Hunters Run Page 0,116
that he had nowhere to go.
He had been on his way to find Lianna and create some kind of new life for himself. He was maybe two hours' walk from there now, still with the wristband identification they used when he was in custody, bruised and beaten from his time with Johnny Joe, and not feeling up to a long walk anyway. He kept moving until he found a public square - a sad little plot of dirt in the shadow of an administrative complex. He sat on a bench; just for a few minutes, though. He didn't want the police to hassle him, and he figured he looked like a bum.
A bum. Without a place of his own. Without a job. He had nothing, only a half-baked plan to rebuild himself and a secret he couldn't tell anyone. High above, the Enye ships flickered, their forms dimmed by the haze of smoke that squatted over the city. The sun would set soon, and the few stars that could struggle against the city lights would come out. Ramon shoved his hands in his pockets.
Lianna seemed like a dream now. An idea he'd had when he was drunk only to find it nonsense when sobriety returned. He tried to imagine what he would say to her, how he would explain that the beaten-up, penniless prospector without a van or even a place to sleep was someone who had worth. Never mind that he'd just gotten out of the station-house jail and probably smelled like it. Never mind that he'd just become the new Johnny Joe, first on the list of usual suspects to be rounded up the next time the governor needed someone to take the fall for some inconveniently unsolvable crime. He knew what Lianna would see when she looked at him.
She'd see Ramon Espejo.
It was still twilight when he reached the butcher's shop. It had been closed for hours, metal bars hugging the door and windows. He took the side stairs up. There were lights on in Elena's apartment. He stood in the gloom at the top of the stairs for a long time. There were cats in the alley - another species imported from Earth. Lizards skittered up the wall and took wing. The scent of old blood rotting in the alley mixed with the wood smoke and van exhaust; the odor of Diegotown was acrid and familiar. The tension in his shoulders and gut was also familiar. Up in the night sky, Big Girl was peeking out from behind the high clouds. The boom and blare of distant music.
He knocked.
When she opened the door, he could see the question in her eyes. There were any number of reasons he might have come. To say thank you. To get some of the shit he'd forgotten and leave again. To stay. Each one had a different greeting to match it, and she wasn't sure which to use. He wasn't either.
"Hey," he said.
"You look like shit," she said. "The cops do that?"
"Get their fucking hands dirty? No, they had a guy do it for them."
Elena crossed her arms over her breasts. She hadn't stood aside - afraid, he guessed, that he wouldn't accept the invitation.
"You give as good as you got?" she asked.
"He's dead," Ramon said. "I didn't kill him, so I'm not in trouble or any shit like that. But he was there because of me, and they killed him. I figure that means I won."
"Tough cabron," Elena said, half mocking, but only half. "Dangerous to cross."
An orbital shuttle throbbed up into the night. Ramon smiled; it hurt a little, around his eye. Elena looked down, smiled shyly at his knees, and stepped back. He went inside, closing the door behind him. She'd made rice gumbo. It was the kind of dish she could tell herself she made so she could eat the leftovers through the week. Or it could be meant to feed two. Ramon sat at the table and let her serve him a bowl.
"You were good," he said. "With the cops, I mean. That thing about how it's a smock?"
"You liked that?" Elena asked. "That was my idea."
"It was good," Ramon said. "Only thing was, with the camera like that, I couldn't see his face."
Elena grinned, made a bowl for herself and sat down. The atmosphere surrounding them seemed as fragile as blown glass. Ramon cleared his throat, but didn't have any words to follow up with, so he took a mouthful of gumbo. It