Writing

I’ll be posting one chapter of my novel Collections every week throughout 2023. Download links below.

12.

“I’m not speaking to you. Just so we’re clear.”

I nodded. “Duly noted.”

Rachel let us walk in peace for another few seconds.

“I promised him you wouldn’t hurt him,” she said fiercely.

I nodded again. “Actually, you promised him I would be reasonable, and fuck, I’m being so reasonable it hurts.” I glanced at her sideways. “The Bumble’s not going to hurt him. He’s just keeping a pin in him, make sure he doesn’t disappear again.”

“Billy Bumbles is not going to hurt him,” she spat. “Billy hurts people when he coughs.”

I tried a bright smile as we crossed the slick, empty street that ran perpendicular to mine, streetlights spilling dulled orange light. The Bumble wasn’t a complex, unpredictable tool: he could be trusted to do what I asked of him and no more or less. Falken was about as safe as any man who owed that much money to the wrong people could be.

“Trust me, Rache,” I said, leading her to the low stone wall separating the backyard garden of the corner building from the sidewalk. “You’re the one made deals in my name without consulting me. Don’t fucking complain about the manner in which I honor them.”

She didn’t comment on that. “Why the fuck are we going to your apartment?”

“I’m buying time. Go around front and wait outside. If anyone looks like they’re looking for me shows up, stall.”

“What?”

“I’ll meet you around front in a few minutes.”

“Why are you buying time?” She asked, putting her hand son her hips again. “Aren’t you immortal?”

I tolled my eyes. “You don’t believe that horseshit any more than I do. Now go on. I promise you, I’m trying to find a solution to all this. But I need time.”

She nodded, softer than I’d expected, and turned to go. I watched her walk for a moment, knowing that if she caught me ogling I’d be in dutch. Then I put my hands on the surprisingly warm, painted stone and pulled myself up and over the low wall, landing awkwardly in the dense, fragrant garden. The corner building’s basement apartment was inhabited by a cheery, crazy old woman and her sullen, crazy son, both fat as pears waddling around, doing half-assed superintendent work in return for reduced rent and drinking lite beer in surprising, disturbing quantities on the front steps just about any night it wasn’t cold or wet. She was a waste of time, generally, except for the magnificent garden she kept in the back, toiling over it every day. I was sad, sometimes, thinking that someday the old bat would die and her son would let the garden rot and wither.

I crossed the garden and scaled the sagging chain-link fence on the other side, hidden behind an aggressive and strangely sticky-feeling wall of ivy. The next yard over was a neat, clean concrete box with a drain in the exact center. No furniture, no plants, nothing. The wall between it and my building’s back yard was about ten feet high, but someone had embedded thick eyehooks into the blocks, creating a precarious ladder up to the top. The drop into my own backyard was a little frightening, all the dark, overgrown weeds and trees, but I managed to not twist an ankle. From there it was an easy climb up the rusting fire escape to my bedroom window, and then I was back inside my tossed apartment without anyone knowing.

Whoever had tossed my place had found the cutout in the closet floor, probably within seconds of entering the place, but all it revealed was an empty wooden pit. I leaned down and pushed down hard on the bottom of the pit and the wooden panel clicked and came loose, revealing a second box beneath it. I fished out one of the duffel bags hidden in the cool, damp darkness underneath, and pulled two plastic-wrapped cubes of cash from it. Then the bag went back down, I pounded the panel back into place carefully, and slipped the bricks of money into my coat pockets, twenty grand. Then it was back out the window and back the way I’d come, dusting myself off on the sidewalk and straightening my cuffs before swinging around the corner and waving to Rachel. She looked radiant, a tiny sexpot in tight jeans giving me her Pursed Lips of Doom.

“What the fuck—”

“Sorry I kept you waiting. Let’s go up. I need a shower and a change of clothes, and then I’ll take you to breakfast.”

She didn’t want breakfast. She wanted to stand in my ruined kitchen for twenty minutes telling me I was an asshole, and then she called a cab and left. It was a pretty typical date for me and Rachel: Abuse, no touching, me groggy and covered in silt.

I took a shower with my shoes on the bathroom floor, stepping into them to walk through the ruin of the place to my bedroom, where I spent a distressing twenty minutes trying to find a shirt that didn’t look like someone had used it as a towel recently. I’d fallen behind on my dry cleaning. And my housekeeping. And my dance lessons.

Dressed, I called and checked in with The Bumble, who reported that Falken didn’t seem to like him very much but wasn’t causing any trouble. Then, still damp from the shower, I caught a cab downtown to Rowdy’s to have breakfast, careful on the steep stairs down into the basement of 86 Barrow Street. Dumb Benny was working the door, and greeted me with his wet, toothless smile and an awkward, unwanted hug. But Dumb Benny was an avalanche of a man, sixteen tons of jovial weight, and in enclosed spaces you did whatever Dumb Benny wanted you to do.

Inside, I walked quickly through four small, empty rooms that appeared to be dust-filled and long-unused, emerging into the subdued din of Rowdy’s gaming room. It was a low-ceilinged affair with no windows and poor ventilation, six round poker tables, a bar, and about twenty men and women playing cards with the sort of grim, loveless determination usually reserved for hunger strikes.

Clarence was behind the bar, thin and Filipino and happy enough to see me. I ordered steak and eggs and a Belgian-style beer. Rowdy’s kitchen was a secret; it only existed for a select few. They made their eggs light and fluffy with a pinch of Adobo and Rowdy’s cousin was a butcher. The steaks were fucking gorgeous.

“My credit here still good?” I asked Clarence as I lit a fresh cigarette. I didn’t want to pay for breakfast by breaking open a brick of hundred dollar bills like some asshole kid trying to impress everyone. Not to mention advertising, in a room filled with criminals, that I was flush. I’d been awake forever and felt scratchy.

Clarence nodded, pouring beer from an amber bottle expertly. “Sure, sure,” he said, grinning. Clarence grinned a lot. It was almost a permanent expression.

That was good. Aside from breakfast, it meant Frank hadn’t queered me on the street, cutting me off. It wouldn’t make sense for him to do that, since I owed him money and to get money I needed to work, but Frank was a vindictive bastard, sometimes. Sometimes he just liked flexing his muscle on you.

As I ate, I puffed my cigarette and considered. Falken said he didn’t have the money, and I believed him; if he had resources he wouldn’t have been hiding with the roaches in a basement. No one who borrowed money from Frank had money, that was the point. But you could get money out of them. It was amazing how people found money, people who’d felt compelled a few weeks earlier to go to Frank McKenna and put up with his bad jokes and acrid cologne to beg for money. You pressed their pressure points hard enough and they found old friends to touch, valuables to sell, houses to mortgage. People didn’t borrow from Frank when they had no resources, they borrowed from Frank when they didn’t want to liquefy the resources they had. My job was to clarify that for them. So I considered Falken to still be an okay risk, and I was going to hang onto him until I figured out how to squeeze him without breaking my word to Rachel.

I considered Rusch and Doira and Falken and their crazy story: Multiple universes, our doubles running around—Dopplegangers, my old grandad would have called ’em in his thick accent. Graps, I’d called the skinny dried-up old drunk, and that was the only thing he’d ever taught me, that one word. Bullshit, had to be, but they sold it. When I’d been a kid, I’d joined the Boy Scouts for all of two weeks, on my Dad’s insistence, seeking to socialize me or something. I’d gone on a weekend camping trip, nothing major, just a bunch of shitbag kids in a state park getting dirty water diseases and mud in their underwear. The older kids had a hazing tradition, and all the new kids were given chores as we set up camp; mine was to go around to the other campsites and ask for a gallon of striped paint. I was a kid, I was an asshole, I spent an hour going from camp to camp asking for striped paint. When I finally figured it out I went after all of them at once, just kicking and punching, and I’d broken two noses, knocked five teeth loose, and cracked a half dozen ribs before two adults pulled me off them.

What I remembered, aside from the sweet happiness of beating on the motherfuckers, was the completely straight faces they’d had when sending me on my way. They sold it, and I’d believed it, and Rusch and Falken and Doira had the same game faces on when they started in about Quantum Terminals and shit.

I spent a pleasant few seconds imagining what I would do to each of them if it turned out they were lying to me. Then I snuffed my cigarette, swallowed the last of my beer, and thanked Clarence. With my bricks of cash weighing me down, I headed over to the Templar Social Club. Traffic was a snarl because the President was in town, speechifying at the United Nations on some atrocity that had occurred in Bogota the other day, so I walked.

Bob was working the door, dressed in the same flashy leather duster and smoking the same pack of cigarettes, it seemed. His round, bald head was turning an angry shade of red. I guessed he’d never heard of sunblock, or he didn’t think you could get skin cancer when it was cold out. As I approached he adjusted his stance to block the door, and I stopped in honest shock.

“Mornin’,” he said, looking at my neck. “Can I help you?”

I swallowed my urge to hook my fingers into his nostrils and pull. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. “We met already, a few nights ago,” I said.

He shrugged, in a worse mood. “Gotta frisk you, first.”

It was him not looking at my face that did it. Just being a little shit I could handle, but being a little shit and not even looking me in the face was fucking irritating. I shook my head. “You touch me, and I’ll break all ten fingers. Right here.”

That brought his fat, round face up. Big guy. Blubber, but big, sort of guy who filled doorways and crowded rooms. You could outrun him, dance away, but if he got you cornered he could smother you, and he was used to it. He rolled his shoulders and stepped forward. “Just—”

I stepped into him and kneed him in the balls, hard, the easiest move in the world. He tried to crumple up, protect himself, but I caught him under the left shoulder and took hold of his wrist, spinning behind him and bending his arm backwards, my knee in the back of his, sending him into a gasping kneeling position with me on his calves. I took hold of his pinky with my free hand.

