspension bridge, I noticed that much of the homeless camp had been cleared. A bad odor, bitter to the tongue, came in the breeze off the river. I was struck by an idea, drove to the other side of the bridge, over to the rutted road down, and back to the spot where Shawn had parked at our recent meet-up.

I went to the trunk and got out a clean rag and some duct tape. Back in the car with the light on, I wrapped the ten 4-carat diamonds I'd stolen from Gavin's safe in the cloth and duct-taped it. I got out, stepped over to a decrepit mattress resting in the weeds beside the parking spot, and stashed the package inside a hole in the mattress.

The diamonds were flawless natural stones, so they were sure to fetch a good price. In the morning I'd contact Shawn and have him pick up the package, take some time, and sell it for the best price. Someone needed to pay for my investigation; Shawn always liked to make money, and I figured the paying client should be Gavin Flint.

Back at home, I spent a long time making a plan. I removed my disguise, showered, ate a slice of pizza with a beer, and went to bed.

That night brought unsettling dreams. In one, I sat alone at a small patio table. The floor was nothing but darkness, and other tables stretched off to infinity in all directions. Four women were at each table; all were beautiful and dressed differently. No two women were alike. They gossiped, chattered, and giggled. Their sparkling eyes had star power. The cacophony of their voices grew louder and more irritating. I felt like clapping my hands over my ears, then Gavin Q. Flint walked out of the distant darkness, and the ladies saw him and began to clap. The sound rose and became deafening. I suddenly rose from my bed and decided to get a glass of cold water.

I went to the fridge in the dark, pulled out a bottle of spring water, and poured some into a clean glass. As I walked to the table to drink it, I tripped over the corner of the rug. The water spilled, a huge splash before my eyes that moved in slow motion as I fell into a vision. I was suddenly in a dungeon, and Jen was there. She wore one of Gavin Flint's silly maid outfits and held up a huge blood-dripping knife. Her eyes had an evil sparkle. I saw a chain on the wall. Then Florian stepped out of the gloom and took the knife from her.

I landed on the rug, winced as it hurt my still-aching ribs, got up, and got another glass of water. This time I drank it and slept until 11 am. I would have slept longer, but another dream woke me. This dream was a silly nightmare where I walked down an empty street lined with dark alleys. It was a long street to the netherworld, paved with cracked asphalt. Red light spilled through the cracks in the road. The buildings on either side were dark, old, and shifting in the night like they weren't quite real. A sickle of moon hung in the distance down the road. I kept walking because the area spooked me and I wanted out, but then Ricky emerged from every mouth and recess. So many grinning copies of Ricky that I couldn't count them. They wore military camouflage clothes, complete with green caps. They all had guns, raised them to fire, and I woke up cursing.

I ate a late breakfast and sat down with a scribble pad, working out what I would do when night came. Long ago I'd learned that if I wrote things out with a pen on paper, I would remember every detail. I ran through various scenarios. My calculations didn't show good odds. Too many wild cards, and Gavin Flint and his gang held all the decks of cards down in the game room. Because I didn't know what was in there, it was hard to plan. My goal was to destroy the tech, but I wanted to get the pearls off the gamers and guests and smash them. It also meant destroying the computer and equipment room, then somehow finding any other stash of pearls. Gavin would have them stored somewhere, but that would be in his office or that basement area. I needed a look into the basement, meaning I'd have to get through those doors and do it before sabotaging the computer equipment. I suspected that prisoners were held in there. I'd dreamed that, and the people certainly went somewhere. The first place they went before disappearing was down there.

Perhaps willingly, as they would be pearled and used to play Gavin's next-level games. Some of the games played there were card games. He didn't play card games upstairs.

My phone rang; it was Detective Gene Fisher. "Have you got anything for me, or are you using the rope I gave you to hang yourself?"

"I'm expecting to call you very soon with important details. There are a couple of things remaining to be done."

"Really. Exactly what are you doing?"

"It has to be done my way. You have to trust me. That way it works out for you as well."

"My patience and trust will run out very soon." He hung up.

A knock came at the door. It was Kenny, holding a notice. I grabbed it and read it. "What in the hell do you need a suite inspection for? You were just in this suite. You know what needs repairs."

"It's standard under the new rules. All suites will be inspected once a year. My new tenant agent will look over each suite and engage in a conversation with each tenant to discuss their personal needs and building policies."

"Who is the new agent? Are you going to introduce him or her?"

"It's someone you know. In fact, it's Ricky."

"Really. If you send Ricky in this door to threaten me under the guise of doing a suite inspection, he will get hurt. At present, this is my home, and I don't tolerate threats here."

"That's a threat. You could be evicted for that."

"If you don't want trouble, hire a genuine agent, not Ricky. There will be chaos in the building if you send him to do that. He is not qualified to do anything other than bullshit."

I shut the door in his face and went back to the planning. It took a while, and then I burned my notes and flushed the ashes. Later that evening, I prepared to leave. Before I did, I went out and checked the sweep of the street I could see from the balcony. I saw Runt and the pink scooter girl down under a streetlight smoking pot. This time I went out the back door and around. I attempted to surprise them, running out of the darkness from behind a row of garbage bins. They raced off, the pink scooter girl taking the lead. I gave up the chase; it wasn't worth expending the energy. Runt could move like a cannonball flying to a target on his short legs, and I only wanted to scare him.

Chapter Twelve: The Bomb

The drive out to the dream house was uneventful. I saw no one following me but took precautions. A group of joggers was on the ravine path, so I waited for them to run out of sight before parking in my hidden spot. The night was hot, and the sky was clear, with a bright moon. The night was too bright, but it would have to do. I studied the house from the oak tree and saw only Florian outside at the front.

I would've preferred Brice, but Florian was what I got. I went to my hidden pack, well out of view of the house, and prepped everything for the explosives setup.

I divided things into two packs, one with tools, the other with explosives. The C4 and thermite charges, along with special timers, had cost a lot. It was a mix of military and demolition gear. I planned to get into the garden, down to the computer room, and set up a timed explosion there. The blast wouldn't be tremendous, but it would melt everything in that room. Nothing would be left of the hardware setup running the ear pearls. When that blew, the signal would be dead. The server room was enclosed in deep concrete walls. The thermite would quietly ignite and melt the targeted equipment, then the C4 would complete the demolition, destroying that area but leaving the rest of the house intact.

I slowly made my way to my observation spot by the back garden. Gavin was up in his office, and so was Smoke. Florian passed by in the garden and went down the side, so I moved quickly to the fence. I dropped the cloth bag of tools behind a bush in the garden and the explosives into the soft earth of a flowerbed. I moved in a crouch from the garden to the underground entrance, went through the first doors, down the steps, and dropped the bag. I went back up and, on the shed's side shelf, grabbed a large empty planter, took it down, overturned it, and stood on it as I opened the power box and cut the wires to the electric lock.

The metal gate opened, and I went in and looked over the room. A large setup of equipment and servers was built into one wall. Two benches with more equipment were built into the walls. There were four red metal storage cabinets. This place was a bonanza of advanced computer equipment, all set up in a compact area, with a cooling system humming and expelling heat through grates in the back parking area. I searched the place and went through the drawers in the red metal cabinets. Printed documentation on the pearl mind-control tech was in several thick books and on labeled portable hard drives. That was good news. It meant Gavin Flint didn't keep any documentation on cloud servers. He had it all here because he wanted complete control of the tech.

A bottom deep drawer was full of pearls. It was the motherlode. Hundreds of them were in there: blue, white, and pink, each in its own plastic wrapper like candy. Another drawer was filled with portable SSDs and other digital storage for videos. The drawer was labeled recent basement videos. Gavin's Flint's basement videos were not something I wanted to watch. The frames for his murder cards were almost certainly extracted from some of the videos he took of victims. The cards and videos would be evidence of murders, but I decided to fry the videos while the cards in the house safe would be the evidence.

I'd seen enough and began planting the explosives. I put them in places where they would be hidden from anyone who entered. I placed the thermite to fry the key items I wanted totaled. I paused, studied the room, then placed the C4 and the timed detonators. I had to credit Shawn. He'd got me the perfect easy explosive setup for a contained room like this.

Once finished, I went to the door that led to the rest of the basement under the house. It was a heavy fire door with a heavy bolt, locked from the other side. If I forced it from this side, it would make a lot of noise. I'd have to go into the house, go down to the sweets cellar, and get through the locks down there. I set the timer and hid it, figuring it would give me just enough time to get in and check the house basement. I wanted to get in and destroy all pearls, including those worn by the gamers, but figured it might not be possible.

I stepped back to look things over, then noticed a small locked closet I'd forgotten to check and forced the door open. A short, semi-bald man was inside, wearing a rumpled brown suit. He got off a chair, stepped out, and casually walked past me to sit in a chair by the main computer screen. He wore a blue pearl.

"Who are you?" I said.

"You should know. You let me out to work my shift."

"You mean you're the guy who maintains this setup, and they keep you locked in a closet?"

