"Both Ways Go Nowhere"
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dochermes"Both Ways Go Nowhere"
11/6/2011
I.
Struggling to make his checkbook add up the same way twice, Sheng Mo-Yuan didn't even look up from his desk as the knocking sounded on his office door. "Uncle, would you get that?"
>"Why me? I just sat down."< came the reply in Cantonese.
Sheng glanced over at the old man sitting at his own smaller desk seven feet away. Uncle Pao was leaning back his thin arms crossed over a bony chest and the stubborn expression on that gaunt face was all too familiar. Wearing a hideous yellow and purple cardigan over a green dress shirt, Pao's appearance was further distinguished by a shock of white hair standing up in several different directions as if he had taken a vow to never use a comb.
"You have been planted in that chair for over an hour..." Sheng began but stopped at the realization that getting in an argument with Uncle Pao wouldn't get the door answred. The Chujiran rose quickly and strode across the office. He still hadn't allowed his teammate Megan Salenger to install a camera outside his door to screen visitors but he agreed it would be a good idea. Running a private investigation agency that specialized in weird and downright supernatural threats meant dealing with extreme danger every time a client called.
The instant he saw the woman standing in front of his door, Sheng spotted a half dozen details that alarmed him. She was petite and young, wearing a white raincoat several sizes too large for her. She was barefoot and her lower legs were also bare. The glossy black hair had been cut short too unevenly for even a daring new style, it looked as if someone had pulled handfuls out straight and hacked the hair off with a knife. Her hands trembled and she was unsteady on her feet.
Before she could even speak, he had taken her by one arm and placed his other hand on her shoulder. Sheng steered her toward the brown leather couch to their left just in time as her legs gave way. She fell onto the couch rather than sitting down.
Before attending her, Sheng swung over to the door and glared suspiciously out into the hallway. No one was in sight. Since it was one-thirty in the morning, of course the travel agency and computer repair shop on that floor had been closed for hours. He leaned out over the bannister of the stairs, looking and listening. Nothing, either on the floor above or below. Sheng rushed back into his office, locking the door behind him.
To his surprise, Uncle Pao had risen and was preparing a steaming mug of ginseng tea from the kettle he kept going on the hot plate their landlord had expressly told him not to use. Sheng went over to find their visitor was sitting up and leaning forward, working her hands together in obvious distress.
"Listen, do you need medical attention?" he asked. "I can get you to Metro General in ten minutes."
"No, no," she responded quickly. "They'll be watching. They must have followed me."
Uncle Pao interrupting by handing her the mug. "Lemon and honey to calm your nerves," he told her. Then, in Cantonese, he added to Sheng, >"When young woman walks in door, your brains fly out window."<
As the woman gulped the tea and started breathing less frantically, she took in her surroundings. "This is Argent Investigations, isn't it? Fist For Hire?"
"It is. I'm sometimes called Argent, my name is Sheng Mo-Yuan."
>"And I am a faceless servant, unnoticed in the background,"< Pao grumbled.
"And this my Uncle Pao, my partner," added Sheng. "Your name would be...?"
"Oh. Eclipse. Eclipse Giordano. At least I made it here, I really didn't think my chances were good at all."
Sheng nodded at his Uncle Pao to return to his desk while he himself pulled a straightback wooden chair over. "Those ligature burns on your wrists and ankles are from clothesline. As far as I can tell, you're not wearing anything under that raincoat. What exactly did you escape from, Miss Giordano?"
"You can tell that with a few seconds looking at me? Really? You're right. Half an hour ago, I was lying on a mattress on the floor of a boarded up condemned building. This guy was supposed to be guarding me but he guzzled a pint of Jack Daniels and fell asleep. i was hoping for any chance to get away. I had found a piece of broken glass next to the mattress and cut myself loose, then grabbed this filthy smelly coat from the floor and tiptoed out the door."
>"It's a wise man who believes nothing which comes from a woman's mouth,"< offered Pao.
"Yes, thank you, Uncle. Go on, miss. Why did you come here?"
"Oh, I'd heard about you, of course. You're the detective who can turn his body hard as steel or pick up a motorcycle. I'd actually seen you in the street a few times."
