Only a couple of the barred shops and stores along the wide boulevard had walls strong enough and intact enough to keep out the metacrabs and devil rats, who regularly fought over anything edible that didn’t move, and thus these shops remained open for business, such as it was. The armored doors were propped ajar with jagged chunks of pink brain coral to entice customers to step in out of the heat. The sole exceptions were the always closed plate-steel doors of the Havana Gun Shop, and the Penguin Air Parlor, where a doubloon bought you five minutes of sweet, cold AC. And if some greedy gleeb tried to overstay, the AC was automatically cut until the other patrons threw you out. Whole or in pieces, their choice. But Thumbs liked the heat beating down on his bare chest, his ballistic vest flapping freely in the hot ocean breezes. A deep tan gave a nice contrast to his short white tusks, made a guy look healthy, and much harder to see when doing a run at night. Miami was a hot city. Always had been, always would be.