24.

I take the brochure from my pocket, unfold it, lay it out flat on the coffee table.

PAVED WITH GOLD.

WHY WAIT?

Change of plan.

No sniper shot. No side-on suicide motorcade collision. No kamikaze attacks, no stealthy slit from the shadows.

No surprises. No sudden oblivion.

Because Harrow needs to know.

He needs to know who. And he needs to know why.

I fold the brochure and hide it in my pocket and don’t tell anyone this as we sit in Rick’s Chinatown flat, his sofa as shapeless as a deflating dinghy, and the three of us, me, Rick, and Mark Ray, all trapped on it together like survivors on the first day of month number two, adrift at sea.

Persephone’s pregnant. Persephone gets a chair.

Mina Machina, Rick’s live-in, comes slouching out of the kitchen, slurping at something steaming in a bowl. She’s got long hair and she’s alarmingly skinny, so she looks like a long wooden stand built to hold up a black wig. The wig could use a brushing too.

She giggles at something only she hears or understands, then lets the hot bowl slip and spill with a clatter.

Classic tapper. Still dreaming.

She retrieves, then wrestles with, a mop, which in her hands looks like an identical twin held upside-down, hair shocked white.

I ignore her and lay out the plan to the room.

We need to find a way to get to Harrow while he’s here in New York for his crusade. As Mark said, there’s only two ways this ends. We either hand over Persephone or we convince Harrow to stop asking. We’re going to go with the second one. I’ll handle that part.

Mark shoots me a look. This is the look that says I’m lying, because he actually said there were three ways this could end. But I figured I’d leave out the outcome where Harrow kills me. In any case, that’s for me to worry about.

I continue. Lay out phase two. The post-Rachel part of the plan.

Rick, we also need to find a way to gate-crash Paved With Gold. We need to get into Harrow’s heaven and get everyone out. Everyone.

Rick looks perplexed. Sparks a cigarette.

You want to crash heaven and then send everyone home? Why do you want to shit on the picnic?

I wave the smoke away. Nod to Persephone.

We’ve got a pregnant lady here.

Rick looks at her. Looks at me. Really was hoping to finish that cigarette.

Stubs it out. Doesn’t matter where. The whole apartment’s an ashtray.

Sorry. My bad.

Just tell me if it’s possible. Like what you did with Mark when I was tapped in with Harrow before. Slide someone in, uninvited.

Sure, crashing in one person is easy enough. Tapping out everyone else who’s also in that construct? All at once? That’s trickier.

I don’t care if it’s tricky. I want to know if it’s possible.

Rick rubs his palms on his thighs. Looks lost without his cigarette. Then shrugs.

Sure. Anything’s possible. Sort of.

And what do you need from us?

I need someone inside. I can tap people out one by one from out here. It’s slow going. You have to find them and then sever the link. And it’s a lot easier if the people inside know what’s happening.

Meaning what?

Meaning I need someone in there to give them a nudge. You know, pinch me, I’m dreaming, that kind of thing. Also, it helps a lot if they actually want to leave.

I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.

I turn to Mark Ray.

Okay. So that’s you and me, Mr Angel.

Mark extends a consoling pastor’s hand to squeeze my shoulder, like I’ve come to him for advice.

I hate to say this, friend, but last time we tried this, you flailed around in there like a fat kid in water wings drowning in the shallow end.

Then Mark pivots to Rick, like it’s time for the grown-ups to talk.

I’ll go in. I can handle that part. But are you sure you can crash me into Paved With Gold? That thing’s got to be a vault.

Rick winces, wrinkling Chinese tattoos.

Hard to say. When I crashed that country church, I learned a lot about their protocols, and those tend to be consistent across the board. That’s the good news. The bad news is, last time they weren’t expecting us. I’m guessing that won’t be the case this time around. Also, that country-church construct? That was a quickie one-off, whipped up for your meeting. Designed for guests, so it was easy to crash. This heaven place is guaranteed to be a much more complicated construct. More secure. Walls are much higher, so to speak.

