Fun fact - I hate sweating.

The night air was warm and humid, enough so that I was slightly uncomfortable to be walking around in a spring coat. Nobody else I'd seen was wearing one. Still, I needed something to hide my underclothing and my easily detachable velcro rig, seeing as how I was operating at street level this time around. The baggy beige windbreaker was bulky enough in all the right places, and was cheap enough that it wouldn't really get noticed or draw attention to me. Sometimes sweating, while unpleasant, is a necessary part of the job.

Besides, the black suit jacket I was wearing underneath my windbreaker was the real culprit. A windbreaker has vents to allow it to breathe - a suit jacket does not. Inconvenient as it was, when I'm working and am in a position where I can be seen, I almost always have a throwaway coat and other appearance-altering props that I can toss or change up in a hurry. Tonight it was back-combed hair, a beige windbreaker and a pair of thick black-rimmed reading glasses.

And so I sweltered uncomfortably, trying to appear as though I wasn't, doing my best to look like some ordinary guy who figured a late night stroll would do him some good. After two hours of practice, I figured I was getting pretty good at it.

The fellow I was following around, Nick, was plenty scared. Quite obviously he'd heard about what happened to Sack the other night. Of course, he'd probably also heard what happened to Shoe's buddy Carl as well, so maybe it was me who was actually scaring him.

Doubtful, actually. When I spoke with him over the phone he seemed very grateful to learn that I was going to be tailing him this evening. Actually, he sort of started out grateful, then probably realized that me deciding to follow him around probably meant that I figured he was next on Stevie's list. That kind of changed his mood a bit.

Me, I was just glad that I'd finally been introduced to a mafioso with a real, grown-up name.

It's funny how exciting most people believe organized crime to be. It really, really isn't. I mean, take Nick for example. Nick's job involved walking along a staggeringly long stretch of coastal property and visiting various seedy-looking places, both businesses and dwellings, and doing something that took about ten or fifteen minutes or so. Sometimes it involved yelling. Once, it involved the sound of something breaking, and a threat of him returning if 'Diavolo doesn't hear from you very soon'.

Of course, I should point out that I didn't want to look like I was tailing him, so I kept about a half-block away at all times. And yet even from that distance, I still managed to hear Nick 'working' from time to time. I'm guessing that Diavolo didn't hire him for his subtlety, or his discreet nature.

The whole thing was very much like the lying in wait that I'd done the night before. Same feeling of trying to stay keyed up and ready for anything to start happening at any second. And with the same amount of nothing happening, too. The only real difference was the fact I was walking around. And sweating.

Oh, and the presence of the local creatures of the night, of course.

It was one-o-clock in the morning, but the particular streets Nick was touring were practically teeming with activity. I saw five or six people every block or so, and the activities most were engaged in made it clear to anybody walking by that they'd stumbled over to the proverbial 'wrong side of the tracks'.

Of course, that made my job much trickier. See, if you don't know where your target is going to be, but you have a general area and time that you expect they might show up, you have to stay alert. You inspect every face you encounter, and keep your eyes open. However, the people who tend to inhabit places like the ones I'd been walking through will occasionally take exception to people with overly keen eyesight, or who appear to be sizing them up. So, I had to be particularly attentive without seeming to be, act casual but not give the impression I was actually comfortable walking the sidewalks of this shady area of town, and generally just attempt to blend in with my environment and not stand out. While wearing two coats and sweating.

See how glamorous a life of crime can be?

I realized that it had been a while since I checked my bearings, so I stopped near a heavily vandalized metal newspaper vending box so I could tie my shoe laces. Well, actually, if you wanted to get technical, I stopped so I could untie my laces, and then take an unnecessarily long time tying them back up while covertly looking around.

Nick was still about half a block ahead of me, and looked to be entering a convenience store, so he'd probably be about ten to fifteen minutes, if history was any indicator. That meant either slowly doing a couple of laps of this area, or sitting around someplace quiet and watching people through a window. I looked around for some sort of coffee shop and couldn't find one, so I checked out some of the alternatives.

