[SPEAKER_00]: The American chapter forty-four, trouble at work part two, a short-hand missile tail by Matthew C McLean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded, my brain feeling the smoke-continuals that crossed each other until I was here, with Sotry asking me to investigate a murder that I'd committed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I looked him in the eye and did what I do best.
[SPEAKER_00]: I played dumb.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where was this fire?
[SPEAKER_00]: I may need to check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Lorraine, you're going between the Cemetery Hill and the Canal, you cannot miss it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not trace statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wondered how out of control the fire had gotten.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was suddenly very grateful that the Russian had frightened off the attendant rather than beating him unconscious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll need a card to get out that far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another puff of smoke, Satra considered this, then he nodded saying, Steak with the opponent, he would arrange something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded again, walking down a mental checklist of all the things someone in my shoes shouldn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which brought me to, how long of the police been on the scene?
[SPEAKER_00]: Only since last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I consider this trying to appear grateful that it only so little time had passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know who's in charge of the investigation?
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't inspect who are named Ratella.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm gonna pull with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not trying to make a face as if cigarette had left a bad taste in his mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is his own man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, maybe I can point him at midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Ratella knows he was involved somehow, it might keep him busy cause trouble for midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saturate Grind wickedly at this, in such a simple and evil way, I might have thought he was considering having one of the rooks, sat me in the back of the head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found in the matrix of that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was pretty indifferent.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other quote, says the bone, was his only reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still smiling, emotionally he rose from his chair, behind me I heard the utility door open.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped the room's movements with, what about that other thing we talked about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Understandable for a man with so much on his mind, Satra gave me his own blank stare.
[SPEAKER_00]: I prompted him with, with Lanzo's friends and Anika, Satra's smile dropped away and he stared at me like I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you ask about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said no.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that at the time wasn't right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I countered holding my wrist together like I was handcuffed, gesturing the sorcery with finger-split.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just that Mittenick keeps fucking with you, despite what you did at the casino, or because of it I thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Might be I'd be at it and fuck with him back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saturay's grid and returned in a flash, boiling into a sadistic laugh that he was barely able to contain.
[SPEAKER_00]: A minor tremor compared to the earthquake in his car earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he had had it under control, he said, tell them they may proceed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bubbling with more chuckle, Saturay moved past the table and towards the utility door.
[SPEAKER_00]: By my cherry stopped and placed a hand on my shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: This surprised me, causing me to look up at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found you as staring at me as if I were a crystal ball.
[SPEAKER_00]: You repeated, you have very smart American.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not sure what else to say, I pronounced that, thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be too smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vail threats were stocking trade amongst men of violence, but if I'm myself watching Satray very carefully, certain somehow that I wasn't completely cleared of suspicion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ignoring that, I move to stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll go finish my shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such a chuckle, graining at a cigarette on a concrete floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one is expecting you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched him twist a small foot into the butt, his meaning slowly coming to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sensing this, he grinned down at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gomin goes from Zekasino as you please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk with the actual cost struggle for meat.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the things required of you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not watching fools throw away as that money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded minutely, but didn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: My brain was too preoccupied with the math.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people thought they had me on the hook?
[SPEAKER_00]: Satrayan is rooks disappeared back through the utility door, folding themselves into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sealed it with a click, leaving nothing but the smoke and cigarette butt as indicators that they've been there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat there for a time thinking, despite such a words, I found a part of me, trained in a grain of the filmly obligations, wanted to head back out in a casino floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea that no one was expecting me only added to that, not that the danger from Saturaya past, at least for now, would be safe in a casino, and I needed time to think.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that combined me into heading out onto the floor and passing a few early morning hours watching the mostly empty slot machines.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only Pleasantry was a brief exchange with the Ebola, who, to his credit, appeared only mildly surprised to see me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of asking about the car asked a bar of the house phone, using it to check to see if there are any messages on the mobile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Learning that weren't, I called a lawn and asked him to meet me at a large, my next destination in a few hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: He complained in a commudionally French manner that would be near the end of his shift, but he agreed to meet me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I finished up, I headed back to the locker room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't even out of my jacket when Jasper appeared as untrue as tone behind me as I groaned out of my blazer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You was eating?
[SPEAKER_00]: Such as a parent's care and heed the management knew I was working with him and I wondered how much protection that would project.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I bashed Jasper's head into the locker, would there be any repercussions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or would they assume I was doing an order from the night governor?
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of that, though, I closed the locker door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why it's not that there has been to see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jasper grinned at me as if you were amused, but then I realized it was whatever passed for happiness in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had confirmation he was closer to the center of power and it pleased him.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this made me reconsider putting his head in the locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just replied with, yep, my pivoted on my heel like he wasn't there, forcing him to step back or risk a collision with my much larger frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: He followed behind me as I headed for the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything I could do for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: The pronoun carried with it the plural form.
[SPEAKER_00]: For whatever reason I found my inclination towards committing violence on Jasper was transformed by the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I found myself laying another potential bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned to him and said,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, do you have a pen?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was at least marginally immune to Jasper's scribbling across his person to locate a pen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I captured the hand he gave to me and wrote down a number of feeling a bit like a lover of promising a trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see anything out of the ordinary, call this number and leave a message.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jasper examined the numbers I wrote it, but I managed to leave without any questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wouldn't have any idea that the number was the cell mechanic it given me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrapped the trench coat around me as I stepped out of casino's employee entrance.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the afternoon's it started to feel like spring, this early in the morning was still cool and damp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched the mist fall from the white sky and felt the droplets on my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a moment I didn't think about the city, what it was, where it was going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I opened my umbrella and stepped over the stream running in the gutter to head over to the orange.
