The small cafe on the corner of Forty-Seventh and Oakland Streets was off the beaten path of most New York City eateries Daniel Scott and Vince frequented, which was what appealed most to Daniel. Long days in the stuffy investment firm offices and longer days on the phone with calls to clients unhappy with their long-term market yields were sapping all the strength from his prime-of-life body, and going home to his fiancée with news of market plunges was taxing any hope from their future.

"It's just the fluorescent lighting," Vince said as they settled at the counter where a portly waitress was looking tiredly to them. "You're twenty-four. You can't complain about the economy and retirement yet, Daniel."

Daniel pushed his blond hair back, getting comfortable on the stool, which certainly had been designed with blue-collar workers in mind. "I think we're being poisoned. All that talk about inflated stocks and --"

"That again?" Vince swore under his breath as the waitress came up to them, smiling a well-worn smile.

"Coffee, gentlemen?"

They both nodded as she gave them menus with one hand and placed to coffee mugs before them with the other. She reached behind her.

"Decaff of regular?"

Vince looked disappointedly at the carafes behind her on the coffee machine. "Kind of basic. Regular."

"Same," Daniel said.

"Next time I choose for lunch," Vince grumbled. He waited until the waitress had poured their coffees before he continued. "If your views get back to O'Keefe you'll catch hell. That snitch Crowley has been watching you."

Daniel shrugged as he tore open a packet of sugar and added it to his coffee. "Let him watch. Maybe he'll learn something."

"You're an advisor, Dan. We're supposed to believe in the system," Vince said, his voice lowering as he looked around the sparsely populated cafe. A few older men were at a booth by the door, a single man hunched over his coffee and a newspaper at a small table. "Clients will jump out the window at your talk."

Behind him, the man with the newspaper glanced their way, then back down to read, his interest piqued.

Daniel shook his head, tasting the strong coffee. He grimaced. "This is just the plain stuff. Real coffee." He shook his head as his fellow worker stirred a creamer into his own coffee. "You know it's a sham, Vince. Nothing is backed. All those commodities and numbers that look so good on the boards, you know half of it wouldn't come off the screen."

"So what?" Vince pulled the single laminated page menu closer to him, frowning over the selections listed. "What if you're right? As long as vendors treat it as real money, who cares? What would happen if everyone wanted hard assets only? We'd collapse. Half the firms in New York would collapse."

Daniel was looking at his own menu. "Maybe investors should be looking into hands-on, real valuables they can wrap their fingers around."

"It's called real estate."

"The rest isn't real? You know it's just a belief system."

Vince swallowed a gulp of coffee, making a face at the cup. "It's as real as the Federal Reserve wants it to be. Just abandon this tangible bullshit and stick to your screen stats, Danny-boy."

Daniel shook his head. "Not good enough."

The man at the table set down his newspaper, eyeing the two men at the counter. He left a few dollars on the table and slipped his hand into his off-the-rack trousers.

Vince glanced at the cook behind the counter. "We can do so much better than this, Daniel. Let's go."

Daniel was about to answer when the man from the table reached around him and put a business card near his coffee cup.

"Your best in tangible assets, my boy," he said, clapping a hand on the investor's shoulder.

Daniel turned to see the man. He was past middle age, a kindly look on his face. "Who're you?"

"Just paying it forward." The man nodded to Vince, and then made his way out the cafe door.

Daniel looked at the white card. "Antique Furniture Worldwide." He turned the card over to see it blank.

"What's that all about?" Vince looked at the unassuming card. "Some guy trying to sell furniture out his briefcase now?"

Daniel shrugged, tapping the card on the table. "Probably."

The waitress eased up to them with a smile. "Ready to order, gentlemen?"

Gin Ichimaru and Aizen made their way down the Division Five Headquarters hall to the interrogation room. Beneath Ichimaru's arm were tucked two folders, a change that would promise to irritate one of his best agents. Aizen didn't much like the sounds coming from the room ahead of them, primarily because they were coming from his partner.

"I can't believe Pauly's dirty, Ichimaru," he grumbled.

"Oh, he's dirty, Aizen," his superior said, nodding. "We've been watching him for months. Surprised he didn't compromise your raid on that auction last week. You've been assigned these." He handed Aizen the folders. "An analyst and a cutter. Now, about this rock runner you're working on, you think he's from one of the old jeweler families. You brought in the Kerns and Walters last year. Now who? Marzoff?"

Aizen shook his head, not wanting to even look at the files in his hand. "Kurosaki. Third largest family of jewelers in North America. In business for seventy-three years."

"Isshin Kurosaki died in a car accident, his wife in a house fire a year earlier."

Aizen nodded. "We never found the boy. A teen when we tried to get the Kurosaki client records.

Ichimaru sighed. "I remember now. What have you got on him? Favorite cities? Stones? Fellow cutters?"

Aizen didn't like to admit his lack of knowledge. "It's not ... No. None."

Ichimaru stopped, frowning at him. "He has no patterns?"

Aizen sighed. "Isshin Kurosaki dealt in everything, but his specialty was rare stones, ones few other jewelers could get. Some of those are resurfacing. The only real pattern would be getting his client records."

"Out of the question." Ichimaru scratched the back of his head, his usual attire of half-untucked uniform shirt giving him less than the accepted appearance of the head of D5. "The Kurosaki store and residence gave up nothing. Both were cleaned out."

"I think I know who did the cleaning. Barring the records, Isshin's son Ichigo Kurosaki is the only lead left, Gin. I think he's still in business."

"You think a fifteen year-old boy is worth the trouble? If he's still alive. Was a messy accident that took Isshin."

They both looked to the end of the hall where a loud outcry came from the last closed door.