"Of course. I often stay in the closet because that's what Gavin wants. I have a room in the house, but I often sit in the closet because Gavin feels happier with me here. He doesn't want me to bother his friends in the house. I'm the only person other than Gavin who knows this system. Gavin needs me."

"Did you work for NeuraSweep?"

"I did at one time, but not anymore."

Reaching over, I grabbed the pearl and ripped it from his ear. His ear popped, but the pearl came off without tearing any flesh. Instantly, he began to weep uncontrollably. He got up from his chair, walked a few steps, and threw his hands to his head, crying. "No, no! Not me!"

I seized him by the shoulders and shook him. "Be quiet. Cut it out with the crying. You should have known the pearls could be used on you when you worked on them. Stupidity comes with a price. Wait here and shut up."

He obeyed, and I went over, up the stairs, and looked around. No one was in the garden, so I went back up and led him upstairs. His eyes welled with tears and confusion. I took a chance with the camera and took him around to the area of parked cars behind the shed, leading him by the hand like a child. "Get down here behind this car and stay there. Don't go back in there. Wait, and I'll be back to get you."

He did as I said, and hid cowardly behind the car, so I hurried back into the garden and over to get my tool bag, and as I turned with the bag in hand, Smoke was there holding a gun on me.

"You again," he said, a sour look on his face. "You've really got balls coming out here to burglarize us. Empty that bag on the patio there." He stepped back so I couldn't swing the bag at him.

I did as he said and dumped the bag, scattering my burglary tools over the stones. Smoke then took a tiny silver whistle out of his pocket with his left hand and blew it. Within moments, Brice appeared. His eyes went to me, then the tools. Florian arrived next, and he had the man I'd rescued by the collar. The little man was sniveling and offering no resistance.

"Fantastic. We've bagged two ducks tonight," Brice said.

"Another duck dinner for Gavin," Smoke replied.

Florian made the man sit at the fountain, then waved Smoke and Brice over. Smoke led me there while Brice gathered up the tools, bagged them, and brought them along. Deciding to get rough, Florian seized the little chap and pushed him to the stones at the front of the fountain. He got behind me and zip-tied my hands behind my back. He pushed me to my knees beside the weeping man. Brice held his gun on us as Florian and Smoke sat down on the fountain edge and lit cigarettes. The crying irritated me. I hadn't realized that removing the pearl would lead to an emotional breakdown. I should have thought of it. Suddenly being released must have been an emotional shock. Even worse if the person knew about the control while under and then was released.

Thirty seconds passed, filled only by the song of a night bird and the pathetic sobs of the little man, and then Gavin Q. Flint appeared. Gavin walked up and looked at us both carefully. "What do we have here?"

Brice answered proudly. "A burglar." He pointed at the bag of tools. "He must've broken into the computer room and let Donald out of the lockup. We caught him here with his tools. He freed Donald, but he didn't take anything from down there. He must've been aiming for the house."

"There have been security breaches," Gavin said. His eyes went to Brice. "Some people have been talking in bars. Last night a gamer showed up and tried to crash the party. Tonight, it's this guy. Who is going to be next?"

Brice lowered his eyes with shame over the accusation.

"Go check the server room and see if he damaged anything," Gavin said, pointing with his right hand. As Brice left, Gavin looked to Smoke. "Isn't that the nuisance guy we saw at Sugar's Nest?"

"It's him," Smoke replied. "He keeps popping up. Maybe he's connected to that gamer that showed up last night."

"Not likely," Gavin said. "That gamer, Malcom, knows the valuables are in the house. This idiot broke into the computer room. We'll see if he damaged the equipment. He might be connected to Donald. Why would he want to let him out?"

Florian looked at me and then at Donald. "Maybe he wanted to pump Donald for information or hand him over to someone else. This guy has a reputation. You ran a check on him before. You said he checked out as a trouble-bringer who shows up in places like a bad omen."

"Oh, yeah. That's right. He's that Joe Holiday chap. There's something seriously wrong if he's showing up. But he works alone. I remember that from my check on him. No one seems to know what he works at other than making trouble like a wandering curse."

Brice returned quickly. "He didn't do anything in the computer room other than break in by cutting power to the lock and freeing Donald. You'll have to pearl him to find exactly what he's up to or who he's working for. It looks like his target is the house and valuables, but he couldn't get in via the computer room without his tools, so he came back out to get them. He probably thought the server room was a vault of valuables and collectibles and then found out it wasn't."

"Trouble-bringer or not, he wants money just like everyone else," Smoke said. "My guess is he's broke, and he's here for your gold and collectibles."

"Maybe we don't need to discuss this," Brice said. "My suggestion is you let me shoot him now and get it over with. That's how I usually deal with it over at Brickwell. I kill them, and they're gone."

Gavin gave Brice a questioning look. "I hope you weren't out somewhere talking about my stash of gold. Somewhere where he might have picked it up."

Brice didn't get a chance to answer. "You aren't going to be killing him," a small voice said. That voice was Runt's. He'd crept in from the parking area while they were studying me. He had his gun pointed at Brice's head, and since the other three didn't have their guns out, Runt had the drop on everyone. Runt's gun was a girl's pink camo pistol that he probably got from the pink scooter girl. It was a genuine gun, but it looked ridiculous.

Brice lowered his gun.

"Who in the fuck are you?" Smoke said.

"His name is Runt," I said.

Florian moved like he was going to kick me, but stopped. "Shut up. No one asked you."

Gavin looked at Runt carefully, and for a moment, he looked like a man seeing a hallucination. Finally, he said, "What is your business with this man, Mr. Runt?"

"My business is I'm going to ice him."

"Ah. You must've noticed Brice was about to shoot him. If not, he'd be finished anyway. Why do you feel that intervention is necessary?"

"I did notice that you're going to kill him. It's really your house, and it's your right to do the job. The thing is, killing him will come with street cred. I'd prefer to have it. I have no dispute with you. How about I shoot him and leave? You dispose of the body, and that's that."

Gavin Flint took on an arrogant look. "This is my house, my rules. If he dies, which he will, I decide how. Now, I'll pay you five thousand dollars not to shoot him. Even more, if you are willing to obey my rules, I could hire you on as a new security man. There have been security breaches. A small person like you would be ideal for doing night patrols here. You're hard to see and can catch people by surprise. In fact, you just did that, and my security men didn't notice."

Runt's small eyes showed he was thinking. His brow furrowed, and then he stupidly said. "If you pay me the five thousand, it's a deal. I'm good at what I do."

Gavin Flint nodded while Florian, Smoke, and Brice's expressions revealed that they couldn't believe what they were hearing or that Gavin Flint would hire Runt. I knew that Gavin was doing it to punish them, and he knew that a lowlife like Runt would take the offer. Gavin would likely use him for a time, and then incinerate him.

Gavin now felt things were going his way. "I have a better idea. We need to do some work on this Joe fellow downstairs in our basement. I'll still pay the five thousand, but I want you to kill Donald. You see, I'm tired of Donald, and his sniveling has sickened me. I was already planning to terminate his employment contract. I can train a new man personally to do what he does. I have a replacement in mind. So, Runt, I want you to kill Donald, but not with a noisy gunshot, but with a knife."

As Gavin pointed to Donald, Runt said, "Can I see some money?"

Gavin took an envelope from his pocket. "This is five thousand dollars. I was going to use it to buy a special item, but you can have it as payment. He tossed the envelope into the planter beside Runt. With his left hand, Runt checked that the money was in it, then pocketed the envelope.

"I don't have a knife," Runt said.

"Florian," Gavin said. "Do you have that dagger you carry on you?"

"Of course. I always carry my knives."

Gavin pointed to Runt. Florian reluctantly pulled the sheathed dagger from his jacket and handed it to Runt. Florian's dagger was a beautiful collector's item with a tiny emerald in the gold-plated handle. The blade had a fine point. Runt studied it with wide eyes. For a moment, I thought he'd run off with it. Then, without hesitation, Runt walked right up to Donald, stuck him twice in the belly with the knife, and then stepped back. Donald let out a hideous cry, then slowly collapsed and died.

Runt was such a filthy murderer that it was hard for me to grasp it. As he stepped back, holding the bloody knife, he said, "Stick them in those two spots, and they die fast."

"Impressive," Gavin said. "Clean the blade and hand it back to Florian."

The idiot, Runt, cleaned the blade on the dead man's rumpled suit, sheathed it, and handed it back. Runt had pocketed his pink gun, and Smoke pulled his gun on him. "Do you want me to shoot Runt?" Smoke asked Gavin.

"No," Gavin said. "He's working for us now. I will have work for him. What impresses me is he does what he's told of his own free will. So long as he is paid, of course. He doesn't argue. He instinctively knows that it's my house, my rules."

Again, Florian, Smoke, and Brice looked on in disbelief, and it distracted them. They failed to notice another man creeping up on them. That person was Ricky, dressed in one of those combat camouflage outfits you can buy at surplus stores. It was complete with a camo cap and sneakers. Ricky crept right across the garden from the side of the house, and I was the only person who spotted him. Ricky held a Uzi and positioned himself so that, as he stood out from behind a hedge, he could sweep and spray bullets at all of them if need be.

