He was having the best night of his life. He'd made three hits and his wallet was thick with payoff. Two had been on visitors to New York who'd had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was tired but content. Then two men caught his eye. They were walking down the street, just two men, neither of them much to look at. However, that wasn't what which attracted him to begin with. The short guy was wearing a killer black leather jacket. He fell in love with it and decided there was still time for one more job. That was his first mistake.
"Is it my imagination or is it getting cooler earlier each year?" Napoleon Solo turned his collar up against the chill.
"It's your imagination. It's actually rather mild." His partner, Illya Kuryakin, anticipated the cooler weather. Summers in New York were too hot by half in his opinion. Thankfully, neither man spent a large amount of time here. Tonight there was a nip in the air that Illya celebrated
"You have ice water for blood. How can you say it's mild? You are wearing that leather jacket."
"Which you just gave me. Besides, that's not what you told me last night." Illya's voice dropped slightly at the innuendo and he smiled in memory.
"Freeze, you two." The young man, a bit of cloth around the bottom part of his face, jumped from behind a car. He was welding a rather large knife and he slit the air with it.
"That's exactly what I mean. It's freezing." Napoleon's comment was casual, but his eyes grew cautious.
"Shut up, old man."
"Old? I'm thirty five. I'm not old." Napoleon was watching Illya. The Russian's eyes were twinkling with mischief. The fact that they were much more dangerous than the robber was not lost on either agent. "I won't be old for another five years."
"I will cut you." The knife jabbed in Napoleon's direction. "I will make you cry." Mistake Number two.
"Well, the attempt might be amusing and there isn't anything on TV tonight," Illya said, his eyes never leaving the knife.
"Okay, Blondie, hand over the jacket."
"It's too small for you, but if you insist." Illya pulled off the leather jacket and the street light glinted off his shoulder holster as he slipped the Walther P-38 from it. "You know if you had just a pinch of common sense, you would have wondered why we were both wearing jackets on a warm evening."
"Sez you." Napoleon's gun was also out and pointed in the man's direction. "Now I would hold very still if I were you. An old man like me, we… ah… are given to tremors and this gun does have a hair trigger."
The man gasped and Illya smiled. "Excellent choice. Now I suggest that you re-evaluate your decision to rob us."
"I… I… ah…" Even in the pale light afforded by the streetlight, the man's face had gone white. Then he looked down as a stain spread across the front of his pants.
"Whoops! Looks like someone needs to work on bladder control." Illya aimed the pistol towards the man's crotch and the robber fell to his knees.
"Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!"
"Don't be absurd. I wouldn't shoot you. The paperwork alone would eat up my day off." Napoleon smiled sweetly at the man. "No, we are going to let you go, but you are going to leave your shoes and your wallet with us."
"Take 'em." The man threw his wallet on the ground, toed off his shoes and took off, racing down the street. And this was his third and last mistake of the evening.
"Why the wallet and the shoes?" Illya picked up his jacket and slipped it on.
"Why not?" Napoleon knelt and waved his hand before his face. "I don't think bladder control was the only thing he lost." He tossed the wallet to Illya.
"He'd never make it through a THRUSH interrogation." He flipped it open and whistled. "There must be three hundred dollars in here."
"He had a good night."
Illya glanced at the driver's license. "Mr. Phillips is going to have a very bad day tomorrow." He grinned. "I think we need to teach Mr. Phillips a lesson. What do you think, Napoleon?"
Napoleon slapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Lead on, McDuff."
They walked into Napoleon's apartment and collapsed onto the couch. "You do realize we are going to burn in hell for this, don't you?" Napoleon let his head roll to the right to study Illya's profile.
"What? Not only is it payback, but we have helped Mr. Phillips avoid a life of crime." Illya patted Napoleon's knee.
"That shelter certainly was happy to get that food. It was a good idea."
Illya sat up to pull off his leather jacket. "Well, I tip my hat in your direction. Calling up the draft board and telling him that you, as Phillips, were enlisting was brilliant. When he doesn't show up, he will discover the complete lack of a sense of humor your military possesses."
"It was only after you put in that call to the FBI and told him that you'd overheard Phillips talking about bombing the UN. That was a work of art."
"You don't think it was over-kill?"
"Never. However, I didn't realize you had such a gift for voices. I swear I was listened to J. Edgar himself." Napoleon smiled at the memory. He got up and went to the wet bar. He poured himself a generous slug of Scotch and then opened up the little refrigerator. He got a couple of ice cubes for himself and a bottle of chilled vodka for Illya. Plopping the cubes into his drink, he grabbed a frosty glass for Illya and carried everything to the couch.
"We did right by that young man today. He should thank us for all that we did. Goodness knows his mother was happy about it."
"If nothing else, at least he learned a valuable lesson."
"Which was?"
"No matter who and what kind of a man you think you are, never mess with your uncle."