The Docks are as far east as you can go in the city of Iguthu Lake before falling into the river. The poor sap they just dredged out of there learned that the hard way. He’s been dead for at least a day.

Hiroshi Yamaguchi, a high-ranking yakuza in town from Tokyo. Tattoos cover his arms and back. His suit, while ripped to shreds and soaked from his one-way underwater sightseeing trip, must have cost more than my fee.

Good news is that someone hired me to find him. Bad news is that he was supposed to be alive when I did. I got close, but lost him at the casino two days ago.

Two uniformed policemen and two detectives in suits converse on the pier where they fished the body out of the water. One of them, Officer Lorkin, scribbles in a notepad. It’s hot, even at five o’clock in the morning, especially when you’re still drunk on cheap soju from last night. A bead of sweat runs down my neck and under my bra.

An ambulance pulls up. There’s nothing they can do but call it. The medical team takes over and the police wander my way. Officer Lorkin laughs, taps the other on the shoulder, and approaches me.

He’s a tall, aging pitbull of a man with an ugly mustached face that only a mother could love. If the rumors I heard growing up are true, several did.

“Na-Young,” he says, his voice harsh and gruff. “You smell like cheap vodka and window cleaner.”

“I put on my best perfume for you,” I say. We walk over to a plain brown car together. His partner and the detectives disappear into a corner bodega.

“That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble.” Officer Lorkin opens the passenger side door like a gentleman and shuts it behind me. He gets in the driver’s side, turns on the AC, and unzips his blue trousers. “Don’t get any on the seat. This is my wife’s car.”

My hand roots around in his pants until I pull his limp cock out. “You better hope she never hires me to investigate you.”

“With you on the job, as long as I don’t do anything in a dive bar she’ll never suspect a thing.”

Officer Lorkin puts his mirror sunglasses on and leans back. My hand makes squishing noises as his dick hardens and gets slippery with precum. Within a minute or so, he’s fully at attention and as slippery as an eel.

“Fucking hurry up,” he says, as he gets closer. “They’ll be back soon.”

It doesn’t take the horny old man long to hit the point of no return. I lower my head into his lap and take him into my mouth right before he explodes. Four big spurts followed by a few weak ones, until my mouth tastes like cock and cum.

It’s an improvement over unflavored soju and Chinese take-out.

Officer Lorkin whips his pad out of his shirt pocket and drops it in my lap. He nudges a lollipop sized paper packet towards me and then stuffs his dick back in his pants. “That’s so you don’t get my notes sticky.”

A lemony scent comes from a wet napkin inside the packet. It lingers as I wipe my hands clean, and dab around my mouth for good measure, and take pictures of the last three pages of his notes with my phone.

They already know Hiroshi’s name, and even Officer Lorkin can figure out that he was yakuza. Throat crushed. Rope burns, plural. Strangled before knifed, question mark.

“Think it was gang related?” I hand his notebook back to him and reach for the door.

He shakes his head and starts to nod off. “Our friends in silk suits weigh them down so that they never come back up.”

So not a pro, unless it’s a message.

I get out of the car as his partner saunters back with a tall coffee in one hand and a hot sandwich in the other.

“Is it my turn next?” He leers at me and reaches for the passenger side door.

“Sure, just give him time to recover before you get started.”

His leer melts into a scowl.

My phone’s almost dead, but it’s only a dozen blocks to my office. This heat’s already sucking the life out of me. Another July scorcher.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m climbing the stairs to the 3rd floor of the thin red brick building and unlocking a thin wooden door with “Na-Young Park, Private Investigator” written on the frosted glass.

The door swings open and bangs against the far wall.

A green bottle of cheap soju lies on its side on a metal desk. It’s empty but I check it anyway. Crumpled napkins and a plastic take-out box complete last night’s crime scene. A yellow, white, and teal Hopi blanket bunches at one end of a couch against the far wall, next to an empty filing cabinet where I keep the emergency soju stash, currently depleted.

My stomach demands food, but more than that I need to sleep. I plug my phone in to charge and dive onto the couch in the corner. I’m gone in seconds.

The office door bangs against the wall and jolts me upright. A statuesque blonde woman with a long black dress and longer legs closes it and walks across my office to the mess on my desk. Her hair frizzes out around her long face like a European supermodel.