"I'm afraid it isn't your house, your rules anymore," Ricky said in his most condescending tone, addressing Gavin Flint and pals as if they were tenants being bossed around. "Lower your weapon," he said to Smoke. "If you don't, I'll spray all of you."

This time, Florian said, "Who in the fuck are you?" He cocked his head, more baffled by this appearance than when Runt appeared.

"He's a punched-out boxer. His name is Ricky," I said.

Ricky's eyes lit with fury. "Shut your pie hole, or I'll shoot you in the balls."

Gavin Flint gave him a measured glance, like he was considering how to kill a skunk that had gotten into his garden. "So you're Ricky. Tell us, Ricky. Why are you here, and what do you want?"

Ricky gestured at me, looked back at them, and said, "Put your guns in the planter for now. All of you."

Gavin nodded to Florian, and they all obeyed. With the guns in the planter, Gavin, who'd remained sitting, smiled deviously at Ricky. "As you see, we were taking care of this Joe problem. If you noticed while watching us, why didn't you let us finish the job?"

"Don't start him talking. He'll never shut up," I said.

Ricky glared at me, jerking his Uzi. He was having a hard time holding back. "It's a personal matter. The job has to be done by me personally, with the rumors being that it was me, while the police, of course, can't prove it was me."

"That's interesting. Are you working for someone else?" Gavin asked.

"Obviously not. Runt was supposed to be working for me. I see now what a disloyal associate he is."

"You ... you ... never pay me," Runt stammered, a hurt look on his face.

As a Satanist, Gavin really was the master of evil. He knew exactly how to play up to the foul nature of jerks like Ricky. He didn't show any fear, even though he probably should have. His confidence in his manipulative powers was strong. His eyes went from Ricky to Runt and back.

Ricky's eyes flashed with anger. He was about to shoot Runt.

"Hmm," Gavin said, taking his time, not caring whether Ricky shot Runt. "I don't see why you can't kill Joe. We were going to kill him anyway. You do realize this fountain is situated in view of that lone garden camera over there. I'm a collector. That little scene of Runt finishing Donald is my latest edition." He pointed to a nearly invisible camera that I was well aware of, but Ricky and Runt apparently weren't.

Ricky gave Gavin a shocked glance, then looked at the camera. "Where does the camera feed go?"

"To my office," Gavin replied. "Surely you don't think I'd run a cloud-connected camera back here."

Ricky forgot about Runt and grinned. "In that case, I'll have you guys move aside. I want Joe positioned so he's centered on the camera. I'll spray him, and then you will get the video feed for my collection."

Florian studied Ricky coldly, as a snake would before striking.

Ricky waved his gun to force obedience. "I want that body dragged away. You people will stand off to the left where you're off camera for the shot."

Gavin and Smoke made no move to step away from the fountain. Neither did Florian nor Brice obey. Gavin spoke. "If you want a video memento, you want to do it as something you'll be proud of. Take Runt's killing of Donald. He didn't know it was being filmed, and it was better that he didn't because he acted the part naturally. With this Joe chap, who is known as trouble, he earned more than a quick spray. What I propose is a deal and a clean kill. We put him on his knees, backdropped by the fountain. The scene begins, and you step in, slap him, and insult him. You step back and show a switchblade in your hand. Flicking open the razor-sharp blade, you step back in and slash his throat from ear to ear. The camera gets the shot of blood spurting from his neck. If you like, you can turn and wave to the camera."

I had expected Ricky to interject. Ricky usually did all the talking. Instead, he was enthralled by Gavin Flint and listened.

"There's more to consider," Gavin said. "A video is something you can even dig out years from now and enjoy. What's more. We will dispose of the body. Trust me, it will never be found because we'll incinerate it. You get to walk away. We won't bother you. After all, you didn't come here to bother us. Runt, though, is working for me now. He stays."

Ricky looked over at Runt and put on a look of disgust. "I don't need Runt. Your idea sounds good, but I don't have a switchblade."

Gavin elbowed Smoke. "Drag that body away and put Joe in perfect position. Then we move left for the shot."

Smoke got up fast and dragged the body away. He kicked me and forced me over into the prime position by the fountain. Brice stepped up and pushed me to my knees. All that was needed was the blade.

Ricky stepped back, glanced left and right, and then over to the camera. He looked grimly satisfied. "It's a deal. Get the blade. Once it's done, I won't come here or trouble you again."

"Florian," Gavin said. "You carry a switchblade in your pocket, don't you?"

Florian reached into his pocket and pulled out a shining gold-handled switchblade. It was large and a collector's item, with raised occult symbols on the handle.

Ricky held his gun up in the air with his right hand. He looked at the switchblade for a moment, and his hungry eyes told me he'd bought the idea completely. Ricky was also lying when he said he wouldn't trouble them again. What he'd do is get to Runt later and arrange to rob the house on another night.

"Step over slowly and give him the blade," Gavin said.

Florian nodded and did just that ... he took a step, and then flew forward, flicking open the blade as he went nearly to one knee and slashed out with his long arm. The blade sliced right through Ricky's throat as Florian went the rest of the way to one knee, then pushed up and backed away. Ricky fired a single short burst into the sky, then he was motionless for a moment. Blood began to gush out of his neck; he collapsed to his knees, emitting a grotesque bubbling noise as he tried to say something. His eyes stared right into mine, filled with shock. Then he went down and died.

"You didn't have to do that," Runt said in his tiny voice.

"Yes, he did," Gavin said. "He came into my house, and the first thing he said was that it wasn't my house, my rules. He commanded his own death. Florian knew that and exactly what to do."

Florian nodded.

Brice looked down at the corpse and chuckled. "That was some camera shot, Gavin. I really have to credit you for that one. It's a big seller for sure."

They all laughed except for Runt, who remained confused. He shouldn't have been. Brice had just told him they sold the murderous shots, probably edited as movies.

"There's been another serious breach," Gavin said, brushing beads of sweat off his forehead. "The irritating Belinda. She got into the basement very late last night and ruined two of the card players for tonight's game. I just checked it and found out. The two boys are out of commission. I propose we play the game, and the stakes will be what we do with Joe. Take him down, and I will come down shortly after I talk to the others and get them set up on a board game for tonight."

Gavin Flint hurried into the house. Brice dragged the two corpses out of sight behind some dark bushes, leaving long smears of blood on the stones. He was leaving the corpses to rot out in the heat.

Florian bullied me to a side door, constantly jabbing me in the back. "You didn't show any fear in the garden," he said. "The others, no matter how tough, are begging by this point. Soon your stoicism will fade along with your manly pride. Your tough hide will be torn off, and you'll whimper like a begging dog, just as the others do."

I didn't bother replying. On the inside, we went down the hallway, and Florian shoved me down the stairs into the door, nearly knocking me over.

"Oh yes," Brice said, and he sounded actually cheery, not spouting about how happy he felt like those wearing a pearl. "He'll cry for his mommy. I can't wait to see it."

We were held up in the sweets cellar. Smoke had to run up to Gavin's office because they didn't have the keys to open the two doors leading to the other areas of the cellar. The pie fridge had been opened, and several pies had been thrown onto the cellar floor and walls. Mashed cherries were stuck in goo on the floor. Fumes from a shattered bottle of sweet wine filled the musty air.

"Belinda went into a rage again," Brice said. "I hate it when she makes a mess."

I had no idea who Belinda could be. I assumed she had to be one of the gamer girls upstairs or the new woman playing the piano. The others only went to the basement after they finished their rounds of board games. They would play some cards or board games down here and then supposedly go to other venues. In my estimation, the other venues were the incinerator or a grave in a ravine somewhere. So how did this Belinda fit in? Maybe Gavin had a favorite.

Florian took charge. "Brice, I want you to take Runt up and get that rollout mop bucket and other stuff from the cleaner's closet. You can clean this mess up. I don't want to use one of the gamer girls right now. They're starting a game."

Brice looked like he was about to object, but bit his lip and obeyed. Smoke returned to unlock the doors. "We'd better check the card room and the fun room. She was probably in both."

He went over to the far door, opened it, looked in, and then waved to Florian. Florian pushed me over by the door. Smoke flicked a light on and lit the back of the room. I could see the stone wall at the back. Two half-dead, naked men were manacled to the wall. Abrasions, welts, and cuts covered both. They looked like the cuts a whip would make. Their flesh was whitened by anemia. One of the men let out a low moan. The other looked to be dead. I recognized the moaner's face as Bo's. The silent one was a foppish gamer boy I'd seen during my backyard peeping. Even though they weren't the type of people I liked, a wave of pity struck me. Then a slow-rising feeling of rage began to burn in my breast.

