For DragonFlyMuse by bakaknight

*                      *                      *

 

We were on the phone, and I think that last Mountie said something about it being a bit of a climb. I wondered what sort of weird happenings he'd managed to get into while he'd been up there on his little 'vacation'.

 

I wanted to tell him. About everything. About the Feebs, about the mob, about how this might be my only real chance to do something to bring down the big guns. About how much I-

 

But I could feel the Lieutenant standing in the doorframe, could almost sense him checking every word, and who knew if the phone was tapped at one end or the other. I just wasn't allowed to tell him myself. I wanted to, but I couldn't.

 

I said something pithy and stupid about friendship. I tried to contain how much he means to me, package it up into a little box and send it to him over the phone, and I'm still not entirely sure if he received the whole thing.

 

His breathing was in my ear and I wanted to tell him how much I need him. Maybe then more than ever.

 

And I couldn't.

 

*                      *                      *

 

Vegas.

 

Oh, God, Vegas.

 

For sheer absurdity, the fit-in would have been worthy of one of our cases.

 

They put me into the hospital first. The nurse, Kelly, was one of theirs; she helped me ease into the role.

 

The trauma from the car crash, she explained, had managed to kill Armando in the night, well after visiting hours. But by that time, the Feebs had already called me up.

 

That kind of made me sick. They'd been briefing me for this while the guy was still alive. They'd been getting me wrapped up and cozy under a pile of bandages that would cover up everything that might tip people off that I wasn't really the Bookman.

 

Because now I was the Bookman.

 

I didn't mention this to Nurse Kelly. I tried to shake it off.

 

Every now and then, the doc would come in and check me. If it wasn't visiting hours, he and the nurse might bring me more info - I hadn't exactly had the chance to go over everything I'd need to know about this little undercover gig. The whole thing had been completely last minute; the FBI only found out I existed because of the stuff that made it to the Chicago stations about me and him and the hostage situation and the semaphore, and one of them had turned on the TV at the right moment while he was on holiday visiting his grandparents. Coincidence. Pure coincidence.

 

They needed someone to be the Bookman. They needed someone on the inside, someone who could get as much information as possible, about absolutely anything. But the Bookman? That was special. He had Mario's trust. He had free movement everywhere, got to see and have a say in everything. He had access, above all else, to the accounts. 'At the very least', they said, 'if we can't nail him for murder or extortion or conspiracy or anything else, we can get him on a tax evasion charge'.

 

It sounded so cliché - wasn't that how all the best mobsters got put away? - but they honestly seemed to believe that it would work.

 

They'd briefed me as best they could, gone over everything they felt I might need to know immediately, and told me that the Bookman was going to have retrograde amnesia.

 

Even as the real Bookman didn't make it through the night.

 

My visiting hours were filled with parades of people. Some of them I knew, some of them I didn't.

 

Mario 'The Dolphin' Bugiardini. 47. Head of the Iguana family since his maternal uncle died twelve years ago under circumstances involving - according to some reports that had never been released to the public - piano wire. Rumor had it that his nickname was a joke started in elementary school. His own explanation was that a dolphin could kill a shark. 'More cautious with money than his uncle,' they said.

 

Julia Bugiardini. 32. Possibly originally a trophy wife. Enjoyed painting. The notes in red beside her name had 'Highly skilled at manipulation for personal gain. Self-centered.'

 

Their daughter was Cassia 'Cookie' Bugiardini, 4 and a half. The Bookman's god-daughter. 'Doted upon, probably oblivious.' I knew the type, I'd seen it with Frankie's daughter (though not, sadly, with Frankie himself). Long may she remain oblivious whispered that part of me that still mourned Irene. She came in and chattered on and on about everything and everybody who had come in and asked about me, and about things that Daddy had said. She was responsible for the brightly-colored card in beside my bed. I had no idea who had sent the white flowers. Pigtails and ribbons and all, she was easily the best help to my cover.

 

Johnny Russo. 34. Wore a lot of black. Polite to a fault. Dead eyes. His mother may have been a prostitute, his father may have been Mario' dearly departed Uncle. He himself had been found in a cardboard box under the blackjack table of the Iguana family's first casino. He became a bodyguard, who often accompanied Mario. The red notes on him said that he may have been the one with the piano wire. The number of 'maybes' about him I mentally marked down as 'definites' almost as soon as I saw him.

 

Benny Moretti. 37. My bodyguard. He was always in my room during visiting hours, hesitated over leaving. He very rarely said anything except to ask if I was comfortable, if I needed or wanted anything. Anything at all, and he'd go and get it for me. I had no idea why he hadn't been in the car with the Boo- with me, but I figured his presence certainly didn't hurt my cover. He acted like he was treading on eggshells whenever he was talking with me though, like any second I was going to break. Break and do what, though, I didn't know at the time. His notes commented that the Bookman spent the most amount of time with this guy, and that convincing him was the most important part, more important than Mario; I figured that I had that down okay, from the way he was acting. And, hey, it was a bonus that his name was what it was; I was that much less likely to slip up.

 

They mentioned that the driver was dead. Joey Russo, 36, Johnny's adoptive brother. Just a driver. Not more than that. It mentioned that he was new to the job, only about a week or so. Johnny didn't look too cut up about it, but then Johnny didn't look too much about anything.

 

The car itself? I got a visit from two police officers at the start of visiting hours on the third day - just after they'd started taking off some of the bandages, and spending about an hour or so applying makeup each morning (which they said I'd only have to put up with for seven more days, felt more like seven more years...), and I was starting to look a little bit less like a mummy - neither of whom appeared happy to be in the room with me and Benny.

 

A car bomb. A freaking car bomb. Like my whole damn life was determined by the things. And a Rolls Royce. Such a waste.

 

They said that they were still investigating who might have done it. I watched them carefully, then said I couldn't think of anybody who might have a grudge against me.

 

And I honestly couldn't. Because most of the people who might hold a grudge against me-the-Bookman were dead.

 

Funny, that.

 

*                      *                      *

 

I could feel a smile against the back of my neck, a faint, gentle smile. Like the one my mother gave me when I told her I was engaged, and there had been tears in her eyes that should have told me how much of a mistake all that would really turn out to be.

 

A hand ghosted up my back, coming up to stroke gently at the nape of my neck.

 

A mouth brushed tantalizingly against my ear.

 

"Come home safe."

 

It all disappeared, like nothingness, like wind.

 

I snapped my eyes open, and managed to console myself with the knowledge that I'd left that postcard with Ma, and that she wouldn't forget to send it, not at all.

 

*                      *                      *

 

One month of hospital-only stuff later, and I felt like I was going crazy; I didn't really need to be there, and since meeting a certain Mountie, I'd spent enough time in and out of the places that sometimes the sterile smell and the faint hum of somebody buffing the floors at night would be enough to make me shudder.

 

It did, however, give me enough time to get all the reading done, to get my cover properly in place. And there was a lot of reading.

 

The Bookman still might have some amnesia over some stuff, but there were far fewer gaps now than there had been. With every new face, I could pretend to remember something new, something weird.

 

Cassia was delighted each time. Benny was even starting to relax a little.

 

Mario was all smiles as he walked beside Benny, who was pushing my hospital-required wheelchair out the door. I'd have to come back in two weeks' time to have the cast on my left arm removed. In the meantime, it itched. And I had a pile of painkillers and antibiotics (sugar pills, all of them) that Benny had put in a satchel and draped over my handlebars. I had a list, also in the bag, of things that I was and was not allowed to eat and/or drink; I had been relieved to see that alcohol was on that list, because the last thing I needed in the world was to drink. Not here.

 

I had memorized my list of contacts - names and covers of their own. I had three chip-exchangers, one roulette girl and one blackjack dealer, one doorman, and a couple of cleaners, along with my doctor and nurse. It was actually a fairly decent list. It meant I could go just about anywhere in the city and be able to make contact if something big was going down. It also meant that there was less chance of anything happening via phone tap. That was good, because the FBI didn't want the local cops listening in on anything for this one - something about a possible mole.

 

Once we were at the house, everything seemed to speed up.

 

It hit me.

 

This was it. If I didn't make this... then I was a dead man.

 

Thank God the butler was senile. And mute, which I'd first thought unexpected when I read about him, but that I soon realized how clever that truly was.

 

Nero gave me buttermilk almost as soon as I was in the door, an almost-benign smile on his face. He looked delighted when I finished it quickly. Mario shot me a casual look as Nero walked off, presumably to do butler-y things.

 

"I have never understood why you don't just fire him, replace him with someone who talks."

 

"I don't need someone to talk."

 

Mario beamed.

 

"My friend, I think you are almost all the way better! That is what you always say when I suggest that."

 

*                      *                      *

 

I was standing in the middle of his apartment. There was dust everywhere though, and he was nowhere to be found.

 

I took a slow, deep breath, and then blew it out, as if I could blow away all the dust with that breath.

 

Amazingly, I did.

 

I leant back slightly, and felt his arms around my waist, his chest against my back.

 

I whirled to find him, to face him.

 

I found only the dust I had blown away, swirling away into thin air.

 

*                      *                      *

 

"Ah, Doris!"

 

Mario was in a jovial mood as we entered the café. The lady behind the counter looked up and her face twisted into something that was halfway between a smile and a grimace. She was short and 'comfortably padded', her eyes were brown, and her hair was a short-cut blonde. The store uniform was clearly designed to match the store itself - blue dress with white apron, and pink cuffs on the short sleeves. She wore it with the air of someone who'd been wearing it so long it was more her home than her own bed. Like she'd been in the store longer than I'd been around, and would be there when I was gone, too.

 

"Now don't you be 'Doris'-ing me, boy! And don't think I heard about what happened with that Parkes boy. Nasty business, you should be ashamed of yourself. When are you going to get a real job and actually contribute to society, Mari?"

 

Mari?

 

Mario didn't even bat an eyelid. Not that I had really expected him to.

 

"The usual, Doris."

 

She held the glare for a moment longer, then rolled her eyes and - I couldn't actually believe I was seeing this - actually raised her hands up and wrung them in a short sharp movement that somehow made her the single most human person I'd met in Vegas.

 

"You're going to be the death of me, Mari," she said, writing something on a piece of paper and handing it to the kitchen.

 

"Oh Doris, you don't mean that. Not after all the trouble you went to for me. And I do contribute to society! Why, just last week I donated $50,000 to breast cancer research." And he had, too. At Julia's insistence.

 

I couldn't believe this. The head of the Iguana family was defending himself to a waitress. An elderly waitress at that, I added to my mental description as Doris approached with coffee, and I noticed her curly blonde bob did not at all match her grey eyebrows and crows feet, that her skin was sagging in her neck and wrinkling on her hands.

 

She poured my cup black and handed me a small twist-top bottle of honey without me even asking, then glared at Mario for a moment.

 

"I had one of the girls go over with flowers for Parkes' grandmother. That was a mighty cruel thing you did, mighty cruel."

 

"He was selling drugs, Doris. Hard drugs."

 

"I don't see that stopping you none."

 

"To minors."

 

Doris' lips pursed, but there was no true menace to it.

