Unwirer Archives

Story: Charlie (revised)

We got some diffs confused between my copy and Cory's copy, so this is a merge of changes between the two versions. No new material here.

Word count to date: 7522 words

Story: Charlie

"Not yet, you aren't," the voice said again, this time without the amplification, much closer. Roscoe looked in the rear-view at the sillhouette of the woman cop, flipping her handcuffs on her belt, stepping carefully on the ice surface. In her bulky parka, she could have been any state trooper, but the way she flipped her cuffs --

"Go go go," hissed Marcel from the back seat. "*Vite*!"

"Sit tight," Sylvie said.

From the back seat, a click. Roscoe kept his eyes on the rear- view: "Marcel, *keep down*." He rolled down his window. "Evening, officer," he said. Her face was haloed by the light bouncing off her breath's fog, but he recognized her. Had seen her, the day before, hanging off the edge of the gorge, aiming an antenna Canadawards.

"Evening sir," she said. "Evening, ma'am. Nice night, huh? Doing some bird-watching?"

Made. Roscoe's testicles shriveled up and tried to climb into his abdomen. His feet and hands weren't cold, they were *numb*. He couldn't have moved if he tried. He couldn't go back --

Another click. A flashlight. The cop shone it on Sylvie. Roscoe turned. The concealer was smudged around her scar.

"Officer, really, is this necessary?" Sylvie's voice was exasperated, and had a Manhattan accent she hadn't had before, one that made her sound aggro. "It was just the heat of the moment."

Roscoe touched his lips and his finger came back with a powdering of concealer and a smudge of lipstick.

"Yes, ma'am, it is. Sir, could you step out of the car, please?"

Another noise from the back seat, a second click. Fucking Marcel. Jesus. Moving as in a dream, Roscoe reached for the ignition. The engine coughed to life and he slammed it into gear, cranking hard on the wheel, turning away from the cop, a wide circle through the empty parking lot that he came out of in a an uncontrolled fishtail, swinging back on forth on the slick paving.

"Hey! STOP!" The amplified voice from the police car yelled after them. As the truck slid round he got a confused view of the cop reaching for something at her belt. Roscoe downshifted manually, feeling the gearbox judder as it switched traction between wheels in a barely-controlled skid. Everything happened in real-world slow-mo, like a goddamn nightmare. Marcel was sitting up yanking at the window. Sylvie yelled something and flailed at him over the bench seat and Roscoe flinched. There was a bang as the truck drifted against a fencepost, throwing Roscoe against the steering wheel: Marcel went down. Then the wheels were biting again, chewing down on fresh-fallen snow, and Roscoe heel-and-toed into the driveway.

Something cracked outside Marcel's open window. *Are they shooting?* he wondered, then hit the switch that killed all the lights, even the brake lamps. His guts cramped as he blinked at the darkness, trying to see how the path ran. His palms were slippery with fear as he nudged the wheel, hearing the high whine of first gear and feeling the judder of the wheels slipping and sliding. Another thud and he careened off a back of compacted snow. "Hey, mind where you're going!" Marcel snarled from the back seat.

"Shut the fuck up." Roscoe's knuckles were tight on the wheel. The sound of a siren rose behind them -- then there was a muffled banging sound that seemed to go on for an age, the thud of metal screeching as the police cruiser spun out into the chainlink fence at the top of the hill. "Let me explain something." *Shift into second.* "You'd better check your seat harness." *Feel the wheels skitter and begin to spin on the slick icy surface.* "Because we *are* going to run out of fucking road any moment now." Sirens rising in the background again, and Roscoe managed to keep the wheels on the road as it snaked off to the left in a treacherous curve.

"Better ditch the gun, Marcel," Sylvie said tensely. "If they catch you with it --"

"They won't catch us," Marcel replied nonchalantly.

*A gun?* Roscoe's skin crawled. *No time, not now --* a wider darkness loomed up ahead of him and he hit the brakes, felt ABS juddering and shaking as they ground to a halt. He glanced sideways and saw a gathering light, the high beams of a car rounding the curve of the road in front of them. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds then, as soon as the car slid past, he pulled out and set his eyes on the red glow of its tail lights. "If that's a gun you've got, you can get out and walk home," he said conversationally. "See, that's a parole violation. Good for five years in the big house if I'm caught with you. And we are probably going to be caught now, thanks to your antics."