“You remember me next time, yeah?” I said, and with a jerk snapped it back until it broke, the sharp sound making me giddy, a rush of pleasure sweeping through me. I could feel him struggling senselessly, could feel his howl through the clothes and our skin. Could sense his heart rate climbing, dangerous, the delicious quiver of his bones under all that thick, red flesh.

He was making an odd huffing noise, wet and vocal, and I realized after a moment’s concentration that he was trying to say yes.

“Good,” I said, and with a thrill I took hold of his ring finger.

“Well, Jesus fucking Christ, it’s the prodigal son,” Frank bellowed when he looked up from the desk. “Come on in. Have a drink.”

I sailed in, floating, feeling like I’d just come in from a body massage, or a fucking orgy. Alive and flushed. Chino was the only one in the office with Frank this time, and we nodded at each other quick and then ignored ourselves. Chino in his untucked dress shirt, even untucked not loose enough to obscure his gut.

Frank put a bottle of Bushmill’s on the desk with his fingers in two old glasses. I didn’t think he ever washed them, and hoped to hell the alcohol killed whatever might be trying to make a living on them. He poured sloppy fingers into each and handed it over to me; we clinked our glasses, spilling some onto the desk, and drank.

“I was worried you might never be seen again,” he said, putting the bottle up.

I frowned. “Over a fucking debt?” I blew air out through my lips. “Fuck that. Time comes, you can break my legs, I won’t holler.” I pulled a thick manilla envelope out of my pocket and dropped it on the desk. “Brings me current on Falken.”

Frank studied me, then leaned forward and picked up the envelope without looking at it, holding it up for Chino to take. The fat Puerto Rican tore the envelope open and began counting, fast, holding up random notes to the light.

“I’m surprised,” Frank said slowly, leaning back.

I put a smile in place. “What? That I’m keeping current or that I didn’t run?”

He shook his head. “That you couldn’t squeeze it out of him.” He grinned, pointing at me. “You’re goin’ soft.”

“We’re good,” Chino said flatly, dropping the restuffed envelope back onto the desk.

I nodded and stood up. I kept the grin in place and wished for another shot. “By the way,” I said, turning for the door. “You’re gonna need a new doorman. The one you have is broken.”

Time: It never came fucking cheap.

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I’ll be posting one chapter of my novel Collections every week throughout 2023. Download links below.

11

Somehow I ended up with Doira, the redhead, sitting in the back seat with The Bumble pretending we didn’t exist, which he was good at. The Bumble, I was convinced, believed we all disappeared every time he closed his eyes, or that we at least relaxed, going out of character, smoking cigarettes and talking shop, waiting for him to come back to us. It wasn’t egotism, it was simplicity: The only thing The Bumble understood was himself. The rest of us were perplexing.

“Why is she so sure Falken’s here?” I asked, making conversation. The actual process behind the good doctor’s intuition didn’t matter to me.

“Why is she so sure you won’t kill him if he is?” she asked without looking at me. Her voice was sharp and nasal, but there was a grit to it that would be sexy if she took it down a pitch and breathed a little into her words. One of my first jobs for Frank had been security for whores, driving them around, busting noses when guys got too frisky or wouldn’t pay. The whores all talked that way to their customers. To me it was their real voices.

I studied the freckles on her neck. The woman was made of freckles, like she would explode into a million pieces if you hit her the right way. “Because I said I wouldn’t.” I looked out the window at the wet street. “Of course, my promise was based on Dr. Rusch’s word that Falken would have the nut, and be willing to pay it out to me.”

I felt her turning to look at me. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and I pretended to brood over the shitty weather.

“You just found out you’re an amazingly rare event in the history of the universe,” she said steadily, biting her words off so fiercely I felt bad for her boyfriends, past, present, and future, “and all you care about is money?”

“You know what else is an amazingly rare event?” I said, turning to look back at her. “Me hitting a woman in the face. But, it happens.”

She snorted through her nose and looked at the back of The Bumble’s head.

She was my hostage, though I was pretty sure she didn’t know it. Rusch and Rachel had gone into the place—an old sagging brownstone in The Village, under renovation, everything roped off and boarded up, permits slapped everywhere like wallpaper—to go scare up Falken and talk him into coming out to have a word with me. Rusch assured me Falken had thought I was with the other Rusch, the one trying to kill everyone, that’s why he ran. If I’d been dealing with anyone with a brain and some balls, it would have been a hostage swap—Rachel for the Ginger, everyone behaves and no one gets hurt. But since I didn’t see Rusch as a threat to Rache, I was in charge, even if the only one who realized it was me.

“Ask you a science-y kind of question?” I said, leaning slightly towards her. She smelled nice. Not pretty, but not unattractive, really. Sturdy was the odd word that came to mind when I looked at her. I was starting to think I might ask to buy her a drink, if she ever got over hating my guts.

She sighed, but didn’t say anything.

“Falken—how’d he just disappear? I chased him into a room with no windows and just one door. I saw him go in. And then I get in there seconds later, and he’s gone.”

“You got the part where each alternate universe is different, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, right?”

“Sure,” I said, nodding, going along with it. “Like, in one universe the World Trade Center burns down, or the Red Sox win the world series, or something else incredible.”

She gave one curt nod. “Okay, sometimes it’s a single concrete thing like that, but every time something happens there are consequences. Like in one universe you get hit by a train when you’re fifteen, riding a motorcycle drunk, and because you’re dead, all the people you’ve hurt or killed in your life don’t get hurt or killed, and maybe one of them cures cancer.”

I kept my face straight. I’d almost been killed by a train when I was fifteen. I’d come within seconds. A cold feeling seeped into my bones.

“So, this Falken, this version of Falken, comes from a universe where knowledge of the alternates is common, and exploited. He can move between them. That’s why he ran, when they came for him. So when you came for him, he … went elsewhere. Another version of that room, a version where you weren’t on the other side of the door.”

My head was aching. “Uh-huh. Glad I cleared that up.” It made sense to me, in a Saturday-morning cartoon kind of way. Falken had come to our little pond in the multiverse trying to hide from Alt Rusch’s murderous intentions, and had come to our Rusch because he figured the professor might be able to help. It was fucking confusing. And she wondered why I chose to concentrate on my money. At least money made sense. I looked at the back of The Bumble’s head.

“What do you think, Billy?”

He grunted. “I think we’re workin’ fucking hard for this debt, boss.”

I grinned and looked at Doira. “He’s right.”

She gave me a snort.

People were emerging from the basement apartment of the brownstone: one, two, three. I recognized Rachel’s tiny frame and watched them approach the car. I kept my eyes on Rache; I was surprised she’d stuck around this long, stayed involved, but appreciated it, and if anything was wonky I knew I could trust her to give me a sign.

Rusch and Falken followed her. Falken looked a little worn-out; the dandy I’d found in McHales looked tired and wrinkled. He was wearing the same suit as before, and had a stunned, glazed look on his face. I looked from Rachel to him and back as they approached. I wondered if he’d run for it, and was prepared to let him; there was nothing more ridiculous that me chasing someone through downtown New York at two in the morning. I had my dignity to protect.

He didn’t run. Rachel stopped a few feet away and indicated the car, and I rolled down the window, staying in the car to reassure him. I didn’t care about intimidating him or being tough. I wanted my money, Frank’s money, and if Falken was going to hand it over I was prepared to be polite.

“Evening,” I said, giving him a smile. “No hard feelings, huh?”

He hesitated, looking first at Rusch, who gave him a motherly, encouraging nod, and then at Rachel, who smiled warmly at him in a way she never did at me, hardening my heart towards Mr. Falken, who, I reminded myself, was a deadbeat I had every right to tune up to my black heart’s content.

She looked at me, the traces of that smile misting away. “I promised him your hands would stay in your pockets.”

I smiled. “What if I have an itch?”

She shook her head. “Don’t fuck with me.”

I looked back at Falken. “All right,” I said. “My hands stay in my pockets. We can talk like fucking animals or you can switch places with Doira here and we’ll talk like civilized men. Or we can go somewhere, have a drink. You could have people around, make you feel safer.”

He stared at me. “People? Jesus. Safer?”

Rachel was shaking her head anyway. “He’s not getting in the car with you and Billy.”

I glanced at her again, getting a little irritated. She was presuming a lot on our friendship, on our deal. I got the feeling she thought the balance of power was permanently in her favor. I’d have to think on that and make sure she understood otherwise, my promise notwithstanding. Then I smiled at Falken again.

“Look, it’s up to you. I’ll do this any way you want. Tell me how you want to talk, and let’s talk. Hands in pockets, I promise.”

He looked around. A night or two spent living in an empty, gutted house breathing drywall dust and listening to the roaches scamper over the concrete would make anyone tired. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll get in the car.”

Rachel opened her mouth, then thought better of it and shrugged. She’d known the man for five minutes. If he was going to be, in her opinion at least, an idiot, she wasn’t going to stand in his way. It was a stupid thing to do, really, except that I’d given my word. But he didn’t know me. Stupid.

I looked at Doira. “Do you mind, honey?”

“Jesus,” she sneered, opening her door. “You’re a walking stereotype, you know that?”

I shrugged, examining her ass as she stepped out, and thought that at least my entire ensemble didn’t retail for twenty-seven dollars, total, at a local Rainbow Shop.

Falken slipped into the seat a moment later, pulling the door shut. I rolled up my window, and we were snug, the outside world nicely muted.

“You’re a hard bastard to track down,” I said. “You’ve caused me a lot of fucking trouble.”

He snorted. “You? Listen, man, those bastards are trying to erase me. Or I’m trying to erase me. You know what it’s like to have someone want you dead, to hunt you?”

I nodded. “Sure. Sure I do. I work with deranged, violent people, Mr. Falken.”

He shook his head. “Not like this. Not just me. Every version of me. Someone hunting me down in every universe, erasing me.”