"But why didn't you go to the police first?" he asked.
"I've been in trouble with the law. I did three months in county jail upstate. I didn't think they'd believe me."
>"How rare for those uniformed fools to show such wisdom,"< Uncle Pao put in.
"What did he say just now?" Eclipse asked.
"He said his feet hurt," said Sheng. "The obvious next questions are, where were you held and who was it holding you?"
The young woman put the empty mug down on a small nightstand next to the arm of the couch and pulled the collar of her raincoat down from where she had been wearing raised. "I can retrace my steps here, Mr Mo-Yuan..."
"Please call me Sheng, but go on."
"I know the location, it's not far. I got here in ten minutes. But I don't know about being able to say who was holding me prisoner. It was the darndest thing. I only saw two guys and both of them were wearing these stupid yellow masks with a sort of black skull drawn over their faces."
Despite their inclination to give little away, Sheng and Pao glanced at each other. At the same time, they said, "STIGMA."
II.
In the closet by his desk, Sheng dug around. "Where..? Ah here we go." He held up a bright blue polo shirt and white jeans, as well as a pair of white sneakers. "My friend Ashley left these here when she changed into her commando suit and that was months ago. You look about the same size, go into the bathroom there and see if these fit. Your feet don't seem to be cut up from walking, I don't have to bandage them."
"You're so kind," Eclipse said as she took the clothes with her. "I was afraid you would want to keep me naked just becase..."
>"She waves cheese in front of the mouse trap that is her body,"< Uncle Pao muttered.
In a few seconds, Eclipse Giordano emerged. She was considerably curvier than Ashley Whitaker, so the shirt was stretched tight across her bustline and she had left the jeans unbuttoned. "Dear God, that's so much better. Wearing the dirty raincoat made my skin crawl."
"Please have a seat and rest a little," Sheng said, still in the chair facing the couch. "Before I take you as a client, I think I'm going to need a lot more information. What do you do for a living?"
"Me? Nothing interesting. Office work for the Countrywide Insurance Company, phoning people who are late and filing away payments, the usual. I've been there two years. It's a paycheck."
"And what are your living arrangements?"
"I'm not married, if that's what you mean. I share an apartment in Queens with two girls my age. We get along okay. Anything else?"
Sheng leaned back in the chair, studying her intently. To most people, Argent seemed to be Northern Chinese, with the usual coarse black hair and a single eyelid fold, but his high cheekbones and beaked eagle nose were unusual. They hinted at his actual origins in the adjacent realm of Chujir.
That night, he was wearing his favorite business suit, the brown one with a tan shirt and dark brown tie. A bit fussy about his wardrobe, Sheng had his outfits tailored to fit him precisely and he kept them as immaculate as possible considering what his job put him through. "I'm going to take your case, Miss Giordano. Hold on a second." He went over to his desk and returned with a ledger and pen.
As he filled out a complicated form, Sheng explained, "Obviously you don't have any money on you, so I can't get a retainer. But this paper indicates that you will pay me my usual fee within thirty days. Don't worry about that. Sign here, please. Good. You are now my client, which gives me some legal advantages when dealing with the police."
From his own desk, Pao made a disgusted noise. >"A promise of money is worth the air it uses being said."<
"I wish he wouldn't do that," Eclipse said. "I get the feeling whatever he's saying isn't very flattering to me."
"You have to excuse my uncle. He hasn't been in this country that long."
>"Twenty-eight years."<
Switching to Cantonese himself, Sheng replied, >"Very helpful, Uncle."< He picked up the admittedly disreputable raincoat and checked its pockets, immediately coming up with a crumpled piece of paper. "Oh come ON," he said with a smirk. "These guys are so obvious."
"What do you mean? What is it?" Eclipse demanded, getting up.
"An ATM receipt, date and everything," Sheng handed the paper to his uncle. >"Another bit of cheese in the trap.">
>"They think they deal with the young and gullible,"< the old man said.
"Stop it!" yelled Eclipse. "If you guys are going to talk in Chinese or Japanese or whatever, I'm outta here. Tell me what's going on."
