“Words to live by,” Havelock said, checking his gun. He’d been doing that a lot more recently.

The shop was an entertainment franchise. Clean white fixtures offering up custom rigs for interactive environments: battle simulations, exploration games, sex. A woman’s voice ululated on the sound system, somewhere between an Islamic call to prayer and orgasm with a drumbeat. Half the titles were in Hindi with Chinese and Spanish translations. The other half were English with Hindi as the second language. The clerk was hardly more than a boy. Sixteen, seventeen years old with a weedy black beard he wore like a badge.

“Can I help you?” the boy said, eying Havelock with disdain just short of contempt. Havelock pulled his ID, making sure the kid got a good long look at his gun when he did it.

“We’d like to talk to”—Miller glanced at the complaint form on his terminal screen—“Asher Kamamatsu. He here?”

The manager was a fat man, for a Belter. Taller than Havelock, the man carried fat around his belly and thick muscles through the shoulders, arms, and neck. If Miller squinted, he could see the seventeen-year-old boy he had been under the layers of time and disappointment, and it looked a lot like the clerk out front. The office was almost too small for the three of them and stacked with boxes of pornographic software.

“You catch them?” the manager said.

“No,” Miller said. “Still trying to figure out who they are.”

“Dammit, I already told you. There’s pictures of them off the store camera. I gave you his fucking name.”

Miller looked at his terminal. The suspect was named Mateo Judd, a dockworker with an unspectacular criminal record.

“You think it’s just him, then,” Miller said. “All right. We’ll just go pick him up, throw him in the can. No reason for us to find out who he’s working for. Probably no one who’ll take it wrong, anyway. My experience with these protection rackets, the purse boys get replaced whenever one goes down. But since you’re sure this guy’s the wholeproblemc ”

The manager’s sour expression told Miller he’d made his point. Havelock, leaning against a stack of boxes marked , smiled.

“Why don’t you tell me what he wanted,” Miller said.

“I already told the last cop,” the manager said.

“Tell me.”

“He was selling us a private insurance plan. Hundred a month, same as the last guy.”

“Last guy?” Havelock said. “So this happened before?”

“Sure,” the manager said. “Everyone has to pay some, you know. Price of doing business.”

Miller closed his terminal, frowning. “Philosophical. But if it’s the price of doing business, what’re we here for?”

“Because I thought youc you people had this shit under control. Ever since we stopped paying the Loca, I’ve been able to turn a decent profit. Now it’s all starting up again.”

“Hold on,” Miller said. “You’re telling me the Loca Greiga stopped charging protection?”

“Sure. Not just here. Half of the guys I know in the Bough just stopped showing up. We figured the cops had actually done something for once. Now we’ve got these new bastards, and it’s the same damn thing all over again.”

A crawling feeling made its way up Miller’s neck. He looked up at Havelock, who shook his head. He hadn’t heard of it either. The Golden Bough Society, Sohiro’s crew, the Loca Greiga. All the organized crime on Ceres suffering the same ecological collapse, and now someone new moving into the evacuated niche. Might be opportunism. Might be something else. He almost didn’t want to ask the next questions. Havelock was going to think he was paranoid.

“How long has it been since the old guys called on you for protection?” Miller asked.

“I don’t know. Long time.”

“Before or after Mars killed that water hauler?”

The manager folded his thick arms; his eyes narrowed.

“Before,” he said. “Maybe a month or two. S’that got to do with anything?”

“Just trying to get the time scale right,” Miller said. “The new guy. Mateo. He tell you who was backing his new insurance plan?”

“That’s your job, figuring it. Right?”

The manager’s expression had closed down so hard Miller imagined he could hear the click. Yes, Asher Kamamatsu knew who was shaking him down. He had balls enough to squeak about it but not to point the finger.

Interesting.

“Well, thanks for that,” Miller said, standing up. “We’ll let you know what we find.”

“Glad you’re on the case,” the manager said, matching sarcasm for sarcasm.

In the exterior tunnel, Miller stopped. The neighborhood was at the friction point between sleazy and respectable. White marks showed where graffiti had been painted over. Men on bicycles swerved and weaved, foam wheels humming on the polished stone. Miller walked slowly, his eyes on the ceiling high above them until he found the security camera. He pulled up his terminal, navigated to the logs that matched the camera code, and cross-referenced the time code from the store’s still frames. For a moment, he thumbed the controls, speeding people back and forth. And there was Mateo, coming out of the shop. A smug grin deformed the man’s face. Miller froze the image and enhanced it. Havelock, watching over his shoulder, whistled low.

The split circle of the OPA was perfectly clear on the thug’s armband—the same kind of armband he’d found in Julie Mao’s hole.

What kind of company have you been keeping, kid?Miller thought. You’re better than this. You have to know you’re better than this.

“Hey, partner,” he said aloud. “Think you can write up the report on that interview? I’ve got something I’d like to do. Might not be too smart to have you there. No offense.”

Havelock’s eyebrows crawled toward his hairline.

“You’re going to question the OPA?”

“Shake some trees, is all,” Miller said.

  Miller would have thought that just being a security contractor in a known OPA-convivial bar would be enough to get him noticed. In the event, half the faces he recognized in the dim light of John Rock Gentlemen’s Club were normal citizens. More than one of those were Star Helix, just like him, when they were on duty. The music was pure Belter, soft chimes accompanied by zither and guitar with lyrics in half a dozen languages. He was on his fourth beer, two hours past the end of his shift, and on the edge of giving up his plan as a losing scheme when a tall, thin man sat down at the bar next to him. Acne-pocked cheeks gave a sense of damage to a face that otherwise seemed on the verge of laughter. It wasn’t the first OPA armband he’d seen that night, but it was worn with an air of defiance and authority. Miller nodded.

“I heard you’ve been asking about the OPA,” the man said. “Interested in joining up?”

Miller smiled and lifted his glass, an intentionally noncommittal gesture.

“You who I’d talk to if I did?” he asked, his tone light.

“Might be able to help.”

“Maybe you could tell me about a couple other things, then,” he said, taking out his terminal and putting it on the fake bamboo bar with an audible click. Mateo Judd’s picture glowed on the screen. The OPA man frowned, turning the screen to see it better.

“I’m a realist,” Miller said. “When Chucky Snails was running protection, I wasn’t above talking to his men. When the Hand took over and then the Golden Bough Society after them. My job isn’t to stop people from bending the rules, it’s to keep Ceres stable. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I can’t say I do,” the pock-marked man said. His accent made him sound more educated than Miller had expected. “Who is this man?”

“His name’s Mateo Judd. He’s been starting a protection business in sector eight. Says it’s backed by the OPA.”

“People say things, Detective. It is Detective, isn’t it? But you were discussing realism.”

“If the OPA’s making a move on the Ceres black economy, it’s going to be better all around if we can talk to each other. Communicate.”