 

"Even so, Mari. Even so."

 

She poured his coffee (to which he quickly added cream and poured something I guessed was about the equivalent of three heaping sugars), and then she flicked a careful glance at me. Somehow, I suspected she knew about Armando's accident.

 

"And how are you feeling, Mister Langoustini? I told Joe, God rest him, I always told him, drive careful now, but would that boy ever listen? Oh, I'm so sorry child. I sent one of the girls with some chrysies over for you when you were all laid up, did you ever get them?"

 

I decided that she probably meant 'chrysanthemums' - because those were the only things I'd had in the room other than Cassia's little card - and also decided to mumble "Yes. They were lovely." Which was not a sentence I'd ever conceived of the Bookman saying, but then I'd never conceived that Mario might have a nickname that wasn't a code.

 

I suspected the rules were different in the store.

 

I was right.

 

"Oh, you're welcome dearie. Just don't you be getting into any more accidents like that, you hear me now? Why, I nearly had a heart attack when young Benny came rushing in to tell me." She plucked the sugar out of Mario' hands and gave him a semi-scolding look without even breaking a beat. "Don't have me be telling Julia on you now either, you know how much she wants you to stick to that diet."

 

I couldn't believe it. Mario was actually... I could almost call it pouting. It was almost as absurd as that ridiculous Puffin Face he-

 

Not the time, not the moment.

 

She smiled indulgently back at me, and glared right on back at Mario.

 

"You'll be gentle with Mister Langoustini for a while now won't you, Mari?"

 

Mario didn't physically roll his eyes, but I could hear it in the tone of his voice as he said "I will, Doris."

 

It was like he was a perpetual teenager with her around.

 

"Good. No talking shop in my café either. I know how you get."

 

Of course, the instant she was behind the counter, Mario was talking. The café was empty anyway, but it still actually made me nervous.

 

"The Squid has been making some minor movements during your... unexpected absen-"

 

"I said, no talking shop! Have I made myself abundantly clear, boys? I'm a respectable lady, and this store doesn't just cater to you and your friends, Mari."

 

Which I read up as code for 'the store may be empty, but who knows what bugs are in here'.

 

Mario stopped, but winked at me. There was no such person as 'The Squid'.

 

"You're a good woman, Doris."

 

"A better one would have let you bleed some more. Might have knocked some sense into your head," Doris announced, carrying over two plates on one arm and a pile of condiments on the other as though it were nothing.

 

Flapjacks and strawberry jam for Mario, and for me, bacon and eggs and potato arranged into...

 

Yes. Yes it was. They were in a smiley-face.

 

She spared me one more appraising glance before she returned to... do whatever it is waitresses do when they're not busy waitressing. Maybe cleaning or making more coffee or something.

 

Mario picked up his coffee, and took a slow sip, a smile spreading across his face even as his eyes were closed. It was the most human I'd ever seen him, drinking coffee. After you've witnessed somebody say, with a smile on his face and a steely glint in his eyes, that it would be better if somebody was dead - and lo and behold, the next day the news was reporting that death? That would start a bias.

 

After it's happened three times?

 

Doris bustled past our table again, changing the sign over to read 'Yes, we're OPEN.' I blinked, suddenly realizing that we'd entered a closed store and I hadn't even noticed, hadn't stopped to consider how rude of me it might have been. Doris gave me another smile as she stopped at our table once more, and tapped Mario on the shoulder. He looked up, a flash of anger crossing his face, and that was closer to the Mario I'd been almost getting used to. He covered it quickly though.

 

"There's a cruiser just coming up this way, looks like it'll be parking and coming in for coffee."

 

"Thank you for the warning, Aunt Dory," he rumbled.

 

Aunt?

 

Two more staff walked out to take places behind the counter, tying crisp white aprons around their waists, both young, and both blonde (though one of them was blatantly wearing a wig, from the wisps of black hair I could see peeking out).

 

Doris patted my shoulder gently.

 

"It'll come back to you, sweetie-pie."

 

And off she went to berate the staff member with the flyaway black hairs.

 

I carefully measured out a teaspoon of honey into the coffee, and stirred it in, giving a thoughtful look to my plate. The face smiled up at me, the fried-egg-eyes mocked me.

 

The door jingled and a pair of uniforms walked in.

 

"One black, one white two sugars, to go, please," one of them said to the girl who wasn't busy redoing her wig, and pulled out a slim black wallet.

 

The other was staring at me, brown eyes open wide in surprise, then blond brows furrowed and those eyes narrowed in... shock? Anger? I had no idea.

 

Mario dabbed at his mouth delicately with a napkin.

 

"Is there something that I can help you with, Jack?"

 

Anger directed at Mario now.

 

"Not at all. And it's Officer Watson to you, Mister Bugiardini." I carefully didn't wince. Barely two seconds in, and already Mario had gotten to the guy. Not good. I got the feeling there was history there that would take longer to hear than an Inuit tale from-

 

Still not the time or the place.

 

Mario smiled. I might have called the smile indulgent, were it not for the faint spark in his eyes that I'd seen one too many times in the eyes of others.

 

Typically right before they fired the gun.

 

Officer Watson's fingers twitched. I really, really wanted to warn him off. He shot me a look that was... well, it was venom and a lot of hurt and fury.

 

"I'm watching you Langoustini," he said, eyes still narrowed. I fought the urge to roll my eyes at the cliché, and focused on putting the ketchup on my eggs.

 

"My breakfast is not the most interesting thing in the world, Mister Watson. I would suggest you return to your job and continue with keeping the streets safe."

 

A warn-off, but with the right touch of generalized menace. I hoped he'd take the hint.

 

Instead, he took one step towards me, face getting red, and I realized belatedly that I had never really taken that sort of crap from people like Zuko either.

 

His partner placed a hand on his shoulder.

 

"Leave it alone man, it's not worth it."

 

Watson took a deep breath, and gave me a parting glare as he walked out. I ignored it in favor of adding salt to my food.

 

I needed more information.

 

*                      *                      *

 

We were standing in a field of green, brighter now, dappled with sunlight that moved about, but never touched me with its warmth. His uniform was still brown, and he looked like he belonged there; I feel I looked the part of shadow.

 

He smiled at me, and the scene moved, and we were in Canada, and he was draped over my back, but still in that uniform of his. The material felt almost strange to my hands, yet more familiar than one of my mother's hugs. I turned around, and there was the river.

 

Almost reverentially, I set him down on the rocks, and then turned to catch a drink.

 

When I looked back at him, there was a tree. It grew from the rock itself, and I could see where it had moved its roots to constantly dip in the child's-picture-blue-water, but never become part of the stream, never be pulled away by its flow. Its green leaves were bright and unspotted, its brown bark shining like French-polished mahogany.

 

Almost dreading it, I reached up to touch the tree, and my three fingers came back sticky with red-black sap.

 

I didn't sniff it, merely rolled it into a ball, rubbing it slowly between my fingers. Watched it grow oddly, then stood and threw an underarm pass into the forest. It knocked over the trees, and I turned back to the river-rock-tree.

 

A breeze picked up, and the tree tumbled forward into the water, twisting and reforming until it was a raft, and I dove in after it, only for a hand to catch me as I sat up.

 

"Boss, maybe you need a bit of a vacation or something," Benny smiled gently, worriedly, the smile of a guard devoted to the thing he's guarding. The lights of Vegas reflected against his tawny hair (cut in a style so similar to Frankie Zuko's that I had almost flinched when I first met him), the barest hint of an Italian accent tingeing the words.

 

I frowned, feigning that sleepy-grogginess might soften my tongue when all else would infamously not.

 

"Ah, Benny, what makes you say that?"

 

Again, that strange look passed over Benny's face, and he put one hand against my head, as if to check for fever.

 

"You got hurt, Boss. I shoulda been in the car with you, I know, but you've been getting these weird dreams... You always said you didn't dream..."

 

I almost wondered aloud if I talked in my sleep, but thought better of asking. Instead, I shook my head lightly.

"Must be the head trauma," I suggested, and the look flashed again. One hand rested against my cheek for a moment, the other gently placed on my shoulder, then both hands pulled back, as if my skin had burnt him.

"I wish I could whack that head trauma for you, Boss." He was looking down at the platinum ring on his wedding finger, the beveled edges catching and reflecting the light as he twisted it.

 

I decided to nod, then yawn. Make him think I needed sleep.

 

As far as I know, he didn't move from sitting on the edge of my bed that night.

 

*                      *                      *

 

"So who the fuck is this guy?"

 

Benny was outside the room, and I was inside and being damned grateful for soundproofing and doors without windows as the doc went through the motions of a checkup.

 

"What guy?"

 

I rolled my eyes pointedly.

 

"The guy I mentioned in the last drop, the cop in the café the other week, Jack Watson, that guy."

 

"Oh, him." He stuck a thermometer in my ear and made a few notes. This still had to look official. "The Bookman killed his partner."

 

Shit.

 

"How?"

 

"Car bomb. Nothing could be proven of course, and nothing traced back at all, nothing but his Policeman's Hunch. For your safety, we've been hiding the evidence that has come to light; it's all on-record, to be released when you're out. The poor woman didn't die instantly; they got her out and to a hospital, but the burns were too severe." The thermometer made its beeping noise and he took it out of my ear. "She was awake, she died screaming."

 

I gave the doc - or rather, Agent Haines - a stone-cold stare.

 

"You're getting quite good at those," he remarked conversationally, scrawling a few more notes down. "When was the last time you had your ears syringed?"

 

"Never. Why the hell wasn't this mentioned to me?"

 

"You should consider it. It wasn't considered relevant at the time."

 

"Like hell it wasn't relevant!" And so long as two plus two didn't suddenly equal eighty-seven, I now knew who the hell had planted the car bomb that had resulted in the demise of the real Bookman.

 

If he'd done it once, who was to say he couldn't do it again?

 

"Calm down," Haines ordered, not even looking at me.

 

"Why me? Why the hell me?" I asked the floor.

 

"Because you look just like he did."

 

And that was all the answer I got.

 

I was still fuming when I left the office and met up with Benny outside.

 

"Bad news, Boss?" Benny looked worried. I shook my head carefully.

 

"Something like that. I'm still not allowed any alcohol."

 

Benny patted me on the shoulder gently.

 

"That one's probably for the best, Boss. Wouldn't want all the chemicals in your head getting unbalanced and stuff."

 

I grunted, and he opened the car door for me.

 

*                      *                      *

 

The Bookman had been a killer. A cold bastard. An assassin in his own right, judging from the piano wire that I'd been surprised to find in my watch as I was attempting to set the time one morning about five months into the operation.

 

I mentally reviewed the files I'd needed to read on the man himself - and the smaller notes from agents and the few comments they'd gotten from people who'd been in, been undercover, and had been pulled out for lack of info, or... worse. The pieces I'd requested specifically, the things that weren't in the official files but that had been recorded anyway.

 

Doesn't carry a gun, except when he's out of town. Even then, it's only the one, a little pistol.

 

I saw him smile once, when he was with Cassia. I didn't quite believe it was him until I saw the bodyguard standing in a corner.