There was a dirty bar up the street that looked like an open invitation for a mugging. It was nestled right next to a porn shop that, if the sandwich-board signs in front of it were to be believed, had the most extensive collection of triple-x titles available in all of Baltimore, all for seventy-percent off. There was a liquor store . . . no, scratch that - there were two liquor stores about a stone's throw away from each other on opposite sides of the street. As well, there was a weird, ramshackle bookstore, an abandoned barber shop with one of those small rotating barber-pole thingies still affixed outside the door, an empty theatre with a heavily vandalized marquis board, and several other structures that weren't as easily identified.

No coffee shop, no late-night cafe, no place I could just sit down and watch for Nick. Lovely.

I'd been out here following Nick around for nearly three solid hours - I didn't really want to do another lap. But then, I didn't want to be conspicuous, either.

The porn shop was in a nice spot, but all of the windows were papered over, so that was out. If I spent any amount of time in either liquor store, looking like I was waiting for something, they'd probably end up calling the cops, so those were out. The bookstore had nice, big windows that would be easy to see out of, but they were dark at the moment. Obviously closed-

A faded red 'We're Open!' sign was hanging by a lone piece of string in the window by the door. Forgot to turn the sign around, maybe? Worth checking out.

I headed across the street, inspecting the aging sign over the door. It seemed to read 'Phonet Attic', though that didn't really make much sense to me. Shrugging, I walked up to the door and turned the handle.

Unlocked. Well that was a bit of luck . . .

The sound of chimes and creaking wood greeted me as the door opened, revealing behind it an ominous, musty darkness. And trust me, if I find something ominous, it's doing a really good job of it.

I walked inside.

My shoes, though silent on the sidewalk, pressed against the aged wooden tiles of the floor and made the kind of noisy squeak that was only possible through decades of muddy boots and neglect. There were shelves of books - well kept books - everywhere I could see. We're not talking paperback or popular novel, either. There was stuff on the occult, books with weird symbols, books with foreign and sinister-sounding names. Some of them looked antique, like they should be covered in cobwebs or dust. An honest to god wrought-iron candelabrum stood in one corner by an old-fashioned wooden book stand. I actually forgot myself for a moment and spent a while gawking at the room. This was like something out of a paranormal horror movie.

Kind of cool, actually.

There were no lights on anywhere - obviously someone had forgotten to lock up. The whole thing was almost perfect. I could watch for Nick through the window, which had a good, clean view of the convenience store he'd walked into. I strode over to the front window, my shoes once again producing deafening squeaks from the floorboards, and peeked outside.

"There's no money in the register," a calm voice slurred matter-of-factly.

I just about jumped out of my skin.

Spinning in place, I peered deeper into the darkness of the store, unable to make anything out. After a second, I saw the glow of a cigarette illuminating the face that the voice belonged to - an older fellow with long hair.

"Uh-" I began.

"Nope, not even a nickel," the old man continued, exhaling a plume of smoke in my direction. "I beat ya to it. Don't even have a register any more, actually. Sold it. That money's gone, too . . ."

He took another drag of his cigarette, the cherry at its tip momentarily brightening his section of the room. The man sat in a chair with his boots propped up on a desk, right next to a mostly empty twenty-six ounce bottle of Jim Beam, and he regarded me with a tired, unconcerned look.

"The sign said you were open," I said, lamely, gesturing over my shoulder.

"Oh," he replied. "Well then, I must be open. Sign can't be wrong - it defines itself. Position, location, determination . . . everything balanced just so, making it a 'sign'. It would be irresponsible of me not to be open, hey? Semiotics . . . signifier, signified. The whole science of it would probably collapse. So, ya got me - I guess I'm open." He stubbed out his cigarette and pulled the bottle from his desk, drawing it into the shadows with him. There was a sloshing of liquid, a parched 'ahhh', and a withered hand put it back on the table, now much more empty than it had been.

That was an awful lot to drink in one pull.

"Uh, sorry for bothering you. I can go if you like," I said, gesturing to the empty street beyond the shop window.

"What? After scientifically proving the impossibility of my being closed?" He chuckled. "Well, you're the customer, and I read somewhere that the customer is consistently correct. I think. Maybe. I'm outta practice. Hang on a sec."

The man removed his boots from the desktop with a groan, and I heard him fumble around for something. There was a familiar metallic 'click' noise that made me impulsively reach inside my coat.

A zippo lighter now flooded his corner of the room with light, and he used it to ignite the wick of a large candle sitting on his desk. No threat. I quickly turned my instinctive reaction into a shoulder-scratch, hoping it would be enough to explain my sudden movement.