"They won't catch us," Marcel repeated, less confidently.

"Well you can fucking throw the gear out the side window right now," Roscoe said firmly. "*All* of it. Cans, relays, batarangs. 'Fraid that goes for you too, Sylvie."

"Shit." Sylvie sounded mildly annoyed, but the blast of cold air told him she'd wound down her window. "You going to do like he says, Marcel?" She asked.

"Shit." With poor grace, Marcel wound his window down and threw something cylindrical out into the night. Roscoe flipped a mental dime then brought up the lights, running lights only, just enough to see what the hell he was doing. About twenty five, it turned out, on a mostly gritted road.

"We've got maybe two minutes," He announced. "They'll have radio'd ahead." *Slowing, slowing, gentle on the brakes.* The truck drifted to a halt. "Okay, Marcel. *Out*. Now."

"What?" Marcel's voice rose in a whine: "what you doing, man? What do you want?"

"I want you out of this truck right now," Roscoe grated. "I want *all* the gear out. If that's a fucking gun you've got I want *it* out too. You can hitch, no trouble, I'll meet you back at the apartment after the cops get through with us. But you *are* getting out now, because if they find you with the gear I'm going to cram your head so far up your ass you can see daylight. Capisce?"

"I get it." Marcel sounded sullen. "We got away but you want to take it out on --"

"We haven't gotten away," Sylvie said clearly. "They'll pick us up in the next five minutes. They've got this little thing called *radio*, Marcel, and helicopters and SWAT teams and things. They're the Man." Roscoe stared at her side profile intently. The tiny crows-foot wrinkles by the side of her eyes. "A panicky couple dating in the wrong car park they might buy. An unwirer with a trunk full of cans and an unregistered gun is another matter."

"Put it this way," Roscoe added, "one of us is walking home."

*Click*. The rear door opened. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going." Marcel slammed the door shut. "Get on with it!"

Sylvie caught Roscoe's eye, gave an imperceptible nod, and he goosed the gas pedal. Marcel stood by the road, forlorn in the tail lights, and for a moment Roscoe almost had second thoughts. Then Sylvie's low whistle brought him back to himself. "Stop the truck round the next bend. Okay?" He nodded.

When he stopped, Sylvie unfastened her harness. "Wait," she told him. He stared blindly out through the windshield as she walked round the truck, rooting in the load bed then in the back seat legwell where Marcel had been crouched. Her torch spun shards of broken light off the ceiling. A muffled curse, and she was back in the passenger seat next to him. "Okay, we're clean now," she said.

"Right." Roscoe put the truck in gear cautiously. "Find anything?"

"Does Marcel take the trash out when you ask him to? And does he hunt?" Sylvie asked.

"Huh? He doesn't hunt, but he pulls his weight on the housekeeping. Grumbles a bit. Why?"

"I found a couple of empty Pringles cans under the seat. And this." She held up a rifle cartridge for him to see, then wound down the window and threw it hard into the night. "And a dime bag of what the Brits call whacky backy."

Roscoe thumped the steering wheel and swore. "He's getting careless."

"What do you mean, getting?" Sylvie raised an eyebrow. There were lights ahead, red and blue lights just visible through the trees lining the road. "Uh huh, trouble. Slow down." Roscoe hit the brakes. "This is where we learn to bluff." She leaned over towards him. "Kiss me. No, I mean mouth to mouth. Mmm. That's better. No, don't rub it off." She fumbled with her jacket, speaking in a low monotone: "remember we didn't know it was a private car park, we just wanted some privacy as your housemate's at home and you're really sorry you panicked and your pants are undone, and you won't do it again and then I pull my press card and we try to get you off with a ticket or a caution. Okay?"

"Check." Roscoe's mouth was dry and his heart thudded. *This can't be happening*, he told himself. Sylvie's hand on his thigh told him that it was.

"He set you up," she added as she unzipped his fly. "You do realize that, don't you?"

Word count to date: 7488 words

Administrivia: More plot noodling

Danger: plot discussion. Don't read the extended entry if you don't like spoilers.

Story: Cory

"Not yet, you aren't," the voice said again, this time without the amplification, much closer. Roscoe looked in the rear-view at the sillhouette of the woman cop, flipping her handcuffs on her belt, stepping carefully on the ice surface. In her bulky parka, she could have been any state trooper, but the way she flipped her cuffs --

"Go go go," hissed Marcel from the back seat. "*Vite*!"