 

One cool blank stare from him is worse than a glare from Mario.

 

Spends the most time with Benny - that's his bodyguard. Benny's always on the alert though. No bribing him, guy's devoted.

 

I just needed to intimidate a few people. Nobody expected me to have anybody killed - not Mario, not anybody.

 

"I'm enjoying your new bloodless approach, Armando. So much more elegant, so much less to clean up and cover with good PR. One good thing has come from your temporary hospitalization, at least." He'd said that, just the day before I'd been playing with the watch in exactly the wrong way.

 

Actually, that was easier than I had been expecting. I simply...

 

I was the darkest me I had ever been. It felt like everything I could have been, might have been... if I had followed my father more, if I had been better friends with Frankie, if I hadn't looked across a prison cell one strange day and-

 

I was vicious and cold, and a tiny part of me enjoyed it.

 

When I saw a red haze before my eyes as I was pinning a man who had done the Family some small wrong, I was in the middle of sliding that piano wire out, planning to use it on a part of him... a shoulder, perhaps, or maybe an ear or a cheek...

 

I stopped.

 

I took a step backwards, my cold stare returning to my face only because I'd spent long, late hours practicing it to my mirror. I patted his cheek almost affably, the edge of the wire retracting into the watch, right beneath his nose.

 

He gulped.

 

"I am glad that we understand each other."

 

Benny handed me my coat, and we walked out together.

 

*                      *                      *

 

It wasn't long before I had another run-in with Officer Watson.

 

Or rather, it wasn't long before Benny spotted him, staking out the casino parking lot, and blatantly off-duty. He needed an inconspicuous hat - the bleach-blond hair was a bit of a giveaway.

 

I would have rolled my eyes, or possibly even walked over to call him up over the number of rules he was breaking, before I remembered that I'd broken just as many in my time.

 

Benny had no such qualms.

 

"You want I should go out and rip him a new one for you Boss?"

 

I shook my head, then realized he probably couldn't see me, looking out the window with binoculars as he was.

 

"No. But we're not taking the car back tonight. I'm not taking any damn chances. We'll call something."

 

He nodded, then suddenly pulled the binoculars off his face and gave me a horrified look.

 

"You think he- I'll kill him myself!"

 

"No, don't bother. He's not worth it, he's small fry."

 

I had to spend the next ten minutes convincing him not to march out right then and there and blow the kid to smithereens.

 

*                      *                      *

 

At the next drop off, this one to one of the roulette girls, I realized that I'd actually personally done more things that could be considered reprehensible than I'd witnessed Mario doing.

 

The girl herself smiled sweetly and didn't even blink when I slipped the tiny note into her right pants pocket.

 

She couldn't have been more than twenty-five, and the look in her green eyes was almost pure innocence.

 

She should not have been doing this assignment.

 

*                      *                      *

 

We were lying on a bedspread of muted greens. He was in that brown uniform that looked so much more peaceful on him than the violent red he so often wore. It was dark, and I could barely see the outline of his Stetson on the nightstand that wasn't really there. I looked for my feet, but they were swallowed up by the blackness, and when I looked back up at his face, he had an expression that I've only really seen when he was shot.

 

"Don't think of me, Ray."

 

The words hung around us, and I glanced around wildly at them, but all I could see were jumbles and swirls, and I'd looked away from him; when I looked back, he had that gently lost look that he gave me when he was dehydrated and couldn't see. Not a bug-eyed-Mountie look, not a scared look, not even uncertain, because he was certain - he was certain that he was lost.

 

A hand warm as one of Florida's thunderstorms rested on my shoulder, and I didn't know if I was even wearing clothes, but I still knew that hand, and so I tried to take it, to hold it in my own leather-clad fingers, but it slid through, like he were made of water, or as if I were made of steam; foggy and warm and dangerous and just water's echo.

 

"Don't..." he whispered, and I blinked and wanted to wrap my arms around him.

 

"You're more than this, Ray. Remember it in your heart, but don't let it rule your exterior."

 

The hand squeezed my shoulder, and I knew without even looking that beneath the leather I'd find blood and not truly know whose it was.

 

"Benny..."

 

"Boss?"

 

And Benny was leaning over me, eyes darting about my darkened - but not enough to not see - room; one hand on my shoulder to move me fast if anything went down, his left hand holding his gun steady, ready to fire at a moment's notice. His one-word query had been hissed out, and I still knew who I was.

 

*                      *                      *

 

I had never considered this as a possibility, but my life was even more surreal in Vegas than it had ever been at home.

 

Mute butler, never waiting in line for anyone or anything, bodyguard with a familiar name, people jumping to do my bidding - my merest whim - at the bare sound of my voice, lunches with an affable mob boss...

 

Actually, it was the 'affable' part that was truly terrifying. I mentioned this in one of my drop-offs to a chip dealer, who gave me a worried look the next time he saw me.

 

"Say the word, Boss."

 

I shook my head. I knew the signs, and I knew it was seriously a bad idea to ignore them, but Mario had been like that right from the start of my operation.

 

But it was getting near Christmas, and the next time I had occasion to meet with him properly he was snarling about Accounts Receivable, and yelling about jewel thefts from his cousin's store and how he was the guarantor, and commenting that heads should roll, and that if he ever found out who the thief was, he would see to them personally for costing him so much.

 

This restored my faith somewhat.

 

*                      *                      *

 

"Unca Armieeeeeeee!"

 

Little Cassia was clinging to my right leg and wouldn't let go for anything. Julia was using her patented 'put up with it, Cookie' look. Except she was using it on me, so it was more like 'put up with it, Bookie'. Nothing sweet here.

 

"Cassia! Your Uncle Armie needs to help Daddy with some things now!" Mario said fondly, gently prizing her off my leg. Cassie pouted.

 

"Uncle Armie has been very sick lately, and he's very tired, and I'm sure he doesn't need little girls clinging to his pants when he's trying to help people, right Cookie?" Julia called, looking speculatively at her easel. The pout intensified from Cassia, as she squirmed to get away from her father's arms. Eventually her wriggling got to be too much, and he started to put her down. I smiled.

 

"Hey, Cassia, why don't you go see if you can draw a picture for your Mommy and Daddy as a present, huh? Wouldn't that be fun?" I tried. She frowned, then brightened.

 

"I draw one for you, Uncle Armie?" she suggested, at ground level once more. Mario beamed.

 

"Whatever you like, Cookie."

 

"Yaay! I'll draw you a birthday card, 'kay?" she declared, poking my leg firmly.

 

"'kay."

 

The Bookman had his birthday on Christmas. I always wondered what happened to kids like that.

 

Clearly, they become bitter enough that they must go forth and become mobsters. Or Cash-flow Accountants - I heard they got picked on the most by other accountants. Or Cash-flow Accountants who were also mobsters (and would therefore not be picked on by other accountants).

 

Mario watched her totter off.

 

"She's so much like her grandmother.

 

I smiled faintly. He clapped me on the shoulder.

 

"To business! I want you to look over these accounts. I suspect that young Mister Michaels has been dealing with some of our competitors, and we can't have that now, can we? I've also been thinking about those receivables you thought of last time... Of course, some of them will have to be paid out from the Estates, poor souls."

 

I followed the mobster into the study, and closed the door. And little Cassia remained oblivious to her father's real job.

 

*                      *                      *

 

There was idiotic Christmas music playing over the loudspeaker when I entered the casino. Fortunately, they'd seen me coming into the parking lot, and had quickly switched it over from whatever it had been earlier (Benny assured me that I hadn't under any circumstances wanted to poison my ears with it, and I believed him) to something rather more subdued.

 

I popped the drop-off in the trash, wrapped up in a plastic bag (I'd made a great show of cleaning out my briefcase of extraneous and old papers on the trip over, and this was the 'result'), even as the cleaner started to pull it out of the bin. He looked at me carefully, solidly. He was older than I was, and the look he gave me told me that he knew exactly what this was like for me.

 

He smiled suddenly.

 

"Thank you. sir. Have a nice evening."

 

I nodded and went on my way down the hall.

 

*                      *                      *

 

He was in a hospital bed this time, lying on his side, facing away from me, looking out through the window to a snow-covered landscape. The hospital gown was pitiful on him.

 

I could almost - almost - appreciate what he sees in the unending shades of white and cold.

 

He turned his head, gesturing quickly for me to sit. I chose the edge of the bed, looking out with him at the snowstorm.

 

I didn't realize that my hand was tracing out the scars on his leg until he rolled over and reached up to stop it, to hold my hand still.

 

At that point, my hand had been moving past his leg, up over his back.

 

"It was not your fault, Ray. Not your fault."

 

I clung to his words, cradled the belief to me like a security blanket as I eased fully onto the bed and clung just as tightly to him.

 

*                      *                      *

 

We went past Doris's café, and she waved as we drove past, garbage bag in her other hand. I tapped Benny on the shoulder.

 

"You wanna get out Boss?"

 

"Yeah. Give Doris a hand with what she's doing. You stay with the car."

 

"That's awful sweet of you Boss."

 

"Yeah, well. It's Christmas."

 

Benny gave me a knowing smile.

 

I got out of the car, and Benny made to put it in park and join me. I shook my head.

 

"No Benny, you stay with the car. I don't want a repeat performance, do you?"

 

He shuddered and nodded.

 

Doris looked up when she heard my footsteps, and smiled when I came into full view.

 

"I was hoping to see you tonight."

 

I blinked. She tugged another bag over into the trash, and I picked up a third, tossing it in to join hers. She wiped her hands on her apron, then tugged out a packet of cigarettes.

 

"Want one?" she offered. There was something very, very strange about this moment.

 

I shook my head. She smiled.

 

"And now I know," she said simply, and a shiver went up my spine.

 

"So, if you're not Armando, who in the Lord's good name are you?"

 

I tossed the last bag in and turned to face her. Her cigarette was raised to her mouth, her expression was expectant.

 

"Of course I'm Armando, who the hell else could I be?"

 

She smiled, blew out the smoke.

 

"You might be able to fool little Mari, boy, but you can't fool me. Even a car bomb doesn't change the way a man likes his eggs, and you've been poking yours about your plate and covering them with ketchup and salt since you first came back in after your little spell in hospital. So I say again, and with only me and my ears around to hear the answer, who in the good Lord's name are you, really?"

 

I realized that I'd already made a mistake, and she knew it. I'd answered a question with a question, and now I was taking too long to come up with an answer to this one, and that meant...

 

She smiled. "Now, you could have just said that you started covering up the taste of the hospital food with the condiments, but you and I would both know that wouldn't be true, because Benny would have kept you fed properly. You could have just said that you wanted to try something new, but you haven't said anything."

 

I couldn't answer. What on earth could I possibly say to that sort of pronouncement?

 

"The Dolphin doesn't know," Doris said, taking a long drag of her cigarette, and then blowing it out into the night air.

 

I stared at her silently as she gave me a long, slow look.

 

"I'm not going to be the one to tell him."

 

The word of a waitress?

 

"You don't trust me."

 

I merely blinked. She didn't even bat an eyelash. I suspected that, once upon a time, she'd been a croupier.