I nodded again, trying to be friendly. “The whole quantum whatsit thing.”

“Yes,” he said, and got quiet. We sat in companionable silence for a moment. “Can you imagine, yourself—you—trying to kill yourself, to murder yourself, so you can be immortal?”

I thought about it, and shrugged. “Why not. It’s not you. It’s some mope who looked like you, maybe has your taste in clothes. It’s not you. Only you are you.”

“That sounds kind of philosophical.”

I sighed. “You want to hold my hand, take a long walk on the beach, get me drunk and fuck me at some dim motel, Mr. Falken? We going on a date here, spend a few hours discussing our inner turmoils and regrets while Billy Bumbles here plays the fiddle real slow and heartachy?” I rolled my shoulders, trying to work out a persistent, stabbing discomfort that had plagued me ever since my loading dock adventure with the Worst Kidnappers in History. “I’m here to collect the money you owe, Mr. Falken. I understand you thought I worked for Dr. Rusch’s evil twin and wanted to murder you. A misunderstanding. Now that you know I am merely a representative of Mr. Frank McKenna, from whom you borrowed a large amount of money, be kind enough to bring your fucking account fucking current and let me get on with my fucking life.” I turned to look at him. “Okay?”

He stared back at me, eyes wide, face slack and shadowed. “Jesus, I’m not here to pay you,” he said, sounding panicked. “I don’t have the goddamn money.”

I blinked. “Then why are you meeting me?” A small spark of joy sprang into life in my belly, and I imagined myself breaking his thumbs, justified and free from Rachel’s disapproval.

He looked straight ahead, and put a hand up to his face as he sank down in the leather seats. “I thought you were going to protect me.”

I looked at him, then turned my head and smiled through the window at Rachel, who stood on the sidewalk with her arms crossed under her boobs, scowling. “Well,” I said, giving her a little nod, cheerful, “you thought wrong.”

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I’ll be posting one chapter of my novel Collections every week throughout 2023. Download links below.

10.

I’d had guns pointed at me before, but the trigger never got pulled. Guns were everywhere in my line of work, and assholes produced them regularly. It was the Asshole Punctuation Mark, really; whenever they felt like you weren’t paying them the proper attention, they put a gun in their hands for emphasis. But throwing bullets around had consequences—I worked for Frank McKenna, and even if I hadn’t been one of his best earners he would retaliate against any bullets thrown my way pretty harshly, just as a matter of policy. If you didn’t get the sign-off from someone up the food chain, bullets had a way of coming back at you.

I stared at Rusch; she was eying me like I was on fire. “We’re gonna perform a scientific experiment, doc,” I said, struggling to cvontrol myself. The bitch had shot at me. I felt light and nimble, every chemical my brain had at its disposal dumped liberally into my bloodstream. I knew I’d be sore and stiff tomorrow—not from exertion, but from overdrive. “We’re going to see if you can convince me not to punish you for that. I don’t like your odds.”

Rusch straightened up and looked wide-awake, finally, her eyes wide, her face hot and red. “I can explain!” She said. “Let me explain!”

I realized someone was hitting me in the back. It was like a soft drizzle of rain. I turned my head and the redhead was there, tiny, beating her little fists against me. As I looked at her she hit me in the face a few times, like a gnat crashing into a window pane. I took one hand and put it on her head, and with a light shove sent her flying into the sink.

Then, suddenly, Rachel was there next to me, her arms akimbo, her face dark and red.

“Stop it!” She said steadily. “Stop it.”

A cold flash swept through me. I frowned down at her. “She shot at me,” I complained.

“Let her speak,” she commanded, actually stomping her foot. “Jesus fucking Christ, let her explain.”

I clenched my teeth. “She—”

Rachel stood up on her tip-toes and slapped me across the face, making my cheek sting and my eyes water. I whipped my head back and stared at her in amazement.

“You brought me into this,” she said. “I am not going to stand here and watch you beat another person to death right in front of me.”

I stared down at her, my throat working, my arms trembling. She was four-feet eleven inches tall in skintight jeans and shiny leather boots, but she stood there with her lip out and her chest pointed at me like she was certain of besting me in a fight. Which, considering I’d promised to never touch her, she probably would.

With a snarl, I spun away and punched a nice round hole in the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom. Turning back, I wiped my face with my hand, still trembling, and glanced at the front doorway. My neighbor, Mr. Mittra, was peering at me from his own door, his face, as usual, heavily lined and very brown and completely unreadable.

“Mind your business, Mr. Mittra,” I said between breaths. He jumped a little and shut his door. I figured the cops would be here in about three minutes.

I turned and looked at the girl, who lay on the floor with her back against the sinkbase, staring at me. I swallowed bile and stepped over to her, holding out a hand.

“All right,” I said thickly. “Sorry about that. But you were hitting me.”

She stared at my hand and then up at me. After a moment, I pulled my hand back and looked at Rusch and Rachel. The professor had recovered her posture and sleepy look. Rachel looked like a diamond was about to pop out of her ass.

“I’m pretty sure my neighbor just called the cops,” I said slowly, feeling slow and thick. “Let’s get out of here and … talk.”

Rachel nodded. “It’s okay,” she said to Rusch. “He won’t do anything else.” She paused, biting her lip. “Just don’t shoot at him any more.”

Pirelli’s Diner was an ancient box of greasy laminate and cracked vinyl. It had a thick, sticky menu showing faded pictures of all sorts of interesting food no one had ever ordered. I’d never actually eaten anything solid in the place, wanting to remain alive. I ordered surprisingly good coffees and used their ashtrays.

I sat on the inside corner of the booth, smoking, a cup of coffee going cold in front of me, my arm stretched out along the back of the booth, an inch away from Rachel’s neck. There was air between us, but I could feel her warm and soft there anyway. Rusch and her girl sat across from us. The doctor had ordered a slab of cherry pie with ice cream, and I stared at her in amazement as he devoured it happily, like he hadn’t been terrified half an hour before.

Snuffing my cigarette out, I leaned forward, carefully snaking my arm out from behind Rachel without touching even a strand of hair. “All right, Doc—let me apologize for losing my temper. But my temper’s short, and you did fire a gun at me.”

She nodded, suddenly jolly, and dropped her fork to pick up a napkin and wipe her lips carefully. “I do understand, I assure you. I apologize for the trick. I assumed if I asked you would not consent to the experiment.”

I kept my face still. “And if the experiment had gone badly?”

She shook her head, wincing a little. “No, no, no—impossible. I am almost certain of your quantum status. I’ve been working with this research for thirty years—ever since I received tenure.” Her face darkened peevishly for a moment. “The university hasn’t let me teach a class in years. They think I’m crazy. But I still have access to the facilities, and I have been working on my research, alone. Quite alone.” She sighed, then blinked and looked at me. “I had done my due diligence on you and was certain of my findings, but I required a definitive test. I knew the gun would not fire.”

I considered the odds of four or five misfires in a row, then a clean shot, then another two misfires. Certainly not impossible, but unlikely. “And if it fucking had?”

She stared at me for a few seconds, her face blank. “I—I admit I did not have a fallback scenario in mind.”

“We would have run,” the redhead said calmly. “You’re a criminal. The police would have assumed you were rubbed out by some other criminal. Can I have a cigarette?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Rubbed out? Did you really just say that without irony?” I tugged my pack out of my shirt pocket, took one out for myself, and tossed it onto the table along with the matchbook. “What’s your name, darling?” I said, leaning back and sticking the cigarette into my mouth.

She just gave me a sour look while she picked up the cigarettes, examining them with a frown, but Rusch gave me a wincing grin. “Forgive Doira. She has been my research assistant for many years, and she is protective. And she knows I dislike cigarette smoke.”

The redhead rolled her eyes.

I smiled and turned my head to look out the window. The BMW sat in a shadowed corner of the parking lot, The Bumble’s squat form a blur in the driver’s seat. I was kind of relieved to have him there.

I looked back and nodded at Rusch. “You were saying?”

She paused, a pie-laden fork halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she set the fork down and cleared her throat.

“In small words,” I said, taking the matches Doira had dropped back on the table. “See if you can get through it in about thirty seconds.” I jerked my thumb at Rachel. “She’s the only thing keeping me polite right now.”

She looked at Rachel and then back at me. “Very well. As we discussed, observ—alternate universes. Yes, let us use that term.” She placed her fork on the table between us and pointed at the top. “Let us say here is our timeline. You and I, moving forward through time.” She traced a finger up the stem of the fork slowly. “You understand, I am criminally misstating the actual science.”

“Better than getting a bone broken,” I suggested, and Rachel turned to glare at me, adorable.

Rusch continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Every second, every nanosecond, you and I, everyone, face decisions, yes? Coffee or tea, pie or cake, smoke or abstain, yes? At the moment of decision, every possible outcome exists, because you have not made the decision yet.” She glanced up at me. “Clear?”

I sent a gale of smoke into the world. “As … mud.”

She winced again, as if my words caused her physical harm. “An example: You could stop smoking that cigarette at any time. Any second, you could crush it into the ashtray. Every second, a world exists where you do crush out that cigarette. And this world, where you do not, also exists. Every second, universes split off, every conceivable possibility, infinite decisions and actions and non-actions from around the world, spinning off.” Her finger had reached the tines of the fork, crusted with pie and ice cream, and she spread the fingers of her hand. The skin on the back of her hand was thin and mottled by the blue veins beneath, ropy, sinuous. “In each of these universes, you exist. Or perhaps you do not—the actions of another person, or the inanimate chance of natural happenings, may have destroyed you, or caused you to not exist in the first place. Yes?”

I nodded, more for effect than anything else. “Okay, so every time I make a choice, there’s another me out there. Maybe. At any rate, a lot of mes running around breaking bones out there.”

