Chapter One

  The crime scene was pretty unremarkable. The dead man who lay behind the small counter—neck blown out, an array of blood splattered behind him—had contracted Talbot before, offering simple collection work for deadbeat credits.

  The small shop was in the jewelry district. It was no more than 10 feet wide and, with the back room, only about 20 feet deep. Two beat cops milled nervously around the dead man.

  The family must have called me right after they called the cops, Talbot thought as he took in the scene. No sign of a break in…the dead man knew the shooter. The glass cases were intact, nothing stolen. It looked like a hit. Talbot was about to ask what detective was assigned when she walked in the door.

  You could always tell Protocol Dicks: they dressed better and had an air of simultaneous boredom and superiority about them. He could see right away she was not from Level 29; her demeanor was all Protocol. She scanned the place and focused on one of the beat guys.

  “Ricky,” she said offhandedly, “go get the kit from Officer Kinderman’s mobile.”

  “Uh, that’s Kinderweiss…”

  She did not register the man’s objection. “And also have him call the coroner. And you, out, no civilians, this is a sealed area.” The woman had turned to look at Talbot, who was standing to the left of the front door.

  “I’m not a civilian, detective.”

  “Who are you then?”

  “I represent the family of the deceased. I’m here to make sure the department does its best to find the man’s kill—”

  “You the polish, eh?”

  Talbot smiled a wide grin. The polish was not a 29 term.

  “You’re not a local department are you?” he asked, trying to sound casual but inwardly bracing for a fight. “Upper levels I would say…35–36?”

  “Thirty-four. How did you know?”

  Talbot smiled again; he had overestimated the level on purpose. He had assumed 33 or even 32 but was glad he’d overshot a little. Nothing like a little compliment to get off on the right foot with the detective.

  “Down here we’re called the assist; the polish is upper level. Also, your clothes…”

  She momentarily looked concerned, “What about them?”

  Talbot filed that away: she was concerned with her appearance but not vain, just wanted to be sure she looked the part that she felt she was playing. Talbot eyed her up and down briefly. She had the trim look of a woman in her early thirties, petite but not especially short—five feet six or seven, he figured. Her brown hair was styled with salon quality and she wore a crisp suit that showed off her body but not in a suggestive or trampy way. Her appearance reflected control and precision, someone trying, but not too hard. This he could work with.

  “They’re a couple credits above what the average person ‘round here can afford.”

  “Look, Mr.…”

  “Singh, Talbot Singh,” he smiled and offered his hand.

  She shook it perfunctorily. “Mr. Singh, you need to leave. Or at least go onto the street. I can assure you this case is in good hands.”

  “No doubt, Detective…?”

  “Detective Olson.”

  “I promise to not interfere.”

  “It’s not a request Mr. Singh. Out—now.”

  “Detective—”

  “If you don’t go I will ask Officer Kinderbody to escort you out.”

  “Kinderweiss can vouch for me.”

  “Mr. Singh,” any attempts at civility had left her voice, “now!”

  “Okay, leaving. Only, don’t be mad at me when you realize the huge mistake you’ve made,” he shrugged, betting she was someone who hated to make mistakes and the lack of control mistakes presumed.

  She opened her mouth and then closed it, a hesitant look crossing her eyes. “What mistake is that, exactly?”

  “The victim,” he nodded toward the man slumped against the wall behind the counter. “He’s holding a playing card.”

  “Okay.”

  “A gang hit.”

  “Which one? I thought 29 was pretty free of gang activity.”

  “Gangs, yes. Activity, not so much. It’s not this level, probably lower.”

  “Which one?”

  “Ahhhh, well,” Talbot smiled again, prompting a deep frown from the detective. “You see that is where I can be of service. I have…I wouldn’t say friends, but people I know down in lower levels.”

  “How low?”

  “Twenty-five…24…even 19.”

  “Great, thanks. I’ll take that into consideration. I can get our gang activity people to look it up.”

  “How long will that take? A week? More?”

  “Perhaps, not that it—”

  “I can get it to you tomorrow morning, the latest.”

  “Mr. Singh, you need to leave. Kinder… Kinder guy!”

  “No need to blow, Detective. I’ll go. Just be careful. I know this may look like just another hit—”

  “And why wouldn’t it be?” She held her hand up to stop Kinderweiss, who looked at Talbot and rolled his eyes in annoyance.

  “Sloppy work. They broke the window and the lock, the victim was going for a weapon. All pointing to a perfectly normal crime scene.” Talbot picked up the playing card, turning it over in his hand. “Except…”

  “What’s wrong Mr. Singh?”

