Danny lay in his bed. Awake, and not wanting to be awake, feeling colder than he should be.
Even now, he still remembered how warm Annette felt against him.
The sound of the door opening and closing out from the front rang out in the stillness of the night.
He tried to get to sleep. But longstanding paranoia, born of a past he'd almost forgotten, pricked him.
The front door was locked. But now that he was up, he knew he'd worry until he'd checked everything.
The oven was turned off, as was the rest of the kitchen. (Stupid thing to worry about, but...)
All the downstairs windows were closed, and no creeping unwanted visitors.
Coming upstairs, the first thing he checked was wrong. Taylor was gone. His lanky, clever, so clever daughter.
Was... was she involved with a boy she felt he would disapprove of? Danny wished Annette was still here - she'd understand a teenage girl better than him. All he remembered of those years was how fascinating girls and what was under their clothes was. Which didn't reassure him.
He picked up the phone, and rang a well-remembered number. "Hi, Alan? Sorry for how late it is. Is Taylor there?
"No, she's just gone out, and I'm worried. Can you let me know if she does turn up? I'm sorry about how late it is. But not as late as those nights with too much Stoli."
They shared a laugh, before the two former students gave into the reality of their adult lives.
"Thanks. I'll be in touch."
Hanging up, he promptly dialed another number.
"Kurt? It's Danny, here. Sorry about how late it is, but have you seen Taylor? Yes, I'm worried it's a boy, but hopefully that's the worst of it. Okay, see you tomorrow if I don't hear from you before that."
Before Danny could dial someone else, the phone rang.
"Danny Hebert speaking.
"Is - she there?
"If you touch her-!
"I'll be there, alright."
Danny almost broke the handset with how hard he set it back onto the telephone's base receiver. Breathing heavily, he took control of himself before he considered things.
Pulling up a memory he thought he'd buried, he called someone he hadn't spoken to in more than a decade.
"Hello, Luigi, is Mister Salieri there? It's Daniel Hebert speaking.
"Hello, sir, I still hold you in the highest respect.
"No, sir, I'm calling on behalf of the daughter of the one good reason to retire.
"She's in some trouble. Mr Salieri, I want to ask that, if I don't call you two days from now, that you'll look after my daughter. You're still in my will.
"Old habits die hard, I guess. For reference, I'm off to see a would-be German king."
Danny hung up the phone, and walked up to his bedroom. Opening the wardrobe, he pushed all his clothes (not that many, to be honest) hard to the left, and then pushed all of Annette's pretty clothes there as well.
He still couldn't bring himself to get rid of them. The current justification was that, in ten years (or twenty, or thirty) Taylor might want them.
He pulled out the garment bag, laying on the bed and opening it.
The suit was not Kenzo, or Armani, or Brooks Brothers. It had been made by an old man in a family business. Young Paulie had recommended Giovanni to him, and if old Giovanni was good enough for Don Salieri, he was good enough for Danny. Danny quickly got changed into the grey three piece suit, with a clean white shirt. He didn't bother with a tie.
Danny then opened the bottom drawer in his bedside cabinet, laying out the Colt 1911 on the bed, as well as the sawn-off. Annette had never approved of either, but she had also recognised that Brockton Bay was not a civilized city, which was why he also unlocked her bottom bedside cabinet, ignoring all the keepsakes with a pain in his heart.
He loaded the two barrels of his lupara, and put a magazine into the 1911, before pocketing more ammunition in his suit, and then walking down to his worn old truck.
Two nondescript cars pulled up outside a very rundown house. They weren't black sedans, or Crown Vics - they were just two cars, colours faded by time, dust, and too much exposure.
Three men got out of them, all Italian, all in decent clothes, but not expensive.
"Sam, wait out here. I wanna introduce Tom to Stinky Jim," one of them said.
"Alright, Paulie," Sam said, pulling out a cigarette from a packet and lighting it up.
As Paulie strode up to the door and knocked, he commented to Tom. "Tom, this is Stinky Jim. He knows near anything about this godawful town. But don't tell the Don we visited him - Don Salieri is still angry about the last time he met ol' shitface."
"Shitface?!" the third man, Tom, asked incredulously.
"Skidmark," Paulie said. "And yeah, that's the name the sick bastard goes by-Jim!"
Paulie cut himself off as an unbelievably smelly man opened the door (that, in all honesty, should probably have fallen down already from decay.)
"Rob-no. M-no. Uh... Paul?" the man asked uncertainly.
"Sure," Paulie said. "That's who I am. I want ta know what you heard about Danny."
"Danny?" Stinky Jim asked. He blinked, twice, before trying to pull himself together. "Uh... you mean Danny the Union guy? The one who everyone talking about?"
"That's him," Paulie said. He pulled out a crisp envelope. "I ain't giving you no goddamn drugs, but I will give you a little something if you tell me what they been saying."
"Sure," Jim said, eyes now following the bleached white rectangle. "He whacked fucking HOOKWOLF! Hookwolf, of all the goddamn capes in this town! Double barrel shotgun, point blank, no warning, just bushwhacked the guy!"
"Where they holding him?"
"Corner of Nelson and Ray," Jim said, eyes still following the envelope. "Word is, the dude's daughter is locked up there, too."
"WHAT?!" Paulie roared. "That's goin' TOO far!"
"Totally, man," Jim answered, swaying a bit. "I never agreed with that whole fuckin' Skidmark thing, kidnapnapnapnap... uh... stealin' people and shootin' them up with no choice. But, uh.. er... um..."
