Micky woke from his nap a few hours later feeling much better. His head was no longer in pain, and both mind and body felt spry and aware and ready for active use. Getting out of bed and making his way downstairs, he found Davy at the stove stirring a pot of something that smelled rather good.

Micky grinned. "I didn't know you could cook," he teased.

"Oh, hi" the English boy said, with a chuckle. "it's vegetable soup, and it's one of the few things I can make well. Figures you'd come down just when it's ready, though. Good to see the concussion didn't mess with your sixth sense."

"Ah, shuddup, short stuff," Micky said, though he was still grinning. "And give me some of that."

Davy doled out two bowls of the steaming, chunky food and the boys fell to with a will. As the ate, they discussed plans.

"I say tomorrow we head down to Maverick's tobacco place to get out bearings," said Micky, between spoonfuls of soup. "Say, Dave, this is pretty good."

"Thanks," replied Davy with a nod. "But what will we do when we find the gang? I mean, we can't just walk up to a gangster and say 'hey, big guy, give us back our mates' or anything like that."

"No," Micky agreed. "Which is why we're going to infiltrate the gang and work from the inside out." Utter silence greeted this statement, broken only by the sound of Davy spoon clattering down into his bowl as Micky calmly went back to eating his soup, ignoring his English friend's wide-eyed stare.

"You," said Davy, slowly. "Have gone crackers. That or you've been watching too much TV. You know how hard that will be? They'll probably recognise at least you, if not both of us. And you know what happens if we're caught?"

"Well, I'm trying not to think of that part," Micky admitted. "As for being recognised, we'll wear disguises. I'll make myself look real rough and tough, and much older, and you can do the same."

Davy looked over doubtful at that idea. Micky, unperturbed, continued, an almost dreamy look in his eyes as he imagined his role.

"I'll be Mitch Dillon, thirty years old, raised my own kid brother - that's you, Davy - by hand on the streets of LA. Desperate for the necessities of life, he comes looking for a place in one of California's most notorious gangs -"

"Uh, Micky?" Davy interrupted his friend's fantasy, drawing him back sharply to the real world. "There's a slight problem with that, and it starts with Manchester, England. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to sound like your street-raised kid brother. Not all of us are natural mimics."

"Oh, that's not the hard part," Micky scoffed. "You can be too dumb to talk and I'll call you Shrimp. No, the hard part will be making you look tough."

Davy scowled. This plan of action was going to be quite unpleasant for his pride, he could already see. He steeled himself, and uttered a silent prayer that they would rescue the others soon.

"Blessing?!" Peter gasped, confused and a little bit scared. "But that's not his name!"

"No," the Big Boss said, turning to Mike. "I hear he's going by another name. Nesselschmidt, right?

"Nes - mith." Each syllable grated angrily as it was forced through his clenched teeth.

"Whatever," the Boss said, dismissively waving a hand. "You're still the same little jerk who robbed me of what coulda been a fortune, then sent me to jail to boot."

"Mike wouldn't steal," Peter said, immediately on the defensive. "Mike doesn't do things like that."

"Wanna bet?" The man asked, threateningly, and Peter fell silent, looking at Mike with a mixture of fear and confusion.

"S'okay, Peter," Mike said, and despite their present situation the hint of a smile could be seen on his face. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Fortunately for you that's the way the cops saw it," commented the Boss, lighting up a large cigar. "Say, why don't you get your buddy a chair, and tell him the story? It's not fair to keep all these jokes to ourselves." He chuckled at his own lame, slightly sadistic humour.

Peter looked more than a little confused - he looked downright perplexed, not to mention a little scared. And he was wincing slightly from his still pounding headache. He really a painkiller. Mike, despite not wanting to listen to the Boss in any way, saw the necessity of getting him a chair from the corner of the room. Only when the taller boy had made sure his friend was as comfortable as possible did he begin his story.

Eighteen years old, hungry, homeless, and without a penny to call his own save the seventy three odd cents jingling in the pocket of his threadbare jacket, Robert Michael Nesmith wandered the streets of LA, silently cursing the father he had never even met. Barely seven months out of high school, and already displaced, all because of a stupid shared name.

He had tried to leave it all behind, to run from the rumours and whispers that seemed to circulate around him whenever he mentioned his name. He had left his home town with this hope, and when that failed to work, he had kept on running, leaving all of Texas well behind, until he found himself now on the streets of LA, alone and fending for himself with nothing but his wits and his skill on the one object he had never considered pawning - Blonde Beauty, his beloved twelve string Gretsch.

But try as he might, he could not outrun the spread of news. The rumours remained, but even worse, Robert Nesmith could not find anyone to hire him. Not that he could blame people; it was hardly good for a business to advertise an entertainer, no matter how skilled, when that entertainer shared a name with a notorious thief cum murderer cum all-around-creep.

