She mugged for him. "Sweetie, I take pictures of the mafiyeh." Then it was all right between them again, somehow. "Right," Kettlewell said. "How's our time looking?" "Got thirty minutes until the first of the merchants show up. An hour until the riders start turning up." "You don't have a lawyer, do you?" Perry quirked his funny eyebrow. "Stupid question. OK. Right, I'll make some more calls. Let's get some people out of bed." "What can I do?" Kettlewell looked at him. "Huh. Um. This is really my beat now. I suppose you could go keep Suzanne company." "Gee, thanks." "Something wrong with Suzanne?" "Nothing's wrong with Suzanne," he said. "OK, off I go." He set off on foot. The shantytown had woken up now, people getting ready for the hike to the early busses into places where the few remaining jobs were. He took his phone out and tossed it from hand to hand. Then he called the number that he'd programmed in all those days ago in Madison but had never bothered to call. He forgot until the ringing started that it was another time-zone there -- an hour or two earlier. But when Hilda answered, she sounded wide awake. "Nice of you to call," she said. "Nice of you to answer." Her voice sent a thrill up his spine. "We've got cops outside of the ride here," she said. "We've only been live for a week, too." "They're at every ride," he said. "They shut us down too." "Well, what are you going to do about it?" "What am *I* going to do about it?" "Sure, this is your thing, Perry. We woke up and discovered the cops this morning and the first thing everyone did was wonder when you'd call with the plan." "You're kidding. What do I know about cops?" "What do any of us know about cops? All we know is we built this thing after you came and talked to us about it and now it's been shut down, so we're waiting for you to tell us what to do next." He groaned and sat down on a curb. "Oh, crap." Then she sighed heavily at the other end. "OK, Perry, you need to pull it together. We need you now. We need something that explains what's going on, what to do next, and how to do it. There's a lot of energy out here, a lot of people ready to fight. Just point us in the right direction." "I have a guy who's trying to figure that out right now." "Perfect. Now you need to set up a conference call with every ride operator so we can talk this over. Get online and post a time and an address. I'll chat it up and make some calls. You make some calls too. Everyone likes to hear from you. They like to know you're on their side." "Right," he said, getting back to his feet, turning around to get his computer out of his trunk. "Right. That's totally the right thing to do. I'm on it." "Good man," she said. A little pause stretched between them. "So," he said. "How you doing, apart from all this?" Her laugh was merry. "I thought you'd never ask. I'm looking forward to your next visit, is how I'm doing." "Really?" "Of course really."