Description: 1 For two weeks Ginny concentrated on taking care of me. Ordinarily she didn''t have much tolerance for inactivity, but she stood it with as much grace as she could muster. She force-fed me pills, changed my bandages, stocked the pantry and fridge, picked up tapes and books to keep me from driving her crazy, and generally made herself responsible for my recuperation. A week or so after being shot, I could walk upright most of the time, and her regimen of vitamins and antibiotics had just about knocked out the infection. But I still couldn''t move fast, or think very quickly, or tie my shoes without groaning. She even kept the apartment clean, which was usually my job, since even her best friends never accused her of being tidy. Compensation, I think. If you''ve got a mind like a ledger, you surround yourself with the most ungodly mess. But if your head could stand in for a witches'' cauldron, you''re inclined to clean everything in sight. Whenever she mopped or dusted, I had to bite my tongue so that I wouldn''t nag her about missing the corners. I kept my mouth shut because I didn''t want to punish her for taking care of me. It wasn''t her fault I had a hole in my stomach. We were private investigators--by which I mean, she was. Ginny Fistoulari, owner and sole proprietor of Fistoulari Investigations. Tall and good-looking. So good-looking, in fact, that you would''ve considered her beautiful if you liked broken noses. Mid-thirties. Lean and poised, ready for anything. And keen as a hatchet. Or she used to be, until she lost her left hand during the case that first got me in trouble with el Seor, Puerta del Sol''s only real crime lord. For a while afterward, she felt so I maimed and maybe unloved--or unworthy--that she could hardly figure out how to go on living. But now, after a period of what you might call disarray, she''d started to regain her edge. She wore a stainless steel prosthesis--her "claw"--with two hooks that worked like pincers off the muscles of her forearm. She could pick up all kinds of things with it. Also punch holes in double-glazed windows. And because the edges of the hooks down near the base were sharp, she could cut things with it--tape, string, cloth, even rope if it wasn''t too thick. Years ago I was her partner, but I''d lost my license. Negligent manslaughter, the commission called it. I''d killed a man whose only crime was being nearby while I was drunk. Other than that, he was just a cop trying to chase down a purse snatcher. Unfortunately he also happened to be my younger brother. Since the purse snatcher had a gun, I wasn''t indicted. In one sense or another, I''d tried to stop him with "necessary force." But Puerta del Sol''s licensing commission would never re-certify me, so now I was just the hired help at Fistoulari Investigations. I wanted to be Ginny''s partner again. I wanted to earn it. But I wasn''t there yet. I''m Mick Axbrewder. I always liked to say that no one calls me Mick, but the truth was that people by the busload did it practically all the time. Everyone who elicited even a smidgen of restraint from me did it with impunity. I probably hadn''t actively punched out someone who used my first name since my last binge. I was what you might politely call a recovering alcoholic. Back in my drinking days, I had "the courage of my convictions," if nothing else. Put your hand on me, and I broke it. Call me Mick, and I rearranged your face. But now? Some thing had replaced that kind of courage, but I wasn''t exactly sure what it was. That''s probably all anyone actually needs to know about me. Everything else is just more of the same. I''m too tall. And I used to weigh too much, but recently a thug named Muy Estobal put me on a .38 caliber diet, and I slimmed down nicely. On those days when my vanity poked its battered head out of the closet, I was proud that I had to tighten my belt an extra notch to keep my pants up. Indirectly, Estobal was the reason Ginny and I came to Carner. His version of a diet involved shooting me in the gut--which didn''t do much to improve my already sour temper. In a fit of pique, you might say, I thanked him by breaking his neck. Unfortunately he worked for el Seor, and his boss took exception to his demise. After a week or so, the crime lord succeeded in running Ginny and me out of town. Or maybe I should say she got me out to keep me alive. But any way you looked at it, we were pretty far from home. After our last job, we drove here in Ginny''s worn-out Olds, with me sprawled along the back seat hugging my guts most of the way. She found us a cheap apartment in a building that looked like a poster child for Genteel Poverty, and we moved in for the duration. She''d chosen Carner for the simple and sufficient reason that she had a contact here who might help her get a job while we waited for el Seor to