Indignance was the best way to respond, Halstead decided in the few seconds available to him as Bayley Martinez walked across the room towards him and Lindsay.

"I don't know why it was raided, and I don't appreciate the accusation you're obviously making," he said.

Martinez cocked her head slightly to one side and spoke with menace in her voice. "Do I look stupid to you, Jesse? You turn up three times and suddenly I get raided. I was lucky to make it out of there."

"No, you don't look stupid to me. And I'd hope we don't look stupid to you. If we were cops, do you think we'd be standing here now? We'd have to have a death wish."

"And besides," Lindsay joined in, "if I were a cop, I'd have had people on that rear fire escape before I came in the front door, and you wouldn't have gotten away."

"Not to mention that it was my quick reaction that helped you get up and out of there before those cops got up the stairs and had a chance to have their guns aimed at you," Halstead said. "If I had to guess, I'd say they followed you there, not us."

Martinez looked sour about it, but her expression softened fractionally. It now seemed she didn't actually think they were cops, or responsible for what had happened. She had been trying to intimidate them, and to an extent it had worked.

"Truth is, I don't think you're cops. You'd be dead if I did. But there is something about you two, that much I do know," the boss said. "You weren't just there to play cards."

"You're right," Lindsay said. "We were there to meet you. Heard you'd be able to get us guns. Untraceable ones."

"What do you want guns for?"

"We're planning a bank job," Halstead said.

"A bank job," Martinez scoffed. "That's a fucking good idea, if you want to get arrested and do thirty years. Anyway, I don't know anything about any untraceable guns. I don't know much about you," Martinez said. The implication was that if she trusted them, she may well have been able to hook them up. "However, I've asked around about you, and I've been told you're competent, trustworthy, and definitely not cops. So, what you're going to do is prove it. Do that, and we can start to forget last night's unpleasantness, or at least my anger at you about it."

"Wait, let me get this right," Lindsay said. "We come to your poker room to play cards and maybe do a bit of business, and we end up losing five grand and being expected to work for you? What kind of scam are you..."

"Let's hear her out, Sophia," Halstead cut in, liking the role Lindsay was playing.

"You should listen to him," Martinez advised. "And in future, take some of that bass out of your voice when you speak to me."

"We're listening. You're proposing we work for you?"

"No, I'm giving you a chance to prove yourselves. If you do that, then maybe you can work for me, and that would be profitable for you. If not, I might as well cut my losses and use your asses to send a message to anyone who might want to fuck with me. So, which way do you want to proceed?"

Lindsay stood there with an annoyed expression on her face, letting Halstead handle the conversation.

"Profitable, you say? How profitable are we talking?" he asked.

"Never mind that. You've got a job to do before we get that far. I don't take on new people often, or easily. If people hadn't vouched for you, you wouldn't be here right now."

"What job?" Lindsay asked in a surly manner.

"I don't like her tone," one of the men sitting by the fire said.

"No, I don't like it either," Martinez said, moving to stand almost nose to nose with Lindsay. "Maybe I got bad advice that these two can be useful. I sure don't have use for people with a bad attitude."

Back off, Erin, Halstead thought. She had kept to her character, but if she pushed too hard they both might get beaten up or even killed. At the very least the mission would be a failure.

"Okay, I'm sorry," Lindsay said. "I'm not trying to piss you off. Almost getting pinched, losing five grand, then being accused of being behind the whole thing all got to me, and yes, it did make me angry. But you're offering us profitable work? Like Jesse asked a minute ago, how profitable?"

"Profitable enough for you not to be sweating five grand," Martinez said. "Like I said a minute ago, you've got to prove yourselves before we get that far."

"So what's the job?" Halstead asked.

"A guy by the name of Angel Garza, runs an auto repair business and a chop shop called Angel's Autos. He owes me fifty grand, and has already had his one and only warning about paying it. You're going to go get it from him. Rodrigo, go with them and report back to me on their performance."

Martinez had clicked her fingers at the mention of Rodrigo's name, and the man who had shown them into the house had stepped forward.

"Yes, boss," he said.

"And if this Garza doesn't pay?" Halstead asked.

"Break his legs," Martinez said simply.

"You want us to break the guy's legs?" Lindsay asked with a slight raise of her eyebrows.

"Was I in some way unclear?" Martinez said, the glare returning to her face.

"Not at all," Halstead said. "What are we getting paid for this little errand?"

Martinez laughed dismissively. "Paid? This isn't about money. You're proving yourselves to me, and helping to allay the suspicions I have about you."

"Nice try, but we don't work for free," Lindsay said. "We're already down five grand, so that's what you'll pay us. Ten per-cent isn't much, and it gets us back to even. I can live with that."

Martinez looked almost perplexed for a moment. "You know, I'm not sure if I really dislike you, or if I kind of like you. You can have two and a half grand for the job. Now get out of my sight, and don't even think about coming back without my money."

Halstead followed Rodrigo and Lindsay out of the room, and back out of the front door. Overall, he felt okay about how it had gone with Martinez. She didn't think they were cops, and they had made an okay impression, without seeming like pushovers. But being instructed to break this Angel Garza guy's legs was not good. Undercover police work still had rules, and it was obvious which side of the line breaking people's legs fell on.

"Wait here, I'll get a car," Rodrigo said, heading off to the large garage at the side of the house.

Being left alone with Lindsay for a moment was a blessing for Halstead. The decision he was seeking had to be made by the senior member of the team, which was her. "What if this guy doesn't pay? Are we really going to break his legs?" he asked under his breath.

"Only if we absolutely have to. We have to get in with Martinez, so we'll do it if we must. It's not like we can avoid it with this asshole there keeping watch on us. Plan A is absolutely to make Garza pay without breaking his legs."

