One of Us Read Free Page B

an orderly line, searching for a home, or food, or maybe even some coffee beans.
    I reached Ensenada just after midnight, and slept in the car on the outskirts of town. I dreamed of a silver sedan and men with lights behind their heads, but the message was confused and frantic, fear dancing through an internal landscape lined with doors that wouldn't open.
    When I woke up, more of my head was back in place, and I got it together enough to contact Stratten, patching the call through my hacker's network so it looked like it originated from LA. I said I had a migraine and wouldn't be able to work for a couple of days. I don't think Stratten believed me, but he didn't call me on it. I spent the rest of the day fruitlessly searching taco stands and crumbling hotels, or driving aimlessly down rotting streets. By the evening this had led me to an inescapable conclusion.
    She wasn't here.
     
    FROM HOUSSON'S I headed straight for the street where I'd left the car. In late afternoon this particular area behind the tourist drag had seemed charmingly authentic. By mid-evening it resembled a do-it-yourself mugging emporium. Knots of alarming locals stood and stared as I passed, their feet wet from the pools of beer, urine, or blood that flowed from each of the bars, but I made it back to the car in one piece. It was parked down a dead end, away from prying eyes, and it was only as I pulled my keys from my pocket that I realized shadows were moving on the other side of the street. The light was too patchy for me to tell who it might be, but in any event I didn't want to meet them. I'm like that. Not very sociable.
    Three men were soon distinguishable, heading toward me. They weren't hurrying, but that wasn't reassuring. Particularly when the glint of a tarnished button confirmed what I already suspected. Cops. Or the local equivalent, which was even worse.
    Could be they were just out walking their wallets, shaking down the bars; could be they'd just spotted a turista and decided to shake me down instead.
    Or it could be that their colleagues outside Housson's had passed the word to them that someone suspicious had just been hounded out of the bar by a lunatic timepiece, someone whose name had been clearly articulated. There was no reason that name should mean anything to anyone, not unless stuff had happened back in LA that I didn't know about, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I quietly opened the car door and waited, listening to the sound of their boots scuffing on the ragged road surface.
    "Hi," I said steadily. "What can I do for you guys?"
    They didn't reply, but merely looked me up and down, as is the wont of such people. The third cop hung back a little, casting a glance at the license plate of my car.
    "It's mine," I said. "The papers are in the glove compartment."
    Too late I remembered what was next to the papers and under a map. A gun. It was mine, licensed, legal—with a serial number and everything—but it would still be a very bad thing to have cops find. The Baja peninsula isn't bandit territory, but it's heading that way. Twenty years ago it had looked as if fleeing Hong Kong money might claw the Baja up into respectability, but the cash had kept on moving, and now the dark country was taking over again, seeping down from the hills and turning the eyes of the people inward. The cops are very keen that it's them pointing the guns at people, not the other way round.
    "Mr. Thompson?" the middle cop said. I tightened my grip on the door.
    "Yes," I replied. There was no point in lying. Any part of my body had it stamped there in amino acids. "How'd you guess? I just look like a Thompson, or what?"
    "Someone who sounds like you just had a little trouble in Housson's," he said, something that wasn't really a smile moving his lips. "With a clock."
    "Well, you know how it is." I shrugged. "They get on your nerves occasionally."
    "I couldn't afford such a thing," the middle cop said. "Mine still runs on