"I'm sorry. We'll try not to do that any more. If you feel up to it, miss, I'd like you to lead me to where you were being held."
"Sure. I can do that." She smiled for the first time. "From the wild stories I've heard about you, Mr Argent, I'm looking forward to watching you beat the hell out of these guys."
"Excuse me a second, I'm getting a message." Sheng took what looked like a smartphone no thicker than three playing cards stacked together and examined its screen. He moved away from Eclipse, tapping at the screen for a few seconds, read a little while and then came back. "Well, that was a waste of time. Back to the problem at hand."
Sheng turned to the old man and placed a set of keys on the desk in front of those gnarled hands. "I'm counting on you to stand by, Uncle. My car is in the usual spot in municipal parking. If I need help, I want to be able to count on you to get there fast."
"You know my speedy driving, nephew."
"Yeah, but in spite of that, I'm leaving you the keys."
III.
"We're almost there," Eclipse whispered. "Next block up, you see it?"
"That laundromat? Sure." Sheng had slowed to a halt as his new client paused on the corner of Laurel and Mulberry. All the store windows around them had minimum lights on for insurance reasons and they had only see a few cars go past on their short walk here.
"Nobody saw you on the street after your escape? Nobody stopped and asked if you needed help?" he asked as he studied the scene.
"No. Well, one middle-aged porker slowed down his car and wanted to know how much I charged. I told him I'm not a hooker and he took off. Mr Sheng, before we go any further, you need to tell me what those skull masks mean? What's a stigma?"
Sheng was checking out the narrow parking lot next to the picture windows of the laundromat, where two cars sat. One was a dilapidated old Ford Taurus, the other a Hyundai Sonata of an unusual lime green color. He could see a motionless old woman with a kerchief over her hair gazing out from inside the window. Twenty four hour laundromats were used frequently by both the underworld and denizens of the Midnight War as people could come and go without drawing any attention.
"Fair enough. STIGMA is a sort of clearing house that co-ordinates activity between a half dozen criminal organizations. The White Web, Winter Snow, what's left of John Grim's empire, a few others. STIGMA makes sure they don't step on each other's toes. That prevents expensive turf wars."
"I don't recognize any of those names, to be honest."
"Yeah, that's not surprising," Sheng replied absently. "They're not really public knowledge. STIGMA and I have some bad blood between us, their leaders would like to see me in the obituaries. From what I can see, the FRIENDLY LAUNDERETTE isn't too busy right now. I suggest we turn right and circle around to the other side of that building."
"Whatever you say. I guess I should be scared about going back there but I've got a feeling you can handle them." She tried to take his arm but he shrugged away without a word and kept a little more distance between them.
They went around the corner furthest from the laundromat, past a Pizzeria and a deli.
The instant that Sheng passed the deep darkened recess between those businesses, he lunged into it and hopped back out again with a struggling man in his hands. Since Sheng had shifted the gralic energy in his body to enhanced strength, he could hold his larger prisoner by the neck and one arm without any trouble.
"Don't run off," he told Eclipse. As he pulled the struggling man out under a streetlight, he made a disgusted noise. "You again! Settle down, it's me. Sheng Mo-Yuan."
"Sheng? You damn Midnight War refugee, ease up on my windpipe, you're choking me." A tall handsome man with crisp wavy black hair and a strong face marked by a noble chin straightened up as he was released. He was as well-dressed as Sheng, maybe more so as his conservatively cut suit included a vest and French cuffs with pewter links.
"I guess we're on the right track if INTERCEPT is involved," Sheng admitted grudgingly. "Which name are you using tonight?"
"The usual will do fine, I've gotten used to Holden Crest." INTERCEPT's top enforcement agent adjusted his clothes after being manhandled. He hesitated as he got a good look at the woman next to Sheng. "I don't want to give anything away, pal, but you realize the sort of company you're keeping?"
"I'm only starting to get to know her," Sheng admitted. "Eclipse Giordano, this is Holden Crest. I suppose you two have used so many aliases that neither remembers your real names?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped, getting angry and stepping back.
