It had been a long day, so Sergeant Eddie Calpin, Seattle P.D., knocked off half an hour early. Luckily, northbound traffic had been light for once, and so he got home with a little daylight to spare. It was a break from Seattle’s normal overcast skies and lingering winter, and he figured it’d be a good evening to spend with the kids. He mulled over a movie or just ice cream or something as he cruised through the side streets to his four-bedroom, three bath Shoreline house in his Daimler Super Eight Jaguar.

Molly didn’t really care for ice cream with the kids. She said it made them hyper. But his daughters, Elaine and Peggy, were both getting older now – eight and five, respectively – and he figured they deserved another chance. It had been a whole year since the Red Raspberry Sorbet in Molly’s Pocket Incident.

Eddie smiled at the memory as he pulled up his driveway and hit the remote for his garage door opener. He pulled into the garage and turned the radio up a bit to enjoy the last notes of “Takin’ Care of Business” on the radio before getting out of the car. It wasn’t a favorite song, and he almost asked himself why he was waiting for it to end before he got out, but didn’t really pay it any mind.

The garage door shut behind him. He got out, clicked the car doors shut with the remote, and stretched and yawned. Yeah. Hell of a day.

“Molly’s at her mom’s with the kids,” someone said behind him. Eddie whirled around and saw Evan Rafferty standing there in street clothes beside his car with a firm, accusing glare in his eyes and one hand holding something behind his back.

The sergeant, his uniform and belt back at the station because of a wife who couldn’t stand it when he wore his gun into the house, took a step back in alarm. “Rafferty, what the fuck—?” he began angrily.

“Just sayin’. They won’t be back for hours. It’s a lot more consideration than your friends showed me when they came to visit me and my family at my place the other night.” Rafferty said.

Eddie didn’t reply right away. His heart, naturally, was pounding. He’d met Rafferty several times, and never got any personal impression from him other than that he was a bright, happy, well-meaning rookie who sometimes thought he was funnier than he actually was. But he’d also read the guy’s file, just like he’d been asked. And here he was, breaking into Eddie’s home, not looking happy or cracking any jokes or talking about his fucking cats.
“Rafferty, I dunno what you’re accusin’ me of, but you get the fuck outta my house right now, goddammit, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Call it in? Tell me, who you’re gonna call, 911 or the fucking mob?”

Eddie blinked, but didn’t back down. His voice grew louder. “Get the fuck out!!”

“Yeah, that’s what I told the motherfuckers who came into my home, Calpin. They found my apartment and they broke in, and you and I both know how they got my address. And we both know you’d have drawn on me by now if you had your gun on you.” There was a long pause as the two stared at one another, then Rafferty’s eyes narrowed and his voice dropped. “You sold out a fellow cop, you son of a bitch.”

“Bullshit! You’re full’a shit! You got nothin’ or you’d have taken it to --!”

“To who, Calpin? Your lieutenant? Mine? Internal Affairs? The D.A.’s office? Someone else your friends can buy off? Why in the hell would I go to them for something I can take care of myself?”

Eddie blinked again. He didn’t know if this was posturing or not, but he’d read Rafferty’s file, and he didn’t have his gun. He couldn’t tell what Rafferty was holding, but the door to the kitchen was probably locked, and even if Rafferty wasn’t holding a gun…he’d read the file. Rafferty had a couple of black belts, a crazy military record, and multiple citations for bravery. Eddie had an extra twenty-five pounds looming over his belt buckle and a handful of seventeen-year-old football trophies on the mantle. And he had a family.

“How long has this been going on, Calpin?” Rafferty asked with unnerving calm. “How’d this start?”

“I’ve got kids,” Eddie tried lamely.

“I’ve got cats,” Rafferty snapped.

“No—no, man, you don’t understand, I’ve got…” he swallowed hard, and, not for the first time, he swallowed his pride for the sake of his family. “Elaine, my oldest – she’s got leukemia. I mean ask anyone, man. Fuckin’ everyone knows. The insurance companies, they kept sayin’ it was pre-existing and they don’t need to pay, and she needs a bone marrow transplant but her body keeps rejecting it, and…" Eddie looked Rafferty in the eyes, trying to stand tall and be a man in the face of a threat, but Rafferty just stared back at him hard.

