Steve coughed when the heavy smoke of cigarettes and marijuana hit his senses and nearly made his eyes tear up. Trying to gather his bearings in the small hole-in-the-wall joint that had long turned into an attractive hangout for the local drug distribution network; he passed a few high tops and slowly walked toward the small bar.
Leaving Mike in the Galaxy to radio Olsen and delay their meeting plans had worked out for the better. Even without the well-known Lieutenant by his side, his arrival was duly noted.
A couple dozen sets of eyes were glued to him and he could sense hands shifting over concealed guns, as he positioned himself behind the short Puerto Rican he'd been hoping to find.
"A little early to drink, isn't it?", Steve whispered in his ear, as the twenty-something troublemaker downed a double shot of tequila.
Tahoola never turned around to face him. Instead, he watched him through the mirror of the bar, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"I thought I was smelling pigs for a second…", he retorted arrogantly and straightened out his bright yellow and red jacket still featuring the Muerto's gang symbol. Motioning for the bartender to get him another drink, Tahoola nodded at a few of the nearby patrons, as if to signal that everything was alright, before looking him up and down in the bar mirror.
"What do you want, Vice? And where is your partner? What was his name? Dick, right? Because he is a dick."
Chuckling at the joke he heard hundreds of times while working with Marc, Steve rested a hand on the bar and another one on the back of his suspect's chair.
"You're losing your touch, Raul.", he countered, thoroughly enjoying the annoyance on the young man's face at the use of his real name, "I changed credentials."
"So what Clarence said was true? You are working homicide now? You can't bust our kind anymore?"
"I wouldn't hold my breath on that.", Steve said when Tahoola relaxed significantly and lit a cigarette, before blowing the blue smoke in his face, "I can still bust you for the stash of heroine in your back pocket. But I choose not to. Because I am after something entirely different. And I trust you can help me find my answers."
"Trust, eh? How much do you trust me, pig?"
When he finally looked up, Steve saw a large scar across Tahoola's left cheek, likely stemming from a gang related fight. His cold brown eyes met his with calculated indifference. Undoubtedly, the street life had turned the previous small-time crook into quite the player over the last few years.
Ignoring the bait when Tahoola ran his tattoo-covered left hand across his tie as if to consider grasping it; Steve kept his demeanor unreadable and his voice calm.
"Let's suppose you and Clarence went to a party. Met somebody who looks like a Russian hitman. Turns out he is, indeed, a Russian hitman. And I need to know who hired him and where I can find the manic Russian."
"I don't know what you are talking about.", Tahoola said and drew another breath out of his cigarette, before parking it in a nearby ashtray.
"Twenty bucks in my pocket says you do.", Steve continued and leaned closer into the kids' space, "And if you give me what I want, there might be more in it for you yet, trust me."
Tahoola let out a loud chuckle, before shaking his head.
"There's that notion about trust again, pig. Let's see how well you do with that."
Steve wasn't ready for the speed with which Tahoola pulled out a knife from inside his coat pocket. Following the bright flash of the blade against the overhead lights of the bar, the young Inspector was powerless to react, when the strong metal sailed past his face and toward his outstretched arm.
The impact of the sharp blade penetrating the wooden surface of the bar made the nearby glasses clink, and Steve felt a tug on his arm as the knife came to a rest.
His world turned frighteningly gray for a moment, as he waited for the pain to reach his brain but it never came. Glancing down at the bar in anxious suspense, Steve noticed that the knife had come close enough to impale the cuffs of his jacket into the wooden surface, but had been just a fraction of an inch away from cutting his wrist.
Catching the breath that had been stuck in his throat, Steve looked back up in time to see Tahoola dart out of the back door of the bar in a dead run. Much to the amusement of the other patrons, it took him a second to loosen the blade enough to free his expensive suit and give chase.
Knowing Tahoola's legwork from years' prior, Steve was sure he'd lost the young crook by the time he exited the bar and glanced around the back alley. Surprisingly though, he found him pressed against the brick wall, spread eagle, with a smiling Mike putting on the handcuffs.
"Looks like you wore the wrong suit today, Buddy Boy."