Hidden River (Five Star Paperback) by Adrian McKinty

from England?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Tourist?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Been to Denver before?”
    “No.”
    “You’re too late to ski,” he said, his face contorting into a disconcerting chuckle.
    “I don’t ski.”
    “What type of beer you want?”
    “I don’t care.”
    “Coors ok?”
    “Yeah.”
    The barman pulled me a Coors and set it down.
    “Three dollars,” he said.
    I gave him a five and as I’d seen in the movie, I left a dollar of the change back on the bar.
    “Tourist, huh. I was born here. Native, very rare. You know what the first permanent building in Denver was?”
    “No.”
    “A bar,” he said with satisfaction.
    “Really?”
    “Yup, you know what the second was?”
    “No.”
    “A brothel.”
    “Fascinating.”
    “You know that TV show Dynasty ?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s Denver.”
    “Really?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    I finished the beer and bought another. I was getting increasingly anxious. It’s not that I needed a hit, I told myself. I just wanted one. The bar began to fill. A few more desperate types but also a party of college students. Four guys, two girls. Maybe they would know. The guys all had buzz cuts and were well muscled, they actually all looked like undercover cops, so maybe it wouldn’t be too clever asking them. It would have to be the barman. I cleared my throat.
    “So,” I said, “I hear there’s a big drug problem around here.”
    “You heard that?” His face frozen, revealing nothing.
    “Yeah.”
    “Huh.”
    “You know, pot, smack, that sort of thing.”
    “Is that a fact?” he said, giving me a quizzical look.
    “It’s what I heard.”
    He wiped the bar and served a customer at the far end. Obviously thinking something over. Clearly, I was from out of town, he had seen my passport, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t a sting operation. Suspicious, but not a sting.
    “Bar tab’s twenty bucks,” he said, coming back to me.
    I owed him nothing, I had paid and tipped for each drink. I took a twenty from my wallet and put it on the bar. He lifted it and put it in his pocket.
    “I heard,” he began slowly, “I heard that the biggest problem with product was behind the Salvation Army shelter on Colfax and Grant. That’s what I heard. I heard, you should say Hacky sent you.”
    “Hacky sent me?”
    “Hacky.”
    I left the beer, grabbed my baseball hat, practically ran out into the dusk. I went east. Night was falling fast and there were many more prostitutes out on Colfax, skinny black and Latino girls who looked as if they were about fifteen. Most of them on something. Crack, presumably. They were wired, nervous, looked for vehicle trade. Pimps on the corner, big guys, little guys, enforcers, all of them obvious, unconcerned about peelers or being seen. I found the Salvation Army hostel and walked around the back. Garbage, a small fire. A dozen men drinking from brown paper bags. Older guys, mostly white.
    First character I saw, old for his years, pale, thin, drinking vodka. Rotted gums and teeth, horrible smell.
    “Listen, I need to score, Hacky sent me,” I said.
    The man looked at me.
    “You want the kid. Are you a cop?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Better not be a cop.”
    I shook my head, what would he do about it anyway? Breathe on me?
    “Hey, kid,” he yelled, “guy wants to book you.”
    The kid came from out of the shadows. He really was a child. Maybe sixteen years old. Spanish, obviously, well dressed in jeans and a black cowboy shirt. Walking slow, smoking a cigarette. Was he the dealer? If so, why was he hanging out with a bunch of indigent white guys three times his age?
    He came over.
    “You’re no cop. I know all the cops.”
    “I know. Hacky sent me.”
    “Hacky sent you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What you want?” he asked, suspicion flitting around his eyes.
    “Ketch, I mean, horse, smack, heroin.”
    “How much?”
    “I don’t know, a few grams, seven good hits.”
    “What you talking about? Where you