Frea's A/N the First: Thank you for all of the lovely reviews for Chapter 2! I'm so glad you guys are liking the story, and isn't Carina great? To think, once upon a time, she made me nervous to write her. She's got a fun storyline in this little tale of ours. I'm in Prague kicking back (hopefully), but I want to thank our wonderful beta readers (mxpw edit: that punk who likes steam and the other one that lives in the cave of angst) for their encouragement and support, and my awesome cowriter for the same and for being awesome and being my cowriter.

mxpw's A/N the First: Likewise, my awesome cowriter. I'm sure now you guys can see why we're cowriting this: our mutual admiration society. ;-) But seriously, though, thank you to everyone who has been reading! We of course appreciate all the reviews and welcome you guys to post theories, ask questions, and enjoy the story. I know many of you are probably wondering where Sarah is and all I can say is, please be patient. There is a method to our madness and she's not involved in the story yet for a reason. As long as you keep reading, you'll discover why. Now onto the chapter!

Bulls and Monkeys

It's not far from my office to the headquarters for the 42nd precinct, which is probably why Sergeant John Casey and I even met in the first place. As a rule, coppers don't see eye to eye with PIs, but Casey's a good sort. Mean as two rattlesnakes tied together, sure, but a good man to have at your back in a fight. Which was how we met, actually, back before they switched Casey over to the daytime beat, that is (most cops don't want the night time beat in my neighborhood, but they'd had to beg Casey to come off of it). It was in my early days, just after the War, and Casey had saved me from a few Italians that hadn't liked the look of my face. I wouldn't call what we have now a friendship, but I've helped him out, and he's returned the favor. Begrudgingly.

The 42nd was its usual hub of activity when I walked in. They get their fair share of crooks, low-life criminals, and other scum there, sometimes even without my expert assistance. The desk sergeant recognized me and waved me back without even having to go through our normal comedy routine of where's-your-ID-don't-you-know-me today.

I was a little relieved. This Bryce thing was big, and I needed to move fast. Still, that didn't mean I couldn't stop and notice things. Like the fact that the 42nd, while normally busy, seemed to be hopping. I passed a hood sporting bracelets and a black eye. He glared at me out of his good eye. I waved back and went on my way, threading through the bulls and the cons, all of whom seemed to be moving much faster today.

Casey's desk is in the back, squeezed into a corner where he can watch all the proceedings in the bullpen. He says he likes it. I say it invites claustrophobia. The instant he spotted me, he rose to his feet.

"I don't have time, Carmichael."

"Gee, not even for an old friend?" I took off my hat, and plopped down in his visitor's chair. He hates that he has one of those.

He hates it more when I put my feet up on the corner of his desk. I did that now.

"What is it, Carmichael?" Casey's really good at asking questions between his teeth. "And get your feet off of my desk."

Since I did need information, I obliged him. "I've had an interesting day. Buy me a drink?"

"Not even if you were pretty and female, two things of which you are neither. What are you doing here?"

"You don't want to hear about my interesting day?"

Casey glanced over my shoulder at something happening behind me in the bullpen. I started to get the feeling that he was serious. "Carmichael, I have no time to help you hunt down some two-timing scumbag of a husband."

"It's a fiancé in this case, and it seems like it's a little more than that." I leaned forward. "Looking for a guy. Maybe you've seen him, five eleven, brown hair, blue eyes, too handsome for his own good?"

He had. I could tell by the way his eyes darted around the room. After a second, I saw him relax, but he'd already given away far too much. He studied my face for a beat, nodded slowly. "Guess I have time to hear about your day after all. But don't forget it's your turn to buy."

We went to the Shamrock. It's not my kind of place. I like my seedy drinking establishments with a little more character, but Casey's usual haunt—O'Riley's—was out of the question with all of those cop ears running around, and my preferred spot made Casey a tad too homicidal for my tastes. So the Shamrock it was. I stuck with a beer, Casey had a Guinness. That alone told me volumes. Casey's more of a hard liquor guy unless it's a case that requires serious police work.

The instant the bartender left us alone, he turned to me. "Where'd you hear about Larkin?"

I shrugged. "Around. Why were you in such a hurry to get me out of there, Case?"