"You guys don't make any sense."
Sheng remained in a seemingly casual stance that left him free to react to an attack from any direction. He had taken two steps back so he could keep Eclipse and Holden Crest in view equally well. "Eclipse, now would be a good time for you to come clean a little."
"Mr Argent, please! Don't scare me like this, I don't know who this man is."
"I've been playing along with you so far," Sheng continued, "But that receipt in the raincoat pocket, giving the ATM number that could be traced to this address, was just too obvious. I already had trouble accepting how conveniently a guard passed out so you could escape. Then there were your bare feet. The soles were amazingly clean for someone who had walked barefoot through Manhattan. They looked more like you had gotten out of a car a block away."
Eclipse Giordano raised both palms in a gesture meant to be pleading. Her voice faltered, "I know your job makes you suspicious of people but honestly, I'm only a normal girl."
"Remember when I checked what seemed to be a regular phone? I tapped into the files of the NYPD, CIA and the Mandate, not exactly with legal authorization. Your picture ID shows you with much longer hair, of course, but you've been tied up with espionage as a freelancer for three years now."
Holden Crest chuckled. "Good to see you're being suspicious, Sheng. You used to be a little naive. Remember that every road leads in two directions." He slid his right hand inside his suit jacket.
And Sheng lunged in to blast a backhand that cracked like a whiplash. Crest's head swung around from that punch so far he was looking past his own shoulder as he fell. The body had barely hit the ground before Sheng had snatched Crest's 9mm Browning from a shoulder holster and whirled back to face Eclipse.
"Ack," she said, freezing into position as she saw the infinite black tunnel of that barrel pointed at her.
"You're not in the clear just because Crest has been exposed as a double," Sheng barked. "Stay where you are. That text I got in the office was a notice that INTERCEPT had found out Holden Crest was discovered feeding them false information from STIGMA. He was getting checks from both sides of the game. I'm calling INTERCEPT now to collect both of you."
"I knew this was going to go wrong. Every road does lead in two directions," Eclipse told him with defeat in her voice. "But it doesn't matter much when both ways go nowhere."
4/18/2022
11/6/2011
I.
Struggling to make his checkbook add up the same way twice, Sheng Mo-Yuan didn't even look up from his desk as the knocking sounded on his office door. "Uncle, would you get that?"
>"Why me? I just sat down."< came the reply in Cantonese.
Sheng glanced over at the old man sitting at his own smaller desk seven feet away. Uncle Pao was leaning back his thin arms crossed over a bony chest and the stubborn expression on that gaunt face was all too familiar. Wearing a hideous yellow and purple cardigan over a green dress shirt, Pao's appearance was further distinguished by a shock of white hair standing up in several different directions as if he had taken a vow to never use a comb.
"You have been planted in that chair for over an hour..." Sheng began but stopped at the realization that getting in an argument with Uncle Pao wouldn't get the door answred. The Chujiran rose quickly and strode across the office. He still hadn't allowed his teammate Megan Salenger to install a camera outside his door to screen visitors but he agreed it would be a good idea. Running a private investigation agency that specialized in weird and downright supernatural threats meant dealing with extreme danger every time a client called.
The instant he saw the woman standing in front of his door, Sheng spotted a half dozen details that alarmed him. She was petite and young, wearing a white raincoat several sizes too large for her. She was barefoot and her lower legs were also bare. The glossy black hair had been cut short too unevenly for even a daring new style, it looked as if someone had pulled handfuls out straight and hacked the hair off with a knife. Her hands trembled and she was unsteady on her feet.
Before she could even speak, he had taken her by one arm and placed his other hand on her shoulder. Sheng steered her toward the brown leather couch to their left just in time as her legs gave way. She fell onto the couch rather than sitting down.
Before attending her, Sheng swung over to the door and glared suspiciously out into the hallway. No one was in sight. Since it was one-thirty in the morning, of course the travel agency and computer repair shop on that floor had been closed for hours. He leaned out over the bannister of the stairs, looking and listening. Nothing, either on the floor above or below. Sheng rushed back into his office, locking the door behind him.