Aizen looked back to Ichimaru. "He's alive and he's not fifteen now. Isshin Kurosaki's suppliers showed records of shipping over $6 million of stones in just the last year of operation. Without the client records or his son, I doubt we'll ever see much of it.

Ichimaru nodded. "What's it worth now?"

"Last month Sotheby's filed a report of a single patron trying to list $8 million in unwashed, unengraved, uninsured stones. The director said it was an old estate, purchased over ten years time from an Isshin Kurosaki before the IRS changes."

Ichimaru sighed, and they continued down the hall, Aizen dreading reaching the end. "How was one client worth that much?"

"Time and clean stones, Gin. Untraceable stones are worth four times the amount washed are. The patron claimed he bought the entire lot from Kurosaki for only $4,000."

Ichimaru whistled as they halted before the last door. Heavy panting came from inside. Aizen's face wore an uncharacteristic look of dismay.

"Four thousand on six mil, plus mark-up," Ichimaru said bemusedly, rubbing his chin.

Aizen looked him over. "You know, if you tucked yourself in and stopped smirking like you just ate the coal-miners' canary you'd probably get farther with that buxom lass in Field Combat."

Ichimaru grinned. "She's the instructor, Sousuke, and don't you forget it. And what makes you think I'm not making progress?"

"I've seen how she looks at you." Aizen's attention went back to the closed door as the low moaning got louder.

"That's all I know," Paul's labored voice came through meekly.

"Then let's go over it again," a deep voice threatened more than stated.

"Who're you using on him?" Aizen asked, not really wanting the answer.

"Grimmjow. You're talking about big numbers now, Aizen. I'm not convinced there are any Kurosakis still around." Ichimaru pounded on the door. "That's enough, Grimmjow. Out here a minute."

The door opened and Grimmjow filled it with a D5 uniform, his no-nonsense glare shifting slightly to something less severe as he looked to Aizen, and then Ichimaru. "Sir?"

Ichimaru gestured between the men a few times. "You know Grimmjow from Homeland Security Interrogation, Aizen. Didn't think you'd want to personally do Pauly's debrief, Sousuke. That's all, Grimmjow."

The bigger man nodded and left down the hall, unrolling his sleeve cuffs. Aizen glanced into the room through the partly opened door. He didn't like what he saw.

"We haven't debriefed one of our own so thoroughly in years, Gin. Was this necessary?"

Ichimaru shrugged, nodded, and shook his head. "Have to set an example, Aizen. This field has its temptations." He glanced to the folders in the agent's hand. "If you can find this Kurosaki, you tag him and we'll take it from there."

Aizen wasn't impressed. "Tag? He needs personal attention, Gin, not a slipped chip. By this time he's learned all --"

"Try the tag first," Ichimaru said, pushing the door wider. "Then we'll see."

Rukia approached the bank that blistering afternoon, this time with a larger purse, as Ichigo had suggested. She'd spent that few hours sorely confused, anxious, and with mounting nervousness and a little anticipation. Nothing in her life had ever made her heart skip a little faster than seeing that pile of polished stones in the deposit box.

She frowned as she passed through the bank doors. Actually, seeing that first ultrasound test, that dark hazy, striated image of her baby on the monitor -- that had made her heartbeat quicken unlike anything before.

She swallowed down the memories and went to the bank teller at the counter. "I'd like to see Milton York's deposit box," she stammered, her large eyes belying her hesitation.

The teller smiled. "I remember you, Mrs. Parker. Go on through."

When Rukia got to the deposits room she was relieved to find it empty. With shaky hands she fit the key into Box 139, and pulled it out carefully. She kept her back to the wall camera, as Ichigo had instructed, and set the two pouches in the purse, a little surprised by the weight of them. She snapped the purse closed, and shut the box. She passed by the security guard with a quick wave, and exited the bank.

Once on the sidewalk she sighed in relief, and headed for her grandfather's farmhouse on the edge of town.

Daniel Scott sat at his desk later that day as most of the other staff had left. It was a newly acquired office, an upgrade from this spot on the cubicle grid. He'd worked hard to get it, shoving aside his personal feelings on the disingenuous fascia he presented to his clients and bosses. He regretted saying anything to Vince, but wanted to tell someone.

He moved the business card around on the desk, first to one side of the monitor that displayed his latest portfolio, and then to the other. He flipped it over for the third time, reading the precise penmanship again.

"Danny-boy, hard assets at reasonable prices. Prospectus available. Astoria preferred. 9ALT-4 to confirm."

That was it. The website listed on the furniture business card was a simple site, garish lettering advertising Bombe and Directoire style furniture from Europe. He'd already hit the keys on the keyboard, and the confirmation time of nine p.m. for that evening had popped up on a white screen, with the line Due George at the bottom.

Daniel had quickly exited out of the site as a sudden paranoia had washed over him. He fingered the card, and then slipped it beneath a stack of reports on his desk as the office door opened.

Charles O'Keefe stepped in, his gruff demeanor sweating at the collar of his white shirt, his tie slightly askew as usual. He was a large man, and his ruddy complexion was more flushed than most days as he looked to Daniel with a fleshy smile.

Daniel stood up quickly. "Mr. O'Keefe, you're still here, sir?"

O'Keefe nodded. "Hmm, you, too?"

Daniel carefully straightened the papers on his desk, wondering at the supervisor's presence. "Uh, yes, sir. I had a few files to get ready for tomorrow."

O'Keefe put his large hands on his hips, breathing noisily. "How's the wife?"

Daniel bristled. "No wife, sir. I do have a fiancée."

The other man nodded. "Good. I like to see my employees happy. You are happy here, aren't you, Scott?"