She hesitated. “Well … let us leave it at that. Except that the other “yous” may not resemble you very much, depending. Certainly, at the moment of divergence, perhaps you are identical. But if you diverged thirty years ago, or in the womb, say, you may be very different people.” She picked up the fork again. “At any rate, I do not believe there are any other yous out there.”

I blinked. “Why is that?”

“You are what I term a Quantum Terminus.”

I smiled. “Oh, I am going to like this.”

She grinned back at me as if she believed me, as if I hadn’t terrorized her just a moment before. “Perhaps you will. As I said, every divergence can create an … alternate version of you. Again, the terms are not precise, but … However, there are not infinite versions of you. You may die. You may never be born at all in a divergent timeline. However, because of the splitting of timelines—consider: Every time you are in danger of dying, there exists one possible world where you die, and one where you live. As a result,” she hesitated suddenly, then leaned forward and spoke in a rush. “There exists, always, one version of a given person who does not die. Ever. Every time they face the possibility of death, they are the version that lives. Forever.”

I blinked. “What?”

“She’s saying you’re immortal,” Rachel said, in the same tone of voice as if she’d said I was fat, or smelled bad.

Rusch shrugged apologetically. I realized I kind of enjoyed her talking, and thought she was probably a good professor. “Yes.” She leaned forward again. “Imagine this: You sit in front of a gun fitted with an automatic trigger that randomly either fires or does not fire, every second. Each second, the possibility is that the gun fires and kills you, or does not. Thus in every second you split into two: One dies, one lives. Each split then also faces the next second, and splits in turn. Eventually you end up with one version that survives every second. This version is the Quantum Terminus, because it goes on. Forever.” She relaxed, picking up the fork again. “This is why the gun misfires when I point it at you. You are the last of, well, you. In every scenario where you choose between living and dying, you live.”

She plunged the fork into her pie and held it up between us for a moment, gesturing at me with a dollop of cherry filling and vanilla ice cream. “You’re immortal.”

I considered that for about five seconds, then leaned forward and held my cigarette up in front of my face, pretending to examine it closely. “Doc, I didn’t hear the name Falken once in that speech. And you know how that irritates me.”

Rusch actually seemed amused, still holding the pie in front of her face. “He’s not immortal, but there’s a version of him—an alternate him—that wants to be.”

I shifted my eyes from the coal to her face. “And how does he do that?”

Rusch pushed the fork into her mouth. “By killing all the other versions of himself, of course.”

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9.

When Rusch stepped through the doorway, she was the same slightly nervous, badly-dressed woman I’d met down in New Brunswick. She was followed by the red-haired woman who’d been with her in the limousine—or who looked exactly like her, since she was also dressed like a schmuck: baggy tan pants, a shapeless T-shirt, a ratty old gray sweater, tennis shoes. If I’d passed her on the street I wouldn’t have even noticed her. She was carrying a large, cheap suitcase made of an itchy-looking fabric.

I’d managed to put on shoes and a shirt. It was offensively wrinkled and dusty from the floor, but if these mopes weren’t going to dress for the occasion—the good professor had on a tan jacket she might have found on the street moments ago—then I didn’t give a shit. I’d also cleaned off my one and a half chairs and put on some coffee, the glass urn miraculously unscathed.

She came in tentatively, shoulders down, and I decided finally that there were two women who looked exactly alike. There had to be. Or else Doctor Rusch had a serious mental problem.

I pushed my hands into my pockets and leaned against the stove.

She looked around. “You must throw some parties, young man.”

I pulled one hand free and pointed at her. “You have a twin.” I shifted to point at the ginger. “So do you.”

They exchanged a long, blank glance. There was no fire in it, no spark of any kind. They might have met on the way up the stairs. They were either complete strangers or they’d been married fifty years. The girl was leaving youth behind, and she wasn’t pretty, with a too-long, bold nose and just the wrong amount of freckles.

“We all do,” Rusch said, looking back at me. “Everyone has a twin. Hundreds of twins. Trillions.”

“Does Elias Falken?”

Rusch nodded without looking at me, and began strolling around the kitchen as if nothing concerned her. “Oh, yes. Although I wouldn’t say he has trillions of them any more. As a matter of fact, I’d say he’s been narrowed down to about two or three.” She kicked at the rubble that had once been my kitchen. “Hmmph. Gas-on-gas heat,” she said, examining the stove with her baggy eyes. She looked sleepy all the time, like keeping her eyes open was far too much trouble. I looked at her and pictured her in a motorized bed, being zipped around everywhere with some silly sleeping cap on, muttering lazily now and then to communicate her thoughts. “Freezing in the winter in here, yes?”

I nodded, smiling a little. I was amused. So many people either tried to hit me, to beg me, or to run away from me. “Like a meat locker.”

She nodded. “Pre-war tenement railroad. People used to shut up half the rooms and live in the kitchen and living room during the winter. If you close the door to the bedrooms, the heat’s just enough to keep you alive.” Suddenly she looked up at the cupboard over the sink, which now hung slightly askew, one of the screws torn out of the wall. I waited a beat, but she didn’t say anything else. She just stared at the wall.

Steps outside, and then Rachel was leaning against the doorway, arms crossed under her chest. She looked good in her librarian glasses, hair pulled back, in a lush black turtleneck, jeans, and gleaming black leather boots. We exchanged a glance, and she shrugged, somehow making the gesture beautiful, graceful. As usual I wanted to touch her so badly my hands curled up involuntarily, but that was the single, inviolable rule of our relationship: that I never touch her. The redhead glanced her way, but Rusch didn’t take any notice of her at all.

“Dr. Rusch,” I said, tearing my eyes from Rachel and putting them on her. “I have no imagination, so if you came here to say something, say it fast. My conversations usually devolve into me beating the shit out of people until they start saying what I want to hear.”

She turned and blinked at me. “What? Beatings?” She said the word as if she’d truly never heard it before, and stared at me in undisguised horror. I controlled myself. I didn’t know what was going on, and it wasn’t right to just start swinging out of frustration.

“Mr. Falken,” I said slowly, turning away and searching for an unbroken mug. “You were about to tell me where he is so I can find him and beat the snot out of him,” I turned and smiled back at Rusch. “Instead of you.”

“But—but I don’t know where Mr. Falken is!”

I picked up a white mug from the floor and blew into it to clean out some of the dust. It wasn’t my favorite; it had little black specs everywhere that always made me think it wasn’t clean. I turned back and gave Rusch my sunniest smile. “Then I’m confused, because that’s all I want to hear. Why are you here, then, Dr. Rusch?”

I grabbed the urn of hot coffee and poured some into the mug. Little bits of dust floated on top, and I stared down at them, unhappy.

“To try and explain what’s been happening,” Rusch said quickly. “I’ll, eh, I’ll admit you frightened me a little yesterday. I thought perhaps the best thing would be to remain uninvolved.”

I braced myself and took a sip of coffee. It was not the worst I’d ever had, even with the grit; it did not, for example, choke me to death. I’d bought it in a tin can on the way home a few hours ago; three dollars and a tin can did not, it turned out, make a good cup of coffee. “Well, since you’re involved, I have one question before you get started: Does the name Falken enter into whatever dissertation you’re about to give at all?”

She blinked at me again. “Yes. May I have a cup of coffee?”

I shook my head, leaning back against the stove again and crossing my arms so as to hold the coffee up near my face. “No.” I gestured with my free hand. “Proceed.”

She stared at me for another moment, then looked at her girlfriend. Dr. Rusch had been pretty, once, eons ago. I saw her at twenty, short skirts and a simple, unfussy hairdo, and wanted to talk to that version of her, make her smile. Clearing her throat, she nodded. “I am a physicist,” she began, then paused, cocking her head as if hearing her own words echoed back to her from some vast distance. Shaking her head, she looked at me again. “What do you know about the Many World’s Theory?”

I studied her. I took a sip of coffee. I kept a grimace off my face.

“Multiple universes,” she prompted, gesturing at me encouragingly. After another few moments, she blinked. “Alternate universes.”

I looked over at Rachel. I liked looking at her. She was short and slim and still had that freshness to her she’d had when we first met. She smiled briefly and shrugged her eyebrows behind her fantastic glasses.

Rusch took another breath, and I held up my hand. “All right. I’ve heard the term.” I looked at her. “A million other earths with a double of each of us on ’em, right?”

She scowled. “Well, no, actually, not—” She paused and visibly collected herself. “All right. Except, not a million, but infinite. You know what infinite means?”

I stared at her. After a few seconds she swallowed and looked over at the ginger again, then down at the floor. She seemed to be figuring out, more slowly than I would have imagined for a professor of some sort, that she was in near danger of having her nose broken.

“Yes,” she finally said. “Every observable,” she paused and looked at me again, apparently assessing my intelligence and not liking the prognosis. “Forget why,” she finally said. “Infinite universes. Each diverging from a previous timeline, some running parallel for a while, some diverging wildly.” She glanced up at me intently. “This is the field I’ve worked in my whole life. The theory of it, but also the application of it, how to touch these other universes. To observe them. And by observing them create another infinite set of—” she paused again. “Yes. These worlds exist. And yes, there can be other versions of us, depending on when divergence occurs. Since the set is infinite, the versions of us can be infinite.” She shrugged. “The math, however, proves these ‘doubles’ are, in fact, finite. For some of us, millions. For others, two. For others, none.” She nodded as if someone had agreed with him. “That is the interesting data.”

I sipped more coffee; drinking this coffee was quickly becoming one of my biggest regrets in life. “I have not heard the name Falken yet, doc,” I said. “I’m going to be upset if I don’t hear it soon.”