 

She looked up to the clouds. I think the moon was full behind them. Suddenly she looked older than I'd thought. There were circles under her eyes that I could only see in profile, blue veins visible in her mouth.

 

"I'm a dying woman, boy. I've done all I can to bring little Mari back to the light of the Lord, and by His grace I have been allowed the life to try again, over and over. I'm old, and I'm tired." She waved the cigarette, as though to stab it out in the air, punctuate her point.

 

"He was a sweet boy. He had no idea what his father was, what he himself was going to become. I babysat him, I looked out for him, and he becomes..."

 

She sighed, deflating.

 

"If it takes a dead man to bring him back to the flock, so be it."

 

"Boss?"

 

Benny was at the end of the alley, worried. Clearly, I'd taken too long and my orders to stay with the car were overridden. Doris flicked the cigarette against the wall. In the distance, I could hear gunfire, traffic, a cat's meow, a dog's howl. Like the whole world had slowed its screams, long enough to let us talk in peace.

 

She gave me one last look.

 

"G'night, sweetie-pie. You give little Cookie my love."

 

I followed Benny out and into the waiting car and back to the house.

 

*                      *                      *

 

I was eternally thankful I'd never paid much attention to all of those 'the interpretation of dreams' classes that we'd done in Psychology, and that the teacher hadn't cared for Freud enough to test us on the stuff.

 

Being subject to images, flashes of memory of him, at all sorts of moments since we'd met; all sorts of things that had happened and that hadn't happened...

 

I was also eternally thankful I didn't wake up with tear tracks on my face when Benny tapped me on the shoulder and held out a cordless phone.

 

"Langoustini."

 

"Doris is dead."

 

I blinked.

 

"How?"

 

"In her sleep, they're telling me."

 

I blinked again.

 

"How do you know so early?"

 

A short bark of laughter.

 

"Johnny went around this morning to drive her to work, since her car broke down. We might not have found out otherwise."

 

I looked at the time. 5:30am.

 

"Thanks for telling me. Would you like me to arrange the funeral?"

 

"No. In all but name was Doris a Bugiardini. I will see to this personally."

 

"Of course."

 

"I am sure that Cookie would like to see you today." Code. I wish to speak with you personally and in private within my study.

 

"When would be convenient?"

 

A pause.

 

"Eleven should be fine."

 

I heard a faint buzz on the line, and frowned.

 

"Have you left the tap running in the bathroom, Mario?" Code again. Do you think there is a wire tap on this line?

 

"No. Johnny's calling Doris' employees on the other line, there might be a problem with the cordless signals. I'll have him look into it." I am uncertain. We have said nothing untoward. Johnny will have to find out for me.

 

"Of course. Eleven it is then. My regards to Julia."

 

"Of course."

 

He hung up. I stared at the phone for a moment longer, then pressed the 'off' button.

 

"Do you think it was that whackjob cop, boss?"

 

"Hm?" I asked, still processing the fact that my secret was almost certainly safe now.

 

"The wire tap. Do you think it's the cop, that Watson guy? You want I should teach him that no means no?" Ah. Well, that was probably it. It made sense, certainly. Wait-

 

"I'm quite certain that won't be necessary, Benny. Mr. Bugiardini was simply informing me that Doris passed away in the night." I glared at the time, and would have gotten up if Benny hadn't placed his hand firmly on my chest and pushed me back down.

 

"It's a Wednesday, Boss. Nothing happens on a Wednesday, and Doc Haines said you should get more rest, it said so in his notes. You can get up later and go around to see little Cassia."

 

"You've been reading my notes?" I asked, almost incredulous.

 

Benny had the grace to give me a slightly shamefaced glance, even as he beamed when I rolled over and went back to sleep.

 

*                      *                      *

 

"You know, Ray," he began, speaking even though he was playing statue in his silly red. "Some cultures believe that if you name something, or perhaps someone, then you have power over that thing or person. Or sometimes, if you willingly tell a person your real name, that person holds sway over you forever."

 

"Do they really?" I asked, sitting on the steps behind him and trying to pretend that this was normal. "What do you believe?"

 

I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

 

"I believe it's a metaphor for showing a person your 'true self', Ray."

 

"Do I have any power over you? You always seem to use my name, but I can't even..." I trailed off, and the world moved around us until I was standing in front of him, staring into his eyes, willing him to answer me.

 

"You have power over me, even now. And I hold some slight sway over you. Otherwise you could not possibly be having this dream." He smiled at me, and I twitched my lips upwards into something resembling a real smile like what he wanted to see.

 

"Maybe power is the wrong word?" I suggested, and he nodded once, happily. I raised an eyebrow. "So how come I can't even think your name?"

 

He shrugged, a casual eloquent gesture that meant more from him than it ever could from me.

 

"Perhaps you do not trust those around you to not read it in your heart and do damage upon the world with it?"

 

Made sense.

 

*                      *                      *

 

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

 

The funeral was held two days after she died. It was a little unreal to see the number of people who turned up for it. It wasn't hard to figure out which ones had been employees, which ones had simply been friends, and which ones were just plain connected to the Iguana family.

 

Of course, after I realized that some of the ones who had been simply friends were also connected to different mob families in some way - an aunt here, a grandmother there, a cousin or so, a few sons and daughters scattered amongst the 'employees' group - I started to wonder what the hell she really was.

 

Benny was at my shoulder the entire time, giving me a look that made me think of that lost little boy I'd met on my first day as an officer. Lonely and only holding back tears because he wasn't sure what might happen if he started to cry.

 

"She was a real nice lady, Boss. Real nice," he murmured at one point during the wake, and I nodded. What else could I have done? Said that she was an incredibly perceptive woman who had more connections to the Vegas underground than New York had subway stations? While that would probably have been true, it would not have endeared me towards Mario, who was quietly conducting business. I thought back to that strange British show my old neighbors had watched for a while, the one about the British Prime Minister. I'd picked Ma up from there and the T.V. was on. The guy was saying something about funerals being the best time to get any real discussion or business done; there was no pressure from the outside world, because to all appearances those people had gathered to mourn, not talk about matters of state.

 

I headed over to the corner of the room that Mario was occupying, nursing my glass of buttermilk. Mario smiled when he saw me.

 

"Ah, Armando. We were just discussing this whole unfortunate business with the recent jewel thefts. Worrying stuff."

 

The man who'd been 'discussing' this with Mario looked nervously over to me, before flicking his gaze back to Mario. I nodded slowly.

 

"Weren't a few of those stores owned by members of your family?" I asked, as casually as I could. Mario nodded.

 

"And so they were, Armando! My cousin owns one of them, and my Aunt's stepson owned another!" He smiled at me, then turned that smile on the nervous man, and it suddenly became more sinister without him ever changing expression. The man gulped.

 

"I think whoever could stoop so low as to steal from simple shopkeepers like that should be... Pushed off a cliff. Armando, do you know of any cliffs around here? The sort where a body could lie undisturbed by humans and eaten by coyotes?"

 

"The desert's a big place, Mario," I replied. Nervous guy actually shrunk into himself. Mario gave him a winning smile. Or, at least, made a movement with his face that showed his teeth.

 

"So it is, Armando. So it is. I do hope, for his sake, that I never find out who's been doing those."

 

The errant jewel thief ran off.

 

"You wouldn't really have him dropped off in the desert somewhere, would you?" I asked quietly, actually curious.

 

"That would be illegal." Mario's expression was almost disturbingly cheerful, as if he were discussing what silly thing Cassia wanted for Christmas this year (she told her father she wanted an elephant, and told me she wanted a pony - I suspect this meant she wanted a kitten). Only the glint in his eyes told me the truth. 'In a heartbeat,' that look in his eyes said, and I honestly believed it. That man would not be alive tomorrow; he had brought shame to Mario's family, and Mario did not forgive those who did that.

 

Benny chose that moment to walk up, bearing some sort of coffee-cake, and for reasons that I'm quite certain would be inexplicable, particularly given the current circumstances, was actually bouncing a little; not so much that Mario would notice, but I spent most of my waking hours with the man. I'd suspect too much sugar, but that cake was the first I'd seen of anything sweet.

 

I had to leave.

 

*                      *                      *

 

Dusk was already starting to fall in the cemetery, and I wished I hadn't left my coat in the car; At night, Vegas herself was almost as cold as the desert. Certainly as unforgiving.

 

It didn't take me long to find her grave; the granite headstone almost glittered in the twilight, the shadows shifted as the wind picked up and moved the branches of the overhanging tree. I stared at it for a few long moments.

 

"...I'm old, and I'm tired."

 

And now, I added to myself, you're dead. And I'm... "Relieved," I muttered, watching the shadows move. Odd. There wasn't any wind at that moment, the branches weren't moving.

 

Which was around the time that I got slammed into the tree,

 

"You, fucking-"

 

Oh, no. No, not happening. Not no how, not no way.

 

I punched my attacker in the stomach, then moved my knee in a manner that was certainly not 'fighting fair'.

 

"Oof!"

 

I scrambled out from under him, fumbling with my watch for the piano wire before I actually started paying attention.

 

"Watson," I managed to whisper, lowering my hand. It took about half a second for him to lunge forward and get at me again though, and by that time I was almost regretting not pulling out the piano wire. It'd certainly have given me a bit more of a chance.

 

He shoved me up against a mausoleum wall, holding me there like I was a ragdoll. Holy crap, was this how strong the guy was? How the fuck was he doing that?

 

"You're going to pay."

 

I started to slide down the wall, but he bunched his hands in my shirt and pushed up again, determined to make sure I didn't gain any leverage. He stared right into my eyes, almost challenging me to so much as breathe, let alone validate all the reasons he wanted to kill me.

 

I opened my mouth, tried to gasp in some air before he might get it into his head to try pushing against my windpipe. Which he didn't, but it was close. He frowned, more a sneer really, almost nose-to-nose with me.

 

"Where's the tough-guy act now, bastard?"

 

"I'm not the guy you think I am."

 

His only response to that was to pull me forwards slightly and then slam me backwards so that the back of my head thumped against the wall - enough that it might have knocked me out if I hadn't learnt long ago how to take a hit like that on the elbows instead. Hitting my head was just for show.

 

"Gonna pay! You fucking killed her! I loved her and you fucking killed her!"

 

I wanted to tell him that I knew exactly what he was going through. I wanted to tell him that it wasn't me. I wanted to set his mind at ease, let him know that the Bookman - the real Bookman, the one who'd had Watson's partner killed - was dead and cremated and would not be hurting him or anybody else ever again.

 

I wanted to tell him, but a hand on Watson's shoulder pulled him backwards, made him release me like my skin burnt him.

 

"He's not worth it. Not worth it." Pulling him back, holding him back, stopping him from killing me outright.

 

"This isn't over. Dammit Jules, let me go."

 

I wiped my lip on the back of my hand, half-expecting it to come back bloody, then carefully didn't smile at him.

 

Watson's partner - Jules - clung to Watson, and it was clearly not about protecting me and entirely about protecting his friend and partner from doing something he would regret later. The look that Jules was giving me told me even more.

 

You hurt my friend.

