Fired Up

bought a cup of coffee and a breakfast pastry for Mountain Man. The barista gave Hector his usual day-old muffin. Chloe and Mountain Man sat at a table in the corner. Hector settled down beneath the table. Mountain Man liked having coffee with them, and it wasn’t just the fact that the coffee and pastry were free. Chloe knew that for him it was a way of slipping back into a half- remembered dream of a time when he had lived a normal life.
    “Hector wants to know if you’ve had any more nightmares,” Chloe said.
    “Last night was okay,” Mountain Man said to Hector. “No dreams.”
    Her work was holding, Chloe thought, checking the psi prints on the coffee cup. Eventually the nightmares would return, but it looked like his dream spectrum was calm for now, or at least what passed for calm in Mountain Man’s badly damaged dream psi.
    Afterward they went back out onto First Avenue. A blanket of fog had settled over the city, sending it into a cold, gray twilight zone.
    “Thanks for the coffee, Big Guy,” Mountain Man said. He adjusted the heavy duffel that contained all his worldly possessions and gave Hector one last pat. “See ya.”
    Hector licked Mountain Man’s hand.
    “Good-bye,” Chloe said. “Hector says to tell you not to forget the rest of those pills.”
    “I won’t,” Mountain Man assured Hector.
    He turned and started off across the intersection, but he stopped midway and swung around. His weathered face was tightly knotted. Intelligence and a glittering urgency sparked briefly in his faded eyes.
    “Hector,” Mountain Man said. But his voice was different. No longer a vague mumble, it crackled with command.
    Hector pricked his ears in response.
    “You tell her to be careful,” Mountain Man said, still speaking in that sharp, no-nonsense tone.
    Chloe looked at him. “Hector wants to know why I should be careful.”
    “This morning feels like it did that other time,” Mountain Man said. But the flicker of awareness was already fading from his eyes, and the military crispness in his voice was deteriorating back into a mumble. “At least I think it does.”
    “What happened the last time?” Chloe said. “Hector wants to know.”
    “Bastards were waitin’ for us. Ambush. I could feel it. Told the lieutenant. He wouldn’t listen. Said the intel was good. SOBs took him out first.”
    An icy shiver ruffled her senses. “I’ll be careful.”
    Satisfied, Mountain Man continued on across the intersection.
    She looked at the glowing footprints on the pavement. Beneath the layers of the unwholesome energy generated by addiction and mental as well as physical illness was the thin, wispy light of a measure of talent. It was no doubt one of the things that had kept Mountain Man alive when he and the others walked into that ambush in the desert. One of the things that kept him alive on the streets.

    ROSE WAS AT HER DESK, deep into a heavy tome that bore the equally heavy title Fundamentals of Psychology. She looked up when Chloe and Hector came through the door.
    “We need to talk, boss.”
    “That sounds ominous,” Chloe said.
    She went on into her office, sat down behind her desk and powered up her computer.
    Rose slapped the book down and hurried into the inner office.
    “I know you, boss,” she said. “You’re afraid that maybe Jack Winters is attracted to you just because you found that lamp for him, aren’t you? That maybe what he feels for you is gratitude.”
    “Wouldn’t be the first time a man went through that phase after a case was closed.” She watched her calendar open. “Oh, good, I see you made a couple of appointments for me with new clients.”
    Rose glanced at the calendar. “The one this afternoon is Barbara Rollins. You did some work for her husband last year, remember?”
    “I arranged for him to acquire some very nice Roman glass.”
    “Turns out Mr. Rollins died a couple of months ago. The widow is getting ready to sell his collection. She wants to talk to you about moving the pieces on the private collectors’ market.”
    “The same way that her husband acquired them.” Chloe made a note.
    Rose cleared her throat. “Listen, about Jack Winters.”
    “What about him?”
    “He may be feeling grateful to you, but that is definitely not why he is sleeping with you. By the way, speaking of sleep, do you realize that in the entire time I’ve known you, Jack is the only man you’ve allowed to stay overnight? This is huge, boss. A major breakthrough