“Mr. Falken approached me,” Rusch said suddenly as if it had been her plan all along to introduce the subject at that moment. “He approached me some weeks ago concerning my work, and told me a fantastic story—that he was, in fact, a different version of Falken, a man born at the same point in another, nearly-identical universe, that he was completely normal, average, a nonentity, and that a gang of people had suddenly tried to murder him some months ago. He did not explain how, exactly, he transferred himself to this reality. He did, however, indicate that he had been followed here by those who wished to eliminate him.”

I thought about Rachel telling me Falken had been dead for two years. “So you’re telling me, Falken and this other Dr. Rusch I’ve been running into are alternate versions? From alternate universes?”

Rusch took a half step backwards, as if she could sense that she was about four words away from that punch in the nose. Maybe three.

“Yes! Though I would use more precise terms. While I believe such travel is possible, I do not know of the exact technology utilized, nor am I aware of any practical way to do so.”

I swallowed the last of the coffee with a sense of relief, set the mug down carefully on the scorched and greasy stovetop, and straightened up, reaching up to unbutton my shirt cuffs. “Sorry, doc. I’m going to have to beat you a little extra for trying to lay that bullshit on me.”

She blanched, her face literally going white, and skittered around to put the ruined hulk of my table between us. “Young man, I assure you I am not—”

“Assure all you want. I want to know where in fuck Falken is, and I think you know.” I started working on the other sleeve. “And I’m going to convince you to tell me.”

I didn’t know what to make of all of it—maybe she was crazy, and believed it all. I didn’t care.

She sidestepped her way towards the girl. I glanced at Rachel again, but she shrugged. She wasn’t going to step in front of this train.

I finished tucking my sleeves up around my elbows, and started to walk steadily around the table to get to her. Rusch touched the redhead on the shoulder and she dropped the suitcase onto the floor and began unsnapping the locks.

“I beg a moment’s indulgence,” Rusch said quickly, inching back as I approached. “I can make all of this perfectly clear.”

I nodded. “I know you can, doc. I got faith.”

The girl tossed the suitcase open with a flourish, and plucked something out, handing it up to Rusch. She fumbled for a second, and then brought a gun up, held on me with both hands.

I didn’t like guns. I didn’t use them; they made you soft. But I came across my share of them, and by necessity I’d learned something about them. This one was an automatic, and it looked like a good one, though I didn’t know much about make and model. I stopped and let my hands hang at my sides.

“That necessary, doc?” I said. “The only thing happens when people handle guns, is someone gets shot.”

Before I realized what she was doing, Rusch extended her arms, centered the gun on my chest, and pulled the trigger four times. Each time all she got was a dry click, a misfire, while I stood there frozen in shock, completely unconvinced that it was possible an old lady from New Jersey had just tried to shoot me to death. Then she shifted the gun a foot to my right and pulled the trigger again. A peal of thunder shook the whole room and something exploded into the wall behind me as I ducked reflexively, the noise finally getting me into motion. Then she put the gun on me again and pulled the trigger three more fucking times, again getting just a dry click.

“As I suspected,” she said. “You cannot be killed.”

I surged up and knocked the gun out of her hand, intending to do more, but the shriek of terror that she produced combined with a sudden, grandmotherly cowering brought me up short. I glanced over her at Rachel, who was just staring at me flatly, saying nothing. It was one thing to slap an annoying woman, it was something else to beat an old lady. It impossible to do either with Rachel watching me.

I forced myself to straighten up. “I can be pissed off, doc,” I said, stepping towards her. “And we’re there.”

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6.

We were inching down 30th street in the tunnel lane when the cherry-top bloomed into red life behind us, a dashboard model, dim and hard to see in the harsh daylight. I wasn’t used to the sun; I spent most of my time crawling through bars and underground card parlors in the wee hours of the morning, lungs rough from cigarettes and poorly ventilated illegal clubs, my eyes squinty and red from smoke and low-watt mood fucking lighting. The car felt tight and hard, the radio droning on about something at the U.N. that had everybody hot and bothered, some treaty half the world wanted and half didn’t.

“The Executioner,” The Bumble muttered, putting the Beamer into park and making sure his hands were visible. “I’ll bet you.”

I shook my head. All my wounds throbbed deliciously, giving me a hard-on. “That’s a sucker’s bet.”

He strolled over in a beautiful, understated gray suit, and when he put his hands on the door and leaned in I noted that his fingernails, yellowed and thick, were perfectly groomed. His rings clinked against the side of the car.

“Mornin’ boys,” Detective James said, grinning behind sharp sunglasses. “Takin’ a trip?”

“Making a run for it,” I said, giving him a smile calibrated to match his own. “Gonna start a new life in New Jersey where no one will ever find us.”

James liked that. “Start a pizza shop,” he suggested. “Change your name to Gino. You’ll fit right in.”

I didn’t laugh. “Anything we can do for you? You yanking our passport?”

He shook his head, shooting his bright white cuff to check the time on his Rolex. “Naw, just making sure you know I’m paying attention. You gonna be gone long?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But it ain’t a permanent change of address, if that’s what you’re worried over.”

He laughed again. “The idea of you and Billy Bumble here shacking up for the rest of your lives like the Pink Mafia don’t have what they call verisimilitude, so, no. Just remember, they got brother police on that side of the Hudson, too.” He straightened up and tapped the top of the car. “This is new, huh?” he said. “That Mercedes got all scuffed up, huh?”

There wasn’t anything to say to that, so we just sat there with our hands visible. James got testy if your hands got obscured. The fucking cops—they all played these little games. I didn’t mind, usually, but sometimes I couldn’t see the fucking point. We knew he was keeping his yellow eye on us, looking for an opportunity to profit from us or jam us up, he knew we were working angles. I’d prefer to just let us all do our fucking bit and leave it at that.

He tapped the roof again. “All right. Carry on, boys.”

The Bumble waited until James was back in his craphole Ford before putting the car back into gear. We got lucky at the light and were able to make the right turn without having to sit there with James staring at our ass.

“Fucking cops,” The Bumble was moved to say. “Spend half their day wasting everyone’s time.”

Those were the last words we spoke for the next two hours. Through the tunnel onto the Turnpike, through the toll booths, and then south, south, south, Jersey transforming from the oily smell of Elizabeth to trees and trees and trees. We took exit nine and coasted into New Brunswick, a scrubby slab of concrete with a university and a hospital and twenty thousand assholes to recommend it, and found Hamilton Street more or less by complete accident. The address Rachel had given me for Rusch turned out to be a big corner house, stained white siding and a slab of cracked driveway for a backyard. It sagged there in the sunlight like the fucking town in miniature: worn-down, mistreated, and not even that attractive to begin with.

“Stay in the car,” I suggested to The Bumble. He nodded, then got out with me and followed me up the sagging wooden stairs. The tiny front yard was filled with trash: broken furniture, three cases of empty beer cans, four or five warm and moist-looking trash bags of uncertain vintage. The screen door had no screen in it, so I just reached through to knock on the door.

The door opened and a tall, older woman blinked at me. “Yes?”

It took me a moment to recognize the woman in the white suit from the limo; she was wearing a baggy sweater and a pair of faded, torn jeans, and no shoes or socks. Her hair had somehow gotten about four inches longer, and hung in her face in a stringy mass of salt-and-pepper curls, wearing a different pair of thick glasses. I smiled at her, a weird feeling of sudden uncertainty gnawing at me. I’d been planning to just slap her in the face when I found her, but my internal auditor wasn’t giving me the green light.

“Remember me?” I asked brightly.

She frowned, cocking her head at me. “No,” she said, finally, and sounded like she meant it.

I wasn’t prepared for this. I’d intended to just menace her until I felt better, then ask her about Falken, but I just hung there, unsure. Finally I decided on a half-measure, shouldering her aside with a brusque “Mind if I come in?” that made me feel like I’d regained the momentum.

The Bumble, silent as always, followed me into a narrow, oppressive hall, the wood paneling waxy-looking. A set of narrow stairs led upwards, covered in a dusty carpet, but I followed the hall until it opened up into a bright living room. Three windows faced me, giving me a glimpse of the side street we’d parked on. The kitchen squatted to my left, and a set of pocket doors hid another room to my right. The living room was furnished lazily; the couch was floral and ancient, the coffee table scratched and battered, the television old and dusty. Dusty was the word of the day: It hung in the air, covered everything, like she hadn’t been in the room for weeks.

“What is this?” Rusch asked, rushing into the room to stand in front of us. Her puny fury was kind of amusing; I suspected she was a woman who had never been hit, not once in her life, and who imagined men did not strike woman. You couldn’t be afraid of something you’d never felt, and I shrugged my coat onto my shoulders and peered at her. I’d hit plenty of women. It came up in the job.

“Cornelia Rusch?” I asked. Somehow it seemed possible there had been a mistake.

She nodded. “Yes!” she snapped with something approaching authority. “Now—”

“Doctor Cornelius Rusch?”

“Jesus, yes,” she snapped again. I looked at The Bumble, but he’d suddenly discovered the floor, and stood there staring down at it, swallowing a grin. I looked back at the good doctor, at sea. I couldn’t give myself a pass to beat the snot out of her—enjoyable as that would be—until I was sure what was going on.

“You’re telling me you weren’t in New York two days ago?”

She threw up her hands, her arms skinny and nonthreatening. “No. Now why are you in my house?”

I frowned. I believed her, for some reason. She really had never seen me before. “Well, shit, I’m not sure now,” I said, then paused. “You don’t have a twin sister, do you?”

Her whole manner changed. She went still, and glanced nervously at The Bumble as he pushed his hands into his pockets. After a moment she pursed her lips and rocked back on her heels. It was easy to picture her in front of a class, lecturing.

“Why do you say that?”

I caught the scent again and leaned forward, feeling myself swelling back to full size, sensing the hollow bones under Rusch’s skin, her soft, open stance, easy to unbalance.

“Because someone who looked just like you took me for a ride yesterday, doc, and poked her nose into my business. Which I do not approve of.”

