"Boston? Bah . . . had enough of that place," I said, gesturing dismissively with my free hand, still vigorously shaking his hand with my other, doing everything humanly possible to try to convince him that I was actually happy to see him standing right outside of my bar. "I figured I'd come settle out here, where the action was."

He raised a skeptical eyebrow at me.

"Action? Here?" He looked around, as if confused. "In Baltimore?"

I laughed hard, as though I'd just been told the best joke ever, and as I did so I quickly scoped out the rest of the street. Beige sedan about forty yards away, two sunglass-wearing figures inside of it. Surveillance detail - from where they were parked it was obvious I was the one they were watching for.

A sudden and extremely uncomfortable thought crossed my mind just then, and my guts turned to ice water.

Please, oh please . . . don't ask to see my I.D. . . .

Laughing over and done with, I smiled in a way that threatened to make my cheekbones hurt.

"Oh trust me, this place is the hub of cutting edge accounting software! Everyone looks to Baltimore for that stuff, it's like Mecca," I lied glibly, letting go of his hand and waving a gesture at the street. "Moved here a couple of summers ago, partly for work, partly to avoid a certain ex-girlfriend. How about you? What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

He shrugged. "Came down here looking for someone. Got a call, anonymous tip about a fellow I've been after for a while. Figured I'd come down here and check it out."

Anonymous tip.

"Really?" I gave a surprised laugh. "Terrorists in Baltimore?"

"Terrorists? No, nothing like that, John. We've got a whole other department for stuff like that now."

"Must be pretty big though, to get someone like you involved. This 'someone' you're looking for got a name?"

"Nah," he grinned. "His name's not all that important, really. He's just some nobody the Bureau's been trying to keep an eye on."

Nobody.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I doubled the intensity of my already furious smile. "Well, ain't that something, huh? Funny, our paths crossing like this." I happened upon a glimmer of an idea, and gestured over my shoulder at the bar. "Want a quick something to eat, maybe catch up a little? I just realized I gotta head back inside."

"What? Oh . . . nah. I'm on that new diet," he said, opening up his suit jacket enough to show even more of the handle of his .357 Magnum revolver, slapping his nearly nonexistent stomach. "Gotta watch what I'm eating - no starches, no sweets, no meats. No food, really. Been working like a charm. My wife called me a miserable, skinny bastard just the other day, in fact."

I laughed. God, I was starting to hate having to laugh.

"Well, I was just about to head out to meet up with a client, but I just realized I've left my wallet in my other jacket." I pantomimed a quick punch to my temple and gestured as if attempting to communicate the phrase 'I'm such an idiot!' without words. "Still, wish we had some time to catch up a little. Man, that airport fiasco was a hoot, wasn't it?"

"Absolutely. A real hoot," he said, smiling in a way that didn't actually manage to reach his eyes. "You know, to this day, I still feel silly about that whole incident. Troubling you the way I did, I mean. I look back on it, and honestly, I wish that things had happened differently. You know what I mean?"

His words were double-edged, and coming at me fast and furious. Like he'd practiced them. He sounded exactly like a man who had recited these particular lines while lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about regret, cursing himself for something that he hadn't thought to do at some moment in his past.

He was screwing with me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

"Oh, it wasn't all that big a deal," I waved, trying like mad to quell the uneasy panic that was churning in my guts. "I mean, I've practically forgotten about that whole misunderstanding."

"Well, I haven't forgotten it, John." He shook his head in mock sadness. "I still think about that day from time to time, actually. I'm kind of glad I stumbled on this opportunity, you know? Meeting you face-to-face like this, I mean."

Yup. The double entendre, the hidden meaning to his words - they were all designed to torture me. I looked him in the eye and grinned like I'd never grinned before.

We just stood there for a while, in silence.

"Well, gotta go back inside," I smiled, gesturing behind me. "We should have drinks or something, sometime. Good seeing you again, Agent Moss."

"You too," he grinned. "We'll see you around, hey?"

"No doubt," I grinned back.

Then I turned and walked back inside through the doors I'd walked out of moments ago. Nate heard me, looked up, furrowed his brow slightly at me, puzzled. His eyes asked a question. I gave him a fierce smile.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I announced cheerfully, walking past Nate and toward the elevator leading back up to my apartment. I didn't stop smiling until the elevator doors had closed behind me. Once that happened, I allowed my features to relax and looked around me.

Fun fact - there's nothing in my private elevator that can be kicked over or thrown during moments of extreme frustration.

I couldn't use my current identification, not with Moss and his buddies ghosting around. I had to be John Noakes - accounting software salesman and one of my very best international identities - from this point on. I'd spent a fortune on the Noakes background details, and throwing it away wasn't really an option if I still wanted to work abroad, which meant I had to be extra careful.

The Noakes ID didn't have guns registered, not a one. This meant that even the act of wandering around with a gun was infinitely more risky, and something I'd be unable to explain away if one was found on my person. Moss was sharp enough, and he'd probably notice me carrying if I tried leaving the building with a gun on me. Not that noticing it would matter . . . he or his buddies could pat me down whenever they wanted, and I had to make absolutely sure they didn't find anything incriminating if they did. I wasn't going to be able to carry around anything lethal except for my James Bond crap, and most of that stuff was for up close and personal defense situations, not for taking out a mark.

Ordinarily this would be the point where a cleaner would cancel their contract, since no professional wants to work while under the watchful eye of a bunch of snoopy feds. Problem was that I knew I wouldn't be able to simply drop this job. Diavolo wasn't someone I could afford to simply brush off - or piss off - if I wanted to continue operating in this town.

And all this because of an 'anonymous' tip. One that led Moss right to the door of my bar. One that made my life more difficult, and seemed designed to ensure that I couldn't deliver on my contract with Diavolo.

Glenn Quinn, or GQ, or whatever. That kid was going to die a slow and horrifyingly painful death.

The elevator doors opened, and I walked into my apartment, frantically trying to think of all the different ways I might be able to deal with this new development.

Moss had let himself be seen, so I doubted that he'd be the one tailing me. No point in walking up to someone you were going to tail and saying hi, that was just dumb. He wasn't stupid, from what I could remember, so chances are it would be the other two guys tailing me. He'd be free to search my place while I was gone, however. I'd probably have to dumb down my security a little so he didn't die while trying to get inside and look around. He wouldn't find anything even if he did manage to get inside, though - not while The Room was locked down.

It was still kind of weird that he drew attention to himself though, since it had only alerted me to the presence of his fellow feds. That didn't seem too bright. Then again, maybe he'd been after something other than the element of surprise.

Like watching me carefully to see if I'd look around for other agents, testing my instincts, just to assure himself that I really was the guy he was looking for . . .

I'd walked right into it, too.

Fuck.

I opened up The Room, put away my gun, replaced my Fred Nerk identification to its usual spot, and retrieved my John Noakes passport along with other papers and ID that I would likely need to keep with me. I also opened my wall safe and drew out about five-thousand dollars, stuffing it into my right front pocket.

What was I going to do now? A part of me still wanted to go to the piano store, check things out . . . but that was way too dangerous to do while being tailed. If I didn't have something solid to go on by tonight, though, Diavolo was probably going to have some questions for me that I wouldn't have any ready answers for.

Well, it had been a while since I had to lose a tail, and I could always use the practice. How could I go about getting them off my back for a while?

An idea began forming in my head. After a few minutes, despite how miserably my day had begun, I actually started to smile.