Pai Gow

When Neal was picked up by Peter the next Monday morning he had spent the whole weekend walking almost every street of Manhattan within his radius.

"Still up for a to walk to the office?" Peter asked.

"You've been checking my anklet."

"Yup," his handler agreed.

When they stepped out of the elevator two people burst passed them and the whole office was at a stir.

"Why all the craziness?" Neal asked as they passed the double glass doors.

"I don't know," Peter replied, frowning. "This can't be good."

Lauren saw them and hurried to meet them.

"Peter, Hughes wants to see you right away."

"All right."

Peter left for Hughes' office. Neal took off his hat.

"So is this what it looked like when I escaped?" he asked her.

"I don't know. I was working on important cases." So cheap, Neal sighed.

"What's going on?" he wanted to know as he tagged along when she walked back into the stir in the office.

"The bureau is missing an agent."

He watched Peter pacing in front of Hughes desk and his boss talking to him.

"That isn't good." So his hunch that this was about a person and it was urgent had been true.

"Yeah," Lauren agreed. "He's an undercover from the D.C. office. We lost contact with him 12 hours ago."

"What do you think happened?" Neal knew undercover could be dangerous but disappearing for twelve hours? He thought it sounded odd.

"I don't know. Could be in trouble, could be laying low. We're not sure."

"Listen to me," Neal overheard Hughes saying. "We need somebody who understands money laundering."

He did not hear Peter's reply. Hughes rose from his chair and walked to the railing outside his room, facing the open office of the white-collar unit. When he waved in their direction Lauren moved but the legendary agent rose a hand to stop her and then pointed at Neal with two fingers. He did not wait to see if Neal got the point but walked straight into the conference room.

Neal grinned all over his face when he turned to Lauren.

"Excuse me. I have an important case to deal with." Cheap, but he could not help himself.

When Peter joined them in the conference room Neal hovered by the door and Hughes scanned their cluttered white-board.

"Sit down," he told the kid as he passed him. Peter emptied the box of Pai Gow tiles he had brought with him on the table. The kid frowned but did not comment so Peter walked up to the white-board and pointed at a photo.

"This is Agent Mark Costa. He was posing as a drug trafficker, looking to clean some dirty cash through this guy." He pointed at another photo. "Lao Shen, money launderer out of China. Costa was working him until last night."

"According to his last contact," Hughes continued, "Lao was making a pit stop in New York for 72 hours and after that, he boards a flight to the homeland and we lose him." He folded his arms and gazed at Neal.

"So why you telling me this?" the kid asked, not getting his part in this.

"Nicholas Halden," Hughes returned, keeping his eyes on Neal.

"Who?"

Of course he would say that. Innocent as ever.

"Cut the crap," Peter sighed.

"We know he's one of your aliases," Hughes cut the chase short. Neal probably did not have a clue the FBI knew about him. It had never been part of the trial and Peter had never brought it up during the interrogation, since he did not see the point. They had never been able to prove Neal and Nick were the same person.

"You created him to launder cash through that Canary Islands scam you ran in '04," Peter informed him. "Multimillionaire with a penchant for gambling? Ringing any bells?"

"I may have heard of him," Neal admitted. It was a start. "Are you willing to offer him full immunity?"

Peter and Hughes exchanged a look. It was his boss' call. Peter did not have the authority and it was Hughes who insisted on bringing Neal into this.

"Done," the senior agent declared. "I don't give a damn what you did five years ago. I wanna find my agent."

That simplified things a lot, Peter thought. That was one of the reasons he had such respect for his boss. He knew how to prioritize.

"Then what can Nick do to help?" Neal smiled at once in return.

"We want you to make contact with Lao using this identity," Hughes told him. "What do you know about Pai Gow?"

"I know it sounds delicious."

Peter gave him a face. They had an agent missing and he made jokes?

"It's a Chinese version of poker played with dominoes," Neal added quickly holding one of the tiles on the table, and then admitted: "Not really my game."

"Make it your game," Peter ordered. "Lao likes to contact new clients using certain hands or bets. He'll be playing an underground table in Chinatown tomorrow night."

"I'm not gonna lie to you. This is a dangerous one, Caffrey."

Neal did not for a second twitch in that charming smile of his as he let the dominoes he had arranged on the table fall one after another.

"High stakes. I'm in," the kid confirmed, just like that.

Peter glanced at him. He must have had too much desk work. And that house arrest… Why did he have to be so easily bored so he threw himself headlong into danger without thinking? He took a paper out of a file and handed it to Neal.