Before I could transition to the threat portion of our conversation, she surprised me by stepping forward and leaning in, presenting me with a gorgeous glass chin that would shatter on impact in a spectacular and satisfying way. “Tell me,” she demanded, “did she look exactly like me?”

I paused, picturing the woman in the white suit sitting across from me in the back of the limo, and then nodded. “She was wearing glasses, and had better fashion sense. But otherwise exactly.”

She nodded, looking off to his right in a dreamy way, letting out a noncommittal grunt. I let her hover for a moment until I was sure she wasn’t going to volunteer anything useful, then I stepped to my left and inserted myself into her line of sight, putting a hand on her shoulder and grabbing hold.

“Now, let me explain something to you, Dr. Rusch. There’s a lot of things I don’t generally like. White shoes. Menthol cigarettes. The Second Avenue Subway. Number one on my list, though, I have to say, is going to fucking New Jersey.” I pushed her gently and she backed away from me towards the couch. “So I’m running out of patience. I don’t care if you have a twin sister, or if it was you in that car with me in Manhattan and you’re just being cute.” I pushed her down onto the cushions and she fell there easily, staring up at me. “I’m looking for a man who owes me a lot of fucking money, and in return for your help in finding him I will consider not breaking both your legs.”

She blinked up at me, then at The Bumble. “Jesus, what are you, gangsters?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to break your legs,” I said, spreading my hands. “What else do you really need to know?”

She looked glum. “I knew this would happen,” she muttered, and I stepped forward suddenly, looming over her. The couch smelled like stale dust. I was offended by the whole fucking room, which had all the taste and cleanliness of the college kids who’d lived here before my good professor.

“Dr. Rusch,” I said slowly, forcing myself to hold back. “I’m going to ask you this once: Where is Falken?”

She stared at me without any reaction aside from a slight furrowing of her brow. She slowly shook her head. “I have no—”

I decided she needed a little more encouragement, so twisted back and kicked her in the left shin, light. She howled and collapsed forward, rolling off the couch onto the floor in a cloud of disturbed dust. I looked over at The Bumble as Rusch rolled on the floor, screaming and clutching her leg, and rolled my eyes. He shrugged back. The Bumble didn’t understand anybody, or anything. The world was simple to him, and he got annoyed by anyone who found it otherwise.

“Dr. Rusch—”

“You broke my leg!”

I sighed. “No, Dr. Rusch, I didn’t.”

“You broke my leg!”

I leaned down in a rush and took hold of her shirt, yanking her up and throwing her back onto the couch. People didn’t know how this was done, professionally. Most people didn’t experience violence in their lives, and when it was used on them their reaction was almost always fucking amazement. That was why assholes willing to take and dole out punishment were always in charge.

“Where the fuck is Falken?” I asked again, thrusting a finger under her nose. “And if your next sentence begins with I have no I will break your leg.”

She shook her head violently, her eyes closed like not seeing me might make me disappear. “I don’t know! I don’t know that name!”

I stepped back and threw my hands up for The Bumble’s benefit. He was the only one in the room who might appreciate the subtleties of our profession anyway. Thing was, I believed the old bag. She wasn’t the Rusch I’d met the other day—as impossible as that maybe was. She didn’t know who the fuck Falken was. It didn’t hang together right, but I realized I wasn’t going to feel right about beating the snot out of her unless I got rid of the itchy feeling that she didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

“All right, Dr. Rusch,” I said, nodding over at The Bumble. “We’ll leave you now before anyone gets curious about your screaming. But we’ll be back. Think about I’ve asked you today, see if you can’t jog something free.” I turned towards the door, and The Bumble preceded me down the hall again, retracing our obvious footprints in the heavy dust on the floor. If the good doctor actually lived in the house, or at least the main floor, I would be amazed, and I eyed the small, tight cellar door as we moved alongside the stairway.

The Bumble didn’t say anything as we walked down the steps and around the corner to the car. “Gimme the phone,” I said.

He fished out the cell and handed it over to me. “What’re we doing now?”

“We’re going home,” I said, punching the numbers carefully, my fingers too thick, the phone feeling delicate in my hand, like it might snap into pieces if I twitched. Rachel answered on the second ring.

“Hey, Unc,” she said, sounding breathless. “Am I gonna need a restraining order?”

“I need another favor,” I said. “I need someone watched for a couple of days. The old rate, when you were freelancing steady, if you want it.”

There was silence for a few seconds while The Bumble and I stood around outside the car like a couple of assholes. “Paying expenses?”

I smiled. “You’re gonna be sitting in your car, kid. What kind of expenses are you gonna rack up?”

“All right. Give me a few hours to make some calls, make some arrangements. I’ll check in later.”

“Thanks, Rache.” I snapped the phone shut and tossed it to The Bumble. “Let’s go.”

He grunted and the doors unlocked. “You’re gonna have the stripper watch the house?”

I kept my face blank. “Hey, she actually paid her way through college that way. Besides, she’s not a stripper any more. And you don’t get paid to think, Billy.”

He shrugged and sank into the driver’s seat. “And we’re going home.”

The universe clearly made less sense now to him than it had thirty seconds before. “I gotta show my face or Frank’s gonna fucking push a button on me,” I said, twisting around to look back at the shabby white house as we pulled smoothly into the street. I didn’t tell The Bumble that I had exactly one friend to ask favors from. The Bumble didn’t have any, and I didn’t want to make him feel bad.

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5.

I lay in bed smoking, which they tell you not to do, but they also tell you not to drink liquor, not to eat red meat, and not to gamble, have sex, or dance on Sundays, so fuck ’em. I’d taken off my shirt to keep from wrinkling it, and lay against piled-up pillows with my shoes and pants on in just my undershirt. The apartment was hot from the steam heat and I was sweating there despite the cold wind coming in from the window.

I was running the events of the last few days over in my mind. Falken, dead. Rusch from fucking Jersey. A limo stolen thirty fucking years ago. And me, suddenly and officially, owing Frank McKenna a boatload of money, because Falken, poor dead Falken who’d been nursing a hangover in McHales just a few days ago, had skipped and that was on me.

There was a knock at the front door. I frowned and didn’t move for a moment, cigarette burning in my hand. It was a sixth floor walkup in an old building, it was quiet, stuffy, and I had an easy way out the bedroom window, up the ladder to the roof, across six buildings with easy jumps, and down the fire escape to the street. I glanced that way, watching the yellowed drapes blow in for a few seconds, and when another knock came I sat up, snuffing my cigarette in the crowded ashtray as I stood.

Passing through the living room, they knocked again, harder and more rapidly, making the door jump. The kitchen was dark and I left it that way as I crossed to the door; the hallway would be dim and there was no reason to light myself up. I paused just inside the door as they pounded again. I squinted through the peephole and saw two men: One a round, big black kid with a dopey smile on his fat face, the other taller, skinnier, with a big bushy mustache like a caterpillar sitting on his upper lip. The black kid was wearing baggy jeans and a dark T-shirt, lots of gold chains hanging off his neck that I was pretty sure would turn his skin green soon enough. The other guy was wearing a black suit, all attitude, but he pulled it off. Black shirt, black tie, black pants, black jacket. He had the shoulders and posture to make it work.

As he reared back for another pound, I opened the door and stepped into the doorway, leaning against the jam and pulling my pack of cigarettes out.

“Evening, Miggsy,” I said. “Selling Girl Scout Cookies?”

Miggs settled himself, folding his hands in front of him. The kid kept smiling like something was tickling his ass. I thought about asking Miggs about his taste in muscle, but thought better of it. Miggs didn’t look like he was in the mood to kid around. He was a little older than me, and worked Frank’s lesser debts, but he was steady.

He pulled a toothpick from his mouth and shrugged. “You buying Girl Scout cookies? You buyin’ ’em, I’ll find some to sell ya.”

With the pleasantries over, I lit a match and sucked in smoke. “What can I do for you, Miggs?”

He winced a little, looking a little embarrassed. “Frank put Falken’s debt on you today, kid.”

I studied him. “And, what, you couldn’t wait to come down here and break my balls about it?”

He shrugged, not looking embarrassed any more. “It’s a lot of money.” He twisted his head until his neck popped, loud, like a gunshot. “You got the two weeks? Maybe the whole thing?”

I smiled, a golden ball forming in the pit of stomach. My heart started pounding, and I felt adrenaline and power pouring into my limbs, everything loosening up. I looked at the Smiler and then back at Miggs, who stood there with the easy posture of a man used to violence. He understood the equation.

I thought, for a second, of the money under my closet floor, and then pushed the thought aside. The easy thing to do would be to hand over every fucking dime I had to Frank McKenna and hope I found Falken and twisted the money out of him, that would let me get back to work, back to normal. It would save me money in the long run, too, because Frank was going to pile on juice to the debt every week no matter what I did.

I shook my head. “Go fuck yourself, Miggs. Tell Frank he wants his money, he can come here like a man and ask me nicely.”

It was hard to keep the smile off my face. Not only was this allowed, not only was this fucking okay, but Miggs was a man who could handle himself, and would give as good as he got. This was going to be fun.

He got sulky, frowning and letting his hands hang free in preparation. “Just business. No need to get sticky about it.”

I exhaled smoke and flicked my cigarette away. “Sticky? Fuck you, sticky. I own this debt for three goddamn hours you’re here like a fucking roach to see what might fall out of my ass as I walk around?” I stepped forward, into the hall, crowding them, the narrow, shadowy stairs a few feet behind Miggs to his right. “You know what you just did?”

Miggs didn’t back away, just narrowed his eyes. His mustache was fucking majestic, with a healthy sheen, thick and glorious. “What?”

“You just gave me permission,” I said, and jerked forward, smacking my forehead into his nose.