[SPEAKER_00]: The trans weren't running for another hour or so, but I'd pick the place, but based off it's proximity to a casino and a few other factors.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first of those other factors was that there was a number of spots nearby that I got watched the restaurant without being easily noticed myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second was, like a lot of places in Old Town, orange, faced out on the narrow street while it had a service entrance in the rear.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was basically a shotgun check and that you could have stood in the street and named it for its front door to shoot someone in the back alley.
[SPEAKER_00]: All in all, very controllable space.
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched the citrus colored shutters of its front doors until I heard the tinny horn of the citron blare at some unfortunate pedestrian.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stepped behind the corner where I was roosting a lot at while I found a place for the BX.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I did some impressive parallel parking, I watched his dark hair bob its way into the restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: His legs looped along with an urgency I wasn't accustomed to seeing in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that will held true to form, he'd pick a table near the back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I circled the block into, I found the entrance, the restaurants, back street.
[SPEAKER_00]: I continued to think about what I'd say to that while as I walked.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were the usual rubbish bins and stacked boxes down the alley, but many of these have been covered with green, leafy plants and clay pots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had attempted to make the alley a more livable space than the trash catcher they usually were.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could imagine the bright Mediterranean sun lighting up fronds, but now they're only silhouette of a jungle passing through that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made up my mind when it came to Adwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a direct approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: The back door to the restaurant was open until at some of the kitchen's heat escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked through it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, just an ox there for a delivery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The clatter of the one working cooked and breaking its noise
[SPEAKER_00]: I made sure there was a clear path through the kitchen to the exit.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the dining room at what was sitting at the table in the back, watching the entrance, confident that's where I'd be coming from.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this early hour, with this guy just beginning the lighten, he had the restaurant all to himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took this steel cord and brother-in-hand by either end, looping it over his head and across his throat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I let him get his hands up for a meager defense before I yanked him out of the chair, silencing whatever protest he was bound to launch into.
[SPEAKER_00]: His legs thrashed out knocking his teetering chair away and the kept kicking as I dragged him out into the alley.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was sure it was choked out enough that he wouldn't immediately start yelling, I tossed him into a pile of trash that was surrounded by elephant-eared plants, landing him in a refuse wilderness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it was all very confusing for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't give him a chance to get his bearings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grabbed him by the sweat stand collar of a shirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I jerked at, well, towards me, throttling him as I pushed all of my anger into the sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: You idiot, who did you tell?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd arrive no more than a small amount of pleasure from the fear and confusion that was evident that Wells phase even in the alley's dim light.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?! !
[SPEAKER_00]: The Ukrainian, who did you tell about the Ukrainian?
[SPEAKER_00]: I pulled that well up to his knees, continuing to shake him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I rattled him around enough to keep him disoriented.
[SPEAKER_00]: The product of this combination came out of him with another more prolonged question of what?! !
[SPEAKER_00]: I repeated that the Ukrainian was the topic of conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cops found him, and only you, me and Satra I knew where he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: With my free hand I pointed at each of the subjects from my sentence, only thumbing up to the streets of Old Town to indicate the night governor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended with putting my finger in Atwell's face, who did you tell?
[SPEAKER_00]: I will recover enough of his composure to use the leverage that I'd always kept me in check in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let go of me, stupid fucker, or I'll have you back in a cell before nightfall.
[SPEAKER_00]: To his credit, I will try to pry my hand off his throat, or worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think I care about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such are things I might have tipped to the bowls.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd rather be back in prison than vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: The realization that the shield of his authority was no longer effective, slowly transformed at what was faced.
[SPEAKER_00]: The anger in his eyes drained, his mouth gradually opening as if to give it some place to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of series of incomplete stuttered words came out, you mean, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such revisited casino to shake me down.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I hadn't convinced him it wasn't me who squealed, I'd be in a dumpster somewhere by now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, who did you tell?
[SPEAKER_00]: His anger completely supplanted by fear, at will manage his non-estinile.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't tell anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: bullshit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cop you told me about Routella is investigating it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shook him hard enough that Cheryl's voice reminded me not to kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped long enough to make sure that I could understand my next question.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just happened to know Routella and now he's digging up the Ukrainian.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, am I... I coordinated with someone told me about the investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That well's words came out sharp and true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I didn't know he was telling a truth, I probably would have believed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how did you rotella find out about the Ukrainian?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: That well was beginning to thrash and his panic, so I decided to get to the question I really wanted to ask him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You found out about the Ukrainian because you've been following Satray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why have you been following him?
[SPEAKER_00]: At well, stuttered.
[SPEAKER_00]: A sure sign he was trying to think of a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shook him again and switched to another question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you been following midnight?
[SPEAKER_00]: More stuttering, which meant more shaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I finished by throwing him back into the garbage pile.
[SPEAKER_00]: I crouch down to leaning close to him, my frame, taking up the space between the two plants.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been following Satray, but not midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: At will sputtered.
[SPEAKER_00]: I-I, when he showed no signs of stopping, I slapped him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That got through to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stopped his noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, his time, lording over me, he actually sulked, holding a hand to his cheek, his brown eyes like a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost hit him again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you following Sontre, but not Mittenick?
[SPEAKER_00]: I pointed the umbrella out, I'm digging at sharp point into his flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the implied threat of a more sturdy beating, something that wasn't fear or hurt rose in that well, that's a need to know Marine, and you don't need to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost laughed that he tried it out that old chestnut.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to admire his attempt to appealed to my sense of duty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Normally, I'd agree with you, but you're fucking around, it's going to get me killed, so I need to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will open and close this mountain searching for words that were most likely lies, so I jabbed him with the umbrella.
[SPEAKER_00]: Out with it.