"A list of the codes you need to reach out when you play. You take those tiles and go home. Learn the game," Peter instructed him. "Be back here tomorrow morning."

Neal could not believe he was watching a Hong Kong B movie with Mozzie. They played Pai Gow as an essential part of the story, but it was not exactly a rulebook.

"I asked you to teach me the game," he remarked. "This movie is terrible."

"Wait," Mozzie waved for him and hushed him, not taking his eyes from the screen.

'Let's take this to the next level,' an actor with less skill for acting than his hairdryer said. 'You took it to the next level when you killed my family' the young hero returned who trusted a toothpick in his mouth would work instead of acting. Neal zoomed out.

"How did they know about Nick Halden?" Neal wondered aloud. Mozzie once again hushed him. They obviously did not have any proof, but they had not had that for most of the things Peter had talked about during the interrogation. And Peter had not asked about Nick then. Still, they knew. How? And what else did they know?

"Let's be honest," Mozzie focused on him for a second. "Nick was not your best work. He's no Steve Tabernacle."

"Steve was a good man," Neal smiled.

"Steve is a good man," Mozzie corrected him. "Besides, you should be more concerned with what the guy with the ring wants."

True.

"I don't know. I've stolen a lot of stuff in my lifetime."

"Maybe Poe's Tamerlane book?"

"No. Sold that a while back. The Tamayo painting?" Neal suggested in return.

"Not worth all this," Mozzie objected.

"Washington's love letters?"

"Seriously, I don't even know why you stole those in the first place. Martha— Oh, this is my favorite part." And Mozzie was gone in the film again. His friend was educated and smart and he loved this waste of a movie. To his utter surprise and terror, he saw Moz mime to the words in the film.

Then for the first time in quite a while they saw the gaming table. Neal's attention was back in an instant.

"Okay, what are they doing right now?"

"Oh, they're drawing from the woodpile," Moz answered as if he was reminded of why they were watching the film in the first place.

"With these tiles," he continued, "they make two hands… Oh, wait… Wait. Shh, Shh!"

The hero turned over a tile not looking like a domino tile at all since it had a white bird or something on it.

"He just played the death tile," Moz told him with a grin.

"'Death tile'?"

"Well, the movie takes a few liberties," his friend explained without taking his eyes from the screen.

What? He was about to play the real game with real gangsters!

"Then why are we watching it?"

"It's a cult classic!"

"Okay, fine." Neal paused the film. Mozzie sighed but handled it well.

"What do you have to do?" he asked.

"Fold above the bank. If I get a better hand than the dealer and throw it away, Lao knows I'm a prospect."

"Okay…" Mozzie scanned the tiles on the sofa table. "Well, ideally you want something like this." He put four tiles together. "These are some of the best tiles you can get. You trash a hand like this and you're in. It's like folding pocket aces."

"All right. Then let's practice."

"All you have to do is lose," Mozzie shrugged. "You wanna practice losing?"

"No, I have to win first, then lose."

June, his landlady, stepped into the room.

"I thought perhaps you gentlemen might like something to eat."

"Thanks, June," they both replied as she pushed the tiles aside with a vast tray filled with brownies.

June saw the still image on the TV.

"What you watching?"

"Tiles of Fire," Moz replied.

"Oh, Part One?"

Neal stared at her. Had the world gone crazy? Did June of all people know this crappy B flick?

"Part Two's up next," his friend grinned.

Part two?!

"Aha. Don't start without me," June told them and returned downstairs.

"There's a sequel?" Neal wanted to know. It must be a joke.

"Five," he replied and held up his hand to emphasize. "You know, I've been thinking. Maybe I should become your lawyer."

Neal glanced at him.

"You think I need one?"

The look he got from Mozzie said it all.

"Well, you almost ended up back in prison not that long ago," his friend pointed out. "You can need a good lawyer."

"True, but you have to be a lawyer first. You know, take a degree."

"Yeah," Moz nodded. "Of course."

Neal noted his friend seemed dead serious.

"You take a degree? An official degree?"

"Yeah, why not? It doesn't have to be in my real name. I have other degrees, you know."

"Why?"

"Rescue a friend in need? Did you know that lawyers have all kind of nice privileges. Like, visit prison inmates without a glass wall between."

Mozzie must have seen Neal's look.

"I know I never visited you, but as a lawyer… maybe I could get past certain… worries."

Neal smiled. Mozzie could hardly make things worse at least. Maybe he turned out to be quite good at it even.

"Sounds like a plan."