I could see him debating that one, rolling it over in his mind. With some people, I would have kept talking, coercing them to open up and spill all to the nice private detective. With Casey, I knew it would just get him to clam up. I waited him out.

"There's a guy here," he said at length, "strolled up into town today. G-man. Mean sunovabitch, too." Since it was only the Shamrock, Casey turned and spat on the floor. The bar's sole other occupant ignored him. "Got half my boys shakin' in their boots."

Casey's men were known around the police force as being some of the meanest cusses this side of the Mississippi. The news was a little worrisome. "Yeah? What's so scary about him?"

"It's not that he's scary, it's that he's cold. Got a face like a block of wood, you know what I'm sayin'? Bastard'll torture you half to death, won't even crack a smile." Casey took a long drink of Guinness and wiped his mouth with his hand. "Says he's in town lookin' for a guy just like the one you described, goes by the name o' Larkin. Won't say what he's done, but the Feds, they want him bad."

I let Casey have a moment while I sipped my beer, trying to put the pieces together. So Karpazzo, Miss Carina Miller, and the Feds had a target painted on Bryce Larkin's forehead, and they were using any available resource to find him. What was so special about this wag, anyway?

Casey had downed half the Guinness. "You want my advice, Carmichael? Take that secretary of yours, and that doctor friend, and get out of town until this all blows over. This Fed hears you're connected, he'll make life hard for you."

If I knew where the damned secretary was, I might be tempted to listen. Not much scared John Casey. He had a jaw that had been chiseled from granite, and he led with it, comfortably. The fact that he was spooked by this Larkin business made me reconsider putting my not-too-small nose anywhere near all of this.

But maybe I could give the information tree a few more shakes before I had to bow out. "I can handle myself, Casey," I said.

Casey snorted. "Yeah, right. You say that and then you take one drink o' the hard stuff and it's all, 'I've got a guardian angel and she saved my life.' Give me a break, Carmichael."

I frowned down at my beer. One night of drinking with Casey and his boys and I'd probably never live any of it down. I should've known better, especially when I saw how they could treat a fine Jameson's like water. Never drink with the Irish.

So I changed the subject. "A woman came to my office today. Says she's looking for her fiancé. Wouldn't be a big deal, except this is an hour after two of the Bishop's goons came to see me, looking for the same thing."

"Yeah? Which ones?" Casey'd had a few run-ins with Karpazzo. It's nice to have mutual enemies.

"Colt and Delgado. The Bishop's got every private dick on the move, and he's probably got most of 'em in his pocket, what with offering five grand."

Casey's glass stopped halfway to his mouth. "Five grand?!"

"Up front," I said with relish, trying not to think about the ulcer turning down that money had given me. "Five more when you find Larkin. And five grand if you find him within three days."

Casey whistled low and let out an appreciative oath. "We'll have every private dick hounding our office by nightfall," he predicted, somewhat gloomily, and slanted me a look out of the corner of his eye. I knew that look well. Casey doesn't trust easily. "Does that mean you're workin' for the Bishop, Carmichael?"

I snorted. "Me? Does it look like I could use ten grand? Hell, Casey, I'm richer than Midas. Ten grand's a pittance." Since it was Casey, and the man had saved my life before, I dropped the act. "You know I'd never take that man's money. I just want to know what's going on."

He growled. "What's going on is you need to mind your own business, as this Larkin is bad news. Go to ground. Grab those miscreant ragtag pals of yours if you must, but get your near and dear out of sight, and stay there until this blows over."

It would probably be the smart thing to do. If the mere mention of Bryce Larkin's name was inviting this much trouble, I didn't want to meet the guy in a dark alley some night. But I shrugged and took a long swallow of beer. Wasn't much left but the foam. "You know I'm not going to do that, Case."

He paused. "Hell," he sighed. "I know."

"Will you have my back if it goes south?" It was a stupid question. He knew it, I knew it. I still had to ask, though.

"You know I will." He finished off his Guinness. "Carmichael? Don't let it go south. Or I will break your fool neck. If the Feds or the Bishop don't beat me to it."

