The bodyguard does a catwalk to the poker lounge back entrance. This all has to go down as smoothly as possible.
When the bouncers stop her at the stairs, she decides to dust-off her Russian accent. "Oh, come on, boys. My boyfriend is waiting. He is player. If I don't go inside, he will lose. I'm his lucky charm, you know?" her bluff is not working, and she's getting nervous. "No? Well, maybe I can be a lucky charm for you. We win, and when I'm in there we always win, and then maybe I can share some of my boyfriend's luck with you" she gets closer to the first bouncer seductively.
Back at the poker table, the third mobster pushes all his chips into the pot.
"All in" he looks at Castle. "It's a big pot, Mr. Writer Man. All that money. But then what is money to millionaire, huh? You just can write it off on your taxes as, uh, doing research"
"All in" Castle says confidently.
"You are like character in your book, in too deep" the mobster can see right through the writer's bluff… Or so he thinks "Three queens" he drops his cards.
"That's very impressive. Not a lot can beat three queens" he makes a dramatic pause. "Except an inside straight, maybe" Castle lays down his cards and hands a tip to the dealer. "Sweetheart, this is for you. Would you change this into something a little smaller that I can carry? Now that is a big pile of money. But what's money to a mobster, right?" he glances at the guys around the table, a cocky grin on his face.
Castle gets up to leave, but the suspicious Russian follows him and puts a gun to his back. "Walk" he pushes Castle into the kitchen, keeping his weapon pointed at him. "Who are you?" he pusher the writer against a table.
"I told you, I'm- I'm a novelist" he stumbles over his worlds realizing that he's in deep trouble right about now.
"The story. The details. Who told you? Who knows?"
"Nobody knows, it's just… It's just a story" he raises his hands pleading for clemency.
"Well, they crossed me, and now you have crossed me"
"No, no, no, no. I'm just a writer" he needs to find a way out of this mess, fast.
"Do not lie! You are cop" his gun is pressed against Castle's chest, and to put his point across more clearly, he punches the novelist square in the face, getting him confused for a few seconds.
She's finally gets in and does a quick sweep of the rooms. When she can't find her Principal, she sighs, thinking that this was probably all for nothing. Before she turns around to leave, though, she hears someone in an adjacent room, probably the kitchen and decides to take a peek just in case.
She opens the door slowly and she finds a guy that has her back to her, and then hears someone explaining that he's just a writer… Castle.
For some reason the guy thinks that he's actually a cop and then… He punches him.
That's her cue to go in.
"Him, a cop?" Castle sighs relieved when he comes back to reality and recognizes that voice, albeit with a heavy Russian accent. "Don't make me laugh. He's barely even a man" they turn around and see Beckett – he's actually surprised at how much Beckett he's seeing – standing in the doorway.
The bodyguard walks in from the back door, taking the sight of the mobster all over Castle, and the gun. She's going to have to be very careful, otherwise, they're both screwed.
"Beckett?" he's confused as to why she's there. How did she know where to find him? But he doesn't have time to dwell on the details.
"But you are a man, aren't you?" she gets close to Castle all while playing the card of seduction once again, keeping her eyes on the Russian. "A very handsome man. Richard, are you bothering this handsome man?" she glares the writer in a way that makes him think he's going to burst into flames at any second.
"Go away" the mobster tells her, wanting to get this over with.
"Okay. Boys and their guns" she takes her hands up in faux-frustration. "Am I supposed to be impressed?" she walks slowly towards the Russian.
"It doesn't concern you"
"Actually..." she says, seeing her opportunity. She grabs the guy's arm, and hits him in the face, twisting his arm behind his back. "It does" she drops the accent, pressing the guy against the table.
"Is it just my imagination or did you change?" Castle hisses standing behind her, adrenaline and shock washing over him.
"Castle, could you call the cops, please?" she struggles to keep the guy steady.
"Yeah" he takes out his cellphone, realizing this is probably not the time for chit-chat.
"Shh. Quiet" she whispers at the Russian. "Thank you"
Before he can call, the place is already crawling with cops clad in black body armors. There's a lot of yelling, people running and broken stuff.
"Castle, come here" she calls him over to keep an eye on him. "Some help over here!" she yells to the officers.
