A badass paralytic known in pulse circles as “Nix” because, brother, once that sucker is in your bloodstream and staring down your site 1 voltage-gated fast sodium channels, there is not one thing you can do about it. You are going to be paralyzed permanently, and it is going to hurt.

12

“Looking,” I should say. “Pliant looking.”

13

At that range I could detect pomegranate and carbonation on her breath and rosemary and mint and something else, something mysterious and warm, in her hair. The polished leather of her shoes. Crushed grass and pollen—had she walked through the park?—and a hint of dewy, fresh sweat.

14

More on them soon.

15

I have made one attempt. Technically. I’m not sure it counts, but it was three weeks ago, when I had just been assigned the K’plua job and things were looking up. I called the hotel, packed her bags, whisked her away in the reliably unreliable Reliant, and pulled over when she asked what that noise was. I pulled out the velvet box, started shaking it, and, from under the hood, said, “Do you know what that sound is?” Charlie said, “What is it?” and then, suddenly, I froze up like I had scarfed fifty milligrams of Nix. “Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing.” I can’t explain it. It was just total G-lock—bang, freeze, done—and I haven’t tried since.

16

Her specialty—wouldn’t you know it?—is the Rat Burglar. She will say that it is “limits of first- and third-world diplomacy and legal, moral, and fiscal issues in cultural patrimony.” Or something that sounds a lot like it. I don’t really understand her research, but I do know that she supports the Rat Burglar because he “restores” artworks to their countries of origin, which is a stance that has earned her the enmity of her department and just about every museum worker in the country. And, naturally, nearly every pulse on earth, including this one.

17

This sort of thing isn’t limited to pulses, either; it’s no treat, I’m sure, for Frankie Nickels to be serving time in a maximum-strength facility while paralyzed from the neck down. Maybe I’m a sucker, but I can’t help feeling bad for him. Sometimes I’m even tempted to go visit him, to bring him some brownies or something, but then I think that he worked for Azar, and was a colleague of Jimmy the Hat, and I think of what Jimmy did to Kong. And what he did, just one week later, to Pinkerton.

18

Before you say anything: I was young; I was poor; I needed the money.

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