"I heard they all got machines inside them, that they can talk to each other without even speaking out loud."

"No way."

"Yep, and they can grow you new skin and muscles and stuff, if you get a piece shot out of you-"

"-or burned off."

"That's right. And they got that jelly they put on the burns. You seen that shit? It smells something terrible but I tell you what, guys got that stuff on them, it's like they can't feel a damn thing from those burns, and when it comes off they just patch you up with some o' that skin they grow in a bucket. It's like you never got burned."

"What if they fucked it up, though. Gave you some nigger skin when you're meant to get white. You'd be a sorry-looking piece of shit then, wouldn't you? Like a zebra."

"It wouldn't take," said Moose, quite earnestly, over the laughter. "You couldn't put black on white. They's two different types. Wouldn't work-just like if you got the blood types wrong and mixed 'em. It'd kill you."

Moose was particularly pleased with himself for that analogy. And for Moose, it was a decidedly sophisticated piece of reasoning.

"We coming back in tomorrow?" Slim Jim asked Mohr. "To finish the job?"

"I don't know, Davidson. Could be that some of the others need a break, too."

"Screw them," someone called out, saving Slim Jim the trouble. "Those lazy bums didn't put their hands up today. Why should they get a reward tomorrow?"

Mohr said he'd think about it.

"Hey," said Slim Jim, "did anyone hear about the pill they got gives you a boner for three days straight?"

The next day the same sun that beat down with such malice in the burned-out cane field felt dappled and wonderful downtown in Honolulu. Slim Jim was so happy he had unknowingly slipped into his Downtown Strut. Davidson hadn't had cause to break out the Strut since getting busted and press-ganged into the navy. But this morning, he felt like he was walking with the King.

They had finished work at the Moana by 1030 and Chief Mohr, in an unprecedented show of slack, had given them liberty for the rest of the day. They were free as birds until 1700 hours, when the bus would take them back to camp. Slim Jim had quickly shaken off Moose Molloy and headed straight for Hotel Street. It was said of this quarter of Old Honolulu that you were as much at risk here as storming a Japanese pillbox. If the cops didn't get you, the crooks surely would. Dozens of booze barns and cathouses lined the narrow pavement. Bouncers and con men, vicious Kanaks, the Shore Patrol, syphilitic hookers, drunken sailors-there were a thousand ways to get into trouble down on Hotel Street.

Slim Jim Davidson felt right at home.

He had joined a long line outside one of the cheaper bordellos and remained there until he was certain Chief Mohr had disappeared into Wo Fats bar and grill. Then, pointedly mumbling about how a man could die of horniness in such a slow line, he stepped off, apparently determined to seek a quicker release.

Instead he walked down by the canal and into an old warehouse once run by the Dole Pineapple Company, but abandoned after a fire about a year ago. Picking his way through the charred debris, he stepped out onto a narrow and quiet back lane. Dogshit lay everywhere among broken glass and hundreds of discarded cigarette butts. Slim Jim stood and waited.

It took less than a minute. A dark calloused hand appeared at the edge of a sheet of corrugated iron a few yards down the alley. The thin metal sheet scraped on the ground as someone pulled it to one side. A giant slab-shouldered Maori with elaborate tattoos covering his whole face squeezed out of the gap. A long white scar ran from his right ear down across his throat, marring the intricate tattoo before disappearing into a filthy white T-shirt. The expression on his mangled face was murderous, until he straightened up and got a look at Slim Jim. At once he broke out in a wide grin, displaying at least three missing teeth.

"Hello, Tui," said Slim Jim. "Is Big Itchy 'round?"

"He's so round we can't hardly fit him through the door no more," laughed Tui. "He's still eating like a condemned man."

"Still got a thirst that'd cast a shadow?"

"You bet."

Slim Jim came forward, gingerly stepping around dozens of dog turds. He plucked a fifth of bourbon from his pocket.

"My compliments to the big guy," he said. "Sorry it ain't more."

"Things are tight all over, Slim Jim," said Tui as he beamed and slapped a huge meaty paw on the white man's shoulder.

They climbed through the gap in the ramshackle wall, entering a small wrecker's yard on the other side. Tui slid the iron sheet back into place and picked up the shotgun he'd placed by the entrance.

"You see any of the action at Midway?" asked Tui as they walked through the yard to the office.

"My friend, I was up to here in it," said Davidson, tapping his chin with the back of his hand. "That's why I'm here."

"Is it true what they're saying about these visitors?"

"Depends what they're saying, brother."

Tui's glance was almost furtive, like he thought they were under surveillance.

"That they're from the future, and they've got death rays and super-rockets and they take their women with them when they fight."

Slim Jim laughed.

"That's closer than I thought you'd get. Yeah. I've met them, been on one of their ships. I'll tell you about it when we meet Big Itchy, but you ain't gonna believe a word of it."

"And the women. I heard they got women of all colors with them."

"Damn, boy, you are well informed. Yeah, they do, but here's the hell of it. The dames aren't just traveling pieces of ass. The ship I was on? The captain was a nigger woman. And the officers had black dames and Asians. Mexicans, too. I tell you, it turns a man's head. God only knows how they keep out of the sack when they're supposed to be working."

"You're shitting me."

"Not a word of it, brother. I brought some stuff. You'll see."

"The captain was a nigger you say," mused Tui. "She the one got plugged on the beach, d'you think, with the Jap guy? Maybe the Klan did it. There's a lot of southern boys on the island at the moment."

Slim Jim shrugged. In the last twenty-four hours he'd heard about forty-three different versions of what had happened to Captain Anderson. It wasn't his problem, so he didn't care. They arrived at the office, a creaking timber cabin with threadbare towels hung for curtains in the broken windows. Tui pulled up to a full stop.

In contrast to the state of the yard, the interior of the cabin was uncluttered, clean, and comfortable. It was spacious, seeming larger on the inside than it should be. In fact the cabin jutted a few yards into the adjoining property, a lumberyard, which also formed part of Big Itchy's fiefdom.

On balance, as long as the Japs didn't invade, Big Itchy figured the war was a bonus. It brought a flood of money into the islands and a huge amount of passing trade from the millions of servicemen in transit to Australia and the Solomons. They tended to be much better customers for Big Itchy's operation than the toffee-nosed swells who'd arrived on the China Clipper before the war. On the other hand, the town was now full of guys who'd been trained to kill, and who weren't at all interested in being stood over by Big Itchy's musclemen. After Tui and the boys got the shit kicked out of them for the third or fourth time down on Hotel Street, Itchy had decided to beat a tactical retreat from the mugging business, concentrating instead on sly booze, broads, and a modest numbers racket.

Turned out these palookas would just give you all their money if you asked them nice and got them laid or drunk in return.

Big Itchy's office was neatly stacked with the raw material of his operation: crates of stolen booze, cigarettes, and food. The girls never came here. They hardly ever got out of the flophouses. Slim Jim knew there was a safe buried in the floor beneath Itchy's desk, and it was a sign of the trust he'd earned that the knowledge hadn't cost him his life. Big Itchy kept every dollar he earned in that safe. He didn't trust the banks. They were full of Jews.