Either he didn't notice, or he didn't care. I took a chance to inspect him further, now that the light was a little better.

He was a skinny, aging hippie, possibly around seventy or so, with lanky grey hair coming down to about his collarbone, and yellow skin that looked like parchment from a museum display.

"Aaaaand, let there be light. Books - light-dependent stuff. Shouldn't read in the dark. Bad for you." He pointed to his eyes. "Strain, the bad kind. Messes with your cone and rod, sending mixed signals like that. Gimme all the light you can, but gimme high contrast as well. Poor eyeballs get so confused they don't know what to do!"

He picked up the mostly empty bottle of bourbon and took another pull, draining it completely. Then he smacked his lips, lowered the bottle to the floor beside the desk, and picked up a full bottle that was identical to the one he'd just put down, placing it on the desk.

This was . . . odd.

I quickly checked through the window. No sign of Nick yet.

"You're celebrating something?" I asked.

"No, nothing like that," he groaned tiredly, kicking his boots back up onto the desk and sliding another cigarette from his pack, clicking open his Zippo once more to light it. He took a few puffs to ensure it was properly lit. "Gotta sort out some money matters. I'm thinking."

"Kinda looks like drinking, actually," I smirked.

"I know what it kinda looks like, but looking people never really see, do they? They look. Just don't get it! Reflex stupidity. Works on one, must work on all, right? Assumption. Drink, think. Think, drink. Can't do both, 'cuz they rhyme? Garbage. For you, maybe . . . but just how broad are your horizons, hmm? The more you know, the more you can actually see, and the less you look. Pointless to explain, too, I'll bet. Be in the dark twice then, if you like." He sniffed disdainfully at me. "You ever hear of 'dysgenesis of the corpus callosum'?"

I frowned. This guy sounded like no drunk I'd ever met before. I mean, he was clearly drunk - his movements and slightly slurred speech attested to that fact - but he wasn't the same type of 'off' that you get with most inebriated people.

"Uhm, well . . . yes. I think. Isn't the corpus callosum that bundle of nerves connecting both hemispheres of the brain? Dysgenesis refers to an abnormality of some sort. I think it's a catch-all term for something wrong with how its grown."

What can I say? Knowing anatomy is part of the job.

His eyebrows went up in surprise, and he seemed at a momentary loss.

"Well," he said, finally, "can you believe that? Ho-lee-shit. Don't get many neurosurgeons in here. Specially at this hour. I think. Do I?" He furrowed his brow and cast around, as if looking for a clock. "What time is it?"

"A little past one."

"Interesting. Interesting," he said, giving me a considering look. "And not the one-o-clock I should be open either, I'd reckon. Why would you be here and knowing that, I wonder? One second, I'm just gonna check something."

He got up from his chair and shambled over to a nearby countertop, where he picked up a tray of something. Holding the aluminum tray in one trembling hand, he picked up the contents in the other, then dropped them back into the tray. Several solid-sounding objects rattled onto its surface, and he mumbled something to himself as he inspected them.

I took the opportunity to glance out the window and down the street. Still no Nick, though there was a figure heading to the convenience store. I watched carefully for a few moments. Woman, probably a working girl. Not my guy.

I looked back . . . and unexpectedly found the fellow standing not three feet away and simply staring at me, a somber but alert look on his face.

"Uhm-" I began, not really knowing what to say. He just stood there, staring.

Why was he was looking at me like that?

"What do you want?" he asked, a completely new tone to his voice. A second later he walked right up to me, eyes looking intently at my left eye, then right, then left again. "No, on second thought, don't tell me. If it's anything to do with what the bones have been freaking out over, I don't want to know."

"Uh-" I said uncertainly. Yup, master of witty dialogue, that's me.

"Get out," he breathed, now close enough that I could smell the copious amount of bourbon on his breath. "We're closed. Please leave."

"Hey, it's cool," I said, raising my arms in gesture of surrender. "Like I was saying, I just saw the sign, and-"

"The sign is wrong. Science and semiotics be damned . . . the whole thing can go to hell. We can devolve into monkeys. We're not that far from it already," he half-snarled. Yes, there was a definite edge to his voice now. "Just get out. Don't come back. I don't know who or what you are, but you're not welcome here. Ever."

Ooookay then.

