I shook her extended hand. “Is there a rank with that?”

“Nah. Some stations use ‘em, especially on the Hill. Maybe they’re cops because they all miss ROTC or something. And sometimes down here you’ll tack a rank onto your name if you think it’ll scare somebody into being helpful. But mostly if it’s anything, it’s job description more than rank. Detective, Patrol, stuff like that. And you’re…”

“I’m called Orient.”

“I’ve heard of you! You’re the Finder, right? You found a Taylor twelve-string for a friend of my roommate’s, once.”

“I vaguely remember that.” I shifted a little on the stair tread.

“I always figured from your name that you’d be, you know, not a round-eye. No offense.”

“No offense. It’s the other meaning of ‘orient,’ as in, ‘to find a direction.’”

She smiled, a strangely acute and piercing expression. “Have you found one?” she asked.

“Yes.” I said. “Yes, I have.”

Rico came out of the apartment then. “Linn says there’s nothing fancy in the note—paper, ink, and no due about the writer. Would you mind doing your thing, here, and seeing if there’s anything you can pick up?”

Kathy Hong looked first at Rico, men at me as I stood up. Her eyebrows were raised; the corners of her mouth were raised and compressed as if something about the scene at the top of the stairs was terribly funny. Yes, I have found a direction. Yes. From out of the empty spot in my chest, I said, “It’s twenty-five bucks a day, or the equivalent, in currency or trade goods. Thirty in credit. And I don’t charge you for days you don’t use me.”

There was no reading Rico’s expression. “That’s fair,” she said at last.

I pulled off the hard hat, handed it to Kathy Hong, and combed my fingers once through my hair. “Let’s see the note.”

Chapter 4. And Miles to Go Before We Sleep

Sometimes it seems as if any trick will work once, in the Borderlands. Unfortunately, there are so many times when you can’t make them work again. “Where does this belong?” seemed to be one of those. The piece of paper in Rico’s hand sat like a—well, like a piece of paper, and didn’t tell me anything more than what was written on it. I even took it from her and held it, though contact had never made any difference before.

In daylight, it had more character. It was a thick sheet, the surface not perfectly smooth, with one thin and ragged edge. Between the creases and dirt from last night’s mistreatment I could see threads, hairs really, of red and blue, that seemed to be part of the paper. And the writing, of course. It was still densely black; none of those perfectly-made letters had smeared or scuffed. Very crisp, clear, careful.