“Do you believe her?” I asked, turning onto the 5 freeway back up toward Seattle. It was the same freeway from Los Angeles, extending all the way from the border of Mexico to the border of Canada. One long, unbroken, stretch of road.

“I don’t know.” Dexter paused, lost in thought. “Part of me does, but another part of me feels stupid for believing her. We are mortal enemies, and she has every reason to lie…but I don’t think she was lying.”

“I agree,” I replied. “She seemed sincere. She is also a cat, and they are ever only so sincere.”

“I have never met a cat I liked.”

“If it’s not her, then who? Maybe somebody within your organization.”

“Possible.” Dexter sighed. “But my men are loyal to a fault. I’m more inclined to believe it’s some new upstart trying to muscle in on my territory. Let’s head to the docks. See if anyone’s been scaling up their operations over the last few months, bringing in new weapons, hiring additional people. Somebody would need an army to take Seattle from me.”

“What if it’s not that?” I asked.

“Then we’ll look inward, but not until I’ve ruled out everyone else first.”

Dexter had a dock manager named Gordon on his payroll who worked at the top of a tall building overlooking the whole of the dock. Inside his office, a set of controls allowed him to reach out to anyone in the yard throughout the day. Kalle had the same setup in his office, though he preferred a more hands-on approach, zipping between the ships as they came in and handling everything by sight. It was a bygone method for a rapidly disappearing age, but I liked Kalle’s type—dinosaurs. They were so much easier to bribe. When somebody embraced technology and accountability, there were books to fudge and regulators to worry about. It was a big headache.

Gordon wasn’t a monster, and he’d never learned to speak rat, so I translated while Dexter whispered into my ear about what to say. After I told him what I needed, Gordon walked over to his filing cabinet and flipped through his files for ten minutes, scratching his head and butt in equal measure as he looked through his records.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Sorry about this,” he said. “I don’t keep the best records.”

“That’s an asset, far as I’m concerned. Good records bring lots of questions in our line of business.”

He smiled. Two of his top teeth were missing like he’d gotten on the wrong side of a fight at some point. “Ain’t that the truth.” He finally pulled two files and pushed the cabinet closed. “Here it is. These two companies have upped their shipment tenfold in the past couple of months—Jingle Junk and Panda Penny, Inc.”

I took the folders from him. “Anything unusual in the shipments?”

He scratched his head, then his butt. “I don’t know. They kind of pay me to look the other way.”

Dexter screeched a series of obscenities I decided not to repeat. “Do they have anything in port right now?”

He nodded. “Jingle Junk has three containers on the west side of the port. Panda Penny picked one up yesterday, and has another shipment coming in three days.”

“Can you take me to Jingle Junk’s shipment?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t,” he replied with a grimace. “It’s kind of against policy and—well you know I’m not against breaking the rules or nothing, but it puts me in an awkward spot, ya know?”

“I understand.” I slid closer and pressed my finger deep into his fat stomach. “But you do understand that if Benny ever found out you were two timing, he would gut you like the pig you are, right?”

“I—I—”

“Stepping out on him with another company is a big no-no. Pick your loyalty—him or them, and please know that in one of these choices, you end up face down in the river by tomorrow.”

“When you put it like that—” He gulped. “Follow me.”

“Good choice.”

We hopped into a cart and headed across the docks with Gordon, enjoying the crisp, winter, salt air. Fifteen minutes later, we were in front of the containers.

Gordon looked down at his feet. “You gotta promise me that if we find something—that this won’t come back to me.”

“I can’t promise that,” I said. “I can only promise not to kill you if you open this container, and I can’t make the same promise if you don’t.”

Gordon bit his lip. It was a no-win situation, and he knew it. Sighing, he opened the first container, which held several different types of counterfeit Cabbage Patch Kids. The next container had similar counterfeit toys: Transformers and G.I. Joes. The third container didn’t have anything more interesting than some light counterfeiting. Shady, yes. Illegal, probably. Worth killing Benny for? Probably not.

Jingle Junk probably wasn’t responsible for the attack on Benny, unless toys were somehow more valuable on the black market than I thought. I didn’t know if Panda Penny, Inc. was responsible for the attack either. I doubted it. My money was still on it being an inside job, but it was as good a place as any to turn our attention until we had a better lead.