“Oh,” Sherry said, face falling a bit. “So…he’s a, a confirmed bachelor?”
“Pretty much,” Ashton averred. “He’s the sort who…tends to not want loose ends, you know?”
“Um, yeah, I think I get what you mean. Okay. Uh, thanks. Please…please don’t mention that to him.”
“We won’t,” Ames reassured her.
Sherry gathered her tray and left their table, mildly crestfallen.
Ames stared at Ashton. “Nick Ashton,” she told him in VR, “if you don’t give that girl a really big tip when we’re done here, I will flat smack you.”
“It’s expense account, Cal. I can only do so much. But I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can give her an informant’s fee or something. She did tell us a lot about his mornings, after all.”
“Hey, Nick, do that, but then let’s also see if the rest of us can’t put together a few credits between us, in addition,” Compton suggested. “We can add to the pot, that way.”
“That’s a good idea,” Weaver agreed. “I can chip in five or ten, easy.”
“Me too,” Ames averred.
“Okay, that should make for a nice little tip, there,” Ashton agreed, looking at the expense account’s options for payment. “Yeah, we can do this. Lemme download the informant’s fee, then you guys push me your contributions, and we’ll give her a really good little tip that ought to make even Bronze’s tips look picayune by comparison.”
The quartet sat and noshed and sipped their coffee – which was indeed very good, and complemented the freshly-baked pastries wonderfully – and even ordered another pot, while they waited and watched Sherry.
When she and the manager put together a platter of Danishes and brewed a fresh pot of coffee, putting it all on a tray and covering it with a cloche, they realized that Bronze was up, awake, and following true to form. It was nearly noon.
“Which is a little surprising, I’d think,” Ames pondered to the others, sotto voce. “I’d figure he’d want to be as unpredictable in his schedule as possible, so the cops can’t determine where he’d be.”
“Except he’s working for the cops, and the cops in question are crookeder than a shipping container full of fish hooks,” Ashton pointed out. “He’s generally not worried about hiding, except from us, and his IPD buddies protect him from us as best they can…which, so far, has been pretty damned good. No, he wants to be available and easily found so they can hire him for more take-downs.”
“Ohhhh, good point, Nick,” Weaver decided.
“Yeah,” Ames agreed.
“And that comment the girl made about another, even bigger, gig coming makes me damn worried,” Compton noted. “You don’t suppose they might actually try to off the Empress, do you?”
“Oh shit. I sure hope not!” Ames said, horrified. “But there’s other big fish working for her, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“Not if we can help it. On any of his potential targets. No. Damn. More. All right, let’s get in position,” Ashton determined. “According to Sherry, once she comes back down, he will be headed out. We need to find out where he goes.”
“Right,” the others agreed.
Two hours later, an unconcerned Bronze finally left his condominium and strolled down the street. With four in the team, the investigators could “leapfrog” their target for a fair distance. Sometimes Ames walked along with Ashton and sometimes they did so alone, ensuring that everything would look natural and no one would give them a second glance. The foursome followed Bronze as he sauntered through the sunshine on the street level, headed generally west, toward Imperial Park.
When he reached Imperial Park East Boulevard, Bronze turned left and headed south until he reached Phoenix Avenue, the first east-west street past Imperial Park South Boulevard.
The Fire Water Bar was halfway down the block on the left.
Bronze headed into it.
Deciding not to risk Ashton being recognized, the “Ashton Team” chose to send in Compton and Weaver as drinking buddies – removing ties and jackets before they did so, in order to “dress down.” Ames and Ashton stayed outside, and Ames watched the front while Ashton pulled up the schematics for the block in VR, then nosed around through the alleys and mews to verify that those schematics were correct relative to current structures.
“That’s good,” he told the others in VR, remaining out of sight in the shadows of a back alley. “There’s only two ways in or out of that bar – the front door, and the kitchen door, which opens onto a kind of cross-alley in the back, for deliveries. I’ve got that one; Cal, you watch the front.”
“All over it, Nick,” she replied.
“What’s he doing, guys?” Ashton asked.
“He sat down at a table in the corner near the end of the bar, Nick,” Compton replied. “Waiter came over and he ordered off the menu, though he didn’t hardly look at it. Looks like lunch. Except it looks like he’s gonna drink a lot of it, if you get me.”
“Mm. What did he order?”
“Uh, lemme see what I can see, Alan,” Weaver said. “I got a better angle. Okay, looks like some sort of meatball thing – oh! It’s got a hard-boiled egg inside! He’s dipping pieces in that demonic hot mustard…”
“Scotch eggs,” Ashton supplied. “Mom used to make ‘em. They’re good.”
“And maybe…blackened fish and chips?”
“Sounds like the bar’s name is also a theme of the food,” Ames remarked.
“Yeah, it is. But he’s drinking a high-end whiskey rather than one of their signature spicy cocktails.”
“Which argues that he intends to keep it up a while,” Ashton speculated. “Too much spicy in alcohol can do a number on you, in more ways than one.”
“Never mind the afterburn,” Weaver said with a VR snort.
“Given he got a double, neat, I dunno how long,” Compton observed.
“I guess we’ll find out how well he holds his