get tired of craving my blood. When I was feeling optimistic, I thought Ginny and I were back on the road to being partners. Maybe even to being lovers. The rest of the time I knew better. Most of the time, her bedside manner stank. She detested being my nurse. But I was used to that. What I couldn''t adjust to was the way I felt with our caretaking roles reversed. For six months after she''d lost her hand, I''d been the nanny. And she''d hated it--hated it so bad that it charred her heart. But she hadn''t believed that she had any choice, so she''d turned as much of her anger against herself as she could. In the process, I''d damn near lost her. You''d have thought that might make me more sympathetic now. For some reason, it didn''t. I disliked my pain, hated my general uselessness, and positively loathed being dependent on her. Occasionally I was so charming about it that I said things like, "I guess when this is over we''ll be even." She gave me one of her special glares--the kind that made complete strangers duck for cover--but she didn''t pretend to misunderstand. Instead she muttered, "I''m not keeping score." "Maybe not. But you were. The one who feels like a cripple always keeps score. This time it''s my turn." "That''s right." She turned her glare on one of the chairs and watched it cower. "And the way I count, if you don''t shut up about it we''re never going to be even." She was using her take-no-prisoners voice. If I hadn''t been such an asshole, I probably would''ve winced. The chair sure did. Sometimes--mostly late at night after she went to bed, and I couldn''t distract myself with inane remarks--I got the distinct impression that I was living on borrowed time. She''d made a point of renting an apartment with separate bedrooms. In the dark hours I was sure that her reasons for wanting her own room had nothing to do with letting the wounded man sleep soundly. When irritation and waiting got the better of her during those two weeks, she made phone calls. Business, most of them. We''d left Puerta del Sol in a hurry, and she still had details to take care of--banking, mail, credit cards, the leases on her apartment and office, insurance, that sort of thing. And she harassed the commission regularly. They''d suspended her license after I killed Estobal. Not because of him, but because she''d killed our client. Which didn''t exactly make the commission feel all warm and fuzzy about her. She''d done it in self-defense, but the ethics committee still took joy in delaying her reinstatement. Naturally she wanted her license back. Since she needed a job, she also got in touch with her contact--the reason we''d driven to Carner instead of some other, more familiar city. In college, she told me, she''d been friends with a man named Marshal Viviter. Just friends, she told me. After college, he''d been a cop in Puerta del Sol for a few years, so they''d stayed friends. But he was ambitious, and when he quit the force to become a private investigator, he''d left Puerta del Sol because--she told me--he wanted to work somewhere with more money and a bigger client base. Apparently Carner fit his requirements. As it turned out, the city supported an entire gaggle of rent-a-cops and snoops. Which made sense in a town where so much cash changed hands all the time. But he''d made a success of it, despite the competition. His ad in the yellow pages--"Professional Investigations: proven, prompt, discreet"--was ostentatious enough to sell cosmetics. Her first call to this Viviter left her smiling, something that I hadn''t seen in more than a week. Until her face lifted, I hadn''t realized how much strain she carried around. Marshal, she reported, had more clients than he could handle. He wanted her to come in for an interview, discuss the situation, but off the top of his head he didn''t see why he wouldn''t be able to put her to work right away. For some reason, I didn''t ask the obvious question. Put you to work? Not us ? Maybe all those antibiotics had killed off my intuition as well as my common sense. Instead I challenged her. "Does he know about your license?" If I''d been listening to myself, I would''ve known I was in trouble. Whenever I started to act like a professional nag, something went wrong. But I wasn''t paying any attention. Her smile disappeared like closing a shutter. "Of course he knows," she snapped. "What do you think? I can''t get a job unless I lie to prospective employers?" I waved a hand airily. Axbrewder the effete invalid. "You know that''s not what I meant. I''m just surprised that he''s allowed to hire you with your license suspended." She studied me for a minute, then sighed. Got a grip on herself. But her smile didn''t open again. "The laws are different in this state. His whole office rides on his license. He can

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