Three A.M. Read Free Page A

me.
    See, the police either tried really hard and didn’t quit until they nabbed a perpetrator—it didn’t matter much if they were guilty or not—or, if the case didn’t affect the government, they dusted a door handle for prints and then said, “Good luck, asshole. Investigation closed.” And there weren’t many cops. Or at least not walking the beat or taking down reports. Military squads patrolled the streets now and again, just enough to make their presence known—and believe me, when forty men in dark gray uniforms holding rifles across their chests materialize from the fog, you think twice about your next move.
    Granted, there were transients and bums out there, but it’s not exactly squatting when you’re hiding out in a misty abandoned building with broken windows and no electricity. Sure, there were plenty of would-be thieves lurking, but what did it matter when there was nothing worth stealing? Or buying. Even if you could get your hands on a pile of cash, the only commodities worth much were food and drink. That’s all I ever saved up for, at any rate, with a heavy focus on the latter.
    The police, on the other hand, weren’t so much there to protect people from danger as they were to coerce us into not causing trouble in the first place. They were the ones who came to you by night, not some thief or killer. I guess they got the job done in their own twisted way, though. People kept pretty much in line. And when something did go bump in the dark, when someone got beaten or stabbed or, every once in a while, ended up dead, a man like me was a pretty hot commodity. I’m goddamn good at what I do. In a city afraid to ask questions, I made my living asking them.
    Following people around in the foggy streets, putting together profiles of their movements. Their habits. Who they talked to and when and all that detective stuff. Research, I guess—that word makes it feel more legitimate. But at the end of the day, I usually solved things by asking people questions they didn’t expect and watching them squirm. It’s amazing how much you can get out of people if they think you already have it. And it gets almost too easy when one slap or a good shaking is enough to terrify.
    Eddie Vessel had maybe fifteen, twenty employees, and one of them had been stealing a few things a month for years and lots of things a day for weeks. The police accused the Eddie of robbing himself and advised him to leave them alone. He had narrowed it down to a few guys, and I narrowed it down beyond that. It was either this stupid-looking tall drink of water named Watley or a dark-haired, dark-skinned guy named Thurmond. They both had access to the company ledger, both had access to all the files, and both had a motive to steal: The world sucks. I had no idea why so many people still fell in line.
    Watley was a family man; Thurmond, a drunken loser. So I figured Watley was the crook. Thurmond could get drunk enough off his salary. But if you had more than one mouth to feed, that could lead a man to rob the place he worked. With everything grown in greenhouses and every drop of water run through purification plants, it got more expensive to eat all the time.
    I had no interest in the case, but I felt sorry for Eddie. Most of his business came from ordinary citizens, folks trying to preserve memories. His warehouse was full of audio recordings and paper documents and pictures that families wanted kept safe. I had dug through the place a few times on weekends, Eddie wringing his hands and following me around, dusting here and organizing there and trying to keep busy. Everything he stored was pre-fog. Pictures of husbands holding wives in bright, sunlit fields. Old videos of beaches and oceans or mountain ranges. That sort of stuff. Depressing.
    I guess really it wasn’t that I had no interest, but that the more time I spent there, the more knotted up my stomach would get. Seeing all that … beauty … from the past. I don’t know