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  I caught a surprise right at Raul’s and my left eye had started to go black.

  “Looks like you got on the wrong end of something,” Carroll said when he opened the back door to his shop. In the front he sold some of this and some of that. Whatever he could find that someone would pay money for found a place on his shelves.

  I stepped through the door, Berger behind me. The room was unfinished but well-organized. Three reclined chairs sat in front of sets of monitors. The chairs were raised a foot or so from the concrete floor and there was a stool next to each of them so the technicians running the machines had some place to sit.

  When we arrived there was a young man in the seat on the right. He had his head laid back. Dark circles under his eyes and his hair was a mess of weeds. His jeans were soiled and stained. I looked at Berger.

  “This one should be easy. Carroll wouldn’t give an important job to this kid.” We walked to the table Carroll was sitting behind. He slipped me another sheet of paper with an address written on it.

  “This one’s just a warm up,” he said. “So the new guy can get his feet wet.” Carroll pulled two flashlights from behind the desk and passed them to us. He stood and said “Let me see them.” Berger and I pulled our shirts up above the waistband on our pants and showed Carroll that we had guns. He nodded and we walked to meet the guy we were escorting.

  We all shook hands and our runner’s grip was soft. He could barely keep his eyes open and Carroll slapped him across the face.

  “Stay awake,” he shouted then turned to us. “Be back soon. Got a bigger one after this one gets there and back again.”

  “A Hobbit’s tale,” Berger whispered. I looked up at him but he had his eyes on the kid we were escorting.

  We let him through the door first then followed a few steps behind. “We walk next to him we draw attention so we’ll stay back here. He knows where he’s supposed to go.”

  We’d gone three blocks before a man in a torn denim jacket approached with his hand in his pocket. He whispered something into our boy’s ear and the boy pushed the man away. He stumbled then put his arm around the boy’s shoulder.

  Berger took a step toward them but I put a hand on his chest, telling him to hang back for a second. The pair exchanged a few words before our boy pulled a couple of wadded bills from his pocket and handed them to his friend. The man stepped away, down an alley, and was gone.

  “What was that?” Berger asked. “Why didn’t you want me to move in?”

  “He was just trying to scrounge a couple bucks.”

  “How did you know he wasn’t dangerous?”

  “I see him every time we come this way. Even helped him out a few times.”

  “You couldn’t warn me about guys like him?”

  “Ahh, he’s the only one. We see anyone else you can go up and knock a few heads.”

  Berger smiled.

  We kept walking, passing shops that were closed and a man sitting on a corner, a small generator rumbling behind him. The generator powered a weak light on a tall stand pointing at the ground. He was surrounded by small bottles of gasoline for sale; stuff likely siphoned from those few who were lucky enough to have a working automobile. Berger and I acknowledged the man as we passed and he gave us a wave.

  The young man we were following looked back at us and pointed at the door of a small office tower. He rang a buzzer and told the woman who answered who he was there to see. Berger and I waited on the street and ten minutes later the boy came back out, his eyes half open.

  The walk back to Carroll’s shop was easy. He got up from behind his desk when we returned. He paid the boy then sent him on his way.

  There was a man in the chair with a feed in his arm. He was dressed in pressed black pants and a crisp white shirt with a sleeve pulled above his elbow. A jacket was draped across the chair next to him. He was older than our previous escort but clean cut with his hair slicked straight back. It was held in place by some sort of grease that I could smell when we entered. He gave us a wave and I returned it.

  “It go well?” Carroll asked.

  “Uneventful,” I said.

  Carroll pulled a map from the drawer in his desk and laid it on the table. He smoothed it flat with both hands and started tracing a route.

  “This is a little dated but it’ll give you two an idea of where you’re headed. You following my finger?”

  We both nodded. Carroll drew a path along a street that ran next to the south bay and into the rail district. He stopped at an address I recognized but for bad reasons.

  I looked up at Carroll and he smiled at the confused expression on my face.

  “That’s a hothouse,” I said.

  “Yep. Genius right? No one would think anyone other than addicts are in there.”

  I looked back at the map. “Genius wouldn’t be the word I’d use. I used to work that district. Cops hated it. Soldiers hated it. You think we can walk a guy in there with a starched shirt and nice suit and not stand out?”

  “You’ll be fine. You’ve got what’s in your waistband. You know how to use it. I figure he does too.” Carroll pointed at Berger.

  “You want us to walk your guy down there then you have to do something for me. Tell me what he’s got.”

  Carroll laughed and shook his head. “You’re funny. And no. Your job is to get him there and back again.”

  “A Hobbit’s tale,” Berger whispered.

  “You don’t get to know what the data is,” Carroll hadn’t stopped talking. “What you get is a payday.” He pulled two stacks of cash – at least a thousand dollars in each – and laid them on top of his desk. “That’s half. You get him back here safely and I get confirmation that everything went well with the data transfer, you get the other stack.” Carroll pulled out the other half of the money and laid it on the desk as well. Berger tapped my arm. He had a smile on his face. I was smiling too, inside.

  “I wish that was enough,” I said. “Want us to walk fancy pants over there into the rail district you’re going to tell me what it is you’re planting in his head.”

  Carroll thought for a moment. “If those are your terms then I’m sorry.” He pulled one of the stacks off the table. I slammed my hand on the top of two of the other stacks and Berger followed, grabbing the fourth.

  “Changing your mind once the incentive comes of the table?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “You’re going to use us. You’re going to pay us. This money and a little more now. But you’re also going to tell me what it is we’re transporting.”

  “The deal is you walk him, you deliver him, and you bring him back. That’s it.”

  I pulled the two stacks of cash close to my edge of the table and Carroll reached behind him. He pulled a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at me.

  “Stop,” he said, the end of his gun a few inches from my face. I looked past the barrel of the gun. My eyes met his. He wasn’t joking.

  A gunshot rang out and Carroll jumped. I dropped to the ground and snapped my head to the side. Berger was pointing the gun I’d given him back at the technician monitoring the feed. He’d blown a hole in the wall just above the man’s head. The technician cowered, his eyes opened wide. He shook. The man with the feed in his arm had rolled to his stomach.

  “How about you tell my man what he wants to know and let us get on with our night,” Berger said. “It’s getting late.”

  Carroll kept the gun pointed at me and started to laugh. “Feisty,” he said through a chuckle. “I like this one. I’m still not telling you what you want to know, but I have a proposition if you’re willing to listen.”

  I nodded and Carroll took the stacks of cash left on the table and pulled them towards him. He reached below the desk and pulled out two more. “How does that look? Three grand for each of you.”

  Berger gave me a small nod and I turned back to Carroll. “Make it four.”

  Carroll considered it for a moment. “If it’l
l keep the guns put away then I think I can do that. But you get half now, the rest later.”

  “No, keep it all here for now,” I said. “I’m not carrying that much money with me into the rail district.”