“Well yeah, Dempsey had a retirement plan.” She snorted, poking me in the ribs and of course finding one of the still-tender spots. “I’m sitting right next to it.”
“I never begrudged the old man one cent.” I slowed down for a stoplight, rubbing at the spot she’d stabbed at. “Even after… all of this… all of these secrets… he did right by me. Hell, even righter than I thought. He had something on whoever hired him to get me back then. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me—that he was given something or he found something that held their hand—because now he’s gone, it’s all creeping back out. Kenny’s got that something, and we need to get our hands on it.”
“And him,” she murmured, putting the gris-gris aside and picking up her tablet. “Took a look at your uncle’s contract. It’s like he went out of his way to cheat every single hard-core criminal in New Vegas he could find. I mean, they’re pissed off. There’s a bonus if he comes in with broken fingers and a hint that you’ll get a free townhouse if he’s turned over to the Post without his jewels. Like, a strong hint. Place looks nice. It’s got a pool.”
“Not one for swimming,” I reminded her. “Elfin don’t seem to like the water that much, but then again, considering what they brought over with them and dumped into the oceans, it’s hard to love splashing around in places where even dragons are afraid to go. I’ve seen some of those fish they’ve pulled in up in Alaska—teeth the size of Great Danes and eyeballs bigger than this Scout.”
The gloaming hit over the next rise, and any true sunlight was lost to us. Around us, the streets turned milky and blue, punctuated by splashes of neon and strips of white spots running along the high-pitched overhangs built to hold the upper city in place. Buildings shifted, getting lower and turning residential. Many were painted a vibrant white at some point, a bit of effort put in to push back the shadows, but grime and soot eventually crept in, turning the landscape a nearly uniform gray.
There were still spots of color, flashing signs, and rolling screens advertising everything from supermarkets to face masks with a bit of litigation thrown in for good measure. The tik-tiks were plentiful here, cramming in and out to drop off passengers, then making their way back to the front lines, eager for fares. On the ground, buses took up most of the lanes, hissing and spitting steam as they settled down at each stop. Marquees rolled around the segmented transports, announcing route numbers and destinations in a spidery crawl below their tint-darkened windows. Graffiti added a bit of flavor to the walls, but the storefronts on the busy street seemed to be losing their battle with the taggers, some of their glass fronts nearly covered with indecipherable scrawls. A few clusters of townhomes made some attempt at gentrification but, like the stores, were victims of the eternal twilight and visual noise that came with the understreets.
No one wanted to live in perpetual darkness, and as soon as they could, many fled for the outer rings of the undercity, with a few exceptions of those too poor to gain any foothold against their circumstances and the roaches passing for human in the tangled streets beyond the light.
I was counting on those roaches to help me ferret Kenny out, and I knew exactly what rock I needed to turn over first to begin my hunt.
“Got your badge?” I asked, glancing over at Cari. “You’re going to need it.”
“Hell, somewhere.” She frowned, reaching for a backpack by her feet. “Why?”
“Because running down a bounty’s different than hunting monsters. Law says we’ve got to be badged up clear as day,” I told her, winding the Scout around to avoid a slow-moving transport truck. “Open carry’s allowed, but badges have to be in sight. Besides, where we’re going, a bit of metal goes a long way in either shaking people out of the trees or telling you who you’ve got to shake harder.”
“Where exactly are you taking me, Gracen?” Cari came up from her digging, triumphantly holding up her Stalker badge, its plastic wrap still taped down around its curve. “I thought you knew where this guy was?”
“Not so much, but I’ve got a good lead on who’s got eyes on him. Which is a damned good place to start.” I wrestled the Scout into a holding zone, flipping on the SoCalGov permit light band attached to its windshield.
People on the street edged away from the old battle tank, eyeing its flashing LEO warning. The spot was perfect, not more than a few feet away from the alley I’d been looking for, and judging by the streams of people flowing in and out of the tight opening between the buildings, our showing up would disrupt a bit of business and everyone we would speak to would want us out of their hair as soon as they could.
“Slap the gold on, and make sure you’ve got your weapon tied down. We’re going into the Market to see a woman about some curry,” I said, stepping out of the Scout and fixing my badge to my belt. “And maybe shake her down for illegal possession at the same time, but mostly I just want some curry.”
Fourteen
THERE ARE always places in a city where anything could be had for the right price. In Los Angeles, Santee Alley was where you stopped for anything from elote to prom dresses, and St. John’s Park in San Francisco had things in its stalls guaranteed to boggle the mind, but in San Diego, the Market on Adams was where someone could find narwhal ivory carved into a snow leopard scene and pick up a few street tacos while debating what kind of Sig Sauer would fit neatly under a leather jacket.
For the most part, law enforcement left the place alone. For one, it was pretty much a sprawl of courtyards and alleys connecting around and through slender old buildings stacked on top of each other where people lived packed in like sardines for a few dollars a week. Navigating the Market was tricky and the stalls shifted over time, sometimes opening up a path one day and becoming impassable the next. The big players remained entrenched in their customary spots, but the fly-by-night sellers, with temporary goods liberated off the backs of trucks or suddenly found in empty lots, slid and slipped into the cracks between the old-timers, making it hard to find someone twice. The buildings crammed up tight against the Market’s kiosks gave the whole place a prison feel, and the rows of uniform thin windows gave anyone a clear shot down into the crowds.
While everything could be found, it also meant nothing was off-limits, and there’d been more than a few reports of bodies being dragged out of the Market and dumped into the street, naked and bloodied from a knife wound or gunshot. There was no honor among thieves or gentlemen’s agreement down here. If you went into the Market looking for trouble, it would find you soon enough. And if you were simply there to buy whatever cheap produce or groceries you could find among the stalls, you did so as quickly as possible, clutching your bags tightly to you and your wallet even tighter.
If we got eyed on the street, it was only a preview of the shunning we got once we ducked into the alley. Badges blazing, we were pariahs, lepers wearing gold plague masks on our waists, and in some ways, the space around us was a sense of false security. Or at least for Cari.
“Kind of nice,” she murmured, looking around. “This place is insane, and we’ve got room to move. I should wear my badge more often.”