  Talbot looked up at the posh detective from level 34.

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  “You. You, Detective, are all wrong.”

  Olsen tilted her head as if looking at a strange bird in a cage. “Go on,” she smiled slightly.

  “What are you doing here, all the way down on this level? My guy here, the dead guy? He’s good people. Been running this store for 20 years, never any problems—probably because what he sells is low-rate junk, but still. And now he gets hit and instead of some third shift decker, they send Ms. Uptown herself. I’m not trying to make trouble, Detective, but so far this whole thing just reeks of something.”

  Detective Olsen did not say anything, she just held out her hand to take back the card. Talbot held it back, his eyes questioning.

  She sighed. “Orders from above my pay grade Mr. Singh. Turns out the super’s daughter goes to school with his granddaughter or something.”

  “A climber, huh? Who knew?”

  “What’s wrong with climbing?” Olsen bristled.

  “Nothing, especially if it gets you upper-level deckers down on low-level jobs like this.” Talbot replied absently, focused on using his watch to scan the playing card’s back. He looked up to see Olsen’s curious expression. “Cards are coded, by gang, by time.” Talbot explained. “I should be able to tell you who left this, or at least the folks someone wants you to think left it.”

  Olsen’s eyes narrowed. “You really can get that by tomorrow?”

  “Sure, probably. Have to go down to 19 but, you know, might be a bit of fun sightseeing down there.”

  Olsen gave a small hollow laugh. “Braver than me. Here, Mr. Singh.”

  “Friends call me Talbot.”

  “Yes, well…Here—my card.” She tapped her watch. Talbot felt his watch ding, signaling receipt. “Use it to come up tomorrow.”

  “This’ll pay?”

  “Yes, it’s a pass. One time,” she added with a warning in her voice.

  “What about my fare up from 19?”

  “What about it? You want play with the big boys then pony up Mr. Singh,” Olsen said.

  “Right.”

  “You ever been up beyond here?” Olsen asked.

  “Once. Family vacation to 32 when I was eight. It was about the same, if you ask me.”

  Olsen looked around and shrugged. “Yeah, 34’s pretty much like this.”

  “How far you been up, Detective?”

  “Forty,” she replied. “Same as you: little vacation.”

  “They say there’s a park on 40.”

  “Yes, went there.”

  “And? Did you see any of it? The sky?”

  She shrugged. “Could have seen it, not sure. If I did it was very far away, maybe another… what, 10 levels?”

  “I hear the city is up to 70 total now.”

  Olsen made a noncommittal noise. “Well, Mr. Singh, if you find anything see me tomorrow. Don’t call—security protocol, you know. And don’t bother coming if you can’t find anything. This is low priority.”

  “Sure, okay.”

  Olsen smiled tightly and then made a gesture towards the door.

  “Oh, yeah, right. Pleasure, Detective.” Talbot turned on his heel and left the small shop.

  The little jewelry store did not sit on the street but rather in a small collection of shops set behind a glassed-in alcove with tables, chairs, and a small coffee stand. Passersby could and did walk by, oblivious to the police activity. But people from the neighborhood looked, and whispered to each other. They knew something had happened.

  The man in the jewelry store was proprietor Jay Mill, a fixture in the area who sold affordable jewelry in plain boxes. Although many people frequented his tiny shop, few wanted to boast they actually bought trinkets from him; Mr. Mill did not barter in the high-end items. But he was friendly, outgoing, and, importantly, unpretentious. Talbot knew that people around the area did not take well to climbers: people who pretended to be better than they were.

  The area was officially known as area 19 level 29, but most people called it Assembly. It’s what people did there: worked in large assembly plants. They would take parts made elsewhere, usually on lower levels, and put them together, everything from large elevator engines to small, biostic takeout food boxes. The level was six stories tall—not luxurious, but tall enough. He knew from forays below that levels shrunk in height as you went down, the opposite going up.

  The level was well lit, reasonably clean, and the air—to his mind at least—fresh enough. It helped that level 28 had multiple air handling factories. Assembly was, in short, an unpretentious place that did not suffer pretentious people well.

  Talbot had grown up on the level, part of a large family; extended in all directions except for his. His mother and father still lived in the apartment he grew up in, but they never had any more children after he came along. He had cousins upon cousins but his family was always the small, three-person unit.