 

I considered thanking him, then thought better of it. I considered telling both of them the truth, then realized just how incredibly stupid that would be - leaving aside the probability that neither of them would believe me and that Jules would likely simply release his hold.

 

'If it's any consolation, I do know what you're going through.' I didn't say it. Watson was led off by his partner, and I took some slow deep breaths and tipped my head back to watch the stars come out to dance in the cold.

 

*                      *                      *

 

It was a week or so after the encounter in the cemetery that I saw Mario again. He smiled, and I knew perfectly well that there had been no jewel robberies in the last week. Which probably more meant that the guy  was dead in the desert somewhere, being eaten by coyotes, more than it meant he was alive and just not stealing.

 

"Ah, Armando. I need you to go to this party for me. Tonight."

 

"A party, sir?" I asked, feeling bemused.

 

"A party," he responded, fixing me with a look. "A party at which you must be highly visible, are we clear? I want you there and obviously so."

 

I had no idea what this was about, but he handed me an invitation with gold filigree and calligraphy and told me that I'd be having the steak, and that was that, really.

 

I wish I'd known. But it was while Benny and I were leaving the hotel where the party that I found out why. The affair itself had been more like a sit-down dinner than a party in the truest sense of the word, and the Bookman's old tuxedo itched in places I didn't really want to think about, so I'd spent the entire time being very uncomfortable and being watched carefully from a corner of the room by Benny. I had rather studiously not gotten up to dance; the last time I'd danced it had been Disco, and my partner was certainly not a girl.

 

There was a news item playing over the big screen TV in the hotel's lobby.

 

"...two police were gunned down in a cruiser in Las Vegas this evening, in what appears to be a drive-by shooting. Police are looking into the double-homicide. We can now confirm that the officers killed were John Watson and Julian Hobbes..."

 

I could feel the blood draining to my feet, leaving me lightheaded and stumbling. Benny caught me before I fell though.

 

He had known. He had fucking known, the goddamn bastard. He'd known and he'd organized... Organized this.

 

"Boss? Boss? Hey, Boss, I think you'd better spend the night at my place, okay? It's closer to the hospital, and you don't look so good."

 

I nodded numbly. It was like a trap door had opened up beneath my feet and swallowed me and everything I knew whole.

 

*                      *                      *

 

We were in my car, my precious Riv, my hands on the steering wheel, his hat on the dashboard. He was looking down, looking at his boots, and I reached out to pat him on a brown-clad shoulder.

 

He gave me a smile that made me feel safe, which was good; I'd been starting to think there was no way I could ever feel safe in a car again.

 

*                      *                      *

 

I was completely lost in thought as I exited the spare bedroom and headed for the kitchen. To my right, Benny's door was open, and I couldn't help but glance in.

 

Benny was kneeling, praying, fingers curled around rosary beads. I didn't want to disturb him, but his head snapped up as I shifted backwards, left hand suddenly reaching into his jacket for his gun.

 

"It's me."

 

He relaxed as he looked over.

 

"You really don't remember, do you?" He whispered his words, but I still heard them, and there were tears in his eyes. I shook my head carefully.

 

"Remember what?"

 

The sides of Benny's mouth twitched, like he was trying to smile for his Boss's sake, and couldn't quite manage it.

 

"Maybe when the docs cut your hair, they cut your strength, like with Samson."

 

I smiled for him.

 

"I like to think I'm plenty strong."

 

"You told me that memories were strength." He shook his head sadly. "You lost your memories, Boss... You know, it's funny. How death can make you think of things. Even if it's not in the family. I mean, we see so much of the stuff, right? But how often do we get to go to a funeral like... like that one?"

 

He never called me 'Bookman' when we were speaking, he never called me 'Mister Langoustini', and as a guard he would never dare to call me 'Armando'. It was always just 'Boss', and I could always hear the capital letter in his pronunciation of the word.

 

He was whispering again, and this time I couldn't hear him.

 

"What was that?"

 

"They said you had to remember on your own. Oh, Armando..."

 

Well, shit. This was not mentioned. Maybe the feebs didn't even know...

 

And now he was crying, a strange and silent weeping, and I backed out of the room, heading across the living room for the kitchen. My god, if I hadn't known who rented the place, I would have sworn it wasn't lived in at all.

 

Actually, from what I'd seen of Benny, it might very well not have been lived in at all.

 

A single muffled sob rang out, then I heard a gunshot, and I ran back into the room.

 

Benny was lying in a pool of his own blood, and there was... Oh, God, everything was all over the carpets from the new and horrific hole in his damn temple and blood still flowing - not because he was alive, but because that was his head and there was suddenly a hole and God, grey stuff, the stuff the paramedics had told me was brain matter after that awful hit and run...

 

I fell to my knees and pulled out my mobile because that was all I could do and hit three on the speed-dial.

 

"Benny's dead."

 

The Bookman's other guards were on their way up.

 

This probably explained why the Bookman didn't have any partners.

 

I looked away, and I'm not quite sure how I managed to not throw up. I should have seen the signs - God knows I was trained to! - but I didn't. Hadn't.

 

It was an eternity, it was all too brief, but finally they showed up. They took one look at the mess, and pulled out thick latex gloves and organized a cleanup crew, and Johnny looked right at me and told me that I needed to get out because they'd be calling the cops after they'd gotten rid of any incriminating evidence.

 

I nodded, feeling numb, and then he was handed a cream envelope. It was miraculously untouched by any blood. He glanced at it, but didn't pocket it.

 

"It's for you," he said, not unkindly, and handed it to me after he'd helped me to my feet.

 

"Vince! The Bookman needs to go home. Get him outta here."

 

I tucked the envelope away, and followed my new guard out.

 

"Sir?"

 

Everything out of Benny's apartment was a blur, but I still looked up. I was already in another bedroom, and I had no idea how I got there. I wasn't going to be admitting that anytime soon.

 

"Sir, I... I'm real sorry about Benny." Vince shuffled his feet, and I tried not to think too hard about how young he was.

 

"Goodnight, Vincenzo."

 

He flinched as I spoke - I thought I'd seen him around before, and he would always flinch whenever I spoke directly to him, so this was normal - and nodded once, closing the door almost all the way behind him. He'd be in the lounge until otherwise ordered. Being an alibi.

 

I reached into the inner pocket of my blazer, and pulled out the envelope, now slightly bent. 'Armando' was written in Benny's chicken scratch, and I remembered the last time anybody had left me a note in an envelope with just my name written on it, and that had been him telling me he was running off with Victoria.

 

I shuddered once, and opened the letter before I lost my nerve, tipping the contents out onto the desk.

 

His ring. A photograph, upside-down.

 

I picked up the ring, twisting the light around so I could see it properly. There was an inscription. 'AMA A ET B SEMPER '. I frowned. A & B, love always... (Who said that singing in the church choir didn't teach you anything?)

 

Oh.

 

Oh.

 

Oh dear.

 

The photo was a strange snapshot, the sort you take by holding the camera out at arm's length and smooshing yourself against whoever else you wanted in the shot.

 

Benny had taken it, from the angle and the fact that his right arm was visible and out of focus and larger than it should have been. His left hand was visible against my - against the Bookman's, against Armando's - chest, fingers splayed out and the ring catching the light, reflecting it softly.

 

He looked so happy, pressed up tight against the Bookman. This was his entire world, and I could see that in his eyes.

 

Armando was giving him a fond look. These were two luxuries he could permit his love, and he knew how dangerous both were.

 

My hands shook as I put the picture down. I'd have to find a way to burn it, but right now... Not right now, no.

 

I tucked the photo back into the envelope and put it back in my pocket, and the ring was too big for my finger. Just as well. I figured I should arrange for him to be buried with it. Or I'd plant it myself. He'd probably get a memorial tree or something, or I as the Bookman would arrange for one myself; I'd put it there. Something living.

 

Fifteen minutes or so of staring at a blank wall later, I asked Vince for a lighter.

 

*                      *                      *

 

He was smooshed up against me, wearing his brown uniform, Stetson nowhere to be seen, left hand splayed across my chest, right arm wrapped around my waist, one leg carelessly draped across my knees. His sleeves were rolled up, his top three buttons undone, and he looked so peaceful and overjoyed to be clinging to me like this.

 

I was just happy he wasn't a dead tree this time.

 

"Ray, you do realize that this is a construct based upon your recent viewing of a certain picture?"

 

I smiled carelessly and pushed him gently onto the bed.

 

He faded into the quilt, and I woke up again.

 

*                      *                      *

 

It had been simple to burn the photo. Some weeks later I planted the ring amongst the roots of the climbing rosebush that his family had organized to have planted in his memory. Suicide meant he didn't get a decent grave, but this seemed almost fitting.

 

"Armando?"

 

I turned. The family head was standing behind me. Shit. Fuck.

 

He seemed almost hesitant. Julia was giving me the sort of sadly sympathetic and knowing smile that meant she'd at the very least guessed about Benny and Armando. I knew I looked like a silently grieving lover; I hadn't slept well lately, and I'd lost more weight than was really healthy, despite Nero's best efforts. I felt gaunt, drained. I'd started growing a beard.

 

"Sir?" I kept my tone respectful and questioning and this sort of encounter has always been one of the few times I've been thankful for my father.

 

"Armando, have you picked a new assignment?"

 

"I was thinking of Vincenzo." Someone who wouldn't question too closely if I needed to go somewhere for fifteen minutes.

 

Mario nodded.

 

"A good choice. My cousin's son has a good head on his shoulders. He won't do something so foolish."

 

I nodded, recognizing the slur on Benny's character for what it was and forcing myself to ignore it. It wasn't as though he was my Benny anyway, just as I hadn't been his Armando.

 

I'd forgotten that Vince was Mario' blood-family, though. This could be good, or it could be bad. Either way, I'd need to be careful.

 

"So! Now that you have chosen, we need you to go."

 

I waited, expression blank.

 

"There is a man named Muldoon. In three weeks time, he wishes to meet with a representative of ours, outside of Vegas, and will speak with no one less than one of your stature."

 

Buttering me up, flattering. I'd be more worried if I didn't know perfectly well that this would have been one of Julia's ideas. The woman might be manipulative, but she sometimes did things that she felt were 'good ideas'. And three weeks was plenty of warning. Just enough that the Bookman could look forward to a rare business trip, and plan for it and settle appropriate affairs ahead of time accordingly. It was also plenty of time for me to give appropriate notice regarding the trip to the next contact I saw - probably the roulette girl - and for them to make their own little plans and schemes.

 

A trip out of Vegas? Yeah. That'd be nice. And a chance to see what sort of contacts they'd got outside the city. I'd already been over all Armando's notes, but the quiet bastard had written some of the things in code, and even Benny hadn't been able to help me decipher them.

 

"Where's this meeting?"

 

He told me.

 

Shit.

 

Mario turned and started walking away. Julia gave a little wave before she joined him.

 

"Oh, and Armando?" He called backwards. "Lose the beard, you look silly."

 

I shaved when I got back to the house, but got a false moustache. Just to prove to myself that he didn't own me.

