[b]Boston[/b] "Thank you, thank you." The small crowd in the bar clapped for the lone singer on the stage as he finished his latest song. He was a skinny white guy in his late 20's or early 30's. A thick beard covered his chin and his curly hair was hidden underneath herringbone flat cap. He wore blue jeans and a leather jacket and had an acoustic guitar in his lap. "This next song... I like to read, you know?" He said with a chuckle. "Always liked poetry. This next song, it's a new one I just wrote a few weeks ago. It was inspired by a Lord Tennyson poem." The singer ran his fingers over the strings and began to strum a steady tune. He leaned forward and sung into the mic in a raspy voice. "Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack, I went out for a ride and I never went back. Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going..." Elliot Shaw watched the performance from the back of the room. Finnegan's was his regular bar and had been for years now. After he left the force he hung around the cop bars, but he could always feel that disconnect that came from being out of the loop when the rest of the boys talked about the comings and goings of the BPD. He was a successful PI and well connected in the system, but he was still on the outside looking in. That got to him after a while so he found Finnegan's and stayed here ever since. He lit up a fresh cigarette and nursed a highball as he read over the information city councilman Liam Kane's office gave him earlier that day. Jane Wilson, the missing girl Elliot had been hired to find, worked as a secretary for Kane for six months before disappearing with whatever it was Kane really wanted. A copy of an application listed Ms. Wilson's date of birth as 7/7/61. "Happy belated birthday, Jane," Elliot said to himself, tipping his highball in mock toast. The application listed a Beacon Hill address as Ms. Wilson's residence. No phone number listed. The lack of a phone wasn't so surprising since lots of homes in the neighborhood were without phones. The neighborhood was heavily immigrant and many of those old tenement houses barely had electricity. "Elliot," the stocky man said as he slid into the booth. "Sean, how's tricks?" "Tricky," Sean said in a thick Irish accent. "The PI business?" "Trickier still," Elliot said with a grin. Sean McKenna, the beefy Irishman with the ruddy face, started in the BPD at the same time as Elliot. While Elliot topped out as a detective sergeant, Sean turned out to be quite the rank getter. Even now as Sean approached his mid-40's he had three gold stars that came with the rank of deputy superintendent. By 1990, Sean would be police commissioner. "What are you drinking, Sean?" Elliot asked as he tried to get the bartender's attention. "Just here for a quick chat, Elliot, that's all. I need to get home soon. So I got your message, what's up?" "You were always the political one, Sean. I need your reading on a client of mine. Liam Kane." Sean whistled and licked his lips slowly. "That bad?" Elliot asked. "It's not good, boyo." "Well, I know he's an ambitious one. That's all I know." "It's more than that, my friend. Liam Kane is the heir apparent to Jim Dwyer." Elliot cursed and took a long drag off his cigarette. For the past thirty-five years, Big Jim Dwyer ruled Massachusettes politics. As boss of the Combination, a political machine that dominated Boston since the 20's, Dwyer owned and used people the way everyone else owned and used shoes. Getting on Big Jim's bad side was something nobody did and lived to tell about. "What are you doing for Kane?" Sean asked with raised eyebrows. Elliot slid the papers across the table to his friend. Elliot sipped his highball and watched Sean squint through the dim light at the information. Sean looked up with a crooked grin. "Was Kane fucking her?" "Seems likely. He says she absconded with some sensitive information. I'm betting it's pictures of her and Kane doing the horizontal bop. I'm heading out to Beacon Hill tonight to see what I can find at her place." "Good luck to you, lad," Sean said with a nod. "You'll need it. Tread very carefully, Elliot. I know your habit for speaking your mind got you in trouble on the force, but crossing these people could be very dangerous. First they ruin your life then they take it." Elliot polished off the rest of his highball and flashed Sean a smile that was all bravado. "They can sure as hell try." -- [b]Chicago[/b] Johnny Leggario smoked his cigar and tried to figure out why exactly he hated himself. It wasn't for the usual reasons one engaged in self-loathing. It wasn't because he was broke. On the contrary, he had more money than he could ever hope to spend. It wasn't because of his looks. He was fat, but not too fat, and the extra weight helped give him a bit of boyish charm that the ladies liked. He never heard any complaints from the women he brought home when it came to what was between his legs. It wasn't because of his station in life. He was part of the inner circle of the Chicago's biggest crime boss, a place many men would give their left nut for. Johnny hated himself because he was becoming his old man. Like Jimmy Leggario, Johnny was seen as one of the baddest motherfuckers in the Outfit, someone you avoided at all costs if you liked breathing. Like Jimmy, Johnny's power was simply an illusion. It was a gift granted to him by Bobby C. seemingly on a whim. Jimmy knew he was feared and respected as long as Bobby allowed it. That thought made him sicker than anything. He wanted to avoid becoming Jimmy, wanted to avoid this city altogether. He was living in New York six years ago when Jimmy's murder led him right back to Chicago and right under Bobby's thumb. The Cheetah Room was part of the Bobby's benevolent streak. The strip club was a gift to Johnny that was a pretty shitty gift. He got a ten percent cut of the profits for managing it. Running the club meant having to deal with all the headaches nobody wanted to handle. Most guys out of the loop thought running a strip club entailed lapdances and blowjobs gratis. Instead Johnny had to listen to the strippers' drama and get sucked into the day to day tragedies that were their lives. Think of dealing with hormonal teenage girls, crying all over the place and hating each other and themselves... only all the girls have big tits. Added to getting caught up into their personal bullshit, Johnny also had to make sure none of the girls or other staff dealt drugs or peddled gash on the side. Bobby approved of the girls hooking and pushing blow, but