[ WP ] `` It 's just the rain ''

*It's just the rain, * I had told myself as I grabbed my hat and coat before leaving my office. 
 
 *It's just the rain, * I had told myself as I walked down the stairs from the 67th floor, sweating in the damp tropical heat of the wet season. 
 
 *It's just the rain, * I said as I walked out of the rundown tenement building where I lived and worked and into the partially flooded downtown streets. 
 
 And now, as I leaned against a building, my coat and hat soaked through, raindrops the size of my fist pelting my back, I told myself again, it's just the rain. 
 
 Oh the lies we tell ourselves. Little worlds of comfort we build from meaningless words, spun into islands of pointless optimism, ultimately dashed against the rocks of the cold, hard reality of the situation. It's never *just* rain. Not in Bangkok in June. Not anymore. 
 
 The city floodwalls had broken during the last wet season and corrupt officials saw to it that they were never fixed, pocketing the baht set aside for repairs. The immediate result was a city that flooded four months out of the year, and the worlds largest mosquito breeding grounds. Uncomfortable though they were, the high boots, long coat, and hat served the dual purpose of providing the illusion of comfort in a monsoon and preventing your poor protagonist from being eaten alive. 
 
 People tended not to hang around outside in the wet season. I'd been standing here for four long, wet hours. 
 
 Amazing what you'll do for five thousand baht a day, plus expenses. A barely living wage with the amount of clients I get these days. 
 
 Once upon a time, I would never have taken the case. Missing persons cases are trouble. Nine times out of ten, it's a cheating spouse run off with the secretary. The other time, it's police business. 
 
 That was in Chicago. Another city, another continent, another life. Here and now, there was no such thing as police business. Police business meant that your chances of seeing that person in one piece again were marginal at best. The police had been bought by the Three Phi ring a decade ago. 
 
 And my client had paid twenty thousand baht up front. A small fortune and last months rent. All I had to do was track the girl, and report next Wednesday. 
 
 An air taxi blew past, pink neon sign flickering, air cushion kicking up a wall of water at me. For a moment I was distracted and almost missed her make her move. A slim girl in a wide brimmed hat disappeared around a corner and I hurried after her. 
 
 I rounded the corner just in time to watch her climb into an expensive private aircar. The door was being held open by a man I recognized by reputation. Suchart Prachanat. Regional narcotics distributor for the Three Phi. One of the most dangerous men in Bangkok. 
 
 He must have noticed me because a gun appeared in his hand like a magic trick and he sent a half dozen flechette rounds into my chest. 
 
 They pulled away as I picked myself up off my soggy ass and pulled the flechette rounds out of my long coat where they'd stuck into layered carbon nanoweave. 
 
 Things had gotten complicated. I hate complicated. 
 
 And it was still raining.
