The traffic snarl edged forward, gradually taking the two Hummers away as the Rhino rounded the corner into Perrett Street, a wide, sprawling boulevard that had been a boggy salt marsh five years ago. Or maybe the town dump. He’d heard that a couple of blocks of New Town lay over the city’s former garbage dump, rumoured to be the last resting place of a dozen or so Javanese gangsters who’d tried to take over the waterfront markets in the fearful confusion following the Disappearance. Probably bullshit. In his experience, frontier towns loved their own creation mythology so much, they tended to its growth like a pot-addled hippie with a bumper crop of hand-raised weed. There was no shortage of that here either, if a Rhino were so inclined. As it stood though, he’d never acquired a taste for the stuff, preferring his cigars. And those, sadly, were hard to come by these days, at least any of appreciable quality.

The smell of wood smoke in the air, mingled with the meat of the nearby barbecue pits drew him on. He was glad the rib joint was only a few steps away now. Further up Perrett, where the three official casinos had spun off a dense cluster of parasite businesses, such as the Korean and Thai brothels, the crowds were neutron-star dense. If the hookers didn’t flick your bic, or if you’d already had it flicked, you could try the slots, some blackjack or maybe poker at the unlicenced gaming houses. When you got hungry, you had your choice of corn-dogs, pretzels, yakimandu and gaegogi from the food carts. Street walkers and black-market dopers draped themselves around canvas stalls selling cheap Nike and Reebok knock-offs. The path through was nearly impassable to most, but merely a nuisance for a determined Rhino.

For now, only a dozen or so hungry fans were pressed up against Blue Smoke’s small serving window, including a few sailors trying to get a taste of a home that no longer existed. Later, when the dry-rubbed baby back pork and Texas-style beef ribs came out of the barbecue pit, the kerbside here would be gridlocked with his fellow countrymen, bidding up the price of everything by four or five hundred per cent. Including the cone full of buffalo wings he was about to buy with a fistful of local currency.

Much as it pained him, he accepted payment in anything except the newbie these days. He still kept a stash of ‘noobs’, though, in the hope that maybe someday they just might be worth something. If things ever got real tight, he could sell some to the speculators, who were forever trying to keep the street price down or praying for a rapid rise. But things weren’t that tight for the Rhino, not just yet.