“They got you on medical bills, Calpin?” Rafferty asked.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Is that why do you drive a god damn Jaguar?” There was another pause, as Eddie struggled to answer, and then Rafferty heaved the object behind his back up and over his head. Eddie’s eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped at the sight of a parking meter, swung up in both hands now, coming down on the front of his Jaguar’s roof with a deafening crash.

Rafferty looked at Eddie again, actually showing some anger on his face now, then heaved back and brought the parking meter down hard on the hood. The metal buckled; shattered bits of glass jumped and flew everywhere. Eddie stepped back and cringed involuntarily.

“Seriously. A fucking Jaguar,” Rafferty growled again. He pulled the parking meter back, then swung it sideways, smashing the rear windshield and destroying part of the frame holding up the damaged roof along with it.

“Goddamn POLICE SERGEANT with a four bedroom house AND a kid with leukemia AND a wife in grad school driving a fucking JAGUAR!” Rafferty shouted, hitting the car with the parking meter again, and again, and again, without looking tired or even breaking a sweat. Eddie watched as his hundred thousand dollar car was reduced to a mess of broken metal and glass, and became less and less worried about whether or not his fear was showing.

When he was finished with the car, Rafferty stared at him for another long, quiet moment, and Eddie wondered when that parking meter was going to come down on him. But it never did.
“Don’t hide behind your little girl, Calpin,” Rafferty said instead. “Talk.”

It took Eddie a moment to speak, but he finally began. “I—I used to gamble. Couple games a week. Started goin’ to this place a few years ago. They didn’t have the same limits as all the businesses, an’ they—“

“Where?” Rafferty’s voice was deceptively even.

Eddie took a deep breath, and realized he was all in now, no matter what he did. “The Shilling,” he admitted. “They called it the Shilling. Burned down to the ground about two years ago, Pro’ly arson, but whatever. We were just learnin’ something was wrong with Elaine, I didn’t know how careful I should’ve been with money, and then it was too late…

“…an’ then they started askin’ me things. They offered to forget some of my debts. Offered to fix things with Elaine’s medical bills. I mean, there was cash, yeah, but never too much to get caught. Favor for a favor, you know?”

“So the Jaguar’s not a bribe, it’s a favor?”

“Goddammit, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you, Rafferty,” Eddie all but pleaded. “That’s how these guys do things! They get’cha on something you can’t refuse, then they start giving you more’n you asked for, digging you in deeper, an’ you can’t say no to ‘em…” Calpin sniffed.

“Doctors say Elaine’s not gonna live to see twelve if we can’t get some sort’a treatment to work,” he choked. “I got my wife watchin’ our daughter die, man. Don’t she deserve a couple nice things?”

“No,” Rafferty said flatly. “No, she doesn’t.” He continued to glare at Calpin. “What have you done in exchange?”

“Just made phone calls,” Eddie explained quickly, hands waving as if it would diminish anything, knowing it wouldn’t. “I called when things happened, and I just let people know when it was a good night to be outta town, and I kept – I kept cops from goin’ to calls where they’d just get hurt.” He watched Rafferty’s stony expression, hoping that each statement would be enough to end the conversation, so he could just crawl under a rock and die.

“Like the whole goddamn SWAT team, right?” Rafferty’s voice dropped angrily again.

“No! NO, man, I had nothin’ to do with that! An’ they swore up an’ down that it wasn’t them, and I believe ‘em! I never set up a cop for nothin’, not once, not—“

“Not until this weekend,” Rafferty growled.

“Aw, God, man… that stupid chase, that stupid fucking – that was none of your business! Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?!”

“BECAUSE I’M A COP, CALPIN!” Rafferty roared back. “When’s the last time you looked at that badge on your shirt?! When’s the last time it meant anything to you other than a paycheck? You ever think about how much bad shit has gone down because of these harmless phone calls you’ve made? You honestly thought that they were just curious what my fucking college major was when they pulled my file?”