only as long as he got his cut. Johnny was taking his boss's cut of the action that night, sitting in the backroom with Gingy, the closest thing this diseased hellhole had to an assistant manager. Gingy was over fifty with bright red hair that came out of a bottle. She wore cowboys boots and tight jeans with black t-shirts. She looked every bit of the butch lesbian that she was. While Johnny didn't take advantage of the girls, Gingy was known on occasion to shack up with a few of the sapphically inclined strippers. Gingy counted out Bobby and Johnny's cuts in twenties, a menthol hanging out of her mouth with half a cigarette's worth of ash dangling off the tip. "That's 1,000," she said after counting out fifty twenties that went into Johnny's pile. She dumped the ashes and started on another set of twenties when the phone on the desk rang. Johnny picked it up while Gingy kept counting. "The property at Humboldt Park, Johnny. Be there in an hour." The line went dead. Johnny put the phone back in the cradle and looked at the clock on the wall before standing. "I have to go," he said to Gingy as he got his sports jacket. "Count it all out and put it in the safe below the desk, put my share in one bag and the big man's share in the other." "You got it, sweetheart. I'll keep the ship running in your stead." -- Johnny parked his car down the block from the four-story walk-up and made his way down the street on foot. Waiting for him on the building roof was Stein. Stein was one among the army of lawyers Bobby constantly kept on retainer. A few of them acted as messengers when the man himself was preoccupied with something. Everything said between Bobby, Stein, and whoever he relayed a message to would be covered by attorney-client privilege. A rumpled button-up shirt and khakis replaced the downtown lawyer's usual three-piece power suit. "Johnny Legs, how are you, boychik?" Stein asked with a wink. "It's four in the morning and I'm here with you, how do you think I am?" "Right, so no small talk. Down to business, yes? Works for me. Now listen up, because none of this is on paper. You know the Greek, right? Well, his bookie shops have been getting hit over the past three weeks. Three robberies from a four man crew. They've been taking anywhere between ten and forty large each heist. Bobby wants the feygeles found and killed in a very public way. Ten grand per dead heister, got it?" Johnny kept his hands in his pockets and silently mulled over what Stein had just told him. There was plenty of wiggle room inside of Bobby's vague orders, and he planned to use what he could to his advantage. "Got it. Tell Bobby they're as good as dead." -- [b]Boston[/b] The lock opened with a gentle click. Elliot eased open the door and stepped inside the apartment. The cramped little studio apartment was the last known address of Jane Wilson. He pulled a flashlight out of his coat and clicked it on. Kane said that afternoon she'd been missing for two days. The apartment was messy. Clothing and makeup were scattered across the living room and into the bedroom. Jane Wilson was a bit of a pig, Elliot surmised. He made his way into the bedroom and found a notebook with telephone numbers on a nightstand. The numbers were labeled innocuously enough with things like Mom or Jennifer or Italian food. One number stood out to Elliot because it was unlabelled and towards the back of the notebook. A hunch told him it was newer than the rest. He pocketed the notebook and left the apartment, heading for the closest payphone down the street. "Boston Phone, how may I help you?" "Yeah, this is Sergeant Stanley Mertz with the BPD Homicide Unit, I'm trying to get a reverse listing for a phone number." "I'd be happy to, Sergeant. I just need your badge number." "Sure," Elliot said nonchalantly, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper with a dozen names written down. He scanned to the bottom of the paper with Mertz's information. "It's 1257." "Thank you, sergeant," the clerk said after Elliot gave her the phone number he wanted to find out about. "I'll be just a moment." Elliot smoked a cigarette while he waited. The smoke was down to almost the butt when the clerk returned. "I have a location for you, sergeant. The address for that number is 6576 Sunnydale Lane in Brookline, it's listed as Ten Pin Win Bowling Alley." "6576 Sunnydale Lane?" Elliot asked as he scribbled it down. "Got it. Alright, thank you." Elliot hung up and headed to his car. It seemed strange for her to have a bowling alley's number written down. Maybe a friend worked there? Twenty minutes later he found the address. The place in question appeared to be old and rundown. Elliot felt intuition tingling the back of his neck. He turned into the parking lot and got out. The front door was sealed shut and boarded up, so he decided to go around. The back door was also boarded up, but planks were ripped away in strategic spots. To someone not paying attention, it looked like it was still sealed, but Elliot saw the door could be easily opened. He placed his hand on the door handle and prepared to swing it open when something hard crashed against his head. He fell to the ground hard and dazed. Before Elliot could even attempt to fight back, somebody shoved the barrel of a gun into his face. "Don't move," a voice said calmly. He looked up and saw a woman, girl really, standing over him with a very gun in her hands and a very hard look on her face. "You move one inch, and I will fucking kill you." "Jane Wilson, I presume?" "Did Kane send you?" "Maybe, maybe not-" She thumbed back the hammer of her gun and a round went into the chamber with a solid click. "Alright, alright! I'm working for him. He paid me to find you and some kind of documents you have. I don't want to hurt you, believe me." "Why should I believe you? You're working for him." "He's paying me, but I'm not working for him. If I were here to hurt you, don't you think I would have pulled a gun before I tried to go inside your little hiding spot?" She looked at him for a long moment before asking, "Are you packing?" "Oh, boy am I. Oh...you meant like a gun? I got one in my car, but that's it." "Alright, stand up and hold your hands up," Jane said as she kept her gun on Elliot. He complied and kept his hands up while she did a quick frisk. "C'mon, get inside," she said once she was content that Elliot was weapons free. She opened the door and pointed him inside the abandoned bowling alley. He walked into the building with Jane Wilson right behind him and her gun trained on his back.