"Sure thing. Sorry to bother you, guy," I said, giving him a one-shoulder shrug. I turned, took three hugely creaking steps toward the door, opened it with a jingle, and headed back out into the street.

I didn't look behind me, but I could almost feel the fellow's eyes burning a hole into my back through the window of his shop as I walked down the sidewalk towards the convenience store.

That had been really weird. Maybe it was safer to do a lap after all, if only to avoid freaks like that guy. First, I decided, I'd check in with Nick . . . walk into the convenience store as a customer, pretend not to know him, buy a coffee or a piece of fruit. At the very least I should make sure that he was still there, and hadn't wandered over to the next place of business he was going to terrorize.

My timing was really quite perfect, too. I was halfway to the convenience store, maybe fifty yards away, when I saw Nick coming out of the front entrance . . . very quickly.

At a full sprint, actually.

My hand was already reaching into my jacket, and I was streaking down the street towards the store, heart stepping up its pace to match my legs. My brain also kicked into high gear.

He was running. His body language suggested fright or excitement, so if he was being attacked by something he was probably running from it. If he'd seen Stevie, my mark, I'm guessing he would be trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible, hopefully having the presence of mind to be running in my direction. However, since he probably didn't even know where I was, he might end up running somewhere at random.

I ran faster. Halfway there, my guns were out.

My eyes scoured the scene in front of the convenience store, and when I wasn't watching Nick I was alertly looking for anything that might suggest where Stevie was, or where he was going to appear from. No sign of the junkie yet, and Nick was almost at the street, where-

Across the street from him, one of the parked cars roared to life, and its headlights came on.

I watched Nick bolt over to the passenger side of this particular car and jump in, hollering something as he slammed the door. It wasn't a scared 'how about we get out of here?' kind of holler, but a jazzed, 'that was fun' whooping sort of holler.

The doors to the convenience store opened up a second later.

A clerk, blood trickling from his balding pate, was standing in the door frame and yelling something at the top of his lungs. In one hand he held a cloth, which was pressed against his wound, and in the other he held a baseball bat. From the distance I was at, I couldn't really hear what the clerk was saying, but one word sounded suspiciously like 'police'. I could hear the woman I'd seen entering the convenience store shrieking, though I couldn't see precisely where she was.

I slowed down to a trot, and then stopped running towards the store entirely.

The car Nick had jumped into peeled out of its spot with a smoky spinning of tires, barreling down the street and right past me. About three seconds later the car turned a corner, disappearing from sight. The only sounds I could hear were those of the squealing car trying to get away-

. . . and the sound of police sirens.

Well, crap. This was just perfect.

Cursing under my breath, I tucked my guns away and put my hands in my pockets. Then I changed the direction I was walking and headed towards a side street, thinking that it was a good idea to end up somewhere that wasn't within view of the scene of whatever crime Nick had just committed. I checked my pace, and slowed it down a little so that I wasn't too obvious about getting out of there.

Two sirens now. Despite being behind me, I could tell from the reflected flashing lights that one police cruiser had turned a corner and was within sight of the store itself, slowing down so it could pull into the parking lot. Without having to look behind me, I also knew what was probably happening. The convenience store clerk was likely pointing with his bat, gesturing down the street to indicate which way the perpetrators had fled.

The really unfortunate thing was that by doing so, he was also pointing directly at me.

Sticking around wasn't really an option. I had two guns on me that I wasn't going to be able to explain. And of course, with the police now actually on the lookout for suspicious characters, which, on a street by the pier at one-o-clock in the morning, included everyone, I was going to have to find a place to ditch these particular guns.

Turning onto a side-alley and out of view of the store, I immediately tore into a sprint. I could see that about half a block away the alley opened up into another street, and I wanted to make it onto that street before the cruiser had a chance to pull up to the alley and see me fleeing the scene.

As I ran, I pulled out my guns one after the other, thumbing the magazine release button and grabbing the clips as they fell. Then, without even breaking stride, I shoved the clips into my front pants pocket, tucked the guns into the baggy pockets of the windbreaker, unzipped it, rolled it off my shoulders, packed it into a tight wad, ripped off my velcro gun harness, wrapped it tightly around the coat, and then threw the basketball-sized collection of items into the mouth of a half-empty dumpster as I ran past. I took off the reading glasses I was wearing and threw them aside with enough force that they would likely break against the nearby brick wall, thus becoming indistinguishable from some of the other trash littering the alleyway.