“They were just gonna talk to you and try to make a deal--!”

“And what would’ve happened if I’d told ‘em to fuck off?” Rafferty yelled. “You think about that?”

Eddie couldn’t answer. He hadn’t thought about it. It honestly hadn’t occurred to him that Rafferty, or any cop, really, would turn them down. After all, he hadn’t. Eddie glanced down at the floor. He saw the chewed-up old black Reeboks on Rafferty’s feet, and he knew he couldn’t look at his own shoes.

“Who’re your contacts?” Rafferty demanded.

“Usually it’s a guy named Patrick. Sometimes there’s another guy, some Eastern European name. Stano-somethin’.”

“You said the Shilling burned down. Where do I find them?”

Eddie looked up in disbelief, to tell Rafferty that he didn’t know what he was getting into, but all he saw was what was left of his Jaguar. It was amazing, but his heart really could keep sinking further and further. “The Phoenix,” he answered finally. “Swanky, ritzy place in the U District. The Emerald Phoenix.”

Rafferty stared silently at Eddie for a moment, then shook his head slightly. “You’re not gonna call them anymore, Calpin. And you’re not calling anyone for them anymore, either. You’re gonna go to work tomorrow and you’re gonna turn in your badge for family reasons, and you’re gonna start job hunting. And you better pray your fucking ass off that I don’t find out somebody died because of what you’ve done.”

“Rafferty, I can’t do that! My kid—needs!”

“Needs her dad,” Rafferty said flatly, “a lot more than she needs a dirty cop.” He turned as if to go through the side door of the garage.

“Hey waitaminute!” Eddie blurted out. “What the hell am I gonna do about this?” He gestured at the ruined car.

Rafferty glanced at him, and the car, then shrugged. “Well, you’re never gonna get insurance for it, so I guess there’s no sense reporting it. An’ something tells me you don’t want to explain to anyone what really happened. Guess you oughta just start cleanin’ it up, then. Anyone else asks, tell ‘em you hit a parking meter.”

Outside, a purposefully unremarkable man, sitting in a remarkably bland car watched as Evan Rafferty left. He waited for the mage to get into his own car and drive off, then picked up his cellphone and hit a number on speed dial.

“Mr. Neimand,” said Twenty-Two, “I suspect Anabasis has gone off the reservation.”


***


“You wanted us to call you if the guy showed up,” said the voice on the speakerphone. “He’s on camera nine, in line to come inside. We spotted him and his friend walking up the street.”

“Yeah, well, we planned in case he might not come alone. Camera nine, you said? Thanks.” Isaac Solomon clicked off the speakerphone and closed the ledger book in his lap. His office would have been modest, were it not for the many filing cabinets and over-stuffed shelves at every turn. The end result was a pretty cramped space. Isaac turned to the three connected laptops on his wide desk, toyed with the options on the master desktop for a moment, and finally frowned. “Patrick, can you make this stupid thing work?”

“Sure boss. ‘scuse me,” said his faithful bodyguard, leaning in to take over with the mouse and keyboard. Patrick and Stanomir, both present, were the only “employees” who still remembered Isaac Solomon as Tony Grim, and who knew their boss’s true nature. Patrick knew that his boss had been around a very long time, and that he had very dark and scary associates of his own.

The security camera feeds spread across the three laptops, and Solomon noted, “Might catch ‘em on camera twelve better at this point,” as Patrick was just sorting out camera nine. Patrick grinned. While the boss couldn’t operate new tech worth a damn, he had a brilliant knack for incorporating and applying it. It was probably because the boss was considerably older than the body of the thin 60 year-old man he currently inhabited.

One of the onscreen images focused in on a pair of men walking into the club. “That him?” Patrick asked.

“Yep,” said Solomon. “That’s our boy. Evan Rafferty, lookin’ kinda unhappy. I guess he must’ve figured out a thing or two. Hey, Stanomir, you wanna let the boys know to get ready? And make sure the upstairs office is all set, too.” Solomon watched the image for a moment as Stanomir picked up a phone to alert the large number of security people Isaac had on hand ever since Saturday night. He leaned forward suddenly. “Patrick, zoom in on the tall old guy in the driver’s cap next to him, willya?”

