Free City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

carny. Like the rest of them. Hustling people out of dimes and nickels, preying on desperation, smelling fear. I’ve seen it a thousand times on Treasure Island, and in every two-bit flea circus between here and the end of the road. Except this is the end of the road.”
    “But the kid—”
    “Listen, Sanders …”
    She stopped in the middle of Grant, while a family of five wove around them, the parents calling the oldest son back to watch his little sister.
    “… I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t like getting rooked. The kid wasn’t starving. Maybe the whole thing was a setup, who knows? The kid’ll be fine. She’ll be—”
    “—all right?” He looked into her eyes. “You know, once in a while it’s OK to show some vulnerability, Miranda.”
    She held his gaze and then broke it, staring ahead at the corner of Washington and Grant, the pound-pound-pound of the parade a couple of blocks behind them echoing her heart beat.
    “The streets are littered with vulnerable women.”
    She strode ahead, not looking back to see if he was following.
    The band warbled and wailed, trying its best to ride a Cole Porter number before getting bucked off. Rick was clutching her bare back, pretending he knew how to dance. Every step proved he didn’t.
    Miranda repressed a belch, brought up by the ham and cheese she’d eaten too fast, standing up, at the Universal Café. So much for dinner. They’d drifted toward the YWCA building, still searching for a place to talk. She agreed to dance. She didn’t want to think about why.
    “So record on this Mike or Ming Chen, record on Filipino Charlie. Your friend will get the blood type on Eddie Takahashi. And the green Olds … are you sure it was an Olds?”
    “Yes.”
    He shook his head. “Maybe you don’t know your models as well as you think you do. If it was a newer Dodge, it could be the hit-runner on Seventeenth Street everyone’s looking for. That was a green coupe. I can look up the poor bastard that got killed—see if there’s any connection. All I know is he was an old man. And I’ll keep my ear to the ground for rumbles about Gonzales and the other cop—what was his name?”
    She winced, as his left foot crushed the top of her pumps. “Duggan.”
    He drew her closer, looking down into her face.
    “What about Phil, Miranda? I thought you and Phil—”
    The song was over, and she pulled away, the crowd clapping without enthusiasm.
    “I see a place we can stand.”
    Rick followed her to a spot on the wall behind a palm frond. “Are you cold?”
    “No.”
    “You look cold, why don’t I—”
    “No, Sanders. Quit worrying about me, for God’s sake.”
    He shrugged, taking out a cigarette, his voice flinty.
    “You’re no good to me in the hospital with pneumonia. Don’t you own a whole dress?”
    “Look around, Adrian. It’s the style. My evening clothes are working clothes.”
    He struck a match on his thumb and lit the Lucky Strike. “Doesn’t look much like a uniform to me. You never answered about Phil.”
    She drew in her breath, trying to control the impulse to run away.
    “Phil’s got nothing to do with this.”
    “He put the kibosh on the case. He’s sending goons like Duggan to harass you. What do you mean, he’s got nothing to do—”
    “He’s retiring, goddamn it. He’s old, he’s giving it a rest, he doesn’t want me around to fuck it up for him with his new boss. OK? Lay off, Rick.”
    He shrugged again, took a drag, and tried to sound nonchalant.
    “Just wondered why he was treating you like a golden girl last year and now he’s hung you out to dry. I know he’s the fatherly type. Though frankly, that’s not how the boys in the newsroom described it.”
    A boy singer stepped up to the stage in an ill-fitting white dinner jacket and handled the microphone like it was his first date. His voice cracked before he hit the high note in “If I Didn’t Care.”
    Miranda turned to Rick. “You know what, Sanders? Fuck the