I woke up on the sofa in my office, my head thumping harder than a techno freak after a night out.

  Bobby, my old army buddy, had dropped by yesterday, and boy, did we empty the Old Huntsman down the road.

  I decided to try my luck and bite the devil in the ass with a hair of the dog. No headache can withstand two fingers of Johnnie Walker Blue—synthetic or not. A breakfast for champions, indeed.

  I was just about to fill another glass when she knocked on my door. I should’ve known that dame was trouble in high heels and synthetic leather.

  Her voice still rings in my ear. And I tell you, if I hadn’t been married at the time, I’d have found my bride right there.

  “Mister Johann Gerber?” She looked at me with the intense gaze only the upper class has for the working flock. Newsflash, doll, the oligarchs lost. I’ve killed scores of them.

  The light of a launching orbiter flooded through my window, filling her hourglass figure with even sharper contrasts.

  I thanked the gods for the favor and, in my best gentleman’s voice, answered her.

  “You found him. What can I do you for?”

  She looked around my office, obviously searching for a clean place to sit. Too bad for her that Bobby and I had continued the party here after the MPs threw us out of the bar.

  “My boss wants to speak with you. He has a job for you.”

  A job was exactly what I needed. The army pension was nice, but with a pregnant wife and little André soon going to school, money was tighter than a bookie’s smile on collection day.

  “And who might your boss be, dollface?” I said, knowing full well that flirting with me was the last thing a girl like her would do.

  “Mister Drake. But I can’t tell you more.”

  Her voice went cold—steel-cold. I knew she wasn’t just a beautiful face, not with a boss like Drake. He had more tricks up his sleeve than a shoplifter in a wizard’s market. And beautiful girls that can snap your neck are only one part of it.

  I was interested. A job’s a job. And in my line of work, hope’s just another bill collector. Drake had money—more than the rest of this godforsaken city.

  “Spit it, doll. How do I get it?”

  “We have a hover waiting on the roof. He wants to speak to you. Now.”

  I tried not to grab my coat too quickly. A customer who thinks you’re desperate will bleed you for every penny.

  And this gumshoe had done his fair share of bleeding.

  We left my office. No need to lock the door. It was on the fifty-fourth floor, and with the elevator broken, no one came up here.

  The stairs to the roof stank like piss. I knew because I contributed to it daily.

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  The girl sniffed and only said, “What a dump.”

  “Sally, did no one tell you? The City of Angels is dead. ‘Dump’ is the best you can get here.”

  We stepped into the hover car — a typical upper-class German import. Like all upper-class rides, it didn’t fly with autopilot. The dame had her own personal driver.

  She sat opposite me, cleaning her hands like she’d touched something out of the sewer. Well, she actually might have.

  “Tell me, Mister Gerber. I checked your file. Why are you still here? What’s your story?”

  “There are a million stories in the City of Angels, and most of them aren’t worth being told a second time. This one’s no exception. But if you’ve got nothing else going on…”

  “It’s a girl, right?” So she knew the age-old song.

  “Listen, Sally. It’s not a girl — it’s my wife. She’s from here. I did my time, and when I wanted to take her home, the army said no. What was I supposed to do? Make my living here, or leave my wife and kid? I ain’t the pump-and-dump type.”

  Below us, the dust and trash of the city blew in the autumn wind. The New Californian government had declared a rebuilding of the state.

  The construction crew seemed to be stuck at the senator’s house.

  “My name is not Sally.”

  She seemed determined to fit every stereotype about her kind — sitting there with a retro smartwatch and a matching smartphone, a crystal glass of pumpkin-spiced latte in her hand.

  It was Halloween, all right.

  “As long as you don’t tell me your name, I’ll call you Sally.”

  She turned her face away, looking out over the harbor, pretending there was a deeper thought behind that pretty face.

  The flight to the monstrosity given form in Neo-Art Deco took just long enough to remind me I’d missed a shower.

  She didn’t need a card to get through security, and the gorillas in black didn’t bother to check me. Maybe they didn’t notice my trusty Desert Eagle — or maybe they just didn’t care.

  The elevators were, of course, antigrav. Who wouldn’t love flying up a five-hundred-meter shaft without a cabin?

  Other than any sane person, that is.

  We reached the boss's office. Sally just opened the doors but didn’t enter.

  On the way to those marvelous mahogany doors, I caught the fearful looks the others gave her. So, she was Drake’s muscle — and a pretty piece of it at that.

  “Mister Gerber, please take a seat.”

  There he was, in a perfect suit, his long white hair flowing into a matching beard. He looked like God himself — but probably had more sins in his ledger than the Devil could count.

  “Thanks. I’d rather stand — makes walking out easier if I don’t like what I hear.”

  Best to seem hard-boiled.

  “Don’t be so hostile. I’ve chosen you because you’re an honest man. And I need someone I can trust.”

  “I hate having to deal with honest men. A liar you can always count on to lie — but you never know when an honest man will decide to be dishonest.”

  This was all foreplay — a dance to see who blinked first, and who’d end up on top.

  Filling a Glass with an imported whiskey from a crystal carafe worth a year’s salary, he responded.

  “Well, then, let’s come to the point. I need someone who fits in and can investigate what happened to a few friends of mine. In terms of compensation…”

  Before the old moneyfart could finish his sentence, my mouth wrote checks I wasn’t willing to pay.

  “Your friends lost the war. Some were shot, others fled into the Rockies, and the rest died when they tried to launch a nuke on New York.”

  Yeah, that was the old grudge in me speaking, and now his blond muscle in black leather would kick me out of the office. Typical me — one time I made the mistake of telling someone what I really thought of them, and since then, I’ve only made that same mistake once, maybe twice a day.

  But to my surprise, the moneybag on legs just shrugged it off. He walked across the white marble floor, close enough for me to smell the whiskey on his breath.

  “If you think I was an Oligarch, you're wrong, but you're not stupid enough to believe that. You want to test me. We could dance all day, but the situation might be critical. So let’s cut to the chase. I'll pay you a thousand Euros a day, plus expenses. And when I'm happy with your work, I'll see that your family can immigrate to Europe.”

  So, the job’ll kill me. Perfect.