No matter.

I’d made a lot of noise coming down off the porch. I made almost none at all getting back on, avoiding the floorboard which was warped and bent. I dug my pen into the gap between the handle and the doorframe, twisting it so that the lock mechanism inched into the open air. A three-pin tumbler. Must not expect many common criminals up here, this Mr. Anjular, must not know that down in the dregs of the Outscape where a certain detective lives and works and breathes the air, flicking through those pins is as easy for her as slitting open an envelope.

Clients usually had to pay me extra for this kind of service. But Anjular had, if nothing else, managed to rub me the wrong way in under thirty seconds. His lock jammed on the second pin and I cursed under my breath—maybe there was more to it than met the eye. I pressed my ear against the door, listening for any sign of motion beyond it, any scrape of furniture or footsteps along the floor.

None. I pulled Bella from my pocket, checked the safety, then flipped her in my hand so that I was holding her by the barrel. “Sorry, baby,” I whispered. “I’ll buff it out, promise. New bottle of polish just for you.” I checked my aim, then bashed the lock off, sending hairline fractures through the shackle on the first try and snapping clean through it on the second.

I caught it before it hit the ground, and placed it gingerly on the windowsill. The door inched inwards, and I eased it along its path to do so without a creak. I stepped into the house and through the foyer, where I spotted the grey-haired man at his couch, fiddling with something on the table. His movements were short and jerky and arrhythmic. On the counter in front of me was a crystal bowl with keys laying on the bottom, surrounded by money. Most of it was in purple bills, but there were a few glittering gold coins among the mix.

None of that mattered to Anjular. He had a pencil in one hand, running it neatly through the grey powder which formed a little heap there. Dragon. Its acid smell hung in the air like a citrus flower gone bad—a smell enough nightmares down in the Outscape would have paid just to inhale.

“You must have a good dealer,” I said lightly.

I knew that he’d heard me. For a second, Anjular didn’t move. Then he turned in two motions: the first, his mind catching up to my words, and the next, his body reacting. He dropped the pencil and reached beneath the table, but his arm jerked and something heavy knocked against the wood. I got hold of his wrist before he could find the gun again and twisted it from his hand, sending him sprawling back against the couch. His head knocked against the frame.

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It was a heavy gun, and not very nice. He watched me turn it over. “I hope you didn’t break the door,” he said. “Where do they even get pine these days?”

“Don’t just sit there,” I said. “We’re not friends now. And you must be worried if you’ve a gun on you in the safety of your own home.”

“Got strange people poking about. If you want the money, I can’t stop you—but don’t think I can’t catch up to you. If I need to, you know?”

If I breathed a word of his Dragon use, that was. But as long as I kept my secret, he’d keep mine, and the Outscape police wouldn’t have more reason to hate me. “I don’t want your money,” I said. “I don’t know where it came from and I’d hate to touch it. What I want is for you to answer me and be a little politer about it this time.”

“Or what? You gonna point that gun at me?”

“What did you see? The night 449 burned?”

“Night?”

“It wasn’t?”

“Regular sunless noon. Fire was brighter than any sun we get down here.”

“I believed Nicholson was asleep.”

“And she said he wasn’t there. Guess what they found afterwards, digging through the rubble.” He snickered. “All of us lying to one another, insurer.”

Now I really needed to talk to Usher, spend some of Chesnes’s money on the phone. He’d been in the house, but if he was already dead—then he wouldn’t have been alone. “Hang on. She?”

The thing about gossip is that it needs to be shared. Anjular had been wrestling with this particular bit for days now, I could see—but his own dirty secrets were too intertwined for it to be passed around the neighbors. “She. Brunette with glasses, real sharp face. Caught her darting out the back door with a gun in her hand, could tell she was up to no good. Don’t need those hands of yours to tell she’d already used it.”

“Uh-huh.” I needed more. Finding a nightmare with brown hair and glasses, in the whole city… “Had you seen her before? A name? Something?”

“I wasn’t asking many questions, myself.”

“Really?” I thought for a moment. “What’d it take?”

I tossed the gun into the bowl behind me, letting it jangle against the keys there, just to punctuate my point. He whistled between his teeth and stood up, spinning the pencil between his hand. He blew some of the Dragon dust from it, and waved a hand through it. “That. Six packets worth. We all have our prices—you do, even if you’re too proud to admit it. Damn impressive that she knew mine so quickly.”

It was damn something, alright. Answered one question and gave me a raft more. “She was just carrying it on her?”

“I didn’t let her pick it up from the bank, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Anjular wasn’t going to give me any more than that. He’d gotten his deal out of this mystery woman, and clocked out. Mentally, at least, judging by how little of those six packets was left. “Don’t make a move until I’m gone,” I said, jerking my head towards the gun.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” His hands stayed at his side. His feet didn’t move. But his eyes glinted, and I got the feeling that somewhere, somehow, I’d misplayed my cards, been bluffed into laying down an ace early, and that I’d regret it when the time came. I couldn’t back it up. I couldn’t do anything differently. All I could do was walk away, with one eye on the gun, and worry about what I was missing.