 

*                      *                      *

 

We were sitting at his table, him in his browns and me in my simplest of turtlenecks and jeans, and there was... something. A chessboard, or a checkerboard, some sort of game. It may as well have been Scrabble. I was watching his bent head as he mulled over his choices. I blinked, and he was looking up, looking at me right in the eye and I was suddenly entirely aware of just how far he had gotten inside the little personal bubble the Academy had drilled into me.

 

"Don't let anybody kill you, Ray."

 

I shivered at his words, yet I couldn't help but blink again.

 

He was gone.

 

*                      *                      *

 

The meeting was just starting, and I was going over what I knew about this guy. Interesting connections, in the way that 'may you live in interesting times' was a Chinese curse.

 

We'd gotten past pleasantries and started with the stare-down (I was winning), when there was a knock at the door.

 

Vincenzo's head twitched, and he made to go and answer it, but I waved him down.

 

"Housekeeping."

 

That was a falsetto voice if ever I heard one. I got to the door and opened it to-

 

His face.

 

Oh, god, his face. He was right there in front of me. Smiling like he did in my best dreams.

 

"Ray!"

 

The blond with him - my cover? - looked confused. "Ray?"

 

He was still smiling, and it was like the sun had just come out and was finally warming me to my very bones. I was still in my coat; forgotten how cold it was in winter at home, but now I just wanted to take it off and bask. Oh, god, his eyes were so blue. Vigilance and Justice, at my side once more.

 

"Ray Vecchio!"

 

"Ray Vecchio?"

 

Yeah, total genius they got to replace me.

 

I shook my head imperceptibly, trying desperately to think of something to say. 'No one here of that name', and closing the door, maybe? But I couldn't even move, because it was him.

 

"Oh dear."

 

I closed my eyes. Muldoon had to be standing behind me.

 

Too late.

 

I jerked my head, and Vince came forward and helped me drag them inside, patted them down swiftly and practically shoved them down onto the sofa. I tugged off my coat, hung it up, then I watched Muldoon.

 

"What's going on here? I was under the impression I was going to meet someone called Armando Langoustini from the Iguana family - South-West branch," Muldoon was fury. Well, hell. I could do fury.

 

"You are," I managed. I had no idea how the hell I managed to keep my voice level; my heart was thumping harder than it had the time Ma had come home when I was five and found me on the kitchen counter and her cookie jar broken on the floor and Dad passed out on the couch.

 

"So who the hell is Ray Vecchio?" he demanded, and I pushed the adrenaline aside. Cold anger.

 

"How the hell should I know?" I demanded right back.

 

"Perhaps I should explain-" he started.

 

"Perhaps you should shut up," I cut him off desperately.

 

"Perhaps he should talk," Muldoon snapped. "Don't I know you?"

 

"Not directly, no. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my-" I've only ever seen him look at any many with anything close to that level of careful emotional cool, and that was Gerrard. But just as his voice was starting to calm my heartbeat, presumably-replacement-me decided to say something, and I came back to myself with a mental jolt. I glared at him.

 

"Who are you?"

 

The blond played confused. Or at least I hope he was playing confused. It would have been horrific to find if he'd not been playing dumb at all there.

 

"Who me?"

 

"Yeah you," I tried gentle, gentle might work. Because now was not actually the time for him to be playing confused.

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"What do they call you?" I deliberately didn't say 'what is your name' because I didn't need Muldoon to spot a lie here either - but replacement-me was going the right way to being spotted for the lie with all the stalling. This was right outta the damn classes on interrogation!

 

"Who?"

 

"Am I not speaking English here or what?" I was getting frustrated.

 

"Yes boss, beautiful English," drawled Vincenzo. He'd been getting bolder around me, and had strangely decided to emphasise his faint accent, which I'd told him was stupid but I suspected Julia had put him up to it, to give me something else to focus on for a bit. Right now though, the results were just annoying.

 

"So what's it going to be funny guy?" I spoke with my voice low, drawing my gun and pointing it dead at his head. One twitch...

 

He looked right at me.

 

"Oh you mean my name... oh that." He started fumbling in his pocket. I smirked, and tried to make it convincing. Something like a wallet with ID wouldn't have been turned up in Vince's pat-down; he'd been trained to look for weapons, not evidence as to who a person might be. "Here," he said, handing over the wallet, just like I'd thought.

 

"Ray Vecchio, Chicago P.D.," I read aloud. Well, that solved the mystery of whether or not he really was the other half of my cover. I threw the ID back at him, and he made no move to grab it. Smarter than I'd been giving him credit for. All around the room though, guns were quickly drawn and levelled. One false move from anybody...

 

"You bring cops to a meet?" Muldoon snarled. Did he only have two vocal settings or something?

 

"It's your room pal," I called back, trying to tell them both with my eyes that they'd be safe.

 

"They followed you in," he pointed out, blatantly still angry.

 

"Meaning what?" my voice was dangerously low.

 

"Meaning this whole setup smelled from the get-go," Muldoon hissed. I take it back; three vocal settings, with an option for yelling. "Who are you buddy? I've seen you before." Muldoon's was the only gun pointed at him, and that made me ansty.

 

"Yeah dead guy, get up." I gestured with my gun. He started to rise. "Let's go, get up." Replacement-me stood up too.

 

"In the bathroom," the gun felt like an extension of my hand as I gestured again, casually. They walked in stiffly, and I followed them, closing the door behind me. I held a quick finger to my lips, and pulled out the packet of strawberry jam I'd kept on a pure whim in my pocket from breakfast this morning. I opened it fast, dabbed some on the side of my face, and winked, grabbing open the shower door.

 

He nodded in understanding, and dropped to the ground after I'd slammed the thing closed, brass crashing against brass. Replacement-me blinked a few times, but nodded and went down with the second slam. Almost like we'd rehearsed it. I nodded, then headed out again, closing the door to hide the reality.

 

"You want to play hard ball with the Iguana family, you'd better have hard balls. You still in the game?" Did I really, honestly say that? I think I'm always going to look back on that line and just cringe.

 

"I'm always in the game. Okay, back up location. 9 o'clock. Remember what I said before: I don't wait." His thick coat brushed past me on his way out.

 

Vincenzo spoke up "Hey boss, you've still got a little blood right-" he said, scratching at his face where I'd put the jam.

 

"Yeah right. Clean up the bodies," I cut him off.

 

Into the bathroom they trooped, and I walked forward to look at myself in the mirror, pulling out a handkerchief.

 

"So long Armando Langoustini," I murmured, cleaning up my face. "It's been good knowing you," I lied as I pulled off the moustache, only wincing slightly as the glue tugged at my upper lip. I almost welcomed the pain though, it reminded me that I was still alive and that I'd made it through the last few minutes without so much as a papercut. Compared to a bullet to the head, a little glue was wonderful.

 

I heard more thumps, and then they exited the bathroom. Replacement-me kicked at Vincenzo a few times, but I didn't really mind. I took a slow, cleansing breath while I ran my tongue over my lips, trying to get rid of the dryness that had been there since I'd opened the door, before starting in on them.

 

"For a full year I'm deep undercover, never waiting in line, always getting the best tables at the best restaurants. I live in a nine-thousand-square-foot adobe house at the edge of the desert, with a butler named Nero who brings me buttermilk night and day and everywhere I go I sit in the back of a black limousine my elbow on the gangster lean and all this, all this, you wipe out with one word?" I ranted, trying to sound angry but ending up sounding more... pleased.

 

He smiled at me, and said: "It's good to see you Ray."

 

We hugged, and I mumbled something about it being good to see him too. Replacement-me made some comment that I felt sounded snide, but I was still holding onto him, so whatever he was saying didn't matter at all. I did pull back though. Too much touch, too soon.

 

"You realize you could have got us all killed," I told him, still too delighted to see him to actually really care that my cover had been blown to the sort of smithereens that might have shrapnel in it that would be flying straight towards me, and maybe towards him too if things didn't go so well.

 

"Well I'm sorry, but I was so pleasantly surprised to see you that I-" he began, but I cut him off.

 

"Said something stupid?" I smiled though, to let him know that there was no malice. I felt like I couldn't wipe the goofy grin off my face.

 

"Yes," he said, as I picked up the phone and dialled the emergency number that the FBI had given me, via Agent Haines, for this little trip. I laughed a little; felt like the first time I'd really honestly laughed since I'd taken the assignment. Hell, it probably was.

 

"Hey, yes this is three seventeen, we need a clean up unit at twenty-four-oh-nine. Right," I hung up. "So you're me?" I spoke to my replacement - more to distract myself and force aside the hysteria that I could feel starting to set in.

 

"And you're not you." I felt my face fall.

 

"That's a good one, unlike the clothes," I answered, feeling suddenly vindictive.

 

"Something up with them?"

 

"Well nothing, if you're a bag lady." He gave me a look, and I started to smile. "You see I had a rep. I was a slick dresser."

 

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, like a, like a, a style pig, you mean." That was... honestly funny. Or maybe that was just the hysteria talking. I laughed again. It felt good.

 

"You kill me funny guy. I see it's going to take a lot of work to get my reputation back in place."

 

"What place was that?

 

"Well you see, these three goons are going to get one call each. They're going to call Vegas and when they do Armando Langoustini is going to go up like flash-paper. Time to get my life back," I explained it to him. Did he honestly not know how this worked? I thought my replacement was meant to be an officer with experience in undercover jobs.

 

"But that's my life," he protested, still confused.

 

"I'm afraid it is," I agreed, and didn't commiserate. It was my life first, dammit, and he had my partner. Speaking of whom... "What are you grinning about?"

 

"I knew you two would hit it off," he beamed, and clapped us both twice on the back.

 

*                      *                      *

 

It wasn't long before I was within the familiar office of Lieutenant Welsh, and feeling more at-home than I'd felt since I'd given a good-bye over the phone. We'd driven over in replacement-me's car - I wondered what happened to mine, but decided I preferred that she wasn't being driven. The trip hadn't been as fun as it could have been; it was fast, it was almost silent, and Diefenbaker was particularly delighted to see me again. Something he announced with liberal licks. Still...

 

Home.

 

"Muldoon has weaponry for sale and a buyer he just needs somebody to broker the deal. So the ATF places two agents a Colittle and a Cartwright. Muldoon makes the agents and kills them both. So the ATF suspect an inside leak. They turn to the FBI, who turns to me, Armando Langoustini. The Mob brokers the deal," I didn't mention that Mario had brought me into this a good day before the FBI had even mentioned it, and that it was simply happy co-incidence that led to the two operations dovetailing so very nicely.

 

I really didn't want to mention that, because he'd made those agents earlier, it was a wonder he hadn't made me. And a very good thing. I'd asked how those two ATF agents had died, and had instantly regretted it.

 

"How does the deal work?" Welsh was asking questions and frowning, which for me felt like one of the greatest steps towards anything like normalcy since this whole thing started.

 

"Two stages. The first is the nerve gas that you stumbled upon, and all I know about the second is that it's 'big and it's scary'," the exact words that Mario had used to describe the deal to me. Worrying, but I couldn't think of anything better.

