“Who are you and what the hell are you doing to my car!” Samuel Murphy sighed, straightened his back, fixed a calm considerate look on his face and turned around. In front of him stood the a small man, a little over five feet, receding hairline, brown eyes and with a pair of glasses that made him look like an overgrown rat. The look wasn’t helped by the high pitched squeak of the man’s voice. “Sir you are parked in a non-parking area. If-” The man exploded into a long line of obscenities. The Captain and his supervisor had explained this morning that the people of the city weren’t exactly like the people of Bakerstand. At the time he had said [i]You can count on me sir…No sir. I can handle people. I’m good with people...yes I have read the funnies?[/i] . Now Samuel wasn’t so sure. Maybe he’d in fact always been bad with people and they’d just taken pity on – “…DEMON BLOODED COW SUCKER!” [i] That was a new one.[/i] It was only about the thirds instance of these ‘discussions’ he worked out the golden rule of dealing with angry members of the public. He took out a notebook and started writing. They all reacted the same way. They carried on shouting at first. “You feel good about yourself! My son fought in Korea! What have you done-“ Then they noticed the note book. “Hey what are you writing?” Then they protested some more. “You can’t do that! I’m an American buddy!” Then they stopped. “…” “If you would like to appeal the ticket you can go down to city hall and present it to the designated attendant.” “Yeah thanks a lot!” Samuel was about to look for more traffic violations with a cop car pulled up to the curb. The driver window came down and he greeted by rough face of Alexander Gregory, his Supervising Officer and his partner Harry Lynch. He’d only met Alexander briefly in in the morning meeting at the station, before being assigned his area route. Alexander looked a bit older than most Patrol Officers, he was starting to get grey hairs, but his eyes still looked sharp and he was almost painfully thin. His partner Harry was the opposite. Fat and balding and what was starting to sound like a throat infection for a voice. “Nice handle of those last two. That said maybe you should start with the notebook in the future?” Alexander grind. “Don’t listen to him kid. You gotta stay frosty. Cool but calm. Just like me.” Harry wheezed. “Look enough chit chat, get in the car, we’re taking you out for lunch. Get in.” Samuel got in the back and swung the door shut. The car lurched forward any they were off. Harry got out a pack of smokes and offered them to Samuel. Samuel declined and watched the people in the city walk by. This place is so strange he thought. Every manner of person or creature could be seen walking the streets of the city. As he watched a trio of Gnolls ran down side walk, nearly bumping into an Ogre with an expensive suite. He’d met Gnolls before, a family of them that had passed through Bakerstand when he was a kid. Nice folk, but he understood why most people were wary of them. His observations were cut short by Harry. “So…Murph what brought you into the big city?” Samuel didn’t even need to think about it. “To make a difference. My father always told me that the worst thing a guy can do is let bad things happen to good people. ” Harry turned in his seat, the cigarette he had been sucking at rolling around his mouth as he did. “Was your daddy in the War?” “Yes sir. He was with the fifth” “Marines? Ha. I was there with them. Probably fought with you daddy at the battle of… Ah no one wants to hear the war stories these days…You think you’re doing that by issuing tickets?” Harry let the question sit there for a moment before grinning. “Relax kid! I’m just busting your balls, Alex will you tell the kid I’m just busting his balls?” “He’s just riding you-“ “Listen…Murph, we’ve got nothing but you’re best intrests at heart and if you stick with us, you’ll be off that ticket beat in no time. You’ve gotta realise around here. In this city especially people will chew you up and spit you out. You’ve gotta be able to take a hard time and make a hard time. You understand me? The people you work with out there will sooner cut your throat than see you place a ticket on their car. You’ve got to get tougher. Make them sweat some more and you’ll see the benefits...We’re going to Caffé Stregathat. Have you heard of Sammy Martovanni?” Samuel sat a little straighter. He’d heard of the Martovanni family, who hadn’t? Everyone in the City knew of the two biggest families in the Italian Coalition. “Didn’t Eddie Martovanni die recently?” Samuel asked. “Don’t bring that up when you meet Sammy kid.” “What?” The car pulled up outside the restaurant and they got out. A few hired