Mina, still waltzing with the mop.

You gotta piggyback.

Ricks waves her off. Like a bad smell.

She repeats.

An octave higher.

You gotta piggyback.

I’m interested. So I ask Rick.

What’s that?

Rick rubs his temples like he just got hit by the nastiest migraine ever, and that headache is now dancing with a mop in his kitchen.

Then he spreads out his thin fingers, covered in silver skull rings. One skull per finger, thumbs too. Sterling graveyard. Then he lays it out. In laymen’s terms.

Despite what my beautiful life partner says, piggybacking is just a fucking stunt. Look, I’m a cocky asshole gizmo daredevil and even I don’t do it anymore.

Sure. But what is it?

You slide someone in on someone else’s dream, someone who’s been invited into the construct. Basically slip them in before the door closes. But it’s a very dumb thing to do.

Why’s that?

You ever see kids on skateboards hitch rides on the back of buses? It’s kind of like that, except with your consciousness. You fuck it up, you will skin your knee. Badly.

How badly?

Come by my place, I’ll show you the room where I keep those people. They don’t mix too well with the general populace anymore.

Tugs at a skull ring. Twists it. Continues.

Besides, definitely no one’s going to invite either of you two into their heavenly clubhouse, so it’s a nonstarter, since there’s no one to piggyback in on—

Persephone speaks up.

I can do that.

What?

They’ll invite me in. If I ask to meet my father—

I interject.

Absolutely not.

Mark looks at me.

It’s not a terrible idea.

Let’s set the bar for ideas a little higher than not terrible.

Mark persists.

Look, she can’t get hurt in there. Not really—

There are a lot of things they can do to her. Even in there.

—but I’ll go in with her, to protect her. I’ll be the one to piggyback in. Rick—I mean, you can do that, right?

Rick thinks. Twists a silver skull. Then nods.

Mark turns back to me.

You’ve seen me in there. You know I can handle myself. Better than you can, in there. And she’s the only one of us who can possibly convince Harrow to tap in for a meeting. And if the goal is to tap everyone out, people in there will trust her a lot more readily than they’ll trust me. Harrow’s daughter? They’ll follow her out. Familiar face and all—

Sure. Familiar face of a disgraced runaway—

Spademan, think about it. She lures Harrow in for a meeting. I follow her in and we take care of everyone in there. You find Harrow in his bed and take care of him out here. It’s the only way this works—

No, Mark. I said absolutely—

Persephone cuts me off. Fiercely.

Look, I am very grateful for all that you’ve done for me, but I’m not your fucking daughter. I’ll do what I want. And I’m doing this. I need to.

There is a long silence. During which we all listen to the stillness of Chinatown.

Broken finally by Mina’s best Axl Rose falsetto.

Mop becomes a mike stand.

Knock knock knocking on heaven’s door.

I figure it’s time to call the meeting to a close.

So. New plan.

We break into heaven, set everyone free, lure in Harrow himself by dangling his runaway daughter, secretly slip Mark in behind her somehow, using some technique that Rick, the cockiest gizmo in Chinatown, isn’t even sure is possible, they give Harrow a good talking-to, make him see the error of his wicked ways, perhaps offer up an apology to the daughter he fucked and maybe probably knocked up, all while I’m out here tracking down his flesh-and-bone body in the nuts and bolts, somehow sidestepping Simon and the rest of his security so I can get close enough to dispatch the holy man to actual heaven, where he’ll be free to compare his ginned-up version to the real thing.

Seems simple enough.

I have no doubt he’ll end up there either. His heavenly reward, I mean. I long ago stopped believing that we’re sorted into groups for our eternal retribution, or that there’s any door, or pearly gate, that you can’t pry open, given enough gold.

I may have once had some thin faith in something like cosmic justice, but now I believe in box-cutters.

Everything else I left buried in a tunnel along with the number 2 train.