Smoke disappeared in the gloom of the large room. I could see walls of mortared stone and sconces mounted, along with a floor of patterned red brick. Another light clicked on. Off to the left, I saw an area set up for photo shoots. The floor and the wall were covered with white screening, and large stand-up lights faced the area. Some furniture was off to the side, and a large red throne was at the center. A mounted video camera took the shots, probably material for Gavin Flint's hideous videos.

Smoke came back out, pushed me aside, and slammed the door. "Screw that for now. We'll fix it later. Let's check the card room."

Brice was now noisily cursing and cleaning up the mess with Runt's help. Smoke opened the door to the card room and turned on the lights. This room was not like the adjacent dungeon or the sweets cellar. A beautiful cherrywood table for board and card games sat at the room's center. Six matching cherrywood chairs surrounded it, and Jen and Ella sat in two of them. They wore sexy black-and-white maid outfits, the uniforms Gavin favored for his assigned servants, and they'd been waiting patiently in the dark. They looked over and smiled placidly at us. Both were unharmed and apparently pearl happy.

I tried to get a quick look at everything in the room. The table had pullout flat shelves for board games. In one corner, Gavin had a chess game set up on a smaller table, again in red wood. One shelf was stacked with game boxes, and three walls held card displays. The cards were mounted in black frames, each with four rows down and five rows across. I counted twenty of those boards. Some had smaller cards in frames. Cherrywood boxes were stacked on another long table of the same wood. One box was open, and I could see that the boxes were used to store additional decks of cards and individual cards.

Gavin Flint had every form of card mounted. He had sports cards from major leagues and of every type. He had autographed cards, limited editions, and collector cards from movies, TV shows, comics, and video games; things like Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Disney movies, Marvel and DC comics. He had cards from things I'd not heard of before, like Mars Attack and other offbeat movies. He had two large boxes marked trading cards and collectible card games. The counterfeit cards I'd given him for Android Netrunner would be in one of those boxes.

I needed to break the plastic ties on my wrists, but I couldn't see anything in the room I could use. If I could break free, there were plenty of handy weapons that I could use to bust heads... wooden boxes, heavy wooden chairs. I could whack Smoke with a glass frame torn from the wall. I had visions of fury and violence that were frustrated by the fact that I couldn't engage them.

Jen and Ella rose as we walked in, and Smoke quickly inspected the room. "Belinda didn't do anything other than lock the girls in here."

"It's always the boys," Florian said. "She hates them but believes women are superior and shouldn't be harmed. That's always the main conflict between her and Gavin. Belinda wants to torture boys. With Gavin, it's both, but especially the ladies."

Florian and Smoke sat on the left side of the table after placing me in the chair at the far end. Moments later, Brice came in and took a chair on the right. Runt aimed for the other chair on the right, but Florian ordered him and Ella to stand off to the side by the chessboard and put Jen in that chair.

One chair remained open at the far end of the table from me for Gavin Flint. Smoke spoke first. "I really hope Gavin plays something easy tonight. I can't win the games he plays with those playable collector decks. He knows those games, and I don't."

"You lack the intellect that Florian and I have obtained," Brice said, condescendingly. "To understand Gavin, you need to understand the games he plays because everything he does is a game of sorts."

"His games have too many surprises for me," Smoke replied. He looked to me. "My intellect may be lacking in games, but I'm a lot smarter than Joe here. He came to rob this house. Who knows, maybe he wanted to rape the women or to mess us up. The fool didn't bring a gun or a weapon other than tools. What did you expect there, Joe ... that you were going to defeat us with a pair of wire cutters?"

"Bah," Brice said. "He's like most thieves. They think they'll go in and not get caught. Then the plan fails. So where are you now, Joe, having shown up without a gun?"

I looked at him soberly. "Maybe if I'd brought a gun, I'd already be dead. But maybe not. I have a problem with guns. I'm too dangerous with them, so I avoid them."

Smoke sneered at me. "You're right that you'd be dead, because I'm faster with a gun than you'll ever be. So are Florian and Brice. In case you haven't figured it out right. The reason to carry a gun is to be dangerous. Instead, you worry about being dangerous. You should've picked another line of work."

Florian was drumming his fingers on the table. Everyone waited for Gavin; he seemed to be taking his time. I studied Jen closely, given that she was at the table with us. Her eyes were dilated; she listened to the conversation while keeping a pleasant expression. It wasn't the real Jen and certainly not the beautiful girl who'd been all attitude when I met her. She wouldn't have taken five seconds of shit from jerks like Florian or Gavin. Ella wouldn't have either. I had to credit Gavin with stealing an effective technology. It turned the human brain into obedient mush. I tried to look deeper into her eyes and expression to see if the real Jen was locked inside. She was placidly beautiful, but I couldn't find the real Jen; it was like she'd died and the new one was the perfect robot sex doll.

Chapter Thirteen: The Showdown

A person was coming out of the gloom of the sweets cellar. It looked like Gavin had finally found time for his card game and us. Except the person who appeared in the doorway wasn't Gavin. For a moment, I thought it was his creepy sister. Then I realized it was the lovely Belinda, and she wasn't his sister; she was Gavin Flint in drag.

Belinda had heavily made-up eyes with blue highlights, red lipstick on her powdered face, and a bright, teased-out, shoulder-length pink wig. The same wig I'd spotted on his office shelf when I spoke to him there in disguise.

Two rows of genuine pearls clung to her neck. Her shirt was blue and open. The breasts were obviously fake, and she wore a dress below the knees with a side slit to highlight her shaved leg. Pink ladies' flat shoes were on her feet.

Belinda walked in and took her seat at the table. During this time, the men said nothing and seemed to be seeing nothing unusual. Both Jen and Ella chimed in with, "Peace be with you, Belinda."

"Gavin is out for the night," Belinda said. The voice was Gavin's voice but affected to sound female. It was so poorly done that it came across as absurd. I could've done better myself in one of my disguises as a woman. Her eyes went to me and sparkled almost like she'd been pearled.

She tossed me a romantic wink. "Florian, my love, who is this handsome gentleman?"

"A thief we caught in the garden. His name is Joe. Tonight's card game is supposed to decide what to do with him. Perhaps we should put him in lockup and decide tomorrow when Gavin returns."

Belinda ignored him and kept gazing at me. "You know," Belinda said. "If you were done up right with a clean shave, you could look just like one of the girls."

"I'll pass on that," I said. "I'm not qualified to work in a skimpy maid's uniform."

Florian leaned over and punched me on the shoulder. "You talk politely when you're talking to Belinda. Don't get smart."

Belinda took charge, and I noticed that Runt had eyes for Belinda. His small eyes had a devious glint as he watched from over by the chess table. He saw Belinda as someone that he could perhaps manipulate. He didn't go unnoticed.

"Who is that charming little man you have here?" she said, again looking to Florian.

"That's Runt," Florian replied. "He's a new security man that Gavin hired."

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Belinda," Runt said. He then did a small bow. Runt had learned fast that politeness and obedience were the manipulative tools in this house. He was probably certain that he'd stumbled into a gold mine.

Belinda looked back to the table. "I killed Gavin's card game for tonight. I so much hate him, his pies, and wine. What I want is my stash of opiates always full." She looked to Brice.

"I did fill it, Belinda. Only two days back."

"Keep it that way. Tonight, we're going to play poker. I know you boys hate Gavin's specialty games as much as I do. The winner will decide what is to be done with Joe over in the lockup." Belinda then pulled a deck of cards out of her bra. "Before I deal, let's go around the table, with each player revealing a plan for Joe. The players are those of us at the table other than Joe. Jen will play too. So let's start. Jen, what do you want done with Joe if you are the big winner?"

Jen smiled and bubbled out her words. "I want whatever it is you want, Belinda. You always want what's best for us girls."

Belinda nodded, then looked to Florian, Smoke, and Brice. "You should listen to those wise words. I despise what the awful man, Gavin Flint, and you three do to my girls. You have no respect for ladies. Gavin has the manners of a beast, and it is corrupting all of you."

Gavin Flint, I realized, was a classic split personality type. This wasn't some modern two-spirited thing where each personality is aware of the other and, half the time, it's a put-on or a fad. Belinda thought Gavin was another person in another body and no doubt, Gavin thought the same of her. Such a condition was very rare. Florian and the boys had adapted and dealt with both. Maybe they'd always known about Belinda.

Smoke spoke next. "I want to chain him up on the rack and slowly take him apart with gunshots. His ankles, then his knees, then the hands, elbows, and shoulders. He'll have to be gagged to stop the screaming. Belinda, I will let you decide whether the finishing shot will be to the heart or between the eyes."

Belinda was obviously unimpressed. Brice was next. "I know your favored movie themes, but I don't think he should be allowed to enjoy himself with the ladies before he dies. A last cigarette is one thing, but giving him Jen and Ella in a movie scene is something I don't favor. I will think something up with the whip and the crossbow."

All eyes went to Florian. "We haven't pearled and questioned this guy. Gavin always pumps them first and gets all the information."

Belinda's eyes lit with fire. "Gavin is not in charge here." She then pulled a white pearl from her bra. "Here are my rules. I will test your brain. Put this on him, and you get to ask one question. If you're smart enough, you'll find out what you want to know with one question."