He took it well, staggering backwards a step or two with a grunt and then putting his head down, meeting my rush with his shoulders, grappling my waist with his big arms. I pushed him into the railing at the top of the stairs, making it creak and lean outward dangerously, then sprang back half a step and clocked him nice and solid on the chin, spinning him onto the wobbly railing with his ass pointed at me.

He took hold of the railing and kicked, catching me in the stomach with a shot that felt like lead, knocking the breath out of me. I tried to laugh, uncontrollably, my whole body clenching and shuddering painfully as it tried to vomit up guffaws. Spots danced in front of me as my lungs burned.

He spun around and saw me just swaying there, shaking, and lunged forward with a haymaker. I ducked, easy, and he smacked his fist into the wall, old lathing and plaster that didn’t even crack. He howled and danced back, clutching his fist, and I managed one wet, coughing breath as I reached out and grabbed onto one of his ankles, giving it a yank with my knees planted firmly on the floor. He toppled over and hit the floor with a crash, making all the boards jump, and I leaped atop him, smacking my fist down into his face, angels singing, the white light everywhere, truly happy for the first time all day. I was working his face, like an artist works clay, re-arranging it and putting my stamp on it. It was what I’d been put on the earth to do.

I sat up suddenly, panting, my chest tight and feeling like someone had pushed splinters into my lungs. Miggs lay there moaning, his nose and mouth bloody and soft, his face already swollen. I looked up, feeling my shirt clinging damply to my torso, and found the Smiling Fool still just standing there. He wasn’t smiling any more; his face was concentric circles of fucked-up shock.

“You’re the worst,” I managed between heaves, “fucking muscle … I ever saw.” I gestured down at poor Miggs, for whom I was already feeling sorry. “Why didn’t … you jump in?”

He looked at me and blinked. “Shit, he didn’t tell me to.”

I nodded. “You and the fucking Bumble ought to form a club.” I pushed myself up to my feet and pointed at him. “Stay here.”

I staggered back into my apartment, blowing like a beached whale, and grabbed my shirt and overcoat from the bedroom, then went back into the hall, where Miggs had rolled himself onto his belly and had pulled himself a few inches towards the stairs. I shut and locked the door behind me and fished for my cigarettes again. Stepping over Miggs with a cigarette in my mouth, I glanced back at the Smiler and pointed at Miggs.

“Don’t help him,” I said. “Make him crawl down.”

The streets were empty and the cab dumped me outside The Oak Room off of Central Park in about half an hour. My chest still felt like I’d strained some fundamental muscle and stabbed me every time I moved, but I’d stopped panting and trembling. I’d smoked three cigarettes along the way and discovered four open cuts oozing blood on my face, but felt fantastic. I needed to get into fistfights more often. The problem with the people I worked with was their disappointing tendency to pull a gun on you if you pushed them too far.

I paid the driver a fifty and told him to keep it, and pushed my way past the flunkies at the front and stood in the dining room a moment. I saw Frank just as his mopes did, and they rushed forward to meet me when I was still a few steps away from his table, where he was eating alone. They were just two kids, fat assholes who had all the imagination of the cheap suits they were sausaged into.

“Touch me and I’ll break both hands so bad you’ll never be able to jerk off again,” I said, putting another cigarette in my mouth. Bad for me, but so was getting into fights outside your own fucking apartment. I looked past them to where Frank sat leaning back in his chair, napkin tucked into his collar, studying me with a grin on his face. “You seriously want a scene, Frank?”

He shrugged. “I can cover the damages. And I can get ten more guys in here in thirty seconds.”

My heart leaped in instinctive joy. I smiled. “Do it.”

Frank studied me again, then leaned forward to his plate again, shaking his head. “Fucking crazy bastard. Let him come.”

The mopes stepped aside, shooting their cuffs and giving me their best hardcase looks, and I pushed past them and dropped into the chair opposite Frank, lighting up. I stared at him until he looked up from his steak dinner. He blinked and leaned back again.

“Jesus, you look like hell. You want somethin’? Hey, Ginny, get him a bourbon,” he said, waving his hand in the air randomly. “Get him a Wild Turkey, neat.” He looked back at me and spread his arms. “What?”

I waited a moment, then leaned forward, pushing smoke out through my nose. “Your cash flow drying up, Frank? That why you sent that fucking grocery clerk to try and collect on me?”

He popped his eyes at me. “Send him? Send who?”

I controlled myself with effort. I felt so good I wanted to leap across the table and keep my adrenaline up. “Miggs. Miggs Bender.”

Frank smirked. “That moron. Look, you inherited a debt. You inherit the juice on it too, and you don’t get a reprieve just because it’s got a new owner.” Someone crept up behind me and placed a nearly-full tumbler of whiskey on the table in front of me. Frank shrugged. “I didn’t send anyone after you. But you can’t be surprised. Miggs has got you on his list now. He don’t get you to pay, he’s in dutch, right? So he’s just bein’ enterprising.”

I leaned back and picked up the tumbler with my bandaged, aching hand, crossing my legs and pursing my lips. It could be, I figured. Miggs was greedy and ambitious like everyone else, and he maybe just thought he might find me soft. I sniffed the whiskey and took a gulp. “All right,” I said. “Maybe.”

Frank nodded and picked up his knife and fork, bending over the plate. “Besides, you bring it on yourself. You earn good, kid. You don’t bet, you don’t spend. The fuck you do with all your money, who knows? So it’s natural to think that you’ve got a nut hidden away, that you could clean up a debt like that easy.”

I stared down into my drink, going calm and still, knowing the truth: I’d been chucked over the side for money. It was a big nut, sure, but nothing compared to what Frank McKenna pulled in every day. But he figured I had money stashed somewhere and he’d let Miggsy come at me hoping to break something loose. I took a deep breath and bolted the glass of whiskey, forcing it down and sitting for a moment, making sure it stayed down.

“I’ll handle it,” I said. “No need to send fucking poodles to bite my ankles, okay?”

I stood up, but Frank reached out and put a hand on my arm, making me pause. “Listen,” he said, letting his hand slide off me and picking up his fork again. “No hard feelings. You pay off the debt, all is forgiven, everyone’s friends.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay.” I wanted to smash the tumbler into his head, make him bleed.

He nodded without looking up. “Until then, Billy’s gonna stick closer than usual. No offense.”

“Fuck you, no offense.” I took a few steps away, then paused. Without turning back to him, I said “Fine. Tell Bill to pick me up tomorrow around nine. We’re taking a trip.”

“A trip? Where to?”

I grimaced as I pushed my way through the mopes again, giving them both some shoulder. “Fucking Jersey.”

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4.

We sat, The Bumble and me, in the waiting room, on the little plastic seats bolted to the wall. I sat in continuous fear that the seat might collapse under The Bumble’s bulk; a catastrophe like that would ruin the impression of blank menace The Bumble usually projected. The receptionist sat behind her cheap metal desk tapping dolefully at a keyboard, stealing glances at us. She was middle-aged and matronly, with no discernible figure, wearing a floral sack of a dress and big round glasses with bright red frames she probably thought were daring. She didn’t like us sitting in the waiting room, but I’d made an appointment and this flustered her.

For his part, The Bumble was glad to be back on rounds. He didn’t like uncertainty and breaks in our routine. He appeared to doze next to me, eyes half-closed, at peace.

The waiting room was just bare drywall painted an unenthusiastic shade of off-white; you could still see the tape on the seams. A single, gloriously terrible painting, huge, had been hung behind us on the wall, stretching the length of the bolted-on seats, and a tall potted fake plant a shade of green that was almost, but not quite found in nature squatted in the corner behind the receptionist. That was it for decoration, aside from the jerkoff’s law degree in a frame on the wall over her desk. There was no music, no magazines, and no conversation with a pretty thing—this was, I decided, the worst Reception Area I’d ever been in.

Rounds were tedious, most days. Most people paid up, making ninety percent of my job just a long boring errand. Even the ones who tried to get cute usually never pushed me to the point where I gave myself permission to have some fun, so the whole fucking day was usually me, blue-balled, reduced to glowering and making threats. I went home at night pissed off and grouchy, fantasizing about getting a real fight, someone my size with some training, some passion, who would simultaneously owe Frank McKenna money and be ready for me. It didn’t happen often.

Then, there were days like this, where one name glowed hot and red on my list, a punk who was three weeks behind and thought he could get away with it. I wore my best suit, double-breasted and formal.

Something buzzed on the desk, and the Receptionist heaved herself forward to mash a finger. “Yes?”

“Send in my three-o’clock, Gladys.”

Gladys. I smirked. Sometimes parents had a supernatural sense of exactly what their kid was going to be. I stood up, and The Bumble snorted and startled upwards.

“You can—”

I waved a gloved hand at her as we headed for the office. It was silly, maybe, to sit and wait for an appointment, but I liked the idea. I pictured Mr. Lawrence Teller, esq., in his office, having an afternoon cocktail and scrolling porn on his computer, thinking there was business in his lobby, happy and calm. And then we walk in. Keeping your subjects off-balance was a big part of the job.

I turned the knob and stepped into the office, The Bumble behind me like a ghost. The office was exactly the same as the reception area, just smaller. The walls looked like props, the carpet was stained and worn down to a theoretical layer of shag, and the desk was exactly the same sort of remnant bought from the back of a truck. Our guy was sitting ramrod straight, a big smile on his face, fat in a too-tight shirt, his tie knotted a bit too high up, sitting on his belly like a dead fish. He had a wide, florid face, perpetually pink, and a long nose, a mop of happy brown curls on his head. He would have been kind of good-looking when he’d been young.

Again, there was just one piece of decoration on the wall, this one right behind the desk, up a little too high. The frame was just barely not big enough to totally obscure the fact that something was set into the wall behind it.

“Mr.,” he glanced down at his desk, “Smith.” He heaved himself up and extended a hand. “How are you today, sir?”

