Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Forty

I rode various trains and buses to Mott Haven. No connection was as close as forty-five minutes, each transit gap a white-knuckled wait among overflowing trash bins and graffiti ten coats thick. I read news printed off the internet, staring at the stapled sheets with a hand on my gun and a manufactured air of impatience.

Lewd Brew—or Lewd Brew II, whatever they called it—had only gotten rattier since Pittsburgh. The splintered door hung by a single hinge, and the east wall was four-fifths plywood. Somebody had lined up chunks of fallen plaster smallest to largest on the espresso counter, a token effort to make order from chaos.

I ordered a coffee and as it was prepared, continued the exercise begun in Davos, imagining how to start my conversation with Piper.

I need to tell you something you may not like or appreciate...

So we have this term in psychology, it's called "perspective-dependent truth"...

You know that guy I mentioned, the one I was sort of seeing? He's actually the former governor of Massachusetts. He, I, and somebody named Durwood Oak Jones are small-force private-arms contractors...

There wasn't a good opener to be had.

Maybe I should have accepted Durwood's offer to back out. "Sure 'bout this, Moll?" he'd asked during the flight home. "We can go a diff'ernt way."

But I had said no, I could swing it.

Durwood was averse to outward displays of emotion, but I'd seen those steel-colored eyes soften. He had know what was going through my head after Hotel Zauberberg. He'd understood that my insistence on following through with Piper had deeper roots—complicated roots.

Coffee in hand, I was just turning toward the seating area to find Piper when a blast sounded from aboveground.

I dove to the floor, losing my drink. A few others did, too, but more merely twitched or shrank in place at their tables. Of course, they didn't know what I knew about Rivard—hadn't heard Fabienne's grand speech or had their arms gripped tourniquet-tight by Blake Leathersby.

Garrison brought me a replacement coffee. "No worries, probably just bikers. Bandidos took up in that old bank on the corner."

I thanked him and gulped half the cup, getting in some caffeine before the next disruption.

"How was your trip?" he asked.

I faltered only a moment. "Good, pretty good trip." I had told people here I was visiting my cousin in Baltimore, who ran a sustainable living co-op on abandoned land. "It's really amazing—everything comes from the earth, 100 percent renewable."

"That is amazing!" Zeal animated Garrison's mellow eyes, spooking me a little. "What do they do for shoes? I guess no leather, huh? Something like hemp?"

"The shoes might've been foraged."

"Oh." He seemed crestfallen. "Well, let me know about your next trip. I'd be psyched to join and observe their processes."

"Sure. Yeah, that'd be fun."

I would have to remember to lie less specifically with Garrison next time.

Still, the idea of road tripping with him—across the center console like we'd been the night of Ted Blackstone's murder, but minus the guilt and pursuing police—did appeal to me.

Now I accepted his offer to sit, not seeing Piper anywhere, dread to track her down. Garrison updated me on Mice goings-on. Becoming animated describing work they'd done organizing the homeless, he swung his knees around, and one brushed against my thigh.