She tossed the pearl to Florian, and he got up and forced it on me as I struggled. Immediately, white lightning hit my brain. I could see myself above my body and Florian saying, "How do you feel now?"

My mind didn't answer. I remained floating above, watching, while my lips said, "I don't feel so good."

Belinda interjected. "You'll soon feel a lot worse. Let me tell you the story of the pearls. Gavin Flint tries to hide it, but I make sure everyone knows. The white pearl is the first pearl invented. Its effects are different. It forces absolute truth and obedience. But it destroys the brain over a couple of days. The person feels worse by the hour and can do nothing about it. The end comes with a brain hemorrhage. The pink and blue pearls are the new ones designed for males and females. They do gentle alterations to the brain. The person is euphoric and wants to obey. They take much longer to damage the brain. If removed before death, the brain can slowly heal." Belinda then raised a sissy fist. "Gavin is a liar. He tells you the house is a living game. The game always goes on, and the players are the pieces that are replaced. He wants a world where the game is all. It's a dumb fantasy of his. He knows the players will die, so he disposes of them before they do. He can't exactly let them go, can he? The man is not honest." Belinda's eyes slowly went to each of us. "Keep in mind that I am the truth-teller here. Mr. Gavin Flint can't be trusted."

"Okay," Florian said. "I have my one question." He looked me directly in the eyes. "You're not a vanilla burglar. You were working with Zhang. He tipped you off about the house. Is it true?"

"No, that's not true," my lips said, as I looked down from above. I realized that I would offer no resistance at all to simple commands if they weren't offensive. The disconnection from my body didn't bother me yet.

Florian slammed his fist on the table. "Damn. I blew my one question."

Belinda giggled, and Jen giggled with her.

The focus went off me as Florian rambled on about torturing me with various implements on the rack, after the throne punishment, whatever that was. The back of my chair had a tiny splinter where it connected to the seat. I worked the plastic tie that held my hands behind my back and slowly used it to make the splinter a little bigger without breaking it off. As Belinda moved into an exciting speech about how she wanted to make a creepy movie with me as the star and include Jen, Ella, and possibly Florian, I moved the splinter into the serrated edge of the plastic where it fit into the lock. With a little pull, the cuffs loosened. It would be enough to twist a hand out of the cuff and break free.

"I might even want to use Joe for a while if he performs well. I'm really working on honing my skills as a director."

Smoke cut in rudely, and Belinda glared at him. "My gut feeling is that this guy is too dangerous to even keep on board with a white pearl pacifying him."

Florian was interested. "Why would you feel that? I get no such feeling. No one has escaped the pearl. We even tried them on ourselves, though briefly."

"I don't know exactly. I had a weird dream after seeing him at Sugar's Nest. It was like a warning. I saw the wings of a big black bird swooping down at me, and then I saw his face."

"You sound like some of my friends from Jamaica," Brice said. "Runt. You know this man. How dangerous is he?"

"He is dangerous, but he isn't Superman. Even I could take care of him, pearl or no pearl."

Belinda shuffled the cards impatiently. She put them down. My vision was now more like a hallucination. I was in the room with them and wasn't. It was a problem. If I broke out of the cuffs, I really had to get a gun, and even then I wouldn't likely survive. With the pearl slowly sending me into deeper psychosis, I would soon lack the logic to prevail. Obviously, the pearl didn't work well on me, but it did on others. I could move with effort and disobey commands, but not fast enough to win a fight. One man, even at the top of his game, had little chance against all of them.

Belinda looked slowly at all of us. "You forget my other technique. The one that Gavin stole from me." She looked at me. "You see, Joe, I can make you do things. Make you kill people, incinerate people. Then I take the pearl off. It's too late then. You're trapped. You committed too many terrible crimes, and on video. It works like magic. Once that method is applied, the person does what he or she is told because there is no way out. I trap them in a web, and when done, I do what the spider does to its victims. Gavin is a coward and wants pearls on lest someone dare criticize him."

"Yes," my lips stupidly replied, though my mind was floating on blue clouds listening to her psychopathic talk.

"Let's get the game underway," Brice said. "We can decide stuff later. Usually we end up just going with the flow anyway."

Belinda agreed, shuffled, and dealt out a hand of poker. In my hallucinatory state, I was getting a laser focus on everything in the room. A form of sensory enhancement. Sadly, it told me there was no escape at present. It also told me that Belinda was using a deck of marked cards and none of the others had detected it. My enhanced, dreamy vision let me see the subtle pattern changes on the backs of the cards. I soon figured out the system and could read each player's cards. Not that it mattered. Belinda would win over time.

Despite the marked cards, they all became excited and animated as they played rounds. Smoke did extremely well despite the marked cards, and during this period, I went into a vision. The most horrible vision of my life. In it, I saw what had happened to the other house players who'd ended their day in that dungeon room. Unspeakable things. When it was Gavin, they often did cruel things to women. Vile videos that started like blue movies and ended with torture of the victims chained to the stone wall. The pearl forced them to enjoy killing others and their own deaths. I saw a flash of a fold-out director's chair. At times Gavin sat in it, then Belinda, then Florian. My head was spinning with images of cruel and wicked torment. It became like a tornado around my head. Then it broke. I felt like vomiting but didn't. I had no idea whether it was hallucinations or if I was seeing things that had happened.

Looking down from above, I saw their faces in distortion and the tossed cards moving in slow motion through the air. The silly laughter on their shape-shifting faces was sheer evil. My time was running out. I had enough brains left to know I needed a lucky break. My timed explosion was supposed to have blown. I was sure the time had run out, so something had gone wrong. My mind went blank for a few minutes, then the game was over, and we moved to the dungeon lockup. Once inside the room, Florian was having a laugh, commanding me to walk here and there in silly modes. He made me duck-walk from one end of the room to the other, then dance as Smoke, Runt, and Brice roared with laughter.

"Stop that foolishness!" Belinda shouted. She sat in a fold-out director's chair, a silly red beret atop her pink wig. "This is a professional production, directed by Belinda Starry Eyes. There's no place in it for your childish games. Put him over in the throne."

They fell silent, except for Florian, who ordered me over to the throne. It was a silly construction or mock throne with a blood-red seat and back, bronze armrests with occult symbols, and a similar bronze array haloing its back. When the command was something simple like walk over there, I just did it, or my body did, and it happened before my mind could object. Florian didn't bother to remove my cuffs; he pushed me into the throne, and I ended up sitting there with my hands behind my back, facing the director, Belinda, and a camera mounted on a tripod.

Brice stood over the camera, looking through it at me. Belinda held her chin with an effeminate hand. "This is going to take some artistic skill. It's not as easy as I thought. We have a handsome actor. Those handcuffs have to be removed. He has to be sitting properly on the throne for the opening scene."

Across the room, the two men manacled to the wall came to life. Bo moaned, and his partner wasn't dead after all. He woke and let out a weak and pathetic cry. The pearl in my ear and my hyper-awareness made it unbearable to look at them. I had been avoiding looking at them. A wave of shock and trauma hit my mind with such force that for a moment I didn't exist, and then it washed through me, and I was back.

"Darn, I forgot about them," Belinda said. "They're interfering with my artistic sense. Here's what we'll do. Florian, hand Runt a gun."

"You sure you trust him in here?" Florian said.

"There's only one way to find out."

Florian nodded in obedience, walked over, and handed Runt a gun. Runt already had his pink pistol back in his pocket, but he took the gun offered.

"Runt," Belinda said. "Shoot them both in the heart and between the eyes."

Runt, gun in hand, stepped over and spent a few moments setting up his aim. When he was satisfied, he fired four shots in slow succession. I managed to force my eyes closed so I didn't see it. The others clapped. Runt took a bow, went back over, and handed the gun to Florian, who loaded a fresh clip and pocketed it. Runt treated being ordered to kill two people as no different from being ordered to clean some pies from the floor.

"See what I mean," Belinda said. "Runt is a good worker. They need to be trained properly. Brice. I want you and Runt to take those bodies down, put them in body bags, and drag them out of sight."

While that was being done, Belinda spent a long time studying me and whipping up her plot for her movie. I suspected plots for such revolting movies were likely at the intellectual level of a ten-year-old boy who killed frogs. An assessment of Belinda and the other four hoodlums came into my mind. They would be iced if there were any justice in the world. Florian was a killer straight out of a vampire movie. Smoke and Brice were two gangsters. Runt was a bottom-feeding rat. Those four were psychopaths, but the director was both king and queen. Whether it was Gavin or Belinda in that chair made little difference, because the term that described both was maniac.

"Florian, pull a chair, and we'll go over this," Belinda said.

Florian went over, picked up another foldout chair that was leaning against the wall, and sat next to Belinda.

