The two thugs crouched atop the roof of the neighborhood square’s squat church. The little building was nothing like the cathedral at the center of Heavy Nicodemia, but it bore evidence of meticulous care and exceptional craftsmanship. Those who lived this close to the top of the bead had the karma and cash to build this place of worship and the desire to properly maintain it. It was a testament to their faith and their priorities.

Of course, the fact that two thugs sat atop it like warts on a nose didn’t help its quaint appearance. The first, a woman half my height with thick arms and gray hair, leaned against the crenelations of the upper balcony. The second, a gangly man with a thick neck and thicker wrists, peered at the court below, clearly watching for someone to enter the area of the fountain. He held thin rifle held close to his leg.

I stood above them on the arched roof of the church for a long time while they watched the courtyard.

“What I would like to know,” I finally said, “is if Williams tipped you off or if you’ve been watching him and looking for trouble.”

They spun as one, but I was ready for it. I dropped down and wrenched the rifle out of the man’s grasp, casting it off the church roof. The woman swung a meaty fist at me, but her reach was too short. She slugged my elbow, which stung, but probably not as much as my reply of a quick jab in the neck. She gasped and stumbled away.

The man took advantage of my distraction, landing a solid kick to my calf. My leg buckled and I dropped to one knee, narrowly twisting to the side to avoid a clumsy haymaker.

He grabbed my arm and twisted. It would have been a good move, and showed a significant amount of skill and poise, but the man wasn’t used to fighting someone as big as me. His angle was awkward. Clumsy. I dropped my weight, pulled, and shoved him away. He crashed into his partner just as she was starting to stand.

“Apparently, it’s amateur hour.” My fists tightened till the knuckles popped, and I dropped into a fighting stance. “Do I need to repeat the question?”

The man was almost to his feet when the woman grabbed his arm. He shot her a look that let me know she was the one in charge.

Her voice was a ragged rasp when she spoke. Maybe I’d hit her harder than I thought, or maybe she’d stuffed her short life full of harsh cigarettes and strong whiskey. “What makes you think we’re here for you?”

“An out-of-control ego mostly,” I said. “That and some mighty suspicious timing.”

“Seems to me it’s within our rights to keep an eye on our assets,” said the guy, earning an absolutely filthy look from the woman.

“Williams is your asset then,” I said, as if thinking aloud.

“I never said that.”

The man shifted uncomfortably, and the two stood across the roof from me. My elbow ached from the guy’s joint lock, but otherwise I was ready for another round. My blood was pumping, and the sky was just beginning to yellow at the edges.

“Who do you work for?” I asked.

At some invisible signal, the man lunged for me. Again, I was ready. I threw a sloppy punch, which connected with knuckle-bruising force. The man’s head snapped back and he landed in a heap.

I swore and shook the pain out of my fist.

The woman slugged me hard in the side. Pain shot through my ribs like cheap fireworks. She gave me a good look of her brass knuckles when she swung them at my head.

I twisted away, turning something that might have killed me into only the worst headache I’d ever have.

My vision flashed and I doubled forward. She cracked my at the back of my skull, no doubt trying to knock my out flat.

My skull’s a hell of a lot harder than that.

I snatched her arm and pulled, a cheap imitation of the joint lock the man had used on me earlier. My technique wasn’t good, but with the size difference, it didn’t need to be. I lifted and pushed until she was backed up against the balcony’s edge. Her center of gravity went over the crenelations and I held her in place until my breathing slowed.

“Who do you work for?” I growled.

Her answer was a dead-eye stare. A challenge. Dammit. She was betting I wouldn’t toss her over the side, and she was right. Already, this was starting to draw attention from below. I pulled her back onto the roof. Using the tie from the man’s coat, I bound both of their arms together. She’d escape eventually, but it would take some time.

The man was still alive, thankfully. I hadn’t hit him hard enough to kill him outright. Good, probably. I didn’t need this man’s death on my conscience. I had plenty weighing that down already.

“Sure you don’t want to tell me why you’re here?” I asked.

She spat at me, which I took for a no. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any time left to change her mind.

With my sweep of the area complete, I felt moderately comfortable meeting Williams by the fountain. The sky blazed yellow and orange as I approached the bench. He was already there, looking nervous and suspicious, like a rat being confronted in the back of the pantry.

I walked up to him and stood in silence for a while, watching the sunset. The longer I waited, the longer the quiet cracked his defenses. First, he fidgeted, then he looked nervously at the church. Interesting. Did he know about the thugs?

Finally, he spoke. “When my wife left, it was all I could do to maintain partial custody of my kids. You understand this is all about them, right?”

“Sure.” I didn’t understand at all, but I needed to keep him talking.

“I can’t do that on my salary. Trinity doesn’t care about stuff like this. I’m not hurting anyone. Not really.”

“So you’re on the take.”

“Just a little extra on the side. All I do is give owners a little extra wiggle room. I’m not hurting anyone.”

I shook my head in disbelief. The man endangered the food safety of the entire lower half of the city, and he was convinced it wasn’t harmful. “I need details.”

“You’re better off not knowing.”

“Try me.”

“Sometimes red flags pop up because the algorithm isn’t quite right, but it’s not really a problem. Inspectors are sent to the establishment to check things out.”

“And that’s you?”

“Oh, no. I haven’t worked inspections in ages. All I do is push papers around.”