“Sure, boss,” Patrick said, clicking a couple of easy buttons. He then stepped back as Solomon leaned in even closer, scratching his chin.

“Huh,” Solomon breathed. “I’ll be damned,” Stanomir looked at Patrick curiously, who shrugged. Solomon gestured for Stanomir to hand over the phone. Without looking at either man, he said into the phone, “Listen. We’re gonna need a whole lot more boys, right away.” Solomon clicked the phone off, leaned back, and then turned looked to Patrick.

“Hey, I think we might need a whole lot more body bags,” Solomon said with a nonchalant, almost cheerful shrug.

***

“I’m sorry, sirs, I don’t see you on the guest list,” said the doorman.

“You don’t need to see our identification,” responded Evan.

“I don’t need to see your identification,” parroted the doorman.

“We can move along.”

The doorman moved aside and waved the two visitors in. “Move along. Move along.”

“It never ceases to amaze me,” Finch muttered as the two men entered the opulent nightclub, eyes darting here and there to take in any dangers or obstacles, “that even when you’re in a barely-controlled rage, you go out of your way to be a complete geek.”

“I’m not in a barely-controlled rage,” Evan frowned.

“Hi!” smiled the first waitress they passed. “Would either of you care for a drink?”

Evan scowled at her darkly enough that she mumbled an apology and moved away.

“Yeah. You’re the picture of calm. When’s the last time you slept?” Finch asked, patting Evan on the shoulder to turn him away from the downcast waitress.

Evan thought for a moment. “I dunno. Friday? What day is it now? Shit, I gotta go back to work in the morning.”

Finch scowled, paying most of his attention to his surroundings. Lights changed and flashed all the time, accentuating the emerald greens and brass work that dominated the club. The place was pretty busy, even on a Tuesday night, with a well-occupied dance floor. It was apparently swing night – with a full live band, no less – and the tables were full of partygoers. There were flashing lights, people making lots of sudden movements, crowds, and of course loud music. It was not a good place for a fight.

"Right. Here, maybe we can cut to the chase," Finch said. He tapped Evan on the shoulder to guide his eyes, then walked over to a pair of men in suits near a staircase, whom Evan now noticed were staring at them with hands clasped calmly at their waists in a ready position. There was something of a stare down for a moment as Finch took the lead. Evan noted that they hardly seemed to look at him; they just kept their eyes on the taller mage.

"Evening," Finch said.

"Something we can help you with, sir?" asked one man with a flat top and gravelly voice.
"You're staring at us," Finch explained matter-of-factly. "You know why we're here. We don't want things to get unpleasant, so how about you bring us to your boss?"

At this, the pair of men glanced at one another, while Evan turned to look away and cover their rear. It was probably unnecessary; being a master of the arcana of Space, Finch all but constantly maintained an awareness that amounted to eyes in the back of his head. Evan, on the other hand, for all his magically sharpened wits, still only had one field of vision, and he wanted it made plain that they were aware of their surroundings.

Another pair of men descended from the top of the staircase, met up with the others, and said, "We'll take you up."

There were three more men milling about smartly in the hallway at the top of the stairs, near a door marked "Manager." There were others, too: all of them male, and most of them physically imposing. Evan and Finch were soon more or less surrounded by guys, and finally one of the men at the manager's door said in a thick Slavic accent, "Lift out your arms to the side, please."

"You're kidding, right?" Evan deadpanned.

There was a long moment of staring. Finally, Evan lifted his arms so they could frisk him for the weapons that he had ensured, through Mind magic, that they would feel and yet completely ignore. Finch did the same, allowing them to pat him down for the weapons he held magically in spatial pockets. With the pat-down over, the Slav scowled darkly at the two visitors who were certainly armed with weapons his guys simply weren't finding. He had them frisked again, increasingly irritated at the lack of weapons, cell phones or even wallets. Finch maintained a solid poker face. Evan had to fight off a snarky smirk.