"Sit tight," Sylvie said.

From the back seat, a click. A gun being cocked. Roscoe kept his eyes on the rear-view, and mumbled, "Marcel, if that is a gun I just heard, I am going to shove it up your fucking ass and pull the trigger."

Roscoe rolled down his window. "Evening, officer," he said. Her face was haloed by the light bouncing off her breath's fog, but he recognized her. Had seen her, the day before, hanging off the edge of the gorge, aiming an antenna Canadawards.

"Evening sir," she said. "Evening, ma'am. Nice night, huh? Doing some bird-watching?"

Made. Roscoe's testicles shriveled up and tried to climb into his abdomen. His feet and hands weren't cold, they were *numb*. He couldn't have moved if he tried. He couldn't go back --

Another click. A flashlight. The cop shone it on Sylvie. Roscoe turned. The concealer was smudged around her scar.

"Officer, really, is this necessary?" Sylvie's voice was exasperated, and had a Manhattan accent she hadn't had before, one that made her sound aggro. "It was just the heat of the moment."

Roscoe touched his lips and his finger came back with a powdering of concealer and a smudge of lipstick.

"Yes, ma'am, it is. Sir, could you step out of the car, please?"

Roscoe reached for his seatbelt, and the flashlight swung toward the back seat. The cop's eyes flickered behind him, and then she slapped for her holster, stepping back quickly. "Everyone hands where I see them NOW!"

Fucking Marcel. Jesus.

She was still fumbling with her holster, and there was the sound of the car door behind her opening. "Liz?" a voice called. The other cop, her partner. 4th and Walnut. "Everything OK?"

She was staring wide-eyed now, panting out puffs of steam. Staring at the rear window. Roscoe looked over his shoulder. Marcel had a small pistol out, pointed at her.

"Drive, Roscoe," he said. "Drive fast."

Moving as in a dream, he reached for the ignition. The engine coughed to life and he slammed it into gear, cranking hard on the wheel, turning away from the cop, a wide circle through the empty parking lot that he came out of in a an uncontrolled fishtail, swinging back on forth on the slick paving.

Word count to date: 6415

Story: Charlie

"Okay, pass me the next." Roscoe breathed deeply as Marcel went back to the truck for the other repeated. *This* one worked fine. But it still left them with a problem. "Didn't you bring a third?" Roscoe asked.

"What for?" Marcel shrugged. "I swear I tested them both back home -- maybe it's the cold, or something?"

"Shit." Roscoe stamped his feet and looked back at the road. Sylvie was standing close to the truck, hands in her pockets, looking interested. He glanced at the hill and the microwave mast on top of it. A light blinked regularly, warm and red like an invitation.

"Why'n't we try the hill?" Marcel asked. "Then we could make do with one."

Roscoe stared at the mast. "Let me think." He picked up the working repeater and shambled back to the truck cab absent-mindedly, weighing the options. "Come on."

"What now?" asked Sylvie, climbing in the passenger seat.

"I think." Roscoe turned the ignition key. "Kid has half a point. We've only got the one unit, if we can stick it on the mast it'll do the job." He turned half-round in his seat to stare at Marcel. "But we are *not* going to get caught, y'hear?" He glanced at Sylvie. "If you think it's not safe, I'll give you a lift home first. Or bail. It's your call. Everyone gets a veto."

Sylvie stared at him through slitted eyes. Then she whistled tunelessly. "It's your ass. Don't get into this just because I'm watching."

"Okay." Roscoe put the truck in gear. "You guys keep an eye out behind for any sign of anything at all, anyone following us." He pulled away slowly, driving with excruciating care. "Marcel? Stick that bag under my seat, will you?"

The side-road up to the crest of the hill was dark, shadowed by snow-laden trees to either side. Roscoe took it slowly; a couple of times there was a whine as the all-wheel drive cut in on the uncleared snow. "No fast getaways," Sylvie noted quietly.

"We're not bank robbers." Roscoe shifted down a gear and turned in to the driveway leading to the mast. There was an empty parking lot at the end, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a gate in it. On the other side, the mast rose from a concrete plinth, towering above them like a giant intrusion from another world. Roscoe pulled up and killed the lights. "Anyone see anything?"

"No," said Marcel from the back seat.

"Looks okay to -- hey, wait!" Sylvie did a double-take. "Stop! Don't open the door!"