goons stood outside the Café. Two large guys stood outside the restaurants. Their eyes were alert and they looked like hard men. Harry walked up to the taller of the two. “We’re here to see your new boss and get a couple of sandwiches.” The bigger one spoke with a voice like gravel. “The boss don’t want to see no one. Least of all cops.” “Tell him he’ll want to hear what we got to say.” The two guards looked at each other and stepped away from the door. Alexander went first, followed by Harry and then Samuel. The inside of the restaurant would have been empty if it weren’t for the twelve goons sitting at the tables near the back. A waiter came towards them. “Us two have business with the boss. Baby face will take a seat and the club sandwich.” Taking the hint, he sat at the table and waited. Harry and Alex moved past the goons to the back of the restaurant where a young man he assumed as Sammy was eating. Sammy was young, sixteen at most, but there was something wrong with his eyes. Once as a boy Samuel had seen a wolf. The thing had been half dead and starved, but there had been a look in its eyes. They both shared that look. Harry and Alexander stood at the table for a few moments. Harry shifted his weight back and forth on his legs. “Sammy! Looking good. Ohhhh. You got some of that Lasagne? I heard that was good here.” Alex motioned for Harry to be quite. “Sam, we’ve got some news that might be of use to you?” Sammy stopped eating. “Talk.” “You heard about the gang shooting at warehouse last night…Well a few of our sources say that the Tong were holding something at that place.” “Get to the point.” “The Tong were holding something for the Hanged. Something the Hanged want very badly.” Harry pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to Sammy. As he read his face betrayed nothing. Samuel had seen military boys with less cool than this kid. Sammy finished the note and passed it to one of his body guards. “How do I know this is genuine? For all I know you could have any person strung up in the cellar.” “Sammy your family has always been good to us. Whenever a guy stepped out of line your father gave him to us. Whenever some crook pigs looked at your businesses we politely pushed them away. We just want assurances that your friends in blue like Officer Murphy there will be compensated appropriately.” Harry beckoned Samuel over. Samuel got up and walked across the room. The close he got the harder it became to concentrate on Sammy’s face. Sammy held his hand out to shake. The moment he touched his hand, his whole body jerked in pain. He tried to let go, but Sammy held on. His hand started to ache as Sammy squeezed. “Officer Samuel Murphy, do you know that the easiest gateway to a person’s soul, the easiest one to get to, is through their eyes?” Samuel couldn’t respond. It was taking all his effort not to cry out in pain. The pain did something to his eyes. As Samuel watched Sammy’s face seemed to become more pointed, his mouth larger and his teeth sharper. He looked demonic. "It's why you always need to look at why you kill in the eyes. When you do that you become stronger-" Harry grunted. With a dejected sigh Sammy let go. His face was normal and there no sign that anything else other than the handshake had taken place. Even his hand no longer ached with a pressure he was sure should have broken his bones. “You’ll get your dues officers.” Sammy nodded and they were escorted to the exit. “Officer Samuel Murphy. I will be seeing you around.” He raised a glass of red liquid and drank it. Though the entire time Samuel had watched him, he hadn’t seen the glass once. “What just happened?” Said Samuel, holding his hand, rubbing the area he was sure had been crushed. “The world moved around Murph. Just the world moving around…Look Murph. You wanted to make a difference. Well this is that. Because of this a lot of good cop families won’t go hungry tonight. ” “What we did?” “There is nothing to worry about kid. Everyone works like this. The whole city does. You take a few gifs, you give a few back.” “What if I don’t like this? Why are we making deals with scum?” Alexander turned around. “You don’t have to like it. Hell if it makes you feel better, we’ll take your side of the cut, to ease your conscious. I would advise taking it though. I don’t know if I could trust an officer on the force who would turn down free money. I don’t know a lot of guys that could. Don’t make a big deal out of this.” The car pulled up near where they had picked him up. “Listen Murph. We all used to be like you. Good cops in a bad situation and this city doesn’t do good things to good cops. Promise me you’ll think about it" "…" "One last thing. Stay aware from Sammy Martovanni.”