  Despite the six-story buildings that rose all around him and that expanded outward for miles, space was at a premium. Seventy-four million people, give or take a few, lived on level 29. Mill’s jewelry shop was small not just because it sold small items. Everywhere Talbot looked was crowded with people, goods, and buildings—but mostly people. He liked it this way. He could lose himself quickly in the crowds or just as quickly find people he knew. He had honed this ability over the past 10 years as a professional assist. And before that, as a young teenager he had helped Mr. Hammaud, a friend of the family who had also been an assist.

  The job of an assist was simple: to make sure that when things happened to a family, those things went as well as could be expected. Strictly speaking he was not a lawyer or, to use a very old term, a fixer. Instead he…well, assisted families that could afford to hire him. When a family had one of their own get picked up by the police, he would be there to make sure the police did their job and the family member kept their mouth shut. If there was a dispute within the family or between families, he acted as the middleman, solving whatever issue had come up between them. He might have to help people get licenses to operate a business or help negotiate the purchase of an apartment—the latter always a tricky proposition.

  Rarely did he have to represent a family in the case of death. Natural death was handled by the funeral houses. Only twice before had he interceded for murder, and in both cases it was domestic violence. And in both cases he represented the person who had done the killing. Mr. Mill was a different circumstance and Talbot had a small knot in the pit of his stomach because of it. He was in uncharted territory. He had learned early on that when facing the unknown, go slowly and carefully.

  As he wandered the streets of Assembly’s shopping district he considered what little he knew: Mr. Mill, a third-rate jewelry man, had been gunned down in his shop. The killing exhibited signs of a gang hit, down to the playing card left near Mr. Mill. Beyond those simple facts…Talbot had known Mr. Mill his whole life; the man had never caused even the smallest amount of trouble. Jewelers were often known to fence goods or pass through dirty credits so the fact that Mr. Mill was so clean was remarkable in and of itself—and a problem.

  The presence of the 34th level detective was sending off loud sirens in Talbot’s head. He had never seen one come down, unless, and here his mind snagged, unless they were investigating a crime in which the perp was from level 29, certainly not the victim. The connection that Olsen had offered rang hollow with Talbot. He made a mental note to speak with Mr. Mill’s widow as soon as he could. He would not have pegged them—or more specifically, one of their children—as climbers.

  Around noon, after grabbing a quick lunch of nasi, Talbot made his way towards the apartment he shared with his parents. He squeezed himself into the tiny elevator that rose up to the fifth floor. He smiled wryly each time he hit the number five button on the elevator. His father had often told the story of how they had initially been offered an apartment on the sixth floor, but he had turned it down, fearing that people would accuse him of being a climber by trying to get as close as he could to the 30th level.

  As Talbot made his way into the apartment the lights inside flickered on. The apartment was large and well kept. The main room was a standard 10x10 foot with its entryway kitchen, the sofa bed where he slept, and the large panel screen on the wall. At the end of the room was a doorway into another 10x10 foot space that housed a bathroom and his parent’s room, plus a small storage area. He grabbed a bottle of something fizzy and sweet from the fridge. He sat down at the small counter that separated the kitchen from the main room and punched up his father’s number. Seconds later a small, gray-haired man with a neatly trimmed white beard flickered into view on the small screen hanging from the kitchen ceiling.

  “Tal! Such news. I heard about Mr. Mill. Was it a robbery?”

  “Hey, Pops. Not sure yet. Looks weird. I wanted to tell you that I have to go down a few levels this afternoon. I may not be back until after dinner.”

  The man on the screen, who was carefully pasting brightly colored paper into what seemed like a wooden book, looked up.

  “How many?”

  “Uh, well, you know…a few.”

  “How many?” His voice was steady but demanding.

  “To 19, Pop.”

  “No.”

  Talbot sighed and tried to smile. “Pop, I’m not 10. I can handle myself. I need to ask a few guys questions is all.”

  “So this Mr. Mill was tied up in gangs?”

  “I never said.”

  “No reason to go to 19 unless it’s for gangs, Tal.”

  “Yeah, well…so anyway.”

  “You tell your mom yet?”

  “Of course not, that’s why I called you.”

  The old man did not smile; instead he stared for a moment at the screen and then bent back over his work. “Don’t be a fool, Tal. See you after dinner then.”

  “Thanks, Poppa.”

  Talbot ended the call and took a long sip of the drink. He knew his father was only being protective, but sometimes he wondered how it would be to live on his own. He was almost 30. He figured if he got married he could move out. Maybe. But that wasn’t on the horizon right then. He could never afford to rent a place on his own—assuming he could find one. His parents had spent 35 years paying down on the one they lived in now. Well, he could always dream. Or find a new girlfriend.