To his surprise, Uncle Pao had risen and was preparing a steaming mug of ginseng tea from the kettle he kept going on the hot plate their landlord had expressly told him not to use. Sheng went over to find their visitor was sitting up and leaning forward, working her hands together in obvious distress.
"Listen, do you need medical attention?" he asked. "I can get you to Metro General in ten minutes."
"No, no," she responded quickly. "They'll be watching. They must have followed me."
Uncle Pao interrupting by handing her the mug. "Lemon and honey to calm your nerves," he told her. Then, in Cantonese, he added to Sheng, >"When young woman walks in door, your brains fly out window."<
As the woman gulped the tea and started breathing less frantically, she took in her surroundings. "This is Argent Investigations, isn't it? Fist For Hire?"
"It is. I'm sometimes called Argent, my name is Sheng Mo-Yuan."
>"And I am a faceless servant, unnoticed in the background,"< Pao grumbled.
"And this my Uncle Pao, my partner," added Sheng. "Your name would be...?"
"Oh. Eclipse. Eclipse Giordano. At least I made it here, I really didn't think my chances were good at all."
Sheng nodded at his Uncle Pao to return to his desk while he himself pulled a straightback wooden chair over. "Those ligature burns on your wrists and ankles are from clothesline. As far as I can tell, you're not wearing anything under that raincoat. What exactly did you escape from, Miss Giordano?"
"You can tell that with a few seconds looking at me? Really? You're right. Half an hour ago, I was lying on a mattress on the floor of a boarded up condemned building. This guy was supposed to be guarding me but he guzzled a pint of Jack Daniels and fell asleep. i was hoping for any chance to get away. I had found a piece of broken glass next to the mattress and cut myself loose, then grabbed this filthy smelly coat from the floor and tiptoed out the door."
>"It's a wise man who believes nothing which comes from a woman's mouth,"< offered Pao.
"Yes, thank you, Uncle. Go on, miss. Why did you come here?"
"Oh, I'd heard about you, of course. You're the detective who can turn his body hard as steel or pick up a motorcycle. I'd actually seen you in the street a few times."
"But why didn't you go to the police first?" he asked.
"I've been in trouble with the law. I did three months in county jail upstate. I didn't think they'd believe me."
>"How rare for those uniformed fools to show such wisdom,"< Uncle Pao put in.
"What did he say just now?" Eclipse asked.
"He said his feet hurt," said Sheng. "The obvious next questions are, where were you held and who was it holding you?"
The young woman put the empty mug down on a small nightstand next to the arm of the couch and pulled the collar of her raincoat down from where she had been wearing raised. "I can retrace my steps here, Mr Mo-Yuan..."
"Please call me Sheng, but go on."
"I know the location, it's not far. I got here in ten minutes. But I don't know about being able to say who was holding me prisoner. It was the darndest thing. I only saw two guys and both of them were wearing these stupid yellow masks with a sort of black skull drawn over their faces."
Despite their inclination to give little away, Sheng and Pao glanced at each other. At the same time, they said, "STIGMA."
II.
In the closet by his desk, Sheng dug around. "Where..? Ah here we go." He held up a bright blue polo shirt and white jeans, as well as a pair of white sneakers. "My friend Ashley left these here when she changed into her commando suit and that was months ago. You look about the same size, go into the bathroom there and see if these fit. Your feet don't seem to be cut up from walking, I don't have to bandage them."
"You're so kind," Eclipse said as she took the clothes with her. "I was afraid you would want to keep me naked just becase..."
>"She waves cheese in front of the mouse trap that is her body,"< Uncle Pao muttered.
In a few seconds, Eclipse Giordano emerged. She was considerably curvier than Ashley Whitaker, so the shirt was stretched tight across her bustline and she had left the jeans unbuttoned. "Dear God, that's so much better. Wearing the dirty raincoat made my skin crawl."
"Please have a seat and rest a little," Sheng said, still in the chair facing the couch. "Before I take you as a client, I think I'm going to need a lot more information. What do you do for a living?"
"Me? Nothing interesting. Office work for the Countrywide Insurance Company, phoning people who are late and filing away payments, the usual. I've been there two years. It's a paycheck."
