“I’m starving. Aren’t you?” Too late to change my mind now. I tightened the strap on my gut wallet, shouldered my grab bag, and headed inside. Man, sometimes Rubio was a real pain in the ass.

FOUR

In Main, a raucous party was heating up.

Someone raised a victory chant. “Joes, one! Invaders, zero!”

We had parties now and then, when Rousseau figured the worker bees needed a reward, but this one got going on its own. People I hardly knew kept slapping me on the back as I shouldered through the press. I nodded and grinned till my jaw hurt, but right then, partying was the last thing on my mind.

I met Big Gracie struggling back from the cram of scouts turning in reports, pickers toting up their take at the tellers’ counter, plus the clueless just getting in the way. Her scowl lightened when she saw me.

“Took for friggin’ ever!” Shed of her thick-soled boots, Grace didn’t loom so tall. Her cheeks wore an irritated flush under smears of mud and sweat. She swigged from her water bottle. “A few shots fired, and the place goes apeshit.”

“Shots were fired?”

“Well, maybe. Someone said. That’s new, huh, them comin’ right to our door?”

“Nervy,” I agreed. “I heard it was rich kids joyriding.”

“Yeah? Who said that?” Her battle stance eased off a bit.

“Some of the guys.” I knew Grace wouldn’t credit Rubio, not without backup. ‘Blowhard’ and ‘limp-dick’ were the least of what I’d heard her call him.

“Well, better than Adders. Could’ve been, right?” A tetchy wave at my grab bag. “Hope yours goes smoother than mine.”

Always a chance. “What, higher mathematics?”

“Wouldn’ta thought so. Ain’t that why they call it a counter, meaning they’re supposed to be able to?”

A favorite den sport, arguing with the tellers, least till the guy behind you got pissed ’cause you’re holding up his dinner, or his breakfast.

Grace shoved back her worn-soft ball cap, its entwined ‘NY’ near invisible but the over-sewn red ‘J’ glowing bright. “Shit. What a night! Seen Rivera?”

“Not yet. Message, if I do?”

“Nah. Meet up at breakfast, most like. Damn, I miss my fuckin’ phone!”

“Someday.”

“Someone’d have to be thinking about us down here for that to happen.”

Did I miss my phone? Rubio said there’d been no service downtown after Hasan, about the time a teenaged Grace came to Unca Joe, and no attempts at repairs in the ten years since. Possible I never had one. “The boss’d let us have ’em if they worked.”

“Maybe.”

Grace normally oozed confidence. Now I wondered how deep that really ran. Had the raid shaken her more than she’d care to admit?

“You worried about Rivera?”

She caught herself gnawing her lip. “Nah. Di can take care of herself.”