Now what, genius? Everyone has a car except you.

Ghost Zeb is getting to be something of a fixture in my head.

You’re like my spooky sidekick.

Screw you.

Charming. I need to get myself an actual live friend that I can leave in another room.

Anyway, the transport thing is covered. There are city-bike rails all over town, part of the mayor’s A Better, Cleaner Cloisters platform, along with dogshit-bag dispensers and zero tolerance for wino shacks.

I hurry outside leaving the turkey unexplored and swipe my Visa in the bike rack. Evening traffic the way it is in every town from here to Atlantic City, I shouldn’t have to break a sweat keeping up with Faber. He might have a problem keeping up with me, if he ever decided to do that. A big part of me is hoping he will. That would make things nice and simple, law of the jungle.

I’m still tucking my pants into my socks when I notice that Deacon has pulled a lazy U-turn. The blues are on Faber’s tail too.

We got a great big convoy, sings Ghost Zeb.

I nod, swinging my leg over the bar. Always liked that song. Appropriate, too.

Riding a bike didn’t used to be this dangerous. I almost get flattened three times crossing town to the strip. Three times! I’ve led patrols through hot zones with less aggravation than this. Eventually some redneck pick-up Jim Bob forces me to actually dismount and pound his hood to make him keep his distance.

Lucky the blues are focused on Faber’s car or they might have spotted my antics. As it is, they pull around the corner on to Cypress with barely a blink of the brake light.

I give Jim Bob my best stone-cold stare and pedal after them.

Not easy looking tough on a pushbike, sympathises Ghost Zeb.

He’s got that right.

When Faber pulls over, I brake and ditch the city-bike behind a debris mountain heaped against a derelict two-storey that once housed a Chinese restaurant, judging by the smell of the trash.

The Lotus Blossom. Remember those spring rolls?

Yeah. I got it now. They closed that place?

What do you think?

Ghost Zeb is getting a little strident. It’s like I’m giving myself a pass to be a lunatic.

I climb on to the knoll, which stinks of prawn crackers, and check the street with an old Vietnam-era Starlight scope I bought in a Hell’s Kitchen pawn shop.