"And what are your living arrangements?"
"I'm not married, if that's what you mean. I share an apartment in Queens with two girls my age. We get along okay. Anything else?"
Sheng leaned back in the chair, studying her intently. To most people, Argent seemed to be Northern Chinese, with the usual coarse black hair and a single eyelid fold, but his high cheekbones and beaked eagle nose were unusual. They hinted at his actual origins in the adjacent realm of Chujir.
That night, he was wearing his favorite business suit, the brown one with a tan shirt and dark brown tie. A bit fussy about his wardrobe, Sheng had his outfits tailored to fit him precisely and he kept them as immaculate as possible considering what his job put him through. "I'm going to take your case, Miss Giordano. Hold on a second." He went over to his desk and returned with a ledger and pen.
As he filled out a complicated form, Sheng explained, "Obviously you don't have any money on you, so I can't get a retainer. But this paper indicates that you will pay me my usual fee within thirty days. Don't worry about that. Sign here, please. Good. You are now my client, which gives me some legal advantages when dealing with the police."
From his own desk, Pao made a disgusted noise. >"A promise of money is worth the air it uses being said."<
"I wish he wouldn't do that," Eclipse said. "I get the feeling whatever he's saying isn't very flattering to me."
"You have to excuse my uncle. He hasn't been in this country that long."
>"Twenty-eight years."<
Switching to Cantonese himself, Sheng replied, >"Very helpful, Uncle."< He picked up the admittedly disreputable raincoat and checked its pockets, immediately coming up with a crumpled piece of paper. "Oh come ON," he said with a smirk. "These guys are so obvious."
"What do you mean? What is it?" Eclipse demanded, getting up.
"An ATM receipt, date and everything," Sheng handed the paper to his uncle. >"Another bit of cheese in the trap.">
>"They think they deal with the young and gullible,"< the old man said.
"Stop it!" yelled Eclipse. "If you guys are going to talk in Chinese or Japanese or whatever, I'm outta here. Tell me what's going on."
"I'm sorry. We'll try not to do that any more. If you feel up to it, miss, I'd like you to lead me to where you were being held."
"Sure. I can do that." She smiled for the first time. "From the wild stories I've heard about you, Mr Argent, I'm looking forward to watching you beat the hell out of these guys."
"Excuse me a second, I'm getting a message." Sheng took what looked like a smartphone no thicker than three playing cards stacked together and examined its screen. He moved away from Eclipse, tapping at the screen for a few seconds, read a little while and then came back. "Well, that was a waste of time. Back to the problem at hand."
Sheng turned to the old man and placed a set of keys on the desk in front of those gnarled hands. "I'm counting on you to stand by, Uncle. My car is in the usual spot in municipal parking. If I need help, I want to be able to count on you to get there fast."
"You know my speedy driving, nephew."
"Yeah, but in spite of that, I'm leaving you the keys."
III.
"We're almost there," Eclipse whispered. "Next block up, you see it?"
"That laundromat? Sure." Sheng had slowed to a halt as his new client paused on the corner of Laurel and Mulberry. All the store windows around them had minimum lights on for insurance reasons and they had only see a few cars go past on their short walk here.
"Nobody saw you on the street after your escape? Nobody stopped and asked if you needed help?" he asked as he studied the scene.
"No. Well, one middle-aged porker slowed down his car and wanted to know how much I charged. I told him I'm not a hooker and he took off. Mr Sheng, before we go any further, you need to tell me what those skull masks mean? What's a stigma?"
Sheng was checking out the narrow parking lot next to the picture windows of the laundromat, where two cars sat. One was a dilapidated old Ford Taurus, the other a Hyundai Sonata of an unusual lime green color. He could see a motionless old woman with a kerchief over her hair gazing out from inside the window. Twenty four hour laundromats were used frequently by both the underworld and denizens of the Midnight War as people could come and go without drawing any attention.
"Fair enough. STIGMA is a sort of clearing house that co-ordinates activity between a half dozen criminal organizations. The White Web, Winter Snow, what's left of John Grim's empire, a few others. STIGMA makes sure they don't step on each other's toes. That prevents expensive turf wars."