Finally, the door opened, and Evan and Finch were ushered inside, along with about half a dozen of the thugs. The manager's office was a wide room with its walls decorated by fine paintings, an expensive aquarium and a state-of-the-art big screen plasma television. There were nice chairs, a plush couch, and all the trimmings. In front of the windows was a large, antique desk, where a middle aged, only slightly overweight man in a suit lounged in his chair, feeding small strips of meat from a plate to an overly-muscled mountain lion. His desk, in turn, was flanked by another pair of tall, broad-shouldered men in suits.

"Mr. Solomon," the Slav announced, "This is, uh, Rafferty and Mister, uh...?" He turned to look at the older visitor.

"Finch," came the answer.

"Mr. Finch," finished the Slav. "We have searched them, but found nothing."

Solomon stifled a bitter rebuke at the announcement of his name, but nodded and sat up straight. "Thanks, Dmitri. You can wait outside with the others, please." Dmitri blinked, but turned and walked out. As the door closed behind him, Solomon rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Fucking Ukrainians," he sighed, then looked up at Stanomir glumly.

"We're not hiring any more of them. And that guy's fired. I don’t care whose brother-in-law he is, he’s fired."

Evan had already cast spells giving him the "sight" of his strongest magics, Life and Mind. As Solomon spoke to his bodyguard, Evan took a long look at him, and what he found was very odd. Mr. Solomon was alive – but not – and his mind was here – but not. Regardless, he was clearly not an ordinary human, and that was enough information for the moment.

With his personnel issue settled, Solomon turned and looked at his visitors. "So you, I kind of expected," he said, looking at Evan. Then he turned his gaze to Finch and finished, "but your friend here is a bit of a surprise."

Something about Solomon's tone struck Evan as odd, and he asked, "Have we met before?"

"You and me, you mean?” Solomon replied. “Kinda. Just a moment in passing. Bit of a pain in the ass for me, but it's water under the bridge at this point. 'Mr. Finch' here and I have had a few shared professional interests now and again over the years, I guess you could say. Anyway, what brings you here to my club, Officer?"

"I think you know."

"Yeah, probably,” Solomon shrugged. “But I don't like to make assumptions."

"Last Saturday night, a guy broke into my apartment to deliver a lot of threats. I expect he's one of your guys, creature of the night type. He's dead now. And then there’s the bitch and her thugs that jumped me at a karaoke bar on Sunday night. I'm here to talk to you about how they got pointed in my direction, because all that leads back to you."

"Huh," Solomon grunted, leaning back in his chair and looking dismissive and curious all at once. What was perhaps most striking about him, though, was that he betrayed not the least bit of hostility or defensiveness. It seemed to him as if this was a perfectly natural matter to have to deal with. "That first one, the guy at your apartment. Don't suppose he dropped his name?"

“No, he didn’t.”

“Shame,” Solomon shrugged. “Wasn’t one of my boys. Karaoke bar wasn’t, either. Hell, we all – my associates, that is – came to what you might call a gentlemanly understanding after Saturday that you were to be left alone.” He thought for a moment, then rapped his knuckles on the desk thoughtfully and asked, “You said it was some broad, right? And a couple of thugs? They all get away?”

“One dead, one not walking. We got a bit interrupted. I don’t know what happened to her or the one I laid out in the street.”

“Gotcha,” Solomon said slowly. “Sunday night…she wouldn’t happen to be a Spanish broad, would she? Leggy, long hair, walkin’ around like she owns the place?”

“That’d be her,” Evan frowned. This meeting wasn’t going the way he’d expected. Still, if things could be resolved without violence, he had to try…and to do that, he and Finch had to feel the man out as best they could.

“Yeah, she must still be alive,” Solomon thought aloud. “That broad turns up missing or dead, it’ll cause a ruckus that I’d hear about. She’s probably layin’ low and licking her wounds. But she and I don’t get along, not at all. We had a bad first introduction, and she’s the kind to hold a grudge – which must be why she went after you.”

“Care to elaborate on that?” Finch asked. “Why would she have a problem with him?”