“I see you’ve been hard at work,” she says, leaning on an empty corner of my desk.

“Michelle, I was about to come see you.” I rub my eyes. How long was I out? “I just needed some sleep. I’ve been up all night.”

“Please, call me Miss Gunwhal, and it looks more like you passed out than fell asleep.”

She reaches for the shade on the window. A fine indentation in her left ring finger in the place where a wedding band would go says that she’s not Miss anything. Michelle Gunwhal is certainly not her true identity. Whatever her real name is, she snaps the shades open. Needles of light pour into the room.

I cover my eyes from the afternoon sun and stand up. “They fished your guy out of the river this morning. Sorry I couldn’t find him in ... ah, yeah. I’m really —”

“Nonsense. You did your part.” She takes her phone out and taps it twice. So the story about being Hiroshi’s mistress was a lie, too. “There you go.”

My phone says I just got paid. A thousand dollars from “Joong Gun, Inc.” Making my current account balance nine hundred and fifty dollars. The number instantly drops to less than thirty as my late phone bill, some overdraft fees, and the rent for this little office get taken out.

Held onto it as long as I could, I guess.

I want to wonder why she’s paying me for a job that didn’t work out, but something something something never miss a good chance to keep your mouth shut, right?

“That was a nickname my father used to call me,” she says. “So I used the name for one of my companies.”

I wasn’t going to ask, although the question did cross my mind. That name sounds familiar, although I can’t place it.

“Wow, thank you,” I say. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Just don’t tell anyone I asked you about him,” she says on her way out.

If people actually asked me anything, I wouldn’t be sleeping on the couch in my office. I have this place for another month, but that doesn’t solve the problem of being hungry. Who would buy me breakfast?

I scroll through my contacts. Dave Fuckboi? No, he started dating the mohawk chick. Ed Fuckboi? Nope, moved. Gary Fuckboi is hooking up with guys these days. Harlan Fuckboi?

I dial Harlan’s number. He picks up.

“Don’t you text like a normal person, Nyan?”

We met in middle school and he couldn’t say “Na-Young.” The name stuck.

“I wanted to hear a friendly voice,” I say. It’s not a lie, his voice is mellow and chill

“You wanted to hear a voice that was gonna say ‘yes’ to whatever you needed to ask for. Just spit it out,” Harlan says.

“I’ll tell you over breakfast.” I’m sure I can think of something to talk about by the time we get there.

“It’s four pm, Nyan.”

“Perky’s has twenty-four hour breakfast.”

Silence. Silence. A sigh.

“Only because their hash browns are slammin’,” he says. “Alright, see you soon?”

“You got it.” I end the call.

Perky’s is a cheap diner on the corner of Market and Wumpus, a mile and a half from my office. I’ve walked down Market Street hundreds of times. It’s the busiest street in town. A thousand times, for sure.

And of all of those walks, today’s is the hottest, muggiest, thickest one. I let my mind wander to keep it away from my sweating body.

Why did “Michelle” pay me? I hadn’t held up my end of the bargain. Or had I?

Something about “dead yakuza” said that this might not be the end of the story.

Was Hiroshi even the job at all? And why would she pick the drunk slut investigator to track a foreign gangster? I’m going to need to find out more about Michelle, or Joong Gun Inc. Where have I heard that name before?

Searching for the company name online while I walk doesn’t tell me much. A filing says that Joong Gun, Inc, is owned by another company, Green Tea Holdings, which is itself owned by another company that turns out to be owned by Joong Gun, Inc. A perfect financial ouroboros of companies with addresses that would put them in the middle of the Iguthu River.

The diner’s not far from Harlan’s place, so he’s already shuffled his tall, lanky self into an orange booth by the window. He waves once as I cross Wumpus Street.

Bells jingle when the door opens. The black and white tile floor seems to swim as cold air blasts my face. Across the orange table from Harlan is an empty orange and green bench, big enough for two.

He’s fully stretched out, back against the window, and his clean new kicks stick over the end of his side.

I flop into the empty side, press my back against the window the way he does, and stretch out my legs over the long green seat cushion. My beat up sneaks are still a foot or two away from the edge.