Once I made it to the end of the alleyway I slowed down, turning left along the street and settling in to a comfortable walk along the side of the road, trying to keep my breathing under control. I pretended to tie my shoe right next to a sewer drain, and my two gun clips mysteriously disappeared from my pants pocket at about that same time.

I spent another few seconds taking deep, controlled breaths through my nose. Then I circled back around, and made my way back over to the convenience store.

You see, there's a bit of an art when it comes to being unnoticeable. You have to understand human nature to a great extent, and pay attention to the sorts of things people do. Some of it is very important for someone like me.

For instance, did you know that in a crowded mall, a gunshot will actually attract everyone's attention for at least a one-count, with every person within earshot turning their head and looking for the source of the noise? After that one second or so, everyone's free to do what they want . . . scream, run, yell, whatever. But they always spend a brief instant looking in the direction they think the shot came from.

There are dozens of things like that - things people do the same without realizing it. If you don't believe me, spend ten minutes at a busy street corner downtown and watch the large groups of pedestrians waiting for the "don't walk" light to change to "walk". The light goes green, and everyone turns their heads to the left at almost exactly same time, en mass. Check it out sometime.

Point is, fitting in is about understanding what ninety-nine point nine percent of the population would do and doing it, so that you don't stand out like the zero-point-one percent of the population that you actually are. You stop and take a moment look for the source of the gunshot or explosion. You slow down and rubberneck at the scene of an accident. You get as close to the scene of a murder as the police will allow, milling around and saying things like, "It's so horrible!" and, "What's society coming to?"

So, now that I'd ditched my guns and no longer resembled the individual who'd been near the scene of the crime, I did what anybody wandering around at one-fifteen in the morning would do - I went to investigate the source of the commotion and, like the rest of the proverbial human vultures, check for any telltale signs of blood.

If you can't already tell, I have a rather dim view of humanity.

Getting there took hardly any time at all, and there were about fifteen people standing around in addition to the ambulance and two police cruisers that were now parked in front of the convenience store itself. I worked my way into the crowd, wide-eyed and asking people if they knew what was going on. After a few minutes, I asked the nearest officer.

"Heyya . . . excuse me, officer? Sir?" I said, adding just a hint of Jersey to my accent. "What's going on? What happened?"

The cop turned and gave me a quick once-over with half-lidded, flat eyes.

"Everything's under control, sir. Please just remain back here."

"Did something happen? Is the store still open?" I asked. "It better be. The only other shop I can get those little apple pies from is like way hell and gone in Highlands!"

He was too good a cop to actually sneer at me. This is the sort of 'I hope this doesn't affect me' stuff that they see all the time. Sometimes I wonder if most cops don't have an even darker, more cynical view of humanity than I do.

"Just please stay back, sir," he said, not even looking at me any more. "We're still investigating, but I'm sure everything'll be back to normal in a few minutes or so."

I made as if to follow up with another question, and he turned away before I could pester him further.

I briefly went up on my toes so I could crane my neck for a better look. The shopkeeper was sitting in the back of the ambulance, speaking passionately to the EMT who was trying to get a look at his head. He still had his bat clutched in his hand. The woman I'd seen enter the convenience store was still there as well. She was clearly upset, and was talking to a notepad-wielding officer who was nodding seriously and writing stuff down. It looked like the officer was also trying to politely ignore the fact that the woman's mascara-streaked cheeks were starting to make her look like a member of the KISS army after a water-balloon attack. Tactful cops we have in this city.

All four cops were accounted for and in plain view, which meant no cops in the store. No bodies then, since they wouldn't just leave one unattended without blocking the entrance first. Just a late night scare from some tough-guy gangster, probably a robbery. I guess Nick had wanted a little spending money.

Because who cares if a former co-worker of his is trying to grease him, right? Doesn't mean he can't just cause mayhem and do what he's always done, does it?

Fucking moron.

I withdrew from the crowd and started heading towards the passenger bridge that would lead me back to my car, disappointed at how the night had gone, and as I walked I made two vows. The first was to never follow Nick around again. An idiot who couldn't understand that there was such thing as a bad time to rob a convenience store made lousy bait.

I also made a vow not to walk into any creaky, poorly lit, spooky-ass bookstores anytime in the near future.