Belinda continued. "I want a movie that begins pleasantly and shifts to the rougher stuff, with a twist ending where the star perishes in an unusual manner. Some originality is needed. Joe is handsome and well-built. I am the director, which means Joe will be given the golden goblet of wine to drink because he is the star. The idiocy of Gavin directing while drinking the goblet of wine is not something I will imitate. He should imitate me, not the other way round. The shot will move gracefully to the girls opening his pants and servicing him. The three of them slowly strip, and all further acting will be directed on the fly as I issue commands."

Brice was back and interjected. "I'd like to be in that opening scene. Gavin often puts me in such scenes."

Belinda turned and gave him a contemptuous look. "I'm looking for big sales in the EU, as well as sales in the UK and China. Including dark meat in the shot will kill those EU and Chinese sales. They buy white, and they want strong and weird material."

"The EU has changed," Brice said. "The population is more multiracial today."

"Yes, it is," Belinda said, conceding the point. "But one thing I know is that those sand crawlers that have flooded the EU don't want to pay for anything. The standard classic EU perv is our customer base there. With the UK, the sissified men there want to see dicks more than chicks. They will have their eyes glued to Joe's dick. Now the Chinese are similar. There, we are talking about penis envy and envy of real men who burst with testosterone. They will also have their eyes glued to his dick. Since you, Brice, only want to be in the scenes where you gratify yourself, you are out. You are doing the filming, not Florian, so get ready."

Brice was disappointed. Belinda looked to Florian. "When the scene moves over to the dungeon area, that's where your creativity and expertise come into play along with Brice's camera skills. While the opening scene is unfolding, you can look over your table of tools and decide what you want in the film."

Belinda waved her hand over at the dungeon area. There, a battered and bloodstained table was laid out with Medieval surgical tools ... scalpels, a bone saw, curved knives, a hand-operated skull drill, sharp metal hooks, thin piercing rods, and cautery irons. Jars of ointments and a medical box were also on the long table, likely to wrap and bandage wounds of those they wanted to torture longer. A collection of handcuffs, manacles, and whips hung on a board on the wall. I didn't need to know more about the movie plot. I'd seen what they did to Bo and his pal. There were numerous others. It soured my stomach while the effects of the white pearl spun my brain. A hideous whirlwind of evil and laughter spun around me, and out of that hallucination, I saw Smoke returning through the door from the sweets cellar with a large golden goblet of wine, which he set on the arm of the throne.

I felt too sick to get an erection or perform in a movie, but as my mind floated, I knew my body would do whatever they commanded, right up to death by torture. The obedience would be slow, as the pearl wasn't strong on me. In my lifetime, I had never really wanted to kill anyone. Not even Ricky. I wanted to beat the hell out of him, but not kill him. I didn't want to see him die the way Florian killed him either. I'd gone so far as to stay away from guns to protect others from me.

My eyes went to Jen and Ella, who were smiling and waiting to play their parts. I felt sudden pity for them. It rose so strongly that I nearly passed out. Not just pity for them but for all of the others who'd been forced to do sickening things against their will, and then, in the end, suffer and die themselves. Jen and Ella had, without a doubt, been forced to do criminal things already, and because of it, rage rose again in my chest. I would never fault them for doing what they couldn't stop, but the other five were a power of evil. I wanted to kill all of them. There would be no remorse. In their case, I would kill them and never regret doing it for even a moment. The feeling came on with force, and my mind floated back down to my body.

Florian walked over to remove my cuffs. As soon as he got close enough, I was going to snap them and go directly at him. It didn't matter if I died. My anger was overpowering the pearl.

Then it happened. My timed explosion. It hit with a powerful thump that rattled the house and shook down dust. The dungeon was the basement room next to that server and computer area. The heavy door was at the back by the table of torture implements. That door suddenly blew off its hinges, sending in a cloud of smoke and dust and flinging the table and its tools like shrapnel across the dungeon. Runt was lifted into the air.

Belinda rose lightning fast and shouted, "The pearls are dead! The gamers are going to escape! Five thousand dollars to every man who prevents it!"

Runt was up in a flash. He shot like a cannonball out the door to the sweets cellar and up the stairs. Smoke ran behind him, followed by Brice, both with their guns out.

Florian didn't follow; he turned to me. He was visibly shaken. Ella was on her knees weeping, and Jen was staggering around the room, holding her hands to her head like she feared it would explode. She bumped into Florian, and he shoved her away. Florian looked at me with cold rage and said, "You, you are going to die."

I had an answer to that. I snapped the cuffs and came up with my left hand, sweeping the golden goblet of wine off the arm of the throne into his face. At the same time, Florian moved in with a fancy knife slash, which I ducked. I came up, shoved him back while he was blinded by the wine, and hit him with a right that connected to his jaw with maximum force, sending him staggering back and tumbling over his director's chair and the fallen camera.

Jen suddenly shouted, "You bitch!" She ran at Belinda holding a sharp metal hook that had spilled across the floor in the explosion, and she swung it, embedding it deep into Belinda's shoulder.

Belinda screamed, pushed her back, ran out the door, and up the stairs with the hook stuck in her shoulder. Jen staggered, then went to her knees, holding her head. Florian had pulled out of his stumble fast and was pulling a gun. I grabbed one of the director's chairs, got off a lucky swing, and knocked the weapon out of his hand. A bullet flew from it and skated across the floor. The bullet would've taken me out if Florian had been able to aim.

Rage flushed Florian's pale face. His first choice was the dagger. I knew he'd get me up close, so I backed into the smoky room and over by the blown door. The board with the manacles and whips had spilled to the floor. I bent over, grabbed a small braided whip of black-and-red leather, and snapped it up just as Florian was about to throw his weighted dagger at my chest. My quick snap caught his wrist, and he dropped the dagger. I yanked the whip, pulling forward, but I slipped. We both staggered. He pulled out his switchblade, spun, slashed, and missed as I dodged him.

I saw a curved knife on the floor, ducked over, grabbed it, and was back against the wall. Florian moved forward with confidence, certain he'd beat me in a knife fight. Jen suddenly screamed and lunged at him, but tripped over a fallen shelf. It distracted Florian as he looked left, and I lunged forward and chopped the curved knife into his neck. It locked into his neck and came out of my hand as he stumbled back. He managed to swing his blade and nearly got me as I dropped down. He halted, standing there. His eyes widened with horror. He raised his hand to the hilt of the knife, then choked and slowly collapsed to the door.

I walked over and picked up his gun: a pale-gold Glock semi-automatic. I jammed it in my belt at the back, covered by my shirt. No hostiles had returned, so I fanned away some of the foul smoke and looked inside the burned room. I'd fried the server room completely. It was too dangerous to enter. The pearls and Belinda Starry Eyes or Gavin Flint's collection of recent movies had been fried along with the servers.

Turning, I went over to Jen, pulled her to her feet, and shook her.

"Try to get it together. See if you can get Ella on her feet. We have to get out of this basement, or we'll be trapped down here. This smoke is ripping up my lungs."

"I'll try," she said.

I led her over to Ella. "Get her up and moving. She'll respond to you better."

"Where are we going?"

"Whatever way is an escape for you two while I deal with them."

"No, they'll kill you and then find us."

"Follow behind me and don't worry until you have to."

I went slowly out into the sweets cellar. No one was there. Blood drops from Belinda's shoulder wound trailed up the stairs. Jen led Ella, following me, up to the first floor. I saw no one in the open hallway. The blood spots went down toward the stairs up to Gavin Flint's office. They probably felt that Florian had taken care of me.

I waved Jen and Ella into the same large room of stored furniture that I'd entered the night I broke into the sweets cellar. I left the room light off and checked whether the garden was clear. Smoke drifted from the server room below and blew in a cloud over to the parking area and toward the ravine. Things were still cooking down there. No one was at the parked cars, but the gamers were out in the garden, gathered at the fountain away from the haze of acrid smoke. Most of them sat and wept. Some others looked on; their faces were pained by a mix of shock and brain trauma caused by sudden disconnection from the pearls. Layla, Jen's other friend, the one I'd met and danced with at Sugar's Nest, was among those standing. Leah, Laurel, and David were there, with David among those weeping. None of Gavin Flint's gang was present. I wondered where they'd gone.

I turned back to Jen and Ella, pulled the pearls from their ears, and told them to stay where they were. I removed the pearl from my ear, pocketed the pearls, and went out the window, creeping around near the fountain. From a crouched position in the garden, I could see Gavin Flint's office window. Belinda was hysterical. I heard her muffled cries and saw her left arm waving. Brice was bandaging her shoulder. I realized they'd gathered the people in the garden and had gone up to treat Belinda.

They knew the gamers were too confused and upset to flee the grounds. They weren't looking down on the garden, so I went over to each person, weeping or not, removed the ear pearls, and pocketed them. I wanted any remaining pearls destroyed. I felt I had them all except maybe a few in Gavin Flint's office. The explosion had melted the stash of pearls below.

Jen and Ella were coming out the window, even though I'd told them not to. I tried to wave them back in, and during the distraction, Runt and Smoke appeared. Runt was to my left, and Smoke was coming out the back door.