“You look like shit,” I say to Harlan. It’s a lie. He’s toned and solid under his clothes. His wavy reddish-brown hair is cut close, and his face is handsome and clean-shaven. Freshly shaven, in fact, given the reddish hue on his cheeks and neck. He still cares.

A grumpy old Indian man brings us two cups of coffee and two menus. With a meaty brown hand, he swipes my feet off the green cushion. “No feets on the bench.”

“We’re ready to order,” I say, unperturbed.

The waiter looks disappointed at having to deal with customers, and, with a great sigh, takes out his notepad from the pocket of his grease stained white apron. “What do you want?”

“I’ll have the lumberjack with waffles instead of pancakes,” I say.

The waiter grumbles and writes something down, his left hand curled awkwardly so he doesn’t smear the ink as he’s writing.

“Just gimme the same thing,” Harlan says.

Without a word, the waiter scoops up the untouched menus and stomps through the shiny silver kitchen door where he yells loudly in another language.

“So what’s up, Nyan? What is this?”

“It’s a booty call. You’re going to buy us breakfast, and then we’re going to go back to your place and fuck in the shower. I feel like we established this routine years ago.”

He takes a sip from his coffee but pulls away quickly because it’s too hot. Something’s bugging him.

“Wait, do you have someone back at your place already?” I ask.

“What if I did, what would you say?” Fire burns in his voice. He’s surprised at how much emotion slipped out and brings his coffee cup in front of his face.

“Your shower’s big enough for three.”

“Come on, Nyan. Routine? I don’t hear from you for a month, then you come by three days in a row but never stay the night, then you disappear for six weeks. Sound familiar? We’re getting too old for this.” Harlan spins his body to face me, but then looks out the window, irritated.

I’m more heated than I expected. “What do you want, Harlan? A girlfriend? You want to spend Friday night on the couch watching a boring movie with a half eaten pizza on your coffee table? Then we come here the next morning, to our usual table and get our usual Saturday morning breakfast? Come on, Harlan. That’s not us.”

The waiter returns with two plates of food that he slaps down in the middle of the table. I take a sip of coffee while I pull myself together. The waiter gives us a moment of silence, then stomps off to another table where another group of customers can ruin his day.

“Why can’t that be us, Na-Young?”

“You know why.”

He’s silent for a moment. “Is it because —”

“Yes it’s Because,” I say.

Because you got me pregnant when we were teenagers, it went really wrong, and now I’m damaged forever. And I know you’ve always wanted to be a dad.

He picks at his hash browns with his fork, and I feel like an ass. I came here asking for help and only managed to dredge up the lowest point Harlan or I have experienced in the twenty years we’ve known each other.

The truth is, we’ve been in each other’s lives so long I don’t think either of us could imagine settling down with anyone else.

We eat in silence for several minutes. I feel like I should apologize, but for what? The guilty look on his face says that he’s sorry for making this unpleasant.

I put my fork down. “Look, Harlan. Give me some time to pull my life together, to get on my feet. Then let’s have this conversation.”

Harlan hacks at the last pieces of waffle on his plate with the blunt knife. “One day, Nyan, one of us is going to want something more out of the time we have left, and everything’s going to have to change for us both. I’d rather face that day with you ... than for one of us to have to leave the other behind. Whatever you need to do to feel like you’re stable, why not work on it together?”

My instinct is to disarm the whole conversation with a sarcastic comment, but Harlan’s face is fixed and firm, and not at all in the mood for that kind of thing. “Okay, let’s talk about it. Do you mind if I take a shower first? I got kicked out of my apartment two months ago. I’ve been sleeping in my office and showering at the gym since then. You sure you still want to have that conversation?”

“Finish your food,” he says with a victorious twinkle in his eye. His plate is empty. With as many calories as he burns in his day job, he’s always done before I’m halfway through.

We’re back at his place less than twenty minutes later. The rest of the conversation in the diner was casual, neither of us wanting to dampen the mood, and both of us distracted by the conversation we’ve put off for two decades.

His apartment looks like the one the real estate company would use to show off their building. Stylish white sectional couch, big TV, elegant metal and glass coffee table. And his bedroom is spotless, the bed made, and a small prism dangling from a string in the window sends rainbows shooting across the room.