"I don't recognize any of those names, to be honest."
"Yeah, that's not surprising," Sheng replied absently. "They're not really public knowledge. STIGMA and I have some bad blood between us, their leaders would like to see me in the obituaries. From what I can see, the FRIENDLY LAUNDERETTE isn't too busy right now. I suggest we turn right and circle around to the other side of that building."
"Whatever you say. I guess I should be scared about going back there but I've got a feeling you can handle them." She tried to take his arm but he shrugged away without a word and kept a little more distance between them.
They went around the corner furthest from the laundromat, past a Pizzeria and a deli.
The instant that Sheng passed the deep darkened recess between those businesses, he lunged into it and hopped back out again with a struggling man in his hands. Since Sheng had shifted the gralic energy in his body to enhanced strength, he could hold his larger prisoner by the neck and one arm without any trouble.
"Don't run off," he told Eclipse. As he pulled the struggling man out under a streetlight, he made a disgusted noise. "You again! Settle down, it's me. Sheng Mo-Yuan."
"Sheng? You damn Midnight War refugee, ease up on my windpipe, you're choking me." A tall handsome man with crisp wavy black hair and a strong face marked by a noble chin straightened up as he was released. He was as well-dressed as Sheng, maybe more so as his conservatively cut suit included a vest and French cuffs with pewter links.
"I guess we're on the right track if INTERCEPT is involved," Sheng admitted grudgingly. "Which name are you using tonight?"
"The usual will do fine, I've gotten used to Holden Crest." INTERCEPT's top enforcement agent adjusted his clothes after being manhandled. He hesitated as he got a good look at the woman next to Sheng. "I don't want to give anything away, pal, but you realize the sort of company you're keeping?"
"I'm only starting to get to know her," Sheng admitted. "Eclipse Giordano, this is Holden Crest. I suppose you two have used so many aliases that neither remembers your real names?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped, getting angry and stepping back.
"You guys don't make any sense."
Sheng remained in a seemingly casual stance that left him free to react to an attack from any direction. He had taken two steps back so he could keep Eclipse and Holden Crest in view equally well. "Eclipse, now would be a good time for you to come clean a little."
"Mr Argent, please! Don't scare me like this, I don't know who this man is."
"I've been playing along with you so far," Sheng continued, "But that receipt in the raincoat pocket, giving the ATM number that could be traced to this address, was just too obvious. I already had trouble accepting how conveniently a guard passed out so you could escape. Then there were your bare feet. The soles were amazingly clean for someone who had walked barefoot through Manhattan. They looked more like you had gotten out of a car a block away."
Eclipse Giordano raised both palms in a gesture meant to be pleading. Her voice faltered, "I know your job makes you suspicious of people but honestly, I'm only a normal girl."
"Remember when I checked what seemed to be a regular phone? I tapped into the files of the NYPD, CIA and the Mandate, not exactly with legal authorization. Your picture ID shows you with much longer hair, of course, but you've been tied up with espionage as a freelancer for three years now."
Holden Crest chuckled. "Good to see you're being suspicious, Sheng. You used to be a little naive. Remember that every road leads in two directions." He slid his right hand inside his suit jacket.
And Sheng lunged in to blast a backhand that cracked like a whiplash. Crest's head swung around from that punch so far he was looking past his own shoulder as he fell. The body had barely hit the ground before Sheng had snatched Crest's 9mm Browning from a shoulder holster and whirled back to face Eclipse.
"Ack," she said, freezing into position as she saw the infinite black tunnel of that barrel pointed at her.
"You're not in the clear just because Crest has been exposed as a double," Sheng barked. "Stay where you are. That text I got in the office was a notice that INTERCEPT had found out Holden Crest was discovered feeding them false information from STIGMA. He was getting checks from both sides of the game. I'm calling INTERCEPT now to collect both of you."
"I knew this was going to go wrong. Every road does lead in two directions," Eclipse told him with defeat in her voice. "But it doesn't matter much when both ways go nowhere."
4/18/2022
