There's a long-standing joke that goes like this: the two biggest cities in Mississippi are Memphis and New Orleans.

Originally settled by the Chickasaw people, Memphis changed hands many times before being founded by Andrew Jackson and two other, less than memorable partners.

Downtown Memphis, a former mecca for African-Americans in the twentieth century lay deserted at eleven at night. Well known for Beale Street, blues and bar-b-que, this legendary strip of land still captured many visitors each year with its museums such as the Civil Rights Museum, which was built on the site where the great Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

I sat down my wauto on this historic street in front of Henry's. In the days when my grandmother still lived, she called places like Henry's hotels Rental rooms, as they were called now, no longer ate up the parallel roads next to highways. Few if any in some quadrants existed at all. Travel between territories was difficult, if not flat out dangerous. Most territories' governments were kakistocracies. Dysfunctional sets of politicians running and ruining the lives of its citizens.

Memphis has always been known for its accessibility. Long ago, it was a major transportation hub and a busy river port in addition to the hundreds of railroads that crisscrossed its area back in the days of steam engines and cowboys. It continued to draw so many people because it was one of the safest quadrants in the Southeast Territories. People constantly came and enjoyed themselves. Plus they survived to make it back home in one piece.

Hell that was great publicity in and of itself.

But I wasn’t here for pleasure.

Throughout the trip down, Jane spun stories about Amanda. She made Amanda sound like some Girl Scout, saint, and golden girl all wrapped into one. I doubted the young Christensen was free of any wrongdoing and totally innocent. Everyone kept secrets. To err is human, and I bet Amanda Christensen did a lot of erring.

Henry’s was a three-story level building decorated in blue awnings and slick metallic doors. It seemed clean enough. The automatic windows lay in shadows. Puddles of streetlight revealed nothing odd or out of the ordinary. I found this strange for the night usually brought out the local baddies, ack-addicts, and prostitutes.

Perhaps the regulators swept this sector often, keeping the riffraff from polluting the areas were tourists might frequent. That alone would give the appearance of a fair and safe quadrant now wouldn’t it?

Mayor Christensen cared an awful lot about how things appeared.

Nevertheless, strapped to my right ankle was my pug and under my left shoulder was my laser gun 350. Again, I felt somewhat protected and prepared. It did occur to me that Jarold Montano managed to take the 350 off of me and nearly killed me, had I not had the ankle holster.

Next time he’d be ready for the pug.

Surely there wouldn’t be a next time, until I went back to D.C. Right now, I had to find this girl.

"Aunt Belle can be pretty tough," Jane said as she lifted the passenger door and climbed out. "She's been horribly scarred by Mandy's disappearance. The publicity alone is making her sick. The media has turned the damn thing into a circus."

Oh, I bet it was. But I kept this thought to myself. I hoisted my travel bag and satchel out of the trunk and came around to Jane, my arm still singing in agony. "Sure, but this will get uglier before it gets better." Thinking the media's darling was still being portrayed as the grieving mother. Her ratings had actually gone up by about forty percent for her chances of becoming governor.

Jane gave me a half shrug, her broad backpack protruding at least seven inches from her back. Despite the load, she carried it with grace.

"I'm serious. You may discover stuff you don't want to know about Amanda, your aunt, maybe your entire family."

She caught my tone. "I know."

I doubted that she truly understood. Objectivity, a P.I. essential, would be lost in a cloud of fog that resembled early morning in the London district.

We went inside and checked in. Once done, we took the creaky old stairs up to our floor. We went to room two-twelve. The keycard opened the room without incident. There wasn’t much more security than keycards, which were found most often in older rental rooms like Henry’s and apartment buildings like mine. Newer places didn’t rely on keycards, but personal pin numbers, robotic guards, DNA, and other technological advances.

As the doors opened to our room, the smashing odor of mothballs, hit us in the face.

“Whew!”

Two double beds, a bathroom and a small sitting table and two chairs filled up the small, square space. Cramped but it would do for our time here. Jane hurried over to open the windows to air out the place.

"At least there aren't any holes in the roof," Jane said as she dropped her pack to the floor with a thud. “Remember that place in Toronto you had us holed up in. Dreadful.”

“At least it was free,” I said back, dropping my bag to the floor beside my bed with a soft thud. “This place is costing us a sizable bit of currency. The exchange rate between SE currents and the district’s dollars is hurting us.”

My body still bore bruises courtesy of the tango with Jarold and my joints protested my sudden movements. Bluish-green circular spots dotted my right thigh and sections of my calf. If possible, my body felt worse than it had yesterday.

"It's night, let's get some shut eye," Jane suggested and immediately took off her boots. Within minutes, her snores filled the air. Sprawled across her bed, fully clothed, she must have been drained. She did do most of the flying down to the quadrant.

I put on my pjs, made up of yellow satin camisole and short-shorts. I tossed and turned in the new bed, feeling every lump and cavern. Rental rooms always caused the most insomnia in me. It wasn't my bed and it took a few days for my body to come to terms with that.

If I stayed that long.