 

"And who's the buyer?" Welsh again. This felt almost like an interview. We were certainly doing the right amount of talking.

 

"Again don't know, very cagey very secret. The basic idea was that I would broker the deal and then we'd nail Muldoon and the buyer." Simple, really.

 

"Which doesn't work out-" Huey began.

 

"Because Fraser and Ray show up and blow the whole thing out of the water," Dewey finished.

 

"Bada-ksh," added Huey, which confused me. I blinked at him slowly, letting an incredulous look show on my face.

 

"So what now?" Welsh asked, getting us right back on track.

 

"The meet with Muldoon's set for nine. My cover should hold until then. That's our window." Should hold. Should. Has to. Must. Needs to hold.

 

"All right, we've got to move," Welsh muttered. "Huey and Dewey you run down the location the whole layout all right? Francesca, pull everything on Muldoon; any possible connections." My baby sister was a civilian aide. God, how things change.

 

Welsh pointed at my partner, who was sitting down and frowning slightly. "You run it from your end. All right, we got six hours, let's use them."

 

I was just getting out the door, when I head the Lieu call me back.

 

"Oh, Ray."

 

"Yeah?" I said, about a split second after replacement-me said the same thing, almost like he had something to prove from saying it before I did. I got the feeling that this would be trickier than I had originally thought. Ethically, he might have had the better time of it, but emotionally? We both needed a mental detox.

 

"No I mean, uh- oh I can see this is going to be confusing huh? Look you be Ray Vecchio 'cause you were Ray Vecchio to start with."

 

Strangely enough, I felt like I'd just been... validated, I suppose. Returned to my rightful existence with a single sentence.

 

"Right," I said, giving replacement-me a look and wondering what his name could possibly turn out to be.

 

"And, uh, who am I?" Exactly what I'd been wondering. Maybe he hadn't been such a bad me after all...

 

"Good question... Well, you can be Stanley Kowalski."

 

"Stanley Kowalski?" I gaped, leaning against the door and giving Welsh a look that I hoped said 'you're kidding me, right?' I glanced at Kowalski for confirmation.

 

"His father had a big thing for Marlon Brando," Welsh explained smoothly.

 

"So um I just err..." Kowalski said, waving his hands as though he were trying to talk with them. He shot me a look, then it was like his face shut down or something like that. "Okay," and he headed out the door.

 

A person's name, when said, automatically makes them react. "Later Stanley," I said, hoping to break him out of his inexplicable sudden funk. "Sir!" I called, heading back into the office to discuss the ever-important issues of where I'd be working, what he was thinking letting my little sister work in a station filled with cops, and how to sort things out with the Feds regarding both jurisdictions and me. Not necessarily in that order.

 

*                      *                      *

 

I admit that I'm not the absolute tidiest of people in the world. I cannot live out of, say, a duffel bag. But I am not by habit a mess-maker, and at the very least my desk was, if not clear, then at least it maintained some semblance of order; despite whatever number of cases I might have sitting on it at any one time, I at least knew where things were (notes notwithstanding). It honestly looked like the confetti fairy had grown to giant size and scattered everything across my desk. I almost felt like it would take a full year to bring my desk back up to standard. When I moved one pile, I found more things underneath!

 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Kowalski asked, stalking up like something had pissed in his coffee.

 

"How can you work in this mess?" I asked, amazed.

 

"No worse than the piles of crap you left all over the place," he answered.

"Well my piles of crap were organized," I pointed out, picking up another section to move - was that a mustard stain on that page?

 

"My mess is organized," Kowalski said, giving me a stunning example of an oxymoron.

 

"Well why don't you just organize it some place else?" I snapped, frustration getting the better of me as I put my hands on my hops. I had certainly not expected my return to go down like that, and right then I wanted my desk clear so I could start to get my life back properly. Step one, the desk.

 

"Okay," he acquiesced, and then did something incredibly childish. He actually picked up all the reports, the hand-written pages of foolscap with all the witness statements and interviews and caution statements all over them, and all the sort of paperwork that looks simple until you've spent a whole day and only have twelve of them done, he picked them up and he threw them at the filing cabinets on the other side of the room. "Is that good?" he challenged, and I couldn't help it.

 

"Have you got a problem?" I asked, fixing him with a stare I'd been using a lot over the past year.

 

"Maybe, just maybe I don't like the way you're sashaying around trying to take over everything," he said, still talking with his hands, his body language radiating frustration. Well, hell. We were both frustrated with the setup, but things were what they were.

 

"This is my desk, it's my life, now get over it," I said, pitching my voice low and leaning forwards so he could hear me properly. I was nearly shaking with the effort to not simply threaten him and expect to be obeyed; it was sheer dumb luck I wasn't wearing the special watch.

 

He blew air out from his nose, a single snort and that was all the warning I had before he moved and lunged at me, grabbing hold of my waistcoat and shirt and pulling back his right hand in a single swift move as he pushed me backwards. I snatched at his little puffer jacket.

 

"Well you get over this-"

 

And then, of all the things, I was saved by my little sister.

 

"Oh, okay, okay, all right," she said, grabbing onto his arm and somehow, somehow pushing him back. "Back off Kowalski, that's my brother you're talking to, so just... stay out of his face." I started tugging my clothes back into place before she rounded on me suddenly. "And you! Did they give you testosterone shots in the mob or what?" I looked down. She was right; without truly realising it, I'd only been antagonising Kowalski. She was right - and also strangely reminding me of Ma.

 

She made a short, sharp, frustrated little gesture of her own. "Work!" she suggested, and headed off, her heels tapping out her steps on the wooden floor.

 

I looked at him, carefully. Consideringly. It took a second or so, but I finally realised what was bugging me about him.

 

He looked a little - not a lot, and it was mostly the hair, but still, a little - like Jack Watson.

 

Shit.

 

"Listen, I ah..." I trailed off, didn't know quite what to say, but it seemed that he did know, because he held up a hand in a gesture of silence.

 

"Hey! Forget about it," he said, then heaved a slow sigh. I got the feeling that apologies came to him about as easily as they did to me - that was to say, not at all. "It's just uh, it's so sudden... Look I know you were coming back, I just didn't... uh, think it would be so soon, so..."

 

"I know. I mean it feels as though you died and you didn't get everything done." Oh, God, did I ever know how that felt. One night early into the assignment, I honestly felt like I really had died, and nothing was complete in my life.

 

Kowalski nodded, and I almost smiled. I could actually get along with this guy. "You know, that's how I felt when I walked out of here," I said, lowering my voice and this time in a completely non-threatening way. More in an understanding way. He was starting to pick up the papers he'd tossed, making his own amends and understandings.

 

"How's Vegas been?" he asked, and he was trying, he really was.

 

"Undercover's lonely," I answered truthfully, starting to help him pick up the pieces of paper.

 

"That it is," he agreed. Almost bitter, but not quite. Bittersweet?

 

"Well you got..." my partner, my everything...

 

We hesitated a moment, both realising suddenly that here lay the true bone of contention. The moment broke in another instant though, and we both laughed. There was no point in fighting over him.

 

"Right," he said.

 

We were still chuckling a little when we returned to the desk and started working together to sort out the messes.

 

*                      *                      *

 

Nine o'clock came all too soon, and it brought me and him and the wolf into the same car (not my car, and I'd been assured by Welsh that I did not want to know what happened to my poor little Riv this time, that it was better that he not tell me until after everything was over), waiting. Him in that damn painted red target suit, me in my warm coat. And we were just... talking. About anything, everything.

 

"...the desert's OK and Nero does have a great buttermilk but this is the stuff I miss," I told him, honestly. I did miss sitting in a car with him, nothing to do but talk and learn about each other.

 

"Like old times huh?" he asked, that smile on his face again, and I was incredibly delighted to see it back.

 

"Yeah," I agreed, then thought of something. "You remember that time you locked us in that vault?"

 

"Yeah and the water kept rising until we, we almost drowned," he smiled, reminiscing.

 

"Yeah," I agreed. "You know what I just said about missing all this?" I asked, pulling my face into a slight frown and hoping he'd see the joke.

 

"Uh huh."

 

"Forget I ever said it."

 

"Understood."

 

I sighed slightly as leant forward to put the false moustache back on. Better safe than sorry. We fell silent for a while, and I didn't have anything else to distract me, so I went for the obvious: Mental planning.

 

"Wish me luck," I told him when I was finally ready to leave the car.

 

He gave me that smile again. "You don't need it," he said, supremely confident in my skills undercover. I was good, but...

 

But I still felt like I needed a little bit of his luck.

 

I got out of the car and just waited.

 

Fuck, but Muldoon had a ton of people with him. I took a slow second, got back into character. I was cool, I was calm, I was coiled heat and power.

 

I stared at him flatly, even as the sirens started blaring around us. What the hell? That should not have been happening so early. Someone had just screwed up, big time. Still, no time to really deal with another (another!) ruined meet; I took a few steps over to the cover of one of the cars, moving my coat a little. Muldoon and his flunkies drew their guns and started firing at the cars. They hit a few. I think they may have killed a few.

 

I don't think I really cared, because the Bookman wouldn't have cared if a couple of cops got it; this was the truly terrifying part.

 

They ran off between some trucks, and out of sight.

 

I followed my partner and Kowalski into a white corridor. "Where'd they go?" I asked.

 

"Huh?" Kowalski yelled, whirling and pointing his gun at me. I didn't bat an eyelash.

 

"Jumpy," I commented.

 

"It's this place," said Thatcher.

 

"Hey!" I turned my head to yell, make Kowalski feel a bit better.

 

"Jumpy," he commented. Now we were even.

 

"The corridor branches off," my partner said, and I frowned. Why were we letting him, the one without the gun, take point? Still, we followed him.

 

Right into another firefight. All of us took cover against the walll, then the hired goons were ducking into the staircase.

 

"They split up. we'll take these guys," Kowalski announced, holding the door open for me so I could go in, checking my danger corners only because sheer training had forced it into me.

 

"Muldoon's this way, Sir," I heard my partner tell Thatcher as they ran up the next flight of stairs. In retrospect, either me or Kowalski should have gone with them; neither Mountie was actually carrying a gun.

 

It didn't take long for us to catch up with them. They fired at us from a well-ordered formation, something I hadn't gotten to see the first time around. Unexpected, but meant they were better trained than the average bunch of goons off the street.

 

"Your shooting's lousy," I told Kowalski after a few moments.

 

"I need my glasses," he snarked right back. Well why the hell wasn't he wearing them if he knew he needed the damn things?

 

"Forget it, let's go," I snapped. We didn't have time for this.

 

We walked out and simply and gunned them down. My aim had improved. I'd spent a lot of those last few weeks at firing ranges, feeling like I was trying to drown my sorrows.

 

We walked out onto the first floor to the sound of screams from a little kid, calling for his Dad. The shooting started again, and we ducked into a cave quickly.

 

"How's those glasses coming?" I asked, genuinely concerned.

 

"I got 'em, they were stuck in the lining of my coat."

 

I shrugged, and he dragged them out, snapped them on, and ran out. He actually did the action-flick thing: Jumped sideways into the air and shot at a goon. It was absurd to watch a man wearing such, well... dorky glasses, to do something like that, but I certainly won't deny the movement's efficacy. The man was a secret sharpshooter.

