Chapter One: After the Retirement Bell

Lu read the financial attachment for ten minutes, then called his agent. “Sell my Southside apartment and redeem three of my funds.” The silence on the other end lasted five seconds. “You retired an hour ago and you want to invest? Don’t tell me it’s the Embers.” “It’s the Embers.” “That isn’t an investment. It’s buying shoes for a corpse.” Lu looked at a photograph of his younger self lifting a trophy. “Corpses aren’t owed three months of wages. Someone in there is still waiting.” Cold rain fell over Northport’s old industrial district the next afternoon. Only half of the character on the Embers’ sign still glowed. A shutoff notice hung on the door. The former owner placed a key on a plastic table as though dropping a burning coal.