She finished her coffee and then her flask and walked out into the rain. A homeless man was offering umbrella service and after a quick negotiation she paid him eight bucks to walk her as many blocks south. He grabbed the bills and took off; she clubbed him in the back of the knee with the prod (off) and took his umbrella, throwing the eight Ws down into the wet filth of the sidewalk. Bastard, it’s more than you deserve. She walked down Pine Street to an old brownstone mansion with a fancy copper sign on the gate that read: “Eugene Gercer-han Bernstein, Attorney at Law.” She opened the gate and, ignoring the buzzer, pounded on the heavy oak door.

Sissy, his secretary, opened the door. Petite woman, mid thirties, dressed in the latest fashion—a dress of brown bands that wrapped around her body and left visible just a hint of black panties and bra. It went well with the leather gun belt around her waist.

“How many times have I told you to use the buzzer?” she said, annoyed.

Saru shoved past her into the antechamber, tracking mud onto the rug and draping her purple peacoat over the chair by the fireplace. She felt a hand on her shoulder, a surprisingly strong grip. She tensed.

“You’re not special,” Sissy hissed. “You’re not different.”

Saru took a deep breath. She felt the rage of the unwanted, unasked-for touch, her blood quickening, body warming.

“I’m going to break your wrist,” she said.

The grip didn’t waver; Saru wondered what was going through the other woman’s mind. What would happen if they fought? What would Sissy’s move be? To jerk down and slip a tranq dart in her neck, most likely. She’d wake up in the gutter like an elzi, wallet gone, piss on her face, maybe some freak would steal her clothes and feel her up. Of course she’d get a good, hard zap at Sissy’s thighs before she dropped, give the cunt some action, and what a pretty picture that would be, the two of them passed out in Eugene’s fancy-ass foyer.

The fingers let go. Stiffly, Sissy dropped her arms to her sides.

“He’s with another client,” she spat. “You’ll have to wait.”

“No thank you.”

Saru stomped down the hallway, making her presence good and known, scuffing up the wood floor with her boots, trailing a hand along the wood-paneled wall and skewing all the paintings along the way. She half expected to feel the needle prick of a dart in her back, but Sissy contented herself with sucking in a breath sharp enough to cut. There was no reason to antagonize Sissy, other than it was easy. Whatever stick was up her ass would have to be carved out.

She got to the office door and prepared to bang, but it swung open and a short, portly, balding man in a tweed jacket stood in the doorway, her fist in rap position a centimeter from his face. He didn’t blink. Friar.

“Hello, Saru,” he said. “Congratulations on the Favre case. Excellent work.”

“Thank you,” she said. Somehow Friar always managed to disarm her with his politeness. If she was the pudding cup of detectives, Morgan Friar was tiramisu. His specialty was UausuaU crimes, and there weren’t too many out there with the stomach to poke at those. He went way beyond your typical elzi disappearance case, investigating the darker crimes, crimes that most people considered nothing more than rumor—feasters and queens, the people that supposedly looked at the UausuaU and didn’t go mad, or they went mad but kept their ability to think and plan and take action.

“So nice to run into you like this,” he said. “Seeing your face always brings me cheer. You’re too pretty for this line of work.”

“And you’re too fat.”

He chuckled. “True, true. I’m too busy to exercise and too cheap to buy a better body. Besides,” his voice changed; it was warm still in character, but she could feel the chill below, “it would only get ruined anyway.”

She stood to the side and watched his fat rump shuffle down the hallway. How did he do it? Even if he hired mercs to do the dirty work, there were too many everyday near-death sits for a PI to have the body of a pastry chef. Any scum worth talking to would doodle a wound in his paunch and tap dance away with his wallet. She filed an idea: follow him, see what he does, how he operates.

She went into the office and offered her customary sneer at the opulence. The PIs of the private justice system did the work and the lawyers saw the rewards. Shiny wood floors, fancy rugs from foreign zones, paintings of his family everywhere—was that a new chandelier?

“Jesus Christ, what’s next? A golden throne?” she said aloud.

Eugene gave a snort and stood to offer her his hand. He was tall, taller even than she was, and stupidly handsome. She had thought a few times of pumping him full of drink and running her hands through that curly black hair, but she’d probably get an invoice in the mail for it. She slapped his hand away and collapsed into the overly plush seat before his altar-desk.

“The Gaespora want me for something,” she said. “What is it?”

“Saru, I appreciate your patronage, but you can’t just barge in here like this. I was in a meeting with Mr. Friar, which he kindly—let me stress that—kindly, agreed to postpone because I didn’t want you kicking down my door again.”

“They were calling me all night, outbid my call blocking, custom summon tone, a sonata that made me almost cry and a picture of my parents’ farm.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“They bought my building today.”

“What?”

“They bought the whole office building. Thirteen Oh Six Walnut. Shut it down. I’m guessing by this point they’ve found where I live and they got that too. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. This is unusual.”

“I want to get a case together. Start putting together some sort of action, something aggressive, to put them on the defensive. Money’s no object; I’m flush from the Favre case. They can’t get away with this.”

Eugene stared at her flatly and then burst out laughing—God he was pretty when he laughed. He went to his liquor cabinet and poured them each a tumbler of bourbon—his on the rocks and hers a straight fistful. He handed her her glass and then sat, swirling the bourbon, serious.

“I’m flattered, really, that you think I’m up for this, but what you’re proposing is ridiculous. Launch a case against the Gaespora? On what grounds?”

“I don’t know,” she said, hotly. “You’re the lawyer, make something up, reckless intimidation, intent to violate American freedom, do something.”

“What do you think I can do here? What judge do you think would even hear the case? Their salaries, their mistresses, their kids’ medicines and their wives’ fake tits all come from the Gaespora. I’d be laughed out of court and if I didn’t shut up you’d find me dying of diphtheria.”

“So you believe that bullshit.”

“I don’t believe—I know. They bought your office building for crissakes.”

“So what am I supposed to do, get on my knees and suck their alien dicks?”

“You could talk to them—maybe not hang up and ignore their phone calls. Jesus, most people would give their right arm to have a sit-down with the Gaespora and you’re ignoring their phone calls. I don’t believe you sometimes.”

“I don’t enjoy being pushed around.”

“This isn’t the playground; you can’t beat up every other kid and call yourself king shit of the turd pile. There are rules.”

They glared at each other. Eugene looked away, out the window. The rain was coming harder now, coming up to be a good ol’ spring thunderstorm. Saru downed her bourbon and held the glass out for a refill. Eugene filled her glass. He squinted his eyes shut and Saru guessed he was shooting out a command to Sissy to cancel his next meeting. Wordlessly he packed a long, curving vape with some hash and a few stimulants. They smoked and stared out at the storm. An elzi had gotten stuck on one of the barbs on the iron fence around the building. They watched him jerk himself free, leaving his hand and most of the forearm behind. He stumbled down the street, causing pedestrians to scuttle to the other side. A cop came over and herded him into a paddy wagon.

“Shit,” Saru said. “There’s no way out of this, is there?”

Almost as soon as she said it, there was a knock on the door, soft, polite, Sissy.

“Come in,” Eugene said. The door opened and she stepped in. She looked ruffled, uncomfortable—uncharacteristic. Even before she spoke Saru knew what she would say:

“Mr. Gercer-han Bernstein? There are two gentlemen here to see you. They say they belong to the Gaespora.”