Two officers take the struggling Russian's gun and cuff him. Beckett steps back and sighs before guiding Castle outside of the kitchen, where they're stopped by another one of the cops.
"Where do you think you're going? You're coming with us"
"What?" Beckett says in confusion. "On what charges?"
"We just need to ask you some questions. You can either go willingly..."
Beckett rolls her eyes and they follow the officer outside, where they see a lot of patrol cars and officers starting to take statements.
"Lanie! Meet us at the precinct" she finds her friend between all the fuss and the bule and red glare from the vehicles. The ME nods in understanding before Castle and Beckett start walking towards the police car.
Then he remembers something. "Wait- wait" he makes the officer and Beckett stop in their tracks. "I need to make a call" he doesn't wait for the cop's approval, pulls out his cell and dials, putting it on speaker phone to prove his point.
When Lanie notices they're not moving anymore, she goes towards them wondering what's going on.
"Mayor's Office" they hear a girl's voice through the phone, making the cop groan, Beckett narrow her eyes in confusion and Lanie look impressed.
"Hi Denise. It's Rick Castle. I know it's late, but is he in?"
"Yeah. Hold on"
"The Mayor's a fan" he clarifies to the officer and Beckett with a smirk, though neither of them is amused.
"Rick!" the Mayor says.
"Yo, big cheese! What're you still doing there so late?" Castle speaks in a way too familiar tone. "It's Ricky"
"Oh, you know how it is. Doing okay?"
"Actually, I'm in a bit of a situation…" he explains the entire thing exactly as it happened… Sort of.
"Man's got the Mayor on speed dial. The rich really are different" Lanie whispers to Beckett, who's just barely managing to not strangle Castle at the moment.
"You want him? He's yours"
"A control freak like you with something you can't control?" Lanie chuckles. "Oh, this is gonna be fun"
"No problem Rick. I'll take care of it" the Mayor says.
"Thanks, man" Castle now has a huge smile on his face.
The cop sighs and decides to cut them loose. They weren't really persons of interest anyway but they might have been useful.
Beckett scans her boss and sees that he's not visibly injured except for his left eye, that's starting to darken. "You okay?" she has to ask, and she makes sure he knows how pissed she is.
"Yeah, except for…" he has the brilliant idea to touch his injured eye and winces.
They get into the car – Castle in the back and Beckett in the driver's seat. He's about to make a joke about her being in the other side of the law, but when he sees her glare that seems to want to burn a hole into the windshield, he reads her look and wisely decides this isn't the time for screwing around.
"So, Richard Castle" Lanie turns in the passenger's seat to face him after a few moments of silence.
"That's me" he nods.
"Lanie Parish. I love your books. You know, you have a real gift with the details of death. I should know, being a Medical Examiner" she explains.
"Well, I like to be very thorough with what I write. Actually that's exactly the reason why I was there. Research"
"On how to get yourself killed by angry Russians mobsters?" Beckett retorts.
"Something like that" he says making her roll her eyes.
After a few minutes of musing what in the world Castle was thinking about this whole thing, the bodyguard breaks the silence. "What the hell were you thinking Castle?"
"I already told you. I was researching" he says unbothered. "And it was really helpful"
"It was incredibly reckless"
"To-may-to, to-mah-to"
"The next time you do something stupid without at least letting me know, I'll show you how my Taser works" she states with a little too much conviction.
"Promise?" he gives her a sly smile. "How'd you find me anyway?" he wonders.
"I used to be a detective. That's what I'm trained to do"
"My mother told you, didn't she?" he says half-teasing.
"It was Alexis, actually. She was really worried" she says with the only intention to make him feel at least a little bit bad about this.
"I never thought it would get as bad as it did!" he actually feels the need to defend himself now.
When they get to the building, Castle gets out of the car and expects Beckett to do the same. "Aren't you coming?"
She looks down at her outfit – or lack thereof – and back at him.
"Right" he closes the door. "Bye" he waves before Beckett pulls back into traffic.
"So…" Lanie says with a huge smile on her face.
"Not. A. Word." she glances briefly at her friend, showing how much she means it.
Lanie shakes her head and chuckles. There's so much material to tease her friend with, she doesn't even know where to begin.