And with those kind words, he left me alone at the bar. I waited with the dregs of my drink until he was a block away and couldn't be traced back to me, then I paid the nice bartender a little extra so that he would forget anything we talked about, and I left to hit up my next stop for the day.

Sure, Casey had said drop it, but when had I ever listened to him? So I spent the afternoon hitting up my favorite haunts: Jimmy the Ratcatcher, down by McKinley, my favorites from Montgomery's Billiard Hall off East 35th, Forrest's Tonic and Bath, and of course, Lou's Bistro up near Vernon Park. By the end, I had blisters and nothing else. All busts. Nobody had heard anything, everybody wanted nothing to do with anything, or they were just too afraid of being named a fink. Even Jimmy, who'd sell his own mother for a meatball sub and tickets to the Cubbies, had nothing more than the usual tall tales of a few delusional Capones in training.

By the time I left Lou's, I was tired, hungry, frustrated, and working on my own dime. I should drop it, I knew. I should go rustle up some new clients so that I'd actually have money to pay a new secretary if I could ever find one. That would have been the smart thing. Instead, I moseyed down to my favorite watering hole, the Broken Monkey.

Fernando was already at his post when I arrived. The freckled fellow was shaped like a barrel—soft, wide middle, stubby limbs, and a bull neck—but his size was misleading. I'd seen him break the arm of one of Fitzgerald's hatchetman like a toothpick. One didn't become the night doorman at the Broken Monkey with a weak constitution.

I tipped my hat to him as I walked past the milling crowd waiting to be let inside. Fernando stepped out of my way. "How's tricks, Carmichael?" he asked.

"Same old, same old," I said, and that summed up every conversation we'd ever had. When he lifted the velvet rope to let me pass, I ignored the angry looks from the crowd behind me (Charles Carmichael waits for no one, no matter how much Ellie would like to think differently) and stepped inside.

The Broken Monkey was really like another world. Or Borneo. The decor, palm trees and bamboo furniture and beige, beige everywhere, could overwhelm a first-timer, but for me, the place was old hat. I smiled at one of the girls selling cigarettes and other sundry items, just because I could. The BM was just that kind of place. Sarah didn't much care for it and Ellie thought my fondness for it bordered on the juvenile, but for me, this place had always held a certain kind of charm that no other place could.

Admittedly, part of that charm was its dubious legality. Normally, I'm not one to turn a blind eye to such things, but well, as long as I didn't actually see anything going down, I couldn't very well tell Casey about it, could I? Because of that, I like to think of the Broken Monkey as a kind of reformed speakeasy. Not quite a dive and not quite the Blue Oyster Club, it occupied a comfortable middle ground that allowed many of the Monkey's more discerning clientele to avoid feeling skittish. It was the perfect place to go for information. It didn't hurt that they served great steaks and I was starving.

I took off my hat, holding it close to my chest, as I passed the stage. The stage was one of the main draws of the Broken Monkey (the other being its back room). It was shaped like an extended tongue, with room for a grand piano on the right and enough space for a small orchestra on the left. In the middle of the tongue's tip was a free-standing microphone. Miss Jill Roberts was headlining tonight, singing an old staple of her set, "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly."

Jill was not what I would call the best singer in the world, but her voice had always had something I considered more valuable: character. It was throaty and rough and fit Jill's personality to a T. We exchanged winks as I moved, weaving through the rowdy crowd with the ease and skill of a veteran sailor on a wind-tossed deck, to hit up my first objective: Lester Patel, the squirrelly half of Chicago's slobbiest lowlife duo.

He had his table, right smack in the middle of the action, which is where Lester always thrived. It's why he started running numbers in the first place. His hair was slicked back, but his clothes were unkempt, and he had a forgotten cigarette burning its way toward his left hand. His eyes bounced like black junebugs. He looked about one wrong gesture away from scurrying around like a rat.

I sat down across from him and waited for him to look up from the notebook he was scribbling in. He didn't look surprised to see me. Curious. "Carmichael," he said.

I smiled easily, hoping to put him at ease. "How's the numbers game, Lester?"

Lester's eyes shifted this way and that. I didn't know what he was looking for. No coppers were going to suddenly pop out of the woodwork. The Chicago boys in blue knew that the Broken Monkey was neutral ground (for what Big Mike surely paid them, they had better know). Seemingly satisfied that nobody was eavesdropping, Lester leaned forward and whispered unnecessarily, "Got a tip on a hot pony. You interested?"