“Oh, Saturday night, most likely. I mean, I can’t prove it, otherwise she’d be…well, she’d be in some seriously deep shit. There’s only so much I’m gonna explain to you guys, being outsiders and all, but that car chase was all about someone making a move on someone else. She claims she had nothing to do with it, but like Shakespeare says, ‘the lady doth protest too much.’ She must’ve had a horse in that race. Most likely she’s upset at you for disrupting it.” He shrugged casually.

Finch’s poker face and Evan’s scowl remained unchanged, but neither seemed to have any impact on Solomon’s casual, friendly demeanor. “So that still leaves me wondering…what brought you two here to me?”

“That’d be the matter of a cop who does you a lot of favors.”

“Uh-huh,” Solomon nodded, speaking almost lightly. “A lot of cops do me a lot of favors.”
“I figured. This one’s got a Jaguar and a kid with a lot of medical bills.”

Solomon frowned thoughtfully, looked to Patrick, who shrugged, and then to Stanomir, who said, “Calpin.”

“Oh yeah, Calpin. Kid with leukemia. Real shame – what?” Solomon said, chiding Evan for the deepening scowl on his face. “I’m serious! I might not be a saint, but I don’t go wishing for little girls to get sick.”

“You’ll have to forgive my friend’s demeanor,” Finch spoke up. “He’s coming off a trying weekend, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”

“Sure, sure, I understand,” Solomon nodded. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, yeah, we had Calpin pull your file. I was outside your place when you pitched that guy off your balcony with his head on fire and then swan dive on him. Surprised the hell out of me. See, I was gonna come knock on your door, not break in. That’s not my style these days. Kinda unnecessary. I mean, really, I just wanted to talk, come to an understanding. Not like I need to make threats.”

“I’m not interested in being bought off.” Evan snapped.

“ ‘Course you’re not. You’re one of them few good cops in a dirty town. I’ve seen your type. Buyin’ you off isn’t a solution. Besides, it’s not like I’m making any more investments anyway. Hell, I’m busy divesting myself. I was just gonna come talk to you to do a favor to someone. Part of getting my affairs in order.”

“Planning on going somewhere?” Finch asked.

“More or less. Kind of going into retirement. You know, come to think of it,” Solomon said, “I might have a way to make this up to you a little. Smooth things over. I mean I don’t wanna leave town with a problem between your folks and my folks.

“Patrick,” he said, looking to his right-hand man, “can you go into the other office and grab the manilla folder with the green tab out of the old green file cabinet to the left of the door? The one with the drawer that kinda sticks? Thanks,” he said as Patrick left the room.

“Can I get you guys anything? A drink or something? I mean, you can take a seat if you want. It’s, ah, not a bribe or anything, officer,” Solomon winked.

“We’re fine,” Evan said.

“Suit yourselves,” Solomon shrugged. “I’m just sayin’, we don’t gotta be all unfriendly like this. These things happen. Just the cost of doin’ business. And as it stands, it ain’t really costing me anything.”

Patrick returned and held a fat file of paperwork out to Solomon, who gestured for it to be handed over to Evan. As the younger man took the file, Solomon explained, “Like I said, I’ve got plenty of friends in your department. That Spanish broad has a lot of ‘em, too, and my friends have been keeping track of her friends. That’s all the info I’ve got on ‘em. All right there.”

Solomon couldn’t help but grin as Evan’s eyes widened while the younger man thumbed quickly through the thick file of private emails, photos, personnel files, and bank statements. “Now, I can’t say every piece has fallen into place, but if you wanna, you know, cut out a cancer at the heart of Seattle’s finest, well… you seem like some resourceful gentlemen.”

Evan looked up sharply at Solomon. “What’s in it for you?”

“Just keeping the peace. I’d like to make sure you know we’re not all out to start a bunch of shit with your kind. Just ‘cause I’m retiring doesn’t mean I don’t like a few folks around here who’re staying, and I’d hate for this whole misunderstanding to keep exploding.

“And, I'll admit, this lets me hurt that pain in the ass dame with a layer of insulation. She’s gonna come unglued, but I’m sure you can make sure she doesn’t know to come after you. Or maybe you want her to. But my advice would be to just connect the rest of the dots, then find some young, idealistic, up-and-coming assistant district attorney you’d like to have as a friend for life. Or, if you’re really pissed at all this, you can just let your friend here have the file,” Solomon said, gesturing to Finch, “but I don’t know if he still handles things the way he did in the old days.”