"Why --" Marcel began.

"Stop. Just stop." Sylvie seemed agitated and right then Roscoe, his eyes recovering from headlight glare, noticed the faint shadows. "Marcel, *get down*!"

"What's up?" Marcel asked, sounding confused.

"Crouch down! Below window level!" Sylvie was insistent. She turned to Roscoe. "Looks like you were right."

"I was right?" Roscoe looked past her. The shadows were getting sharper and now he could hear the other vehicle. "Shit. We've been --" He reached towards the ignition key and Sylvie slapped his hand away. "Ouch!"

"Here." She leaned forward, sparing a glance for the back seat where Marcel was crouching down. "Make it look like you mean it."

"Mean what --" Roscoe got it a moment before she kissed him. He responded automatically, hugging her as the truck cab flooded with light.

"*You! Out of the* -- oh fuck." The amplified voice trailed off. Sylvie and Roscoe turned and blinked at the spotlights mounted on the gray Dodge van as its doors opened.

Sylvie wound down the side window and stuck her head out. "I don't know what you're playing at, but you can fuck right off!" she yelled angrily. "Fucking voyeurs!"

Word count to date: 5888 words

Story: Cory

"How many unwirers are there working in the area?" Sylvie said, breaking the silence.

Marcel said, "Just us," at the same moment as Roscoe said, "dozens." Sylvie laughed.

"We're solo," Roscoe said, "but there are lots of other solos in the area. It's not a *conspiracy*, you know -- more like an emergent form of democracy."

Sylvie looked up from her palmtop. "That's from a manifesto, isn't it?"

Marcel pinked. "Guilty as charged. Got it from Barlow's *Letters from Prison.* I read a lot of prison-lit. Before I went into the joint."

"Amateurs plagiarize, artists steal," she said. "Might as well steal from the best. Barlow talks a mean stick. You know he wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead?"

"Yeah," Marcel said. "I got into unwiring through some deadhead tape-traders who were importing open recorders from Germany to take to shows. One of them hooked me up with -- someone -- who could get French networking gear. It was just a few steps from there to fun-loving criminal, undermining the body politic."

#

Marcel came out of his sulk when they got to the site. He loaded up his backpack and a surveyor's tripod and was the model of efficiency as he lined up the bank-shot around the hill that would get their signal out and about.

Sylvie hung back with Roscoe, who was taking all the gear through a series of tests, using his unweildy laptop and two home-made antennae to measure signal-strength. "Got to get it right the first time. Don't like to revisit a site after it's set up. Dog returning to its vomit and all."

She took out her keychain and dangled it in the path of the business-end of the repeater Roscoe was testing. "I'm getting good directional signal," she said, turning the keychain so he could see the glowing blue LEDs arranged to form the distinctive Nokia "N."

Roscoe reached for the fob. "These are just *wicked*," he said.

"Keep it," she said. "I've got a few more in my room. They had a fishbowl full of them on the reception desk in Helsinki. The more lights, the better the signal."

Roscoe felt an obscure species of embarassment, like he was a primitive, tacking up tin cans and string around a provincial backwater of a country. "Thanks," he said, gruffly. "Hey, Marcel, you got us all lined up?"

"Got it."

Only he didn't. They lined up both repeaters and tested each link, but the signal drop-off on each segment was near-total. Bad solder joints, interference from the microwave tower, gremlins... Who knew? Sometimes a shot just didn't work and debugging it in the frigid winter dusk wasn't anyone's idea of a fun time.

Word count to date: 5306

Story: Charlie

They hit the road closer to five than to four. It was chilly, and the gathering clouds and intermittent breeze promised more snow after dark when Roscoe parked outside the apartment. Marcel was ready and waiting, positively jumping up and down as soon as Roscoe opened the door. "Let's go, man!"

Back in the cab Sylvie was making notes on a palmtop. "Hi," she said guardedly, making eye contact with Marcel.

"Hi yourself." Marcel smiled. "Where we going tonight, man? I brought the stuff." He dumped Roscoe's toolbox and a bag containing a bunch of passive repeaters on the bench seat next to him.

"We're heading for $SUBURB." Roscoe looked over his shoulder as he backed the truck into the street, barely noticing Sylvie watching him. "There's a low hill there that's blocking signal to the mesh in $HOOD_1, and we're going to do something about that."