"Move over to the fountain. Move, or I'll shoot," Runt said. The handgun he held looked big in his hand. But he wasn't pointing it at me. He was pointing it at Jen and Ella.

Smoke was pointing a gun at me and also waving me over to the fountain, so I slowly edged over, watching them both carefully as I did. Moments later Brice appeared, holding a semi-automatic pistol in each hand. He must've spotted me from the office window and come down.

The three walked closer, and Brice commanded the weeping people to my left and right to move away from me but to remain in the open area of the fountain.

"Belinda is coming down shortly," Brice said to Smoke. "I hit her with an opiate shot to stop the pain. She wants to personally give the order to blast this guy."

Smoke studied me coldly. He glanced around. "Florian. Where is he?"

"He thinks we escaped out front. He's way out there somewhere hunting us."

They believed my lie because they believed in Florian's invincibility. They didn't believe I had the power to prevail over him. So far, they didn't know that I had Florian's gun in my belt behind my shirt, and I didn't want them to figure that out.

Layla, Leah, and two of the male gamers looked on as if they couldn't quite comprehend what they were seeing; most of the others stayed teary and generally ignored us, their heads facing their laps. I guessed they were still in a partial dream state. Ella and Jen were closest to me, and neither of them was weeping. They were recovering but looked shocked. The new gal I'd seen at the piano was nearby, tearing at her hair like she was trying to pull something out of her head. The pearl's effects had worn off fast on me, probably pumped out by adrenaline. I still felt like crap, but up to this point I had been too involved to notice.

Belinda emerged from the back door. Her wig askew, her makeup running from tears. A sloppy bandage covered her shoulder. She held Gavin's special Wilson combat pistol at her side in her left hand as she stumbled over the patio and stopped next to Runt. The four of them stood spread out nine feet from me by the flowerbeds, like I was a snake too dangerous to approach. Smoke, Brice, and Runt were waiting for Belinda's order to shoot me. The three of them held their guns down like it was a fast-draw competition to see who could blast me first once the order came.

Then, off to the right in the semi-dark of the south garden, a firm voice said, "Drop those guns, or we'll shoot."

Detective Gene Fisher and Brent had crept around from the front; both had their weapons pointed. I hadn't noticed them approaching. Brice decided to play gunslinger. He turned fast and fired both semi-automatics. He nailed Brent right in the heart and Detective Fisher in the shoulder, spinning him partly around to fall in a flowerbed by a bush. Detective Fisher had got off a shot, but it missed and dinged a car in the parking area. Brent went down. He was dead.

"I better double-tap him," Brice said, looking toward Detective Fisher. He took a step and stopped. Somehow I read his mind. He worried that while he stepped over to finish Detective Fisher, the others would blast me and he'd lose the pleasure of getting the first shot.

Brice turned fast to fire at me. As he did, I dropped backward onto the hard stones, and drew Florian's pale-gold Glock semi-automatic. It was like dropping into one of the visions, everything in slow motion, all happening in a second or two. This time the vision was the reality of the garden. My arm went up and pumped two shots at Brice. It moved to Smoke and fired two more, another short drift, and a bullet headed for Runt. The final shot was at Belinda. At the same time, Smoke's pistol flared, as did Belinda's. Brice's head blew apart. I'd hit him in the temple; his guns dropped from his hands. Smoke flew back in the air. One of my shots had hit him in the heart and the other in the center of the forehead. The shot he'd fired parted my hair. Runt didn't even get up his pistol. His gun dropped, and he dropped. Belinda's shot ricocheted off the fountain's centerpiece. My bullet had hit her in the shoulder, and she went down by a bush. I heard screams and some gasps as my eyes came back into focus. Jen and Ella had screamed, and Layla had gasped. A couple of the gamer boys were wide-eyed. Others were still absorbed in their personal torment.

I got up fast and walked over to Belinda. The wig had come off; she was down on her rear, holding the combat pistol against her breast with her left hand. She felt little pain from the shoulder hit due to the opiates.

"Don't try it. Drop the gun. I'm faster than you," I said.

Gavin Flint's voice answered. "I won't give you the pleasure," he said, his eyes looking far off; then he tilted his gun toward his chin and pulled the trigger. Blood sprayed over purple flowers. He died there in the garden. It was ugly. I turned and checked the others. They were dead, and Brent was dead.

Detective Fisher had a bad shoulder wound but was rising from the flowerbed. "Did I just see what I think I saw?" he said. "Or was it a hallucination?"

"I told them I'm dangerous with a gun. I guess they didn't listen. You're bleeding. I'm going to run in and call for help."

"The bastard killed Brent. He was my best officer," Detective Fisher said as he looked over at the body.

"He'll be remembered," I said, then I waved Jen over. "Listen. Run down to the dungeon and grab that box with the bandages and wrappings. This man is bleeding badly."

She nodded. We both ran into the house. I made a quick call on Gavin's landline, telling dispatch an officer was down, but the perps were dead. Then I ran upstairs to Gavin's office. I hadn't come into the house to use the landline. I could've used Brice's pocket phone. I did a quick search of the office. A wall safe was open and filled with gold wafers and some jewelry. Inside a desk drawer, I found what I wanted. Six pearls. Figuring I had them all, I went down to the kitchen, took the pearls from my pocket, and smashed them to pieces with a meat mallet.

Detective Fisher didn't see me coming back out. Jen was already there staunching the bleeding from his shoulder. I walked past the others to the back of the garden, dumped out the crushed pearl pieces, scattered them, and buried them in a flowerbed.

I walked over to Detective Fisher and Jen. "The evidence you want is behind the painting of a man with one brown and one blue eye off the piano lounge. Make sure your boys, not the cops from the station up here, get that evidence before you're taken to the hospital."

Detective Fisher nodded, then I searched each body and found one pearl in Smoke's pocket. I didn't need Florian's gun anymore, so I tossed it by Smoke's body, crushed the pearl underfoot, buried it, and then sat on the edge of the fountain between Layla and a curly-haired gamer guy with long lashes and a feminine face. The word in large yellow script on his T-shirt was Bang. It was appropriate because the police swarmed in with guns up, looking to make a big bang. But found no one to fight. Within minutes, it looked like every cop and firefighter in the city had arrived at the dream house.

Detective Gene Fisher had paid attention. He had a few of his undercover men called in. The police argued as they investigated the scene, but I knew the crime was too big for any local cop to cover up, and Detective Fisher prevailed. Those of us in the garden were taken away in wagons to the warehouse station as the lengthy investigation began.

The End Game

Three weeks passed before I was out of jail and the neighborhood psychiatric institution. I arranged to meet Detective Gene Fisher, Jen, and Layla at a restaurant, but had to deal with some personal business first.

Shawn managed to get a note to me past the cops and psychiatrists I'd been dealing with. It was trouble. Spider Dubois, the hitman who'd been hunting me for a year and a half, was in town. A second note told me that Spider had gotten to Shawn. I knew that because Shawn's note was to set a meeting with me over a drug buy. I didn't buy drugs, but Spider Dubois probably thought I did. Shawn had probably told him I was here dealing drugs and that he was my supplier. It meant Spider had a gun to Shawn's back and had ordered him to set me up for a hit.

The meet was to be at the same location under the old suspension bridge. I drove there in the dark, planning to arrive on time for the midnight meet-up. On the way, I picked up a package from a mailbox in a storage locker joint. A Springfield .45 tactical pistol was in the package, and I stuffed it under my shirt and belt at the back. I'd left a bit early and didn't enter the same way, but farther down on the bumpy road by the river.

I got out in the dark, spooking a small animal that bolted into the tall grass. Using my binoculars, I scanned the bridge carefully to see where Spider had set up. He favored shooting people in the face with a scoped rifle, so I figured he'd be there under the span of the bridge somewhere. He wasn't, so that meant he'd set up on the embankment behind the parking spot Shawn used. It was an easy location for an easy shot.

He'd be up there in the dark, facing me as I walked over to Shawn, ready to gun me down. Spider wouldn't want anything up close or to hear any last words. He was professional except for his quirk of shooting people in the face.

Satisfied with where he would be, I got back in the car and drove slowly to the meet-up. I turned off my headlights as usual and crawled up, then got out and walked the last several yards. Shawn didn't shine a flashlight in my face this time, but he didn't have to, because Spider would have a night scope and wouldn't need it anyway; the night was bright, and they'd fixed some of the lights at the top of the bridge.

Loud party music blared from a boat passing out on the dark river, but he wouldn't be on it. I calculated that Spider would be behind Shawn, up on the embankment under the bridge's final support. He'd be ready to fire as I stepped up to Shawn. He'd shoot us both, even though he would have told Shawn he'd be spared. I'd have a moment to draw and shoot him first because he would take that moment to plan two perfect shots. Spider was too much of a perfectionist.

Then, as I approached Shawn, I saw his face… white and tense; his eyes told me we were both about to die. I'd miscalculated. I realized that Spider wasn't going to shoot me in the face but in the back of the head. He didn't want to take any chances.

