Then she went to the Kickstart. “Heard you’re looking for dancers,” she said.

“You done any dancing?” This was some short, nasty-looking fellow who kept sticking his finger up his nose.

“Sure,” she said. “But, you know, not on an actual stage or anything.”

“Let’s see ’em.”

“What?”

Rolled his eyes. “Jesus, you come in, want to be a dancer, you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say ‘Let’s see ’em’?”

So she showed ’em.

“Whoa,” he said. “Not bad. Rack like that, we got other ways you can make money too. Upstairs. Nice chunk of change to be had.”

“I don’t think so,” Miranda said. “I’ll just dance.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But when you see the other girls pulling down major bucks, you’ll be begging me, you wait and see.”

And then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “What’s your name?”

Miranda had already thought about this part. “Candace,” she said.

SARAH SENT ME AN E-MAIL .

“Working late. Will grab something to eat on the way home. S.”

She wasn’t more than seventy or eighty feet away from me, in her office, but she decided to send me a message rather than walk over and just tell me. True, she couldn’t actually see me at my desk the way she could when I was working in the newsroom. I was now down the hall and around the corner, working in Home! But honestly, was this what Bill Gates had in mind? That the greatest technological advances in history would be used to make it possible for people who were within shouting range of one another to not speak face-to-face?

I clicked on “Reply” and started to write something and then couldn’t decide what. Finally I opted to say nothing and canceled my reply. Sarah had plenty of reasons to be angry with me, but her e-mail pissed me off. If she had something to say, she could damn well find her way Home! and say it.

“How’s the linoleum thing coming?” Frieda asked, passing by my desk, being extremely cheerful.

“Frieda,” I said, “you only gave it to me an hour ago. Is it a fast-breaking linoleum story? Is page one looking for it?”

She looked hurt. Her face fell. I instantly felt like a shit.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was only asking.”

This was the difference between working in the newsroom, where sarcasm and angry outbursts are the norm, and toiling away in Home! or travel (called “Away!” at the Metropolitan) or our new shopping section (“Spend!”). It was more like a typical office back here. Someone made tea. A card got sent around for everyone to sign when it was someone’s birthday. People were friendly, sociable, decent to one another.

I had to get out of here.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really, I’m sorry, Frieda. I was just being a dick.”

Her eyebrows jumped. I guess people didn’t refer to themselves as “dicks” around here, either.

She left before I could say anything else to offend her.

I went online, looked for some contacts in the flooring industry who could fill me in on the latest developments in linoleum, and as I did so, this sense of hopelessness washed over me. How could it have come to this? It had only been days since I’d written a major piece for the paper about this gang of nutcases who’d planned to set off a bomb at a small-town parade. It was page one, above the fold. The TV stations picked it up.

I was golden.

But that was how it was in the newspaper business. You were only as good as your next story. So what if you got a big exclusive on Thursday. What are you going to do for us Friday?

I had the feeling that someone or something was pressing down hard on me as I sat in the chair. My shoulders were sagging so hard, it’s like they were dragging me down to the floor. I had a shit assignment, my wife was only communicating with me by e-mail, and I’d just been mean to Frieda, perhaps the sweetest woman in the entire building.

I jotted down some contact numbers on my scratch pad, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and make a call. For reasons I cannot explain, I found myself unable to focus on linoleum. There was something else nagging at me.

I grabbed a copy of yesterday’s paper from one of the recycling bins and found my story about the stun gun salesmen.

Why was Trixie going on about them?

I found their names and scribbled them down on my pad. I decided to start with the one who’d done most of the talking before the assembled officers, Gary Merker. I Googled him. There weren’t many. One was a radio DJ somewhere out west in Arizona. There was a picture of him, along with the other station personalities. Young guy, very thin, bald, wire-rimmed glasses, big smile. Definitely not the guy who’d done the stun gun presentation. Another was a financial consultant up in Maine. No picture. There was a phone number, so I called.

“Hello? Merker Financial.” A woman.

“Is Gary in?”

“Just a moment.”

Some dead air. Then: “Merker?”

“Hi,” I said. Frieda was looking over at me, turned away when I saw her checking on me. “Is this Gary Merker?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for the Gary Merker who’s got some of those new Dropper stun guns for sale. Would that be you?”

“No, sorry. Stun guns? You got the wrong guy, pal.”

I offered my apologies and hung up.

Only one Gary Merker came up when I did a search on the paper’s database. This Merker showed up in a story that evidently had run in the Metropolitan five years earlier, with a Dick Colby byline, no less. It was datelined Canborough, and the headline read, “Three Slain in Biker Massacre.”

Canborough was a city of about sixty thousand, maybe a hundred miles west. It was a college town; the Canborough River ran through it north to south. The college was the main thing that had kept the town alive after the auto parts plant closed down seven years ago, the jobs all having gone to Mexico. I had done a book signing up there once, when my first science fiction novel, Missionary, had come out. Two hundred miles, round trip, sold three copies. The store owner couldn’t look me in the eye when it was over.

The story read: “Canborough may be on the verge of a biker gang war after three members of the Slots, a local gang that makes its money off drugs and prostitution, as well as some legitimate businesses, were shot to death above their own tavern, the Kickstart.”

The story went on to say: “Dead are Eldridge Smith, 29, Payne Fletcher, 26, and Zane Heighton, 25. All the victims were said to be known to police. All were fatally shot, and while police hinted there was something distinctive about the manner in which the executions were conducted, they would not provide further details.”

I started to imagine things. Were they shot in the mouth? Did someone stick a gun in their ears and blow their brains out? Were they lined up in front of each other, and one bullet passed through the lot of them?

That one seemed a bit unlikely. Unless it was a really, really, big bullet. Despite having held, and even fired, a gun in the last couple of years, and having had the misfortune to have been around some, I still knew very little about them, and that was just fine, thank you very much.

The story continued: “The Kickstart is a well-known local watering hole that also features adult entertainment. The shootings occurred shortly after the close of business hours, and the women employed as exotic dancers were not believed to have been there at the time. The Slots own the Kickstart, and were believed to have been counting the receipts in the upstairs office when the incident occurred.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Frieda sneaking another look at me. I waggled my fingers at her.

“Canborough Police say there are three or four small gangs operating in the region, and while none of them is a large operation, they are responsible, collectively, for much of the area’s drug trade. In the past, each gang had carved out a portion of the market for itself, not stepping on the others’ toes, but that now appears to be over.