I took a cab over to see Orban, the gunsmith. He’s the one who built cannons for the Sultan to use at the siege of Constantinople a few hundred years back. Here’s how that worked out: Sultan wins, Constantinople falls, Christendom is seriously hacked off with Orban. Because he knows he’s never getting into Heaven, he refuses to die and still hasn’t done it. That’s how he tells it, anyway, and I’m not inclined to argue with him, especially since the stuff he supplies has saved my skin and soul many times.

Anyway, Orban also armors cars, and he still had my custom Matador in storage in his garage. And although I had enough money now to get it out of pawn, I was beginning to think that a gleaming, topaz-colored muscle car might not be the best ride for a man developing such a large collection of enemies. What good was it changing apartments and then parking the Amber Amigo out in front of it? Not that I was going to give that car up—I’d put too much money and sweat and spare time into it—but I was going to have to find something else for day-to-day use. In my business as an advocate angel I drive a lot and at all hours. No way I was going to be sitting at bus stops at three in the morning hoping the Number Eleven crosstown would get me to somebody’s bedside in time to be there when they died.

Orban wasn’t in the shop when I arrived, but one of his assistants, a bearded guy who looked like he would have felt comfortable with a parrot on his shoulder and his keel being hauled or something, recognized me and opened up the garage, a long building on the next pier over from Orban’s gun factory. Most of the vehicles inside had been brought in for some kind of modification, usually shielding, but the owners had either gone broke or had really needed the shielding earlier, and Orban had been stuck with the rides they left behind. He sold a few, especially if the security work had been finished, and kept the rest to cannibalize for spare parts.