At dinner the looters gathered around a massive table and gulped hungrily at their food. Tony stirred his own food around on his plate as if he wasn’t hungry—at least until Sasha announced she had some news from Chicago. “The internet’s out, and there’s no tv,” she explained to Tim and Buzzard, “but I got a cousin back east who calls me every once so often, and lets me know what’s happening.”

“You have a working phone?” Tim asked.

“Sure, how do you think Buzzard called me to say you guys were coming out here? The soldiers use their cell phones to keep in touch with each other, so they power up the network a couple hours every day. When I’ve got bars, I can call anywhere and I don’t think the phone company knows where to send my bills.”

That got a few laughs around the table, until Tony sat up in his seat and demanded to know what the news was. His mother reached to pat his arm but he pulled it away.

Sasha wiped her mouth with a napkin, then took a long drink of soda before she answered. She was milking it, pushing Tony’s buttons, which Tim thought had to be a spectacularly bad idea, but he supposed she knew what she was doing. Either that or she was just bored and saw some entertainment value in ratcheting the big guy up. “Ten confirmed cases in Chicago. And there’s rumors it’s as far east as Atlanta. The military is clamping down hard but they can’t stop this thing, just slow it a little.”

“That’s… that’s too bad. For Chicago, anyway,” Tony said. He stared down at his plate for a second, then reached for the salt.

Tim could hardly blame him for wanting the plague to spread, if he thought about it. Tony had managed to live free, away from the tyranny of men like Horne, for a while. If order was ever restored, though, if Seattle was cleaned up and turned over to its citizens again, he could be facing a lot of trouble. Horne had rights under martial law to shoot any looters he found and Tim didn’t think the Colonel would hesitate if he got the chance.

“So,” Tony said, after shoveling food in his mouth for a minute, “we have some new faces at the table today. That’s nice, huh? We’re getting pretty sick of looking at each other all the time.”

Pat, who was dressed in his silk pajamas even at dinner, raised a glass and said, “Hear, hear,” but no one followed suit.

“Buzzard, we’ve dealt with you before. You’re one of our favorite clients,” Tony announced. “We look forward to dealing with you and your people for a long time to come. You, though. Tim. This is your first time. You risked a lot coming out here—was there something in specific you wanted, or are you writing a book, too?”

Tim smiled at the looters. “No, no, I have something very specific in mind. I want to buy a boat.”

Tony threw an arm over the back of his chair. “We don’t have any to spare. Maybe we can work something out, though. Where you headed?”

“Seattle. I used to live in Seward Park and I have some business to attend to there.”

Pat clinked his fork loudly against his plate, but shook his head when everyone looked at him. “Just surprised, is all. Who would want to go there? It’s a death trap.”

“Keep your opinion to yourself,” Mikey told him. The tattooed face was turned toward where Tony sat at the head of the table. “We don’t ask questions of our clients, do we? A man wants to kill himself, that’s his business.”

“Sure. But I wouldn’t want to send a boat over there,” Tony said, frowning. “It might not come back.”

“I’ll take him,” Sasha said. “I can drop him wherever he wants, right under the Space Needle. Wherever. I don’t even have to go ashore, just drop him and then head back out onto the water. No muss, no fuss.”

Tony nodded agreeably. “Sure. Then you could come back later, pick him up. If you want to get picked up, that is.”

Tim shrugged. “I suppose so. It shouldn’t take too long to do what I need to do. I’ll need something else, though. I need a gun.”

Half the table laughed at that one. There were shotguns and rifles standing upright in every corner of the dining room—far more of them than there were diners.

“Take your pick. Of course, none of this comes cheap,” Tony said.

“I didn’t expect a free ride.” Tim picked up his pack and laid it on the table. “I have about two thousand dollars with me.”

More laughter.

“You got a place to spend it, too?” Mikey asked.

Tim hadn’t expected it to be that easy. “Alright. I can trade information. Like I say, I used to live here. I know where all the richest pickings are, I can direct you to places full of good stuff—”

Tony waved a hand in the air. “Half of us were born in the Emerald City, man. You’re going to have to do better than that. What have you got that’s actually useful to us? Buzzard and his people have fresh food and stuff. You got some green vegetables in there, huh? Enough to feed us all?”

Tim shook his head. There was a half-eaten Twinkie in there, wrapped up in foil to keep insects out.

He had one other thing, which he’d been saving for himself. It would be a small price to pay for what he needed, though.

“You’re a family man, Tony, isn’t that right?”

The looter smiled at his mom.

“I can appreciate that. I used to have a family. In fact, that’s why I’m here. There was a guy—a drooler, now—and he took my family away. He killed my wife and my son without mercy or compassion.”

“That sucks,” Tony said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “Still. I need—”

“I think maybe you need this.” Tim took two boxes of pills out of the pack and set them on the table. “Or to be more specific, I think your brother needs them.”

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