concrete stairway ascended beside a stucco garage to a hillside home whose owner, I knew, had lately gone on a security jag. “A gun, Vic?” I said. “Seriously?”
“What, you don’t think I can handle a gun?”
I shrugged. “I think you can handle whatever you want to handle. I just don’t think it’s necessary, that’s all. Do I look like I’m going anywhere?”
“Well, what are you doing out here, then?”
“Looking for the cat.”
“Bullshit. You don’t have a cat.”
“It’s not mine, nimrod. It belongs to the ovarians downstairs. They’re in Guatemala, adopting a baby.”
“And you’re taking care of their cat? I gotta say that doesn’t sound like you.”
“I owe ’em. They take my trashcans up to the street. They’re stronger than I am.”
“Well, whatever. Let’s go inside. I’m your babysitter now.”
“I have to find the cat, man. Coyotes get ’er, those ovarians’ll kick my ass.” I turned and called into a random quadrant of night. “Pickle! Come here, girl!”
The night didn’t answer. Mirplo said, “Screw the cat, man. Get in the house.” He waved the gun in what I suppose he thought was a menacing fashion, but betrayed an understanding of firearms so flawed that probably local windows (or nonexistent cats) had a better shot at getting shot than I did. Still, a Mirplo with a gun. That offended my sensibilities. I continued to call for the cat, all the while edging closer to the stairway.
“Pickle! Come to Uncle Radar right now!”
“Radar—”
I looked past Mirplo. “There you are, you rascal!” Vic turned. I knew he would. It was the oldest trick in the book, of course, a variation on Mirplo’s own “Look, Halley’s Comet!” Still, it worked. In the second it took Vic to swivel his glance away, I darted within range of the neighbor’s prophylactic motion sensor at the base of his stairs, triggering the world’s brightest halogen spotlights. As they popped on, I launched myself at Mirplo, who momentarily lost me in the glare. I’m crap at violence, I know I am, but I can throw a head butt to the stomach when the situation demands, and that’s what the situation demanded here. Next thing Vic knew, he was on his back, with my knees on his chest and the gun probing his nose like an otoscope.
“Shit, Radar,” said Vic, his voice falling. “No cat?”
“No cat.”
I took Mirplo inside and sat him down on the couch. I didn’t quite know what to do with the gun. As I’ve said, I’m no fan of firearms. In my world, if you can’t do the job through talking and planning, you’re just not very good at the game. So I told Vic, “I’m gonna go put this away. You stay here.” I knew he would. I could see that shock had rubberized his legs. He was probably trying to figure out how much shit he’d be in with Hines for letting me flip him. Enough, I hoped, that he might be in a mood to stay flipped.
I stashed the gun in my bedroom, amid the junk in the closet, and came back out to find Vic where I’d left him: sitting on the couch, staring into nothing with a glazed gaze. “I’m fucked,” he said. “I’m so totally fucking fucked.”
“Why is that?”
He looked at me and allowed a sour grin to pass across his face. “You know why,” he said. “Hines is gonna kill me.”
“Vic, I would hate to see that happen.”
“Like hell you would. Dude, I totally betrayed you.”
“Well, betrayed. The jury’s still out on that. Why don’t you fill in some blanks for me, let’s see where we really stand.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Okay,” I said brightly. “Then go see Hines and tell him he can have his gun back anytime he wants to come get it.”
“Radar, I can’t.”
“Well, you’re kind of stuck between can’ts.”
Mirplo buried his head in his hands.
“But I think we can get you unstuck.”
He looked up, a glimmer of hope shining in his black eyes. “How?”
How, indeed? Against honest cops, I’d have been in a much dicier spot, but all the deception and extravagant ill-truth floating around made for ample wiggle room here. So I told Vic about Scovil’s and Hines’s crossed purposes and hoped he’d see the benefit of defecting to Team Hoverlander. “We can’t protect ourselves,” I said, “but we might could protect each other.”
Vic’s brow furrowed as his brain worked at max amps. “We’re in the whaddyacallit,” he said at last, “that prisoner’s thingie.” I knew what he was groping for: the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the classic