That got him another sharp look from Evan. “There’s a reason I brought him with me here,” he said ominously. Finch, for his part, betrayed no reaction at all.

“Oh, I figured, I figured. See, Mr. Finch here, I know he’ll do a job. But you, you’re a cop. Seem like an honest one, too, present company notwithstanding,” Solomon noted, again gesturing to Finch. “You probably don’t want a lot of needless bloodshed. You really wanna have a big fight here? I mean, I guarantee you, I’m gonna walk away from this just fine, no matter what happens or who’s left standing. That’s no threat, that’s just reality. Most you’re gonna accomplish is…” his voice trailed off, and Solomon gestured at the other men in the room, who all visibly tensed.

Evan closed the file, but didn’t put it down. “You leave Calpin alone, and you and yours are all set to leave me alone?”

“Yep. ‘cept for the Spanish broad and her friends, like I said. I can’t speak for them. They don’t play ball too well.”

Evan and Finch glanced at each other, knowing they were having the same thought: Solomon apparently didn’t know about the meeting on the pier. If he did, he was playing dumb. He either didn’t know or didn’t care that such concerns had already been addressed. He also couldn’t know that the leader of Seattle’s mages was expressly against an open conflict. Seattle’s mages, in turn, did not know how factionalized and communicative – or not – the vampires were.

There was also the question of whether or not to try to accomplish more through further action than Solomon was offering by bargaining. That, though, was treading much too close to what the city’s Hierarch and council had already decided against.

Whatever Finch thought of all that, he just shrugged.

Solomon was quiet for a moment while they considered. Then curiosity got the better of him. “Hey, I gotta ask, though, just between us here…this lick you whacked at your apartment. Can you describe him?”

“Russian guy,” Evan said after a moment of consideration. “Broad shouldered, bit of a gut. Bald. Talked like he was throwing his weight around, came in to threaten my family. Realized I only had a cat, so that’s all he had to threaten.”

Solomon snickered for a moment, then chuckled, and then laughed out loud. “No way,” he thought aloud. “Nah, couldn’t be…hey, was he wearing a nice suit? Dark goatee? Had lots of, ah… presence?”

“Yes,” Evan answered.

Solomon laughed again. “Threatenin’ your cat? Then what happened?”

“My cat and I lost our patience and we threw him out.”

“Lost your patience! Hah!” Solomon roared, and soon was laughing himself into tears. His laughter had an almost childlike quality, completely out of place for a sixty-plus year-old man. It went on for a minute or two, which seemed to all present like an eternity until Evan and the goon squad were all exchanging uncomfortable glances.

Finally, Solomon’s laughter diminished, and he wiped tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry, I just…heh. Probably wasn’t him. I’m probably just jumpin’ to conclusions. But I figured that Russian bastard wasn’t really dead yet after all, and if that was him…” he chuckled again. “That’s funny.”

“Glad you got a laugh out of it,” Evan frowned.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I owe you for that one,” Solomon nodded. “I do at that…you and Mr. Finch here, for old times at any rate.” He paused, and added, “And I’m a guy who pays his debts.

“Patrick. I need you to go back into the office and download a copy of the Seattle PD file, the general master one.”

“Boss?” Patrick blinked, startled.

“Aaah,” Solomon said, yet again waving a dismissive hand. “What do I need a load of dirty cops for where I’m goin’? I’m retiring. An' some of these cops are real bastards, probably oughta be taken off the streets. Good for the soul, you know?" He patted his belly at his own joke.

Solomon shrugged again. "Hardly even matters if Rafferty here killed that fat bastard or not, I’m sure that’s how I’ll remember it before too long. An’ that’s just precious,” he laughed again, then looked back at Evan and Finch. “I already gave you the broad’s cops to smooth this over, but hell. I owe you guys. You can have mine, too.”


Finch, Isaac Solomon, Twenty-Two