"Understood."

An engine fired up, and a black Lexus drove out of the garage. Even the hired help travelled in style and comfort, apparently.

Parking next to them, Rodrigo spoke through his open window. "Get in."

"Let's get something straight," Halstead said, deciding to show some backbone himself. "Martinez might get to order us around, you don't. Your job is to drive, and observe. So you worry about what you're doing, and we'll worry about what we're doing."

"Just get in," Rodrigo said, giving no indication if Halstead's words had been taken in or ignored.

Halstead got in the front, while Lindsay chose to sit behind him in the back. Since Rodrigo's body language made it apparent that he wasn't interested in small talk, they made the ten minute drive to Angel's Autos in silence.

"I'm just here to watch you," Rodrigo said after killing the engine. "Don't look to me for help. You had better perform, because I'll be telling Ms Martinez exactly what happens here. You need to impress her."

"We'll impress her when we give her fifty grand," Lindsay said, and with that she got out of the car.

Following her lead, Halstead also got out. They took a moment to eye up Angel's Autos. There was nothing remarkable about it at all. There were two cars in the shop, both lifted off the ground, being worked on by a mechanic each. Another car stood outside the entrance, waiting for its turn to be serviced. It looked like nothing more than a regular auto repair business, which was of course good cover for a chop shop.

"First things first, let's find out which one's Garza," Halstead said, knowing better than to bother asking Rodrigo.

"Yep, let's do it," Lindsay said.

They walked into the shop and approached one of the mechanics, who was carrying out an oil change.

"Hi. Looking for Angel Garza," Halstead said in a nondescript tone.

The mechanic looked at him with an expression that said white people were not frequent visitors here, or welcome ones. "He not here."

"He's really not here, or he is here but you want us to go away?" Lindsay asked with an edge to her voice.

The mechanic looked at them both again, and Rodrigo behind them, now wondering who these people were. He was never going to be a good poker player. "He not here."

"You're not a good liar, sir," Halstead said. "We don't want any trouble with you, but one way or another we're going to speak to Garza."

Deciding it wasn't his hill to die in, the mechanic gave a small gesture with his head to a door at the back of the shop, next to a roller shutter door that was closed. There was likely a yard out back, where the stolen chop shop cars were kept.

Halstead and Lindsay went over to the door, he opened it, and they stepped out into a fairly large yard. There were four cars out there. The hood of one of them was up, with a man with long black hair and dirty blue overalls doing something to the engine. Halstead noticed that a tall metal fence topped with razor wire surrounded the yard. It was good for security, but bad for running away from debt collectors. Garza was going nowhere.

"Angel Garza?" Halstead called out.

Garza stood up and eyed them suspiciously. "Who's asking?"

"Bayley Martinez, indirectly," Lindsay said as they approaching him. "You owe her fifty thousand dollars. Today is pay day."

"You work for Martinez? Since when is she hiring people like you?" He obviously meant white people.

"Since she needed debt collectors," Halstead said. "She mentioned you already had your one and only warning about paying, so I assume you have the money by now. Hand it over, things can be dealt with pleasantly, and we can be on our way."

"And if I don't?" Garza said, challenging them.

"We have instructions to start by breaking your legs," Halstead said.

"Honestly? We don't like doing that kind of thing," Lindsay added. "But ultimately, it's going to be up to you. One way or another, we'll be getting fifty grand from you."

"I got two other guys in there," Garza said, trying to make a threat.

"You want us to fuck them up too?" Halstead asked. "That's something I really don't want to do. Come on, you owe the money, pay up, and we can all go about our business. We all know you don't want to be on the wrong side of Martinez. It'll end up costing you a lot more than a few weeks in hospital and a few months in a wheelchair. She'll take everything from you. All that for the sake of fifty grand, which I'm willing to bet you already have here somewhere."

Garza took time to study them, and Rodrigo, before he made a decision. His attitude abruptly changed as he tried to appear friendly. "The money is in my safe. Come with me, I'll get it."

The mechanic walked by them, giving Halstead a second to flash a grin at Lindsay. Assuming there were no tricks coming, they had gotten the job done without violence, which was no doubt the best outcome. Only in action movies did people go around actively seeking to get involved in breaking people's legs in the middle of the day, at their place of work.

Rodrigo showed no reaction to their work as the trio followed Garza back into the shop, where he showed them into a small and very untidy office. There was a safe in the wall at the far end.

"Tell Martinez I was going to swing by in the next couple of days and pay her anyway. There was no need for all of this."

"Well, I'd imagine it can be put in the past once she's got her money," Lindsay said.

Garza opened the safe and took out a white plastic bag. He handed it over to Halstead, who opened it and saw several bundles of notes with rubber bands around them.

"It's all there. You don't have to spend half the morning counting it," Garza said.

Halstead thumbed through a couple of the bundles to make sure he wasn't being handed forged notes. They were genuine. "It had better all be here, or you know we'll be back."

"It's all there," Garza repeated. "Tell her I'll be in contact if I need more guns."

"I'll do that," Halstead said. More guns, he thought. So Garza was into more than stolen cars, and Martinez was definitely into guns, as they had suspected.

"Hopefully we won't see you again," Lindsay said, and with that they walked out of the office.

Once they were out of the auto shop, Rodrigo held out his hand to take the plastic bag from Halstead.

"No chance," Halstead said. "You did nothing to get this, we did. So we'll be the ones who give it to Martinez. You do your job and drive the car."

They had done well, Halstead thought. Hopefully it would be enough for Martinez to be interested in giving them more work. That was what they needed in order to start properly infiltrating her crew.


A/N: Halstead and Lindsay did the job they were given without having to resort to violence. Will it impress Martinez when they return to her?