That meant he was up on the embankment, alright, but off to my left and behind me. His finger would already be on the trigger.

At that moment, there was a crash, a following thump, and a long scrape of metal up on the bridge. I dropped into a squat, spun to fire, and got off two shots. The first missed, but on the second, I caught the flash of Spider's scope and aimed for it.

Spider's shot whizzed past me, barely missed Shawn, and ricocheted off a concrete pylon and into the water. My second shot didn't miss, and I saw Spider's dark outline as he fell and rolled down the embankment. I ran over with Shawn, and he clicked on a small flashlight. Spider was dead, lying in the weeds. My shot at his scope had hit him in the face. It wasn’t pretty. Shawn looked at me, shrugged, then went up with the flashlight and grabbed the gun, a Ruger rifle.

A car horn was stuck, and a woman screamed on top of the bridge. Two men were shouting. The continuing noise of the accident had covered the gunfire. I helped Shawn carry Spider's body to the van in silence. We tossed it inside. He tossed the rifle inside with it.

"I'll get rid of the body. The rifle, I can sell. You damaged the scope, though, along with Spider's face."

"It could've been both our faces. He planned to shoot us both."

"Yeah, I know he planned that, but I had to do what he said and rely on you figuring it out from the note. Damn, why'd you do it that way? You should've got a rifle and shot long range."

"Maybe I'm a gambler and can't fix it."

We'll meet again soon. I have a solid buyer for the diamonds. He's a guy who always pays."

The sound of approaching sirens added to the shouting above. Police were headed for the accident, so we got in our vehicles and drove out on the lower road. I had gotten lucky. Spider never would have missed that shot, but sometimes accidents get in the way. When the Reaper swung his scythe over the top of the bridge, he decided to take Spider into the darkness with the other victims.

At home, I slept soundly and dreamlessly until noon. The pearl game was over, but the pearl cover-up was underway. In the afternoon, I walked into the back of Bobby's Corner, the hidden alternative joint that was a gay bar on Friday and Saturday nights. The one that Detective Gene Fisher used for private meetings. We were back in the food section at that big square table with pole-mounted padded stools.

Jen and Layla were drinking strawberry milkshakes through straws. Detective Gene Fisher ordered me a beer. I'd heard he had a romance going with Layla. Both girls looked surprisingly lush and beautiful in summer outfits. Layla wore a white top, jean shorts, and sandals, while Jen wore a white straw hat, sunglasses, and a sleeveless, open white shirt with high-waisted, loose shorts.

I looked them both over with some understated surprise. "How do you do it? I still feel like roadkill from Gavin Flint's creepy garden."

"It's the medications the psychiatrists gave us," Layla said. "We spat them out, and when we got out, we threw the prescriptions and bottles in the trash. No sweet wine either. We're drinking gin these days."

"I dumped those medications too," I said. "The only thing I've been taking is headache pills and beer."

"I took opiates for four days," Detective Fisher said. "They wanted to put me on psych stuff over my wound and the new evidence clearing my son. I refused. Not just that, but they feel that anyone who has viewed Gavin's murder cards is traumatized."

"Gene," Layla said with a wink. "You didn't tell us what's happening next."

"I was waiting for Joe to arrive."

Detective Fisher had a laptop at the table. He opened the lid and turned it to show us the screen. "Latest headline," he said. The headline featured a photo of Gavin Q. Flint when he was ten years younger and said: DEADLY HYPNOTIST TIED TO TEN MURDERS.

"Ten murders," I said, shocked. "That box of cards has dozens. I'm sorry one was your son, but at least you have closure. I know he was in there. I didn't see the card. I only saw a few of them."

Detective Fisher nodded. "It's depressing, but I know. I can focus on this neighborhood now. Sadly, I saw all of the cards."

I wasn't satisfied. "What about the cover-up that prosecutor James Shawcross is running? Now he's claiming ten, even though he knows there were many more. What happened there? Where did justice go?"

"Intelligence agencies and international police are where justice went. They took over. There are a dozen or more spin-off investigations. Justice will likely be done quietly by spooks. Belinda Starry Eyes didn't just make nasty movies. She sold them to key officials and politicians, and many of them are overseas. She also blackmailed them. She had ways of making people do what she wanted. Gavin, the second half, had his ways too. They were a two-person international terror team in one body."

"I don't like Shawcross or his games. He threatened to put me in a psychiatric institution for life if I didn't give him information on the technology I destroyed at Gavin's house. Before that, he was going to charge me as a mad bomber and a mass murderer. Then he reduced it to four counts of manslaughter, which he also dropped after consultation with other prosecutors and psychiatrists."

"Well," Jen said, giggling. "You would've been the neighborhood. The big feature of this neighborhood is its mental institution."

"How's it going with Ella?" I said. "Can you get her out soon?"

Jen's smile faded. "The institution doctors have her on meds. We're working with our lawyer on a plan for a quick release. Only three of us got out so far. Freddy is the only guy who got released as an outpatient. The others are on heavy medication. They have deeper psychological damage. They don't know what's real, what happened, and what didn't. To them, it's a blurry dream. A very scary dream. They think they were hypnotized, and that's what the prosecutor wants, or what the people pulling his strings want. The story is the same with everyone. When we bring up the pearl, the shrinks claim it was a symbol used by the hypnotist and his gang of merry men. Part of the hypnotist's technique to gain full control."

Detective Fisher shook his head with irritation. The investigation had been taken out of his hands, and he didn't like it. "It'll stay that way. They can't charge Joe with anything, or any of you people, because you didn't have control over your own minds. They rigged the forensics to claim Gavin and his boys lost their minds and killed each other. Pardon me, they say Belinda lost her mind and caused it. That's the only way they feel they can do it. I know it isn't honest. They won't say Joe killed them because they can't prosecute him for anything if he was hypnotized. It would also make the case more newsy than it already is. They wanted it quieted so other deep investigations can move ahead undercover without being exposed."

"I see," I said. "Having the criminals shoot it out, kill each other, and murder one police officer gives them a neat cover-up and allows them to continue the investigation undercover. What about Donald, that tech guy I freed? How are they portraying his death?"

"I know," Jen said. "They're no longer portraying him as a victim. When they questioned me in the institution, I picked that up. They now see him as another member of the gang."

"Don't feel bad about it," I said to her. "He was involved with Gavin in creating the mind control tech. He fried the brains of some people before Gavin decided to fry his. Gene, what's going on now in their quest to find out about the tech?"

"The spooks investigated your destruction of Gavin's fancy server room, but they don't have a clue about the pearl technology or what it was exactly. You melted that room completely. Everything in it was destroyed. The knowledge of it is buried. They had the prosecutors try to weasel information out of you, along with the psychiatrists. They haven't questioned you personally because they know you won't tell them anything. They also don't want you to know about their continuing investigations. Now, they're moving on the idea that Gavin developed some form of super hypnotism, and they're investigating his entire past. The bastards think there might be a super hypnotic technique, and they want it."

"Really," I said. "I thought intelligence agencies were already supposed to have mind control techniques. I guess they always want more. I'm glad I destroyed Belinda's store of her newest videos in that server room before she sold them. At least Jen and the others rescued don't have to worry about videos of them being out there."

Detective Fisher nodded. "The videos they sold overseas included missing people that they killed in the videos. None of the rescues are in them. You forgot to include yourself, Joe. You're considered a rescued victim. They were going to kill you in a video. Be thankful that didn't happen."

An hour later, Detective Fisher headed back to the station to clear up some business and arrange for his return to work. Layla, Jen, and I strolled down a sunny summer street.

"Let's go over to the big happy house and visit Ella," Jen said.

"Good idea," I said. "We'll check what game the psychiatric team is now playing. I'm going to have my lawyer work on getting Laurel out. She doesn't have a good lawyer of her own."

"How'd you get out so fast?" Layla said, looking mystified.

"A good lawyer along with lies, lies, and more lies. We baffled them with bullshit. I planted the hypnotist angle to help get everyone out. The pearls need to remain buried, and the hypnotist tale does that too. It helps some of the others with their trauma. They think much of what happened was hallucinations from hypnotism. It eases the pain. It's better for them if they think much of it was unreal and never really happened."

"It's not easy to get over some of the things we did," Jen said. "I refuse to think about it, but it comes back in nightmares. The others may always be mentally wounded. I have to deal with it soberly and not wiped out on psychiatric medication. I disagree with the psychiatrists."

We stopped, and I faced them both. "It's water under the bridge. No person is responsible for things that happened under mind control, whether from a pearl or a hypnotist. It's best to realize it and then forget it. You can't rid yourself of trauma while continually wallowing in it. Things you couldn't stop aren't your fault. You do have the power to stop psychiatrists from messing you up even more."

"You stopped them," Layla said. "You shot them."

"I got lucky. It was like an ugly dream when that pearl hit me. Maybe an angel dreaming a better dream saved us."

Layla smiled and punched me on the shoulder. "Say, let's go dancing tonight. Anywhere but Sugar's Nest."

---the end ---