After he had slept a little more, Vesicle went round the farm and checked the tanks. Something made him stop by one of them and put his hand against it. It felt warm, as if the activity inside it had increased. It felt like an egg.

Inside the tank, this is what was happening.

Chinese Ed woke up and nothing in his house worked. The bedside alarm didn’t go off, the TV was a greyout, and his refrigerator wouldn’t talk to him. Things got worse after he had his first cup of coffee, when two guys from the DA’s office knocked on his door. They wore double-breasted sharkskin suits with the jackets hanging open so you could see they were heeled. Ed knew them from when he worked the DA office himself. They were morons. Their names were Hanson and Rank. Hanson was a fat guy who took things easy, but Otto Rank was like rust. He never slept. He had ambitions, they said, to be DA himself. These two sat on stools at the breakfast bar in Ed’s kitchen and he made them coffee.

“Hey,” said Hanson. “Chinese Ed.”

“Hanson,” Ed said.

“So what do you know, Ed?” Rank said. “We hear you’re interested in the Brady case.” He smiled. He leaned forward until his face was near Ed’s. “We’re interested in that too.”

Hanson looked nervous. He said:

“We know you were at the scene, Ed.”

“Fuck this,” Rank said immediately. “We don’t need to discuss this with him.” He grinned at Ed. “Why’d you waste him, Ed?”

“Waste who?”

Rank shook his head at Hanson, as if to say, What do you make of this shithead? Ed said:

“Kiss it, Rank. You want some more java?”

“Hey,” Rank said. “You kiss it.” He took out a handful of brass cases and threw them across the breakfast bar. “Colt .45,” he said. “Military issue. Dumdum rounds. Two separate guns.” The brass cases danced and rattled. “You want to show me your guns, Ed? Those two fucking Colts you carry like some TV detective? You want to bet we can get a match?”

Ed showed his teeth.

“You have to have the guns for that. You want to take them off me, here and now? Think you can do that, Otto?”

Hanson looked anxious. “No need for that, Ed,” he said.

“We can go away and get the fucking warrant, Ed, and then we can come back and take the guns,” said Rank. He shrugged. “We can take you. We can take your house. We could take your wife, you still had one, and play jump the bones with her ’til Saturday next. You want to do this the hard way, Ed, or the easy way?”

Ed said: “We can do it either way.”