 

We ducked behind the fountain again, only popping up to shoot. Like gophers with guns. I would have laughed again, but that would have been wildly inappropriate under the circumstances.

 

"Nice job," I complimented, and meant it.

 

"Thanks," he said, and meant it right back.

 

"Go," I said.

 

"What?" he asked, and it was like we were back to square one - confused and curious, the pair of us."

 

"You want me to go?" I asked, feeling bemused.

 

"No, no I can go." he assured me.

 

"Then go!" I yelled, and he went, and I kept up a steady cover fire for him. It was good that we were already acting like a team. We made short work of the goons, and headed back to the main show.

 

"How the hell did we ever work this with-" I started, as we chased after Muldoon, who was suddenly armed again.

 

"Don't know, go," he replied, still running.

 

My partner and Thatcher cut the wire of the rather obvious bomb on the Ferris wheel, and I almost started to relax. But it was a good thing I didn't, because I caught a flash of light-on-metal.

 

Muldoon was training a gun on him.

 

I didn't stop to think. I just ran out, gun raised and aiming at Muldoon-

 

Who turned. There was a bang, and then I was falling into darkness.

 

*                      *                      *

 

He was in the room, talking to thin air. I said something, but it was all strange, all a dream. Like this wasn't really happening, or perhaps maybe it was. He said something back to me, and for a while we traded somethings. Perhaps my words were coherent, but I don't remember them at all.

 

I remember that he left when I wanted him to stay, wanted him to lean down and-

 

*                      *                      *

 

We were lying together in a strange tangle of sheets and legs and striped pajamas and brown uniform pants. His hand stroked a line down my back, the same line over and over, until it stopped. Rested flat above the small spot in my back where a bullet had found an unexpected mark, long ago. You only knew it was there if you knew it was there.

 

It shifted, a new place, covered in bandages that I hadn't realized existed until his hand ghosted over a spot of pain and golden lights. A newer bullet.

 

His hand stilled, pressure and relief.

 

"Where-?"

 

"Gone to catch that man, the one who killed his poor mother. Raimundo. Oh, my poor, poor boys..."

 

My eyes snapped open, the harsh fluorescents almost as painful as looking at the skyline of Vegas had been for far too many nights.

 

"I have to help him."

 

*                      *                      *

 

With Ma's help, I left the hospital. With Maria's help, I got some decent clothes. With Tony's help, I got some pep-pills, and a couple of painkillers that wouldn't interfere with the ones they'd given to me - those things were all sedatives, and rest just wasn't a good idea. The pep-pills were all legit and legal - his old trucking contacts were strangely happy to help. Didn't stop things from being a bit of a mental jumble later, though.

 

But it was all too easy. I wore the snarling ball of rage and cold fury that I'd come to think of as Bookman like he was a second skin. I looked into that man's eyes, and saw terror and horror as it finally dawned on him who I was. The panic set in.

 

But he wasn't important. Not at all. The person who was important to me was somewhere in an airplane, saving the world and avenging his mother.

 

There was a bright spot though. The woman was unexpected. A nice unexpected. The sort of unexpected that I hadn't expected too - a rarity and a luxury I hadn't been able to enjoy since a Canadian case file about a dead Mountie had first landed on my desk, followed all too quickly by the son of that dead Mountie. She looked into my eyes and saw a friend, she didn't see the man I was projecting.

 

She even laughed at my jokes. I got the feeling that she'd dealt with people who had just come out of deep cover before. She wasn't scared of me, she wasn't too overbearingly nice to me, and she wasn't about to snarl at me in anger.

 

Everything was nice and slow with her, and I could almost feel human.

 

Like she was a door closing off a winter chill, she helped me lock the Bookman away when he was finally, finally, no longer needed - when news came from Frobisher that the 'persons involved had been brought to justice'.

 

"He's run off with Ray," she pointed out, not looking me in the eye, her face looking into the distance and her eyes staring at me sidelong.

 

I shrugged, feeling the slight twinge in my back and carefully not wincing.

 

"Ray is, of course, actually a vampire," she tried, an eyebrow raising in my peripheral vision.

 

I shrugged.

 

"I'm an alien scout for a race of flying super space turtles."

 

I nodded.

 

"You want to marry me?" the sort of voice that told me she was checking if I was actually listening.

 

"Sure. We could open a bowling alley in Florida," I answered, deadpan, looking at my phone like I still expected him to call.

 

Stella shook her head, smiling because I'd managed to fool her into believing I'd not been listening; a short snort and then a chuckle escaping. Ah, it was nice to see a woman smile and not be scheming. Nice to hear a woman laugh at a stupid joke and mean it, not because she feared the consequences if she didn't.

 

I smiled fondly at the fleeting joy. Bit down on the part of me that wanted to find the closet and howl in anguish, like a coyote mourning the loss of his mate to the desert.

I never noticed my little sister scribbling madly away in one of her letters.

 

*                      *                      *

 

"That really hurt."

 

I was talking to the uniform. He wasn't in it. I had no idea where he was. He wasn't there. I did know that.

 

It was the brown uniform. At least in the brown he looked more human. Less like carved and painted marble.

 

The uniform never answered my words.

 

Perhaps it saw no reason to?

 

Frustration welled. I reached out, grabbed the uniform by the lapels, and brought it forward.

 

A moment of hesitation, then I pulled it closer, up to my nose, and inhaled.

 

I woke up and decided to change the sheets.

 

*                      *                      *

 

Five months. Five months of paperwork, of spellchecking half-finished court briefs and working purely from notes for the rest. Five months of extra investigations, of following up, of figuring out - dear God, was this the sort of shit Kowalski had needed to deal with? At least he'd had help to get this stuff right, somebody to legitimize him as who he was; even the judges didn't look past the re-

 

Five months of defending my status on the force, of pointing out that I could still work, of making pointed notes that not only had the bullet come out in a follow-up surgery, but that it had come out cleanly - no shrapnel whatsoever - that the docs had given me a clean bill of health following a month of physiotherapy and experts checking me over. Finally the point at which I'd snapped and made a phone call to my original contacts in the FBI - the ones who had pointed out that, thanks to my reputation being now so cleared up and everything, there was no possibility that I might have simply been thrown out of the police and disappeared off the face of the Earth, so now I needed to have a person go undercover as me; those people had words with certain other people about covers and safety and I believe the phrase "do the words 'officer down' mean anything at all to you?" was uttered, but they will neither confirm nor deny those rumors.

 

After that, there was no question of my job, they pretended like it had never been in question.

 

Five.

 

Months.

 

And then Kowalski walked into the precinct. Welsh looked up, blinked, and frowned.

 

"My office."

 

And shut the blinds for the conversation.

 

The Ducks looked up (freaky how they could synchronize like that, I think they'd been working on it as part of their comedy routine), and raised their eyebrows.

 

"Huh."

 

They went back to work.

 

Yup, probably a comedy thing.

 

It was five minutes, and I swear I was holding my breath the entire time. But he slinked out of the office and spun around, popped his fingers in the air like he could shoot the sky.

 

I glared, but he... the only word for it is 'jived' his way over to my desk, and did a double-take when he saw me.

 

"Thought you'd run off with Stella." His eyes were dark, and it took all I had to not move into the Bookman.

 

Covers can get to you, and clearly in more ways than one.

 

He took a step back, fists formed and half-raised. I don't think he even realized it.

 

"Did you leave her?"

 

What?

 

"Huh?" Ooh, eloquence.

 

"You know what I mean! Why the fuck aren't you off living in Florida? And what are you doing at my desk?"

 

Florida? Why would I want to live in Florida? I mean, yeah, sure, nice place to visit, definitely; already on my holiday plans. Hey, I've got family there.

 

Saved by Stella, who walked in, blinked at seeing Kowalski there, and flashed me a smile that I wasn't quite sure she was all-the-way feeling.

 

"Stella! Did he hurt you?"

 

She raised an eyebrow at Kowalski's outburst and dropped a new file on my desk. I think. I was still watching Kowalski, who still looked like he wanted to pop me a good one.

 

Stella, smart woman, changed topic with one sentence.

 

"Hello to you too, Ray. Where's the Mountie?"

 

And everything I'd pushed aside, five months and Bookman...

 

*                      *                      *

 

"He's at the Consulate."

 

Those words sent me out of my office and off to the new consulate. I'd been inside there all of once, but the route had burned itself into my mind, as though the red serge of a Mountie standing guard, even if it wasn't him, could brand itself onto my mind.

 

"Welcome to Canada-" began the hapless Officer, and I stopped at the desk. I had no idea where he might be in this place.

 

"I'm looking for-"

 

But he was standing behind the strange other Mountie now, flannel and holding his Stetson and no wolf in sight.

 

"It's quite all right, Charlton," he said calmly, but staring at me like he couldn't believe I even existed.

 

I think Charlton nodded cheerily. I honestly don't know. I remember him holding the door open for me, and I must've gotten into the car and driven us to my condo (bought because I honestly couldn't face my family, because I didn't want to scare them, because not all my dreams were of him anymore, because I didn't want to wake them with my screams, because I couldn't face the looks in their eyes...), because I found myself standing in the living room, and somewhere in the background I could hear him on the phone, telling Welsh where I was and that I didn't look too well and that he doubted I'd be back for the rest of the day.

 

His Stetson was on the table beside my couch. I picked it up, running my fingers gently over the carefully-ironed felt. It was like touching home, even though the number of times I'd actually had any reason to be touching any of his uniform was rare.

 

I put it down before he could see I'd moved it. Of course, he'd be able to tell. He'd be able to, oh, I don't know, sense the heat of my fingertips along the brim or something.

 

He placed one hand at the side of my neck, the other to my forehead. Probably checking for a fever and a rapid pulse. Well, I was feeling cold and shaky all over, and my heart was yammering in my throat.

 

I actually considered doing that humming meditation thing to drop my heart rate, just like he'd taught me, but figured that might just make him even more worried.

 

"Ray?" he whispered. Voice like honey in my coffee - the one Bookman quirk I hadn't tried to stamp out.

 

"You left."

 

He was silent, hand still on the side of my neck. But that was a control thing. If I were going to go ballistic, that was a good spot to be holding onto. Knowing him, he probably knew a spot that'd knock me out with one squeeze.

 

"You were-" all I'd clung to all I'd thought of why did you go why are you back when I'd almost learnt to breathe again no I hadn't I'm sorry are you going to stay no of course you're not you can't stand Chicago not really not in your heart "-gone."

 

This was utterly ridiculous. I'd spent the last five months perfectly okay, not thinking about him (just like Vegas), not even dreaming about him every night (not just like Vegas), and yet the first chance I had at seeing him again, let alone touching him, being touched by him?

 

I was a wreck.

 

He was looking me in the eye.

 

"I'm here now."

 

There was that wonderful calm logic I'd ached to hear. And yeah, he was, hand resting against the side of my neck and everything.

 

A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I could finally tell him...

 

"Yeah, Fraser. Yeah you are."