Even the cops still hanging out in the apartment sensed the tension. They packed up their shit and edged toward the door as the landlord slithered toward me.

“Strike three hundred, McDonald,” she said. “I want you out of here by the end of the week.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Try me.”

She started counting on her fingers. “Unpaid rent. Running a business from your home without proper zoning or license, constant damage . . . and GUNFIRE!”

I glared down at her, but she stood firm.

“You’re throwing me out?”

She nodded.

I spoke low. “I can get you the rent.”

Now she smiled. A tight, wrinkled little smile. “You’ve been here for years and I’ve looked the other way. I’m tired of the noise. I’m tired of the police, the damage, the constant complaints. Did I mention the gunfire? I’m tired of having a non-paying tenant who gets shot at twice a week.”

A couple of cops giggled like schoolgirls in the doorway until I leveled them with an evil glare.

I couldn’t believe she would throw me out. I had zero in the bank. Make that zero with dust on it. I’d narrowly escaped being slashed to death by a Jamaican voodoo doctor. But this? This I found very upsetting.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. It was time to beg.

“I promise you, things will change.”

“They certainly will.” She wouldn’t drop the smile. It remained plastered on her leathery face all the way out the door.

I just stood there, dumbfounded. The last two remaining cops were still in the hallway staring at me. I walked over and slammed the door in their smug faces. On the wall near the door, a Speculator Magazine clipping, brown and aged, hung from a tack. The headline read, “Cal McDonald, Monster Hunter.” The picture of me was blurred and grainy. It was the only article Speculator had published about me that didn’t attempt to make me out to be a total ass.

I ripped the clipping off the wall, balled it up, and threw it down. It rolled about a foot before it slowed and stuck in a small smear of blood.

I looked around the apartment, at the yellowed walls and scratched wood floors. I scanned the sunken brown couch with the exposed stuffing and springs. The only thing worth a dime in the whole place was my desk, my files, and the collection of weapons I had stashed under the bed in the other room. I bet if someone took the time they could find enough powder to get high for a year, but basically that was it. That was my life; some wood, some papers, and a sack full of sharp things.