"Thanks, Jim, you been a real pal," Paulie said, slapping the envelope of money against Stinky Jim's chest. "You ever wanna clean up and live a decent life, you just ask for me."
"I ain't that far gone," Jim said indignantly, previously shaky hands suddenly gaining perfect proprioception, grasping the envelope, and tucking it into his clothes, before reverting to shaking and taking several tries to grab something. "Take care man."
"You too," Paulie said, mostly out of habit. "C'mon, Tom."
"Okay," Paulie said. "Sam, you an' Tommy pick up Danny an' Annette's daughter. I'll grab Danny. Remember, baseball bats. Kaiser gonna be pissed already, we don't need any more corpses than we already got."
"Paulie," Sam said urgently, "the kid was on some kind of drip."
Paulie stopped to think for awhile. "Okay, ring th' Don now, an' I mean right now. Tell him that. When we're drivin' back, if she's in trouble, I want you to stop at the best time and fix that. I'll follow you with Danny."
Taylor woke up slowly, by degrees. She slowly started to see a woman, with a man with a strong resemblance. The building had a lot of insects, but compared to most, less than normal.
She brought them to attention.
The woman noticed her attentiveness first.
"Taylor?" she asked. "I'm Sarah, and this is my father, Luigi."
"Nice to meet you," Taylor said, cagily. "Where am I?"
"In a safe place," Sarah said carefully. "You're above Don Salieri's bar."
"Would you like to meet Mr Salieri, and your father, Miss Hebert?" Luigi asked. His voice was as soft as tissue paper.
"Please," Taylor said carefully.
"Before we go any further," Salieri began. He was a mildly heavily built Italian-American man, in a small bar that he owned. "You should know, Danny, your house got firebombed by that asshole Kaiser."
"Fi-fi-firebombed?" Danny stuttered. "But... all our..."
"I know," Salieri said. "I ain't fond of people ruinin' my stuff neither."
"Why... why are we here?" Taylor asked, bravely.
"Put simply, your old man used'ta work for me," Salieri said. "You got kidnapped, kid. The Empire Eighty Eight, those filthy damn nazi's, got the drop on ya. They stuck ya onna sedative drip. Now, my doc, Doctor Nasi, no relation to those dickheads, he says you'll be fine. But Danny, your old man, he didn't know that, and he knocked off Hookwolf to send a message to those coprophiliacs. As a result, Kaiser decided to send a public message by publicly executing him. I took exception to that, and sent Danny's old workmates to help him out."
"Bu... wha..."
"Now, kid," Salieri continued. "It's public knowledge among, shall we say, the less public people in society that you are... unusual. If I might enquire, what is your power?"
"... bug control," Taylor said absently, still in shock. "I can control all the bugs. For at least two blocks."
The older Italian-American man stopped at that pronouncement. After a minute, he spoke. "No matter what happens, kid, I want to hire you, for a price of your asking, to remove all the bugs from my property, and the people I look after, and to stop 'em comin' back. Ask your price."
"Don Salieri, are we in Lost Heaven?" Danny asked.
"As it happens, we aren't," the Don replied. "I bought some property in Brockton Bay, and I'm making a wedding present of it to Tommy an' Sarah."
"Si-sir?!" an unfamiliar voice stuttered. "This... this's too much!"
"Trust me, it ain't free," Salieri snorted. "Sam here will be my right hand in this Godforsaken town. Paulie's stayin' with me. Tommy, you're gonna be takin' care of business here, with Sarah, at least until she's busy."
"Busy?" Tommy asked.
"With kids, Tommy, I ain't mistaken how you two's lookin' at each other," Salieri grinned. "I trust you'll have better luck than me an' Gia. An' if you do, I can tell you now you're gonna have a lot of visitin' to deal with. Frank can attest to that.
"Now," Salieri laid down. "Danny. What is the biggest problem in this town? It's closer to NYC than Lost Heaven, but it gets less Triumvirate visits than we do, so I wanna take advantage of that."
"Uh... maybe the gangs, but the most obvious one is the container ship," Danny said, still a bit dazed. "Shipping went to hell with Leviathan, but it went to utter shit when our deep water passage was blocked."
"Okay," Salieri said. "Luigi, telephone, grazia."
The older Italian-American man dialed a number. "Hello, Rebecca. I'm happy to talk with you again. Yes, I'm calling in that favour you owe me."
The answer did not please the Don. "You owe me."
And that answer pissed the past-middle-age man even more. "Damn straight you owe me! If I hadn't contacted the woman my father put through medical college, you would be in a goddamn pine BOX right now!"
Some more noise came through the telephone, before Don Salieri slammed it down. After a moment, he looked up at Taylor and Danny. "I apologise for my unseemly behaviour, Taylor, but it seems that some people just don't got no gratitude."
Stopping to let his anger go, or at least the most obvious outward signs, Salieri finally picked up the telephone handset to dial a different number.
"Paul! How you doin'? I'm doin' fine. You got to come by the bar more often - Luigi worried you gettin' too skinny! Anyway, two things.
"First thing, I need a ship moved. Big bastard, maybe too big. I know your word's good, if you think you can't do it, I know it can't be done.
"Second thing. I hate to drop this on you, but Rebecca torn up her ration card. If anyone touches any Wards, they're gonna answer to me, but I tell you now, Paul, the gloves're comin' off for the Protectorate an' PRT."
"I know! But I don't approve of no disrespect. If she apologises... then maybe. But it was a hell of a thing. Now, you and Arthur, next visit you have to Salieri's Bar, it's on me. And the wine too, and I told Luigi that you're to get the good stuff. But I'm still pissed at Rebecca."
"Alright, an' you take care."