Conner found tools, took the little outboard motor apart, and went at it with a tin of WD-40, cleaned the single spark plug. When it cranked and sputtered alive, he whooped with the childish glee of simple accomplishment.

He took another nap.

He awoke, fixed a meal, and drank a warm beer. He watched the sun go down and finally decided he couldn’t sit on the Electric Jenny eating corn chips and granola bars the rest of his life. The new Conner Samson was off to a slow start. Time to do something. What he needed, he decided not for the first time, was money. Not money like everyone else needs money, for groceries, bills, the daily expenses of living life. No, he needed real money. He needed enough to make being Conner Samson mean something. Conner wasn’t dumb enough to think you could buy happiness. But having money and what you did with it was a sign of something else. A signal to the world who you were and what you were about.

He thought about Professor Dan and his big house and Tyranny.

He lowered the inflatable dinghy into the water, checked the ridiculously small gas tank on the putt-putt outboard. Half a tank. He climbed into the dinghy, pants rolled and shoes around his neck again. He’d put on the tuxedo jacket. The outfit somehow didn’t feel complete otherwise.

The outboard coughed and spit but finally turned over after a dozen yanks on the cord. He pointed the dinghy upriver and opened up the throttle. The outboard sounded like a Volkswagen on crystal meth. It was slow going. Paddling would almost have been as fast. At least Conner wasn’t wearing out his arms.

Joellen Becker had told him Teddy Folger had something that wasn’t his. Something hidden and valuable. Conner had no trouble convincing himself he deserved some kind of payment for all the trouble and pain he’d endured.

When he got within a hundred yards of Folger’s bungalow, he killed the engine. He paddled the rest of the way and tied up where the Jenny had been. He peeked over the concrete retaining wall, scanned the house and yard. All quiet.

Back aboard the sailboat, Conner had figured he’d come have a look-see, but returning to the scene of a crime wasn’t the most genius thing he’d ever done. As a matter of fact, the last time he’d been here, a little Japanese guy had kicked the shit out of him. But whatever the “valuable something” was, it sure wasn’t aboard the Jenny. Maybe Folger had it hidden in the bungalow.

He heaved himself over the wall and put on his socks and shoes. Conner approached the bungalow quietly and slowly, but he didn’t bother with the war-movie crouch. The house was dark. He cupped his hands and looked through a window, as he had before. A small, dim light, maybe from the bathroom or a closet, but otherwise the house seemed deserted. He looked through windows on the sides and in the front. This time the kitchen was clear. Whatever had happened here before, it was all over now.

The front door was locked. Around back, one of the sliding glass doors slid open quietly. He went in, closed the door behind him. At first, he thought the house smelled only stale, stuffy, but somewhere there was a stink. A bad one.

He moved through the small house, into the kitchen. Bloodstains on the tile floor and an overturned chair corresponded with what Conner had seen through the window on his last visit.

Conner went into the bedroom, where the smell was worse. Much worse.

The smell came from a dead body. Teddy Folger spread eagle on the double bed, naked, bloated and gray, skin slack. He had a bloody plastic bag over his head. Conner grimaced, pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger. Folger didn’t look real. He looked like a bloody movie prop, something out of a kid’s haunted house for Halloween. The way his body lay, limbs loose at odd angles, almost made it look like he didn’t have bones. A limp sack of jelly. A bag full of raspberry jam for a head.

“Not a pretty sight, is he?”

Conner jumped at the sound of the voice. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He leapt back, heart thumping up in his throat. His eyes focused on the person sitting in a dark corner. She leaned back in the overstuffed easy chair, legs and arms crossed. It was that woman. The one who’d kicked the gun out of his hands in his apartment. “Becker?”

“Yup.”

“You scared the hell out of me.”

“What’s with the tux?”

Conner ignored the question, rubbed his chest, willed his heart rate back to normal. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you I was looking for Folger.” Becker lifted her chin at the corpse on the bed. “I think that’s him.”

“It is.”

“How do you know?”

Because I saw some ninja dudes punch him raw. “It’s Folger’s house. I just figured.”

“Right.”

Conner didn’t think she was buying it. He didn’t blame her.

“I think we’d better talk,” Becker said.

“We are talking. Aren’t you enjoying it?”

“Cut the shit,” she said. “Maybe we can help each other.”

“I’m still trying to repossess the sailboat,” Conner lied. “I told you I’d given up before because I thought you were competition.”

“You’re a bad liar. Try again.”

Conner put on his innocent face, the one he used when big, scary guys caught him repossessing their cars. “Honest.”

“If you’re still looking for the boat, then why did you go see James?”

Oh, yeah. All those lies he’d told her last time. He’d forgotten. Conner backed toward the bedroom door a step. Maybe he could just run for it. He didn’t want to talk to Becker. His story wasn’t holding up, and her cop eyes kept drilling into him. Even in the dark, he could see her hard stare gleaming suspicion.

“Chill out, Samson,” she said. “I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“I’m chilled. No worries here.” He kept edging toward the door.

“You mentioned two thousand dollars.” She paused long enough to light a cigarette, the lighter flame bathing her face momentarily in hellish orange. “I suppose that can be arranged.”

Conner froze. “I’m listening.”

Becker puffed her cigarette, knew she now had Samson’s attention. Almost everyone understood threats and money. The threats might become necessary later. Hopefully not.

“Let’s talk in the other room,” she suggested. “It stinks in here.”

Samson nodded, backed into the living room, keeping an eye on her. He was so wary. Again she sized him up. She could see the indecision and caution in his posture. He was acutely aware of his own ineptitude, a man smart enough to know he was in over his head. She made him nervous. Then again, Joellen Becker made a lot of people nervous. They’d taught her that at the Agency, how to make a man squirm with a cold stare. How to intimidate with a glance.

She followed him out, sat on the sofa, stubbed out her cigarette in a candy dish full of Hershey’s Kisses. Conner stood there, waited for her to get on with it.

“I’m going to level with you,” she said.

“Okay.”

“It’s a pretty good story. You might want to get comfortable.”

“I’m good.” Conner remained standing.

“You know what Teddy Folger did for a living, right?”

Conner said, “I know he owned a plaza and ran a comic-book store. It burned.”

“I work for the insurance company that paid the claim after the fire,” Becker said. “Folger reported that something very valuable had burned in the fire. It didn’t burn. He collected the money but still has this thing hidden.”

“That’s why you said it was something that doesn’t belong to him,” Conner said. “Okay. So what was it?”

“A one-of-a-kind, autographed baseball card.”

“This is about a baseball card? Are you shitting me?”

“I don’t have time to shit anybody, Samson.”

Conner asked, “So what happens now?”

“I’ve searched Folger’s house and this bungalow. No dice. If he was planning to skip the country, I’m thinking he has the card aboard the Electric Jenny. Show me where the boat is, and you’ll get paid.”