So from this point forward, he decided, he would no longer be known as Robert Nesmith. He was, for all intents and purposes, Michael Blessing. The Michael part was all very well, as he'd already decided a long time ago that he preferred his middle name. The Blessing part existed simply because it was the best name Mike, as he was now calling himself, could think of, and frankly, the irony of the whole situation tickled him.

But the change had worked. It seemed to Mike to be a matter of hours afterwards that he finally found the long-awaited job. It was nothing very wonderful, but to a hungry teenage boy practically living on the street, it was a godsend.

Now he stood in front of his new workplace, the "Brandon Street Bistro", surveying it with mixed emotions. He was extremely grateful to have a position here as a waiter and entertainer, but he had to admit the place looked a little seedy. However, he gritted his teeth, focusing on the thought of his first pay cheque.

His new boss, Donny Kenneth (or Mr K, as he preferred to be called) was an outwardly friendly and generous man, if of a rather too oily personality for Mike's liking. He personally showed Mike around the restaurant and kitchen, acquainting the boy with everything he would need to know for his new job.

The first couple weeks of work were not easy, but well worth it when Mike was finally able to move into a real apartment building. However cheap his new home was, it beat sleeping in a different motel every night. However, his luck did now last long, and the howling winds of misfortune, which Mike thought he had finally left behind, returned with a vengeance.

Mike did not like trouble. He would purposely go miles out of his way to avoid it. But somehow or other, trouble always seemed to find him anyway.

During a shift, one of the customers at a table of his asked to see the manager. So, Mike went to the back to get Mr K. When he reached the man's office, he knocked on the door, only to receive no answer. He knocked a second time, but with no better results than the first. Finally he gingerly pushed open the door, and, finding the office empty, crept in.

He had never been in this office, but as an employee, he didn't think anything wrong with waiting for Mr K to come back. He could only be gone a couple minutes, after all, and the bistro wasn't particularly busy at the moment.

He stood idly in the little room, his eyes casting lazily around him. He leaned over with mild curiosity to read what was scribbled on it. When he had read it, however, he stiffened, for the words ran as follows:

Table 6. 6pm. Drop 5g to "Sandy".
12/08/64

Table 6 was one of his tables - the very one he had just come from. Glancing at his watch, Mike noted it was 5:58 pm, and the date also corresponded. "Sandy" therefore must be the man who'd asked to see the manager. Which left Mike only guessing at what the "5 grams" part could mean. Whatever it was, Mike was almost absolutely sure it couldn't be legal. What was measured in grams at a restaurant? No, it most certainly had to be drugs of some kind.

He reported his suspicions to the cops a couple days later, and a search conducted the following week turned up much evidence on something the cops had already suspected - Mr K was running a drug deal out of his crummy bistro.

Mike was out of a job, but the money he received as a reward was enough to keep him going until he found another.

The last the Texan had seen of his old boss, the cops were dragging Mr K into the back of the police van, while the criminal all the while screamed dire threats and insults at the boy who had been his downfall.

As Mike now looked at his old boss, he heard again every single word that had been screamed that day. But Mr K's face was no longer a contorted mess of fury, but a cruel and calm countenance, bearing a cold, bitter smile.

"You halted my progress in the crime world well," said the Boss, still puffing on his cigar. "But you never ended it. I broke out of the clink and restarted. I married the sister of one of California's biggest crime leaders, and then together we got rid of him." Both Mike and Peter shuddered at the casual way the man spoke of murder. "But then my wife got jealous. She tried to kill me, and damn near did. Two bullets to the chest, one punctured lung. But I hung on, thanks to my own will to live and a couple of crooked doctors not above bribery. Then she got caught by the cops. It was then that I crossed paths with you again, Michael, though neither of us knew it. But you'll be glad of it now, because it's the reason I'm gonna let you live a little longer. You got rid of my wife for me."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Mike said, honestly.

"'K' doesn't stand for Kenneth," said Mr K with an air of one who is about to tell a tremendous and terribly amusing secret. "'K' is for Kowalski."

Kowalski. Bessie Kowalski. The Big Woman.

Peter, though sometimes a little slow on the uptake, also apparently understood, for he gasped softly.

"So you're not gonna kill us?" He said, hopefully.

"I'm not, no," replied Mr K with a chuckle. "But I'm saving the pleasure for someone who wants it more, and he won't be here for another week. I owe it to him after everything he's done for me in the past few months."

Peter's crestfallen expression vanished momentarily as he and Mike both looked up at Mr K, curious and a little nervous of the answer.

"You'll remember him, when you see him," said the Boss. "You knew him as George."