I shook my head. "You know I don't play the ponies, Lester."

Lester shook his head like a mangy dog (not a hair moved). "Too bad. Got an inside man, he says 'Lady in Red' is a sure thing. Across the board all the way. I'll even give you the gentleman's special."

"Tempting, Lester, tempting. But that's not why I'm here."

Lester sat back down in his chair with a nervous laugh. "I don't know nothin'."

"Now we both know that's not true," I said. I saw one of the table girls walk by and smiled in her direction. She came over and I placed an order for the Broken Monkey's special coconut rum. "And a Pink Lady for my friend here."

Lester glared at me for the drink order. As soon as the table girl left, he leaned forward. "What do you want, Carmichael? I'm running a business here."

I shrugged. "You didn't look too busy, just thought I'd say hello."

"Well, you've said it, now scram before the others start to think I'm your stoolie."

"But Lester," I said with a smirk, "you are my stoolie. And speaking of which, I'm looking for a fellow, a real unlucky sort, mixed up in some shady business."

Lester chuckled darkly and said, "This is Chicago, Carmichael. If you ain't wheelin' and dealin', you're on the take for somebody who is."

"Then that should make finding this Larkin a piece of cake."

"You'd think so, but I ain't getting involved in anything that's got the Bishop's goons frosting every eye in town."

I fought a grin at his slip. So somebody had been by the Monkey with news of Larkin already. Interesting. I pulled out a five spot and held it in front of him like a bauble in front of a fish. Lester made an angry swipe for the bill and missed. "Nah-uh, Lester. Not until you tell me how you know about what the Bishop's up to."

Lester scoffed and seemed to finally remember he had a cigarette in his hand. He brought it up and took a short drag before grinding it into an ash tray. "Come on, Carmichael, everybody knows the Bishop is always up to something. He's got every wag in town on the look for this Larkin of yours. I ain't getting involved in that kind of action."

I frowned. Lester always sang like a canary at the slightest hint of easy dough. "That's all you've heard?"

Lester placed his pencil on the table and leaned back in his chair. "I said all I'm gonna say. So you interested in my tip or not? Lady in Red."

I stood up and tossed the five spot onto the table in front of Lester. It disappeared faster than a rat from a sinking ship. "I told you, I don't play the ponies."

"That's too bad. This is a really good tip."

I just slipped my hat on. "You let me know if you hear anything useful, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll keep my ear to the ground." He stopped and looked around the bar. "As long as that ground is in here. I'm not goin' anywhere near this Larkin business, Carmichael. You're on your own, there."

"Didn't figure it would be any other way with you, Les." I walked away. Lester was usually more reliable than that, which said a lot about Larkin. You'd think with everybody and their brother looking for him, I'd have heard something a little more substantial than a warning and a stonewall.

Since a man could only stomach so much disappointment, and my own stomach was grumbling like a drunk in the middle of Prohibition, I bellied up to the bar. Time for that steak.

That is, until I heard a familiar voice behind me purr, "Why, hello there, Mr. Carmichael."

mxpw's A/N the Second: No second author's note from Frea today, so it's up to me to select the preview for the next chapter, which will drop on Monday. I'm sure you're all dying to know who it was that purred behind Chuck, so here's Jeff instead!

"Did I hear you were lookin' for a fellow?" Jeff had ambled back up to my corner of the bar.

"Uh, no, thanks, I think I'm set." Some people were just born to be frightening and oily, and Jeff took that role to heart. I grabbed my beer and thought that maybe there was something I should see over by the piano, as my steak would take awhile.

But Jeff stopped me in my tracks. "Fellow by the name of Larkin, maybe?"

I turned slowly back to the bar. "You know about Larkin? You?"

He swiped a greasy hand across the front of his vest. "Could be I hear things, too."

"Could be." I put my elbow up on the bar and rested my chin on my fist. "Where'd you hear about Larkin?"

Administrative note: As you may know (or may not know), Frea is on vacation right now, and has given me control of her account. So...yeah. This is going to be fun.