"Great!" Marcel shuffled about to get comfortable as Roscoe cautiously drove along the icy road. "Hey, isn't there a microwave mast up there?"

"Yeah." Sylvie was making notes. "By the way, if you could keep from saying exactly where we're placing the repeaters? In your article? Otherwise FCC'll just take 'em straight down."

"Okay." Sylvie put her pocket computer down. It was one of those weird Brit designs with the folding keyboards and built-in wireless that had trashed Palm all over Europe. "So you're going to, what? String a bunch of repeaters along a road around the hillside?"

"Pretty much that, exactly. Should only need two or three at the most, and it's wooded around there. I figure an hour for each and we can be home by nine, grab a Chinese on the way."

"Why don't we use the microwave mast?" Marcel chipped in.

"Huh?"

"The microwave mast," Marcel repeated. "We go up there, we put one repeater on it, and we bounce signal *over* the kill, no need to go 'round the bushes."

"I don't think so," Roscoe said absently. "Criminal tresspass."

"But it'd save time! And they'd never look up there, it'll look just like any other phone company dish --"

Roscoe sighed. "I am so not hearing this." He paused for a few seconds, merging with another lane of traffic. "Listen, if we get caught climbing a tree by the roadside I can drop the cans and say I was bird spotting. They'll never find them. But if I get caught climbing a phone company microwave tower that is criminal tresspass, *and* they'll probably nail me for felony theft of service, and going equipped for a felony -- they'll find the cans for sure, it's like a parking lot around the base of those things -- and parole breach. I'll be back in prison while you're still figuring out how to hitch-hike home. So enough about saving time, okay? I'm not putting my ass on the line to save time."

"Okay," Marcel said patiently, "we'll do it your way." He crossed his arms and stared out the window at the passing trees under their winter caul of snow.

Word count to date: 4810 words

Story: Cory

He grinned despite himself. Marcel was good at fonzing dishes into place with one well-placed whack, could crack him up when the winter slush was turning his mood to pitch. He was a good kid, basically. Hot head. Like Roscoe, once.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon," Marcel said, and he could picture the kid pogoing up and down in a phone-booth, heard his boots crunching on rock-salt.

He covered the receiver and turned to Sylvie, who had a bemused smirk that wasn't half cute on her. "You wanna hit the road, right?" She nodded. "You wanna write about how unwirers get made? I could bring along the kid I'm 'prenticing-up, you like." Through the cellphone, he heard Marcel shouting "Yes! Yes! YES!" and imagined the kid punching the air and pounding the booth's walls triumphantly.

"It's a good angle," she said. "*You* want him along, right?"

He held the receiver in the air so that they could both hear the hollers coming down the line. "I don't think I could live with him if I didn't take him," he said, "so yeah."

She nodded and bit her upper lip, just where the scar was, an oddly canine gesture that thrust her chin forward and made her look slightly belligerent. "Let's do it."

He clamped the phone back to his head. "Marcel! Calm down, twerp! Breathe. OK. You gonna be good if I take you along?"

"So good, man, so very very very very good, you won't believe --"

"You gonna be *safe*, I bring you along?"

"Safe as houses. Won't breathe without your permission. Man, you are the *best* --"

"Yeah, I am. Four PM. Bring the stuff."

Word count to date: 4332

Story: Charlie

"You can be as famous as you like, inside the state pen," Roscoe said wearily. "Like I said, all I'm planning on doing is installing a couple of new peers. What more do you want?"

"Got this great idea, boss. It's about $SUBURB_2, an' I've been doing some checking. You been complaining we can't get signal in there cuz of the $TERRAIN_OBSTACLE? But there's a TV tower on top of $TERRAIN_OBSTACLE. I was thinking, we could climb the tower and put in a repeater --"

"For fuck's sake!" Roscoe caught himself glaring at Sylvie; he hastily moderated his expression with a shrug of apology. "Listen, we are *not* going to do that, do you understand? Do the words 'criminal' and 'tresspass' ring any bells? And we are not going to pull any half-assed publicity stunts on my watch. Hold it -- hold it! No complaints. You've been drinking, kid. Go watch some TV or something then go to bed, we'll talk about this in the morning. No, I'm trying to save your sorry ass, what part of 'prison is not a summer camp' don't you understand? Yeah, well fuck you too. *Asshole*," he added with feeling, closing the phone with a snap.

