His years in Vice led him by habit through the dirtiest sections of town; the parts the tourist brochures never mention but the tourists often found anyway. Neon signs advertising pawn shops and discount liquor stores glowed dimly behind metal grates. Boarded-up, burned-out buildings lined one entire block. Shot-out streetlamps stood uselessly like blind watchmen. Great lakes of rainwater formed on the road where clumps of wet garbage blocked the sewers. The smell of rotting filth overpowered the pine-fresh scent of the little air freshener dangling from the mirror. Neither hooker nor john ventured out on a night like this.

Tyler white-knuckled the steering wheel, his SUV hydroplaning around the corner. “Goddamn it!” He cursed the road, the SUV, the weather, and most of all his Goddamn friends who’d convinced him to meet them for drinks and then begged off.

“You’re all a bunch of wimps!” he yelled at the road.

He drove cautiously through the storm, unable to remember the last time he’d seen weather this crappy. Must have been winter of ’99. He’d been on stakeout and—

He slammed on the breaks so violently he shot upright in the driver’s seat, smacking his head on the roof of the car. The car fishtailed wildly out of control. He skidded sideways, halting just inches from the bedraggled guy meandering in the street in front of him. The drunk or whatever staggered straight into his SUV anyway, careening off the bumper only to wander into the other lane.