If the papers Saint Jerome gave me were any indication, it wasn’t a very exciting job. “And you make problems disappear.”

“No,” he said, suddenly panicked. “I would never. All I do is delay them a little so owners have a little extra time to get things fixed.”

“What kind of red flags are we talking about?”

A the edge of the square, near the little church, a man with a trombone opened his case and affixed a cup mute. His gnarled brown hands worked up the length of his ancient instrument like an old lover returned from a long absence. When he started playing, the emotion he poured into the instrument rolled across the courtyard in lazy waves. Above, the sky darkened.

“Sometimes the same people eat at the same place every day,” Williams said. “Maybe they like the music or maybe they’re really hooked on the food. Every day. Same time, same place.”

The muscle of my leg tightened where the man had landed the kick. It would ache more in the morning, but I let the pain color my expression for the briefest second.

“My job is to make sure the food’s safe, so what do I care, right? Trinity’s old. Maybe a thousand years ago food safety had to look out for restaurants slipping a little addictive opium into their food. I don’t know.”

It didn’t add up in my head. “Body, soul—”

“Community, yeah, I get it. But fuck that.”

“You make a solid point. So what’s the gig? Someone pays you off, you lose the papers for a bit?”

Williams scanned the rooftops again. When he didn’t see anyone, he said, “I’ve already said too much.”

He turned to leave, but I grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him close. “I think there’s more going on here and I want to know what.”

“There’s not, I swear!”

The trombone hit a high tremolo descending to a deep lull.

“Tell me, Williams.” I pushed him up against the fountain. “I’ve had enough of this.”

His lower jaw worked and a line of drool dripped onto his coat. He mouthed something over and over, but the words didn’t come out. A wet spot bloomed on his trousers.

I let go of him, and he landed with a splash. The trombonist slowed his tempo and chewed a few notes till they were good and tired.

It was a dilemma. This sniveling, weeping fool knew something more. I was sure of it. He was sitting in the fountain soaking in his own urine and scared of what I might do—or what someone else might do. All I wanted to know was how he fit into the papers still in my pocket. What was he covering up and why was Saint Jerome interested in this particular packet of information?

Darkness engulfed us, but the street lights followed several little social groups as they wandered through the square. A single yellow bulb illuminated the trombone player, who still wore dark sunglasses under his felt hat. He ended his song and watched Williams squirm out of the fountain.

“They’re not coming, Williams,” I growled, shifting so he could get a better look at the church. “Your friends decided to take a little nap instead.”

He whimpered.

The blues man hefted his trombone and started playing something cheery with a lot of slides.

“I can’t tell you any more, all right?” Williams snarled. His expression was animalistic in the deepened shadows. “Please.”

I don’t know what did it. It might have been the dedication he’d put into actually pissing himself or the real tears he was crying on my shoes, but I couldn’t bring myself to push him any further. I crossed the courtyard to where the trombonist played, dropped two dimes in his case, and walked down the dark street where nobody would see me for the failed investigator I was. By the time I circled around to the church, the two thugs had escaped.

The lights were bright outside the Kinderson Creek pub. It swarmed with the smug righteousness of its police patrons. Vehicles parked outside ranged from electric scooters to the larger people movers used to transport prisoners or troops alike. The slick cobbles outside smelled of whiskey vomit and cigarette smoke.

Problem was, it took too much effort to give a damn about McCay’s suspicious death. For that matter, caring about all the trouble surrounding Saint Jerome’s feud with Frank Lauder felt like pushing Sisyphus’ rock up the hill. They could all go to hell as far as I was concerned. Damn. Maybe they already had. Ever since I’d landed in the too-heavy version of Nicodemia I’d felt it pull down on my soul like concrete pulling down the feet of the doomed.

And Williams. He was connected to something big. The Saint didn’t want me digging into it, but mysteries don’t die easy for me. I didn’t even know if I had placed the right papers, I’d run out of there so fast.

I drew the papers out of my inside pocket. They were a little worn for all the excitement, but still in good enough shape to make the switch.

Except.

I put the papers to my nose and sniffed.

Nothing.

Rory’s awful whiskey had spilled on the papers Saint Jerome had given me. That meant they must be the papers that had been in the archives. I grunted to myself and put the papers back in my coat. That was one job done. Williams was an asshole, anyway. Let him get screwed by this paperwork, if that’s what it meant.

It wasn’t a good idea to put off work on Violet Ruiz’s job. Beck would want to see progress every day, and if I couldn’t provide it she’d make my life hell. My feelers were already out with Jason. There wasn’t much else for me to do.

I stared at the busy establishment before me. Glass shattered and the cops cheered. Wild and unruly just like any other gang in Nicodemia. The door opened, and inside I saw Anders laughing with a group of young officers.

Kinderson Creek was another in a long list of places I didn’t belong. The cops were another group who wouldn’t accept me. Instinct told me that Anders knew something important about McCay’s death. He would solve a mystery for me, but one look at him and exhaustion beat me down to a useless pulp. It crushed me into the slick cobbles and ground me to dust. Right then, the idea of walking into a busy pub and chatting up the blue felt like hiking from the tip of the Heavies up to the tallest heights of the Hallows.

So, I left. Beck was right. I needed to learn to let things go. McCay wouldn’t be any deader tomorrow. Or the next day. What I really needed right then was one good goddamn night of sleep. I’d speak with Anders another time.