"Who was *that*?" Sylvie asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"Damn idiot kid I'm trying to keep out of prison." Roscoe sighed. "Doesn't seem to get the distinction between changing the world an inch at a time and going for a yard and getting taken down. He gets beered up now and again and gets these
silly ideas --"

"They're supposed to be running sabs in New Mexico," Sylvie interrupted. "What he was saying, I'm sorry I couldn't help over-hearing, he sounded pretty provocative."

Roscoe sighed. "More like young, ballsy and convinced he can't ever put a foot wrong."

"I'd still worry about agents provocateur. I got this heavy lecture from my desk editor about COINTELPRO -- that was back when he was a cub reporter -- and what I'm hearing out there does sound a lot like that. FCC agents moving into town, setting up false identities and joining groups, then trying to make them pull stupid stunts."

Roscoe looked pensive. "Naah, Marcel's not together enough to be doing that. I know his type; I was like that once."

"What changed you?"

"Prison." Roscoe pulled a face. "Losing my house, my wife, and my job. It's like getting run over -- I was roadkill on the information superhighway. They were going to make an example of me and only some neat footwork by my defense attorney bargained me down from getting a heavier sentence than a serial rapist. For giving away uncensored bandwidth."

"Uh-huh." Sylvie, he realised, had a tiny pocket recorder running, one of those Taiwanese solid-state ones that looked like a piece of cubist jewellery. She was gadget central, it seemed, like a visitor from another planet. "That's really heavy. Do you have any ideas you're willing to have quoted about why they're so down on unwirers? I mean, doing the full-dress Prohibition routine in guys like yourself, the raids, the exemplary sentencing, the COINTELPRO stuff?"

Word count to date: 4579 words

Story: Cory

Sylvie's hotel-room had a cigarette-burns-and-must squalor that reminded Roscoe of jail. "Bonjour, M'sieu," she said as she admitted him.

"Bon soir, madame," he said. "Commentava?"

"Oy," she said. "My granmother woulda said, 'you've got a no-accent on you like a Litvak.' Lookee here, the treasures of the Left Bank." She handed him the Motorola batarang he'd glimpsed earlier. The underside had a waxed-paper peel-off strip and when he lifted a corner, his thumb stuck so hard to the tackiness beneath that he lost the top layer of skin when he pulled it loose. He turned it over in his hands.

"How's it powered?"

"Radio energy, natch. It sucks up a little of the radio it emits and uses it to power its antenna. Passive repeater -- doesn't draw too many amps. Put one in a subway car and you've got an instant ad-hoc network that everyone in the car can use. Put one in the next car and they'll mesh. Put one on the platform and you'll get connectivity with the train when it pulls in."

"Shitfire," he said, stroking the matte finish in a way that bordered on the erotic.

She grinned. She was slightly snaggletoothed, and he noticed a scar on her upper lip from a cleft-palette operation that must have been covered up with concealer earlier. "Total cost of goods is about three Euros, and Moto's margin is five hundred percent. But some Taiwanese knock-offs have already appeared that slice that in half. Moto'll have to invent something new next year if it wants to keep that profit."

"They will," Roscoe said, still stroking the batarang. He transferred it to his armpit and unslung his luggable laptop. "Innovation is still legal there." The laptop sank into the orange bedspread and the soft mattress beneath it.

"You could do some real damage with one of these, I bet," she said.

"With a thousand of them, maybe," he said. "If they were a little less conspicuous."

Her chest began to buzz. She slipped a wee phone from her breast-pocket and answered it. "Yes?" She handed the phone to Roscoe. "It's for you." She made a curious face at him.

He clamped it to his ear. "Who is this?"

"Eet eez eye, zee masked avenger, doer of naughty deeds and wooer of reporters' hearts."

"Marcel?"

"Yes, boss."

"You shouldn't be calling me on this number." He remembered the yellow pad, sitting on his bedside table. Marcel did all the dusting.

"Sorry, boss," he said. He giggled.

"Have you been drinking?" Marcel and he had bonded over many, many beers since they'd met in a bar in Utica, but Roscoe didn't drink these days. Drinking made you sloppy.

"No, no," he said. "Just in a good mood is all. I'm sorry we fought, darlin', can we kiss and make up?"

"What do you want, Marcel?"

"I want to be in the story, dude. Hook me up! I want to be famous!"

Word count to date: 4057