Learning to Walk at Night

Learn to listen. Learn where to hit. The first real lead came from a vent. Down in the alley behind a corner store near his building, Ethan heard a strange, uneven vibration inside the metal frame of an exhaust fan. Not a motor problem. The pattern was too regular, like someone tapping a pipe with a coin at fixed intervals. He traced it to a fresh patch of paint on the back wall, and behind that was a hidden door into an abandoned service tunnel. The room beyond was not empty. Two street-level runners were handing a bag of white powder to a man in a suit. The suit said the man's work was the kind done in daylight. He mentioned a name: Ron Verner. Everybody on the docks called him the Harbor King.