I paused in front of the desk while The Bumble circled around behind him. I stared at him and made no move to take his hand. “Mr. Teller,” I said, pursing my lips. “You’re a fucking deadbeat.”

He let his hand drop and glanced nervously around at The Bumble, then back at me, trying to frown all stern-like. “Who are you?”

“I’m Frank McKenna’s nephew,” I said. “You owe him fifteen thousand dollars with interest due every week, and you’re three fucking weeks late.” I smiled. “As a service to our professional white-collar clients who maybe don’t have time in their busy days to troop downtown to make a payment, I show up and pick it up for ’em.” I nodded. “So let’s have it.”

That was my due diligence. I eyed Teller clinically, looking for soft spots, places he would hurt best. He was all soft spot, as far as I could tell, one big bruise waiting to happen. He looked like a guy who wore slippers in the house to spare his tender feet. Electricity buzzed through me. I was going to get the chance to beat the tar out of this bastard, and it would be entirely justified.

He smiled, looking at The Bumble and then back at me. “Ah, I see. Gentlemen,” he indicated the two dusty-looking chairs opposite his desk. “Have a seat. Let’s discuss the circumstances.”

I nodded. “Do you have the money?”

He shrugged. “I’m afraid not.”

I looked at The Bumble and made my face into an O of shock. “Hot Christ, he doesn’t have it, Billy. What the hell do we do now?”

“My secretary has already called the police,” Teller said calmly, sitting down in his big leather rolling chair and sweeping his hand towards his guest seats. “Let’s give up the tough guy routine and come to some terms—a payment plan. I fully intend—”

Joyfully, I leaned forward and punched him in the nose.

I didn’t have much leverage; I sent him rolling back into the wall behind him, made him yelp and throw his hands up to his face, but there was no satisfying crunch of broken cartilage. Grinning, I leaped up on top of his desk as The Bumble caught hold of his chair and sent him rocketing back towards me. I set my weight and lashed one foot at him, a steel toe smacking into his hands and sending him and the chair ass over tits. I jumped down on top of him, barking my shins on the chair’s arms as I got a knee on his throat, making him shoot his hands from his crushed nose down to my leg, where they grabbed on, sticky with blood, and feebly tried to push me away.

I felt light. I felt like I was weightless, floating, and everything around me was just made of sand: moldable.

“I don’t give a shit about police, Mr. Teller,” I said gaily, raising one fist and just letting it hang there in the air. I could hold it there forever, for centuries, without getting tired. Power coursed through me, golden and liquid. “I’ve spent plenty of nights in holding cells, and I’m not a fucking lawyer like you but I’ve got lawyers who make, apparently a lot more fucking money than you do.” I feinted my fist down at his face, making him twitch and yelp again, spitting up bubbly blood. “Since you called this in, we’ve got about ten minutes. Ten minutes we can spend either beating you to a fucking raw pulp, or gathering cash from your fucking wall safe.”

He was moving his mouth, a grotesque, slithery sight. After a moment I realize I was putting too much weight on his neck and he couldn’t breathe. I let up half an inch and he sucked in a damp, bloody breath. His nose pulsed like a swamp every time he breathed.

“Don’t have … don’t—”

I leaned down a little. “Shhh, now, shhh. You don’t have it all, huh? That’s okay. You got at least a week’s interest?”

He nodded miserably, and I smiled. “All right. That’ll buy you one more week. Ups-a-daisy.”

I sprang up off him and held one gloved hand down to him. Slowly, panting hard, he took hold and let me pull him up. The Bumble took his cue and snatched the painting off the wall, revealing a pretty sad-looking wall safe embedded roughly into the wall. The Bumble tossed the painting aside savagely, smashing it against the far wall, and I leaned over and smoothed Teller’s bloody shirt against his paunch, adjusted his collar. His nose was flat and leaking blood, and his eyes had already darkened to black circles.

“You’re fine,” I said heartily, still high, feeling powerful and happy. I gave him a friendly slap to the cheek and indicated the safe. “Have at it.”

Back out in the lobby, the receptionist watched us emerge from the office with wide, frightened eyes. I winked, stuffing the large bills into my envelope.

“You really call the cops?”

She nodded, slowly, tracking us as we passed her.

“Tell ’em you were robbed,” I said as The Bumble called for the elevator. We stepped into the cab and let the doors slide shut. I looked at myself in the shiny, scratched steel and couldn’t see any bloodstains. I handed the envelope to The Bumble.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Hand this in for me.”

He took the envelope, stared at it for a moment, then looked at me. “Where you going?”

“To the library.”

I watched her from across the huge room for a few minutes. For a library reading room it felt noisy, even though there wasn’t much sound at all—but the sound there was felt layered and deep. Big wooden tables filled the floor, the walls two stories high covered in bookshelves. At the far end was a row of windows like in a bank—Teller’s windows—but these handed out books. You filled out a form and handed it in, a few minutes later someone brought the books up and slid them across to you. Every few minutes I saw her: Beautiful brunette, her long hair pulled back into a silky pony tail, all curves in her ankle-length skirt and cardigan, smartassed glasses on the tip of her nose. She was beautiful, she was young, she was fucking brilliant, and she chose to work in the goddamn library.

I smiled as I walked up the wide center aisle, feeling noisy.

The place was pretty filled; you kept hearing about how no one read any more, how everything was going to the dogs, but here we were in the fucking library and it was packed. Most people were slobs, though, dressed like they were in someone’s living room having a beer, watching the game. People didn’t know how to fucking dress any more; they wore whatever they found on the floor when they woke up.

She saw me as she brought a stack of books up to one of the windows, and looked over the head of the tiny old man who collected them, staring at me with a half smile on her lips. She turned and said something to the people working with her and when I stepped up to the window she turned and smiled at me.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite Uncle who isn’t my uncle,” she said. “How have you been, Unc?”

“Alive,” I said. “How are you, Rache? Got a minute?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Come on back.”

I stepped over to the heavy door on the side of the windows and a moment later she opened it and passed me through. I followed her back to a tiny office, keeping my eyes off her ass, and ignored the looks from everyone we walk past. She dropped into the squeaking chair behind a pile of paper in the general shape of a desk a computer screen poking out from one end and glowing ominously. I barely had space to leaned against the wall across from her. I put my hands in my pockets for safe keeping. The office smelled like her, some flowery perfume.

She leaned back, her straining cardigan somehow worse than if she were naked. “Been a while.”

I nodded. “I figured you’d let me know if my company was ever wanted again.”

“Have I been sleepwalking again? Dropping postcards in the mail in the middle of the night?”

Looking down at the floor, I shook my head. “No. I came to ask a favor.”

She didn’t say anything. When I looked back up, she was chewing on her glasses and studying me, cool and collected. After a moment, she nodded. “Okes, maybe. Depending on what you need. For old time’s sake.”

I nodded, pulling a slip of paper from my pocket and handing it over the desk to her. “Two names.”

She smiled, taking the paper. I imagined a spark of static electricity as our fingers almost touched, but it was probably just the dry office air. She looked at the two names and quick bullet lists of information I’d printed on it. “They have this thing now called the Internet, you know.”

I shook my head. “Too random. I could spend all day running down bullshit. You’re good at this shit, Rachel.”

She looked back at me, raising one eyebrow. She’d always been a cool kid: She never laughed or reacted unless she wanted to, and getting her to react had always been a thrill for me. Finally she stood up, graceful.

“All right. Wait in here. Don’t step outside this office, and if anyone says anything to you, you’re mute. Got it?”

I smiled. “Can I make one of those signs begging for money because I can’t speak?”

She turned and walked out of the office, but I was pretty sure I’d made her laugh. As a reward I watched her ass as she walked away.

When she came back about half an hour later, I was still standing there where she’d left me. She had a bunch of papers in one hand and paused in the doorway, squinting at me, as if she thought maybe I’d rifled her desk while she’d been gone. But she’d know that was ridiculous—I played by the rules.

“All right,” she said, breezing in, sassy. She dropped back into her chair and held onto the paper for a moment. “You gonna break their legs or something?”

I shrugged. “One, maybe. The other put me through some trouble,” I touched the bandage on my forehead, “and I just want to find out why before she shows up again.” I decided not to mention that each one had pulled a disappearing act on me.

She studied me again, fanning herself with the paper. “All right,” she said finally. “First, Rusch. I found three women who fit the general data you gave me.” She leaned forward and handed me three sheets of heavy photo paper. The second one was a good crisp picture of the Doctor, without her thick glasses. She was smiling and looked a little younger, but it was her. I handed that one back. “That’s one.”

She nodded, glancing down. “That one’s down at Rutgers University in Jersey. Physics Department. Published a lot up until about a decade ago, then dropped off the scene and if she wasn’t tenured probably would have been let go.” She shrugged and handed over a single sheet of copy paper, several bullet points and paragraphs of information, including a phone number and address. I smiled and folded it up.

“You’re a goddamn angel, you know that?”

She looked up at me from under her eyebrows. “And you’re a violent asshole, you know that?”

I stiffened and looked away. She would tear like paper. I swallowed a surge of adrenaline, imagining, for one quick, dirty moment how she would just disintegrate in my hands, like tissue. Then I forced a smile onto my face and locked down my breathing, forcing steady, deep breaths. “You wouldn’t know, Rache,” I said. “Remember that, okay?”

We held each other’s eyes for a moment, and then she looked back down at the last bit of paper in her hand. “There’s only one Elias Falken who fits your description that I can find. Which is too bad for you.” She leaned forward, giving me a view of her neck as she handed the page over.

“Why’s that?” I said, glancing down. The photo was exactly right: Falken smiled back at me in what looked like a Driver’s License shot.

She finally gave me a full-on smile, her whole face lighting up as she cocked her head, eyes shining. “Because he’s been dead for two years.”

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