Many thanks to everyone who is sticking with this story - hope I am not disappointing you!

Steve put $15 on top of the bill on the table, closed his wallet and put it in the back pocket of his jeans as he got to his feet. Mike was already up, putting on the Giants jacket. As they exited the small diner and crossed the sidewalk towards the car, the younger man fished the keys out of his jacket.

They got in wordlessly. Steve started the car then turned to his companion. 'Look, ah, we're not that far from your place. Why don't we swing by there and you can get changed and shaved before we head over to Bryant?"

Mike stared at him, his brow furrowing in amusement. He glanced down at himself, "What, you don't think I'm dressed for the office?" He chuckled. "I think that's a great idea."

The blue LTD pulled smoothly away from the curb.

# # # # #

Steve shot his sleeve and glanced at his watch. It had been fifteen minutes since Mike had urged him to stay in the car, saying he wouldn't be long, and jogged up the stairs. He hadn't taken them two at a time like he usually did, but there was vigor in his step that was encouraging.

He still didn't know what Mike thought of the events at the Sausalito wharf. After his confession about Danny and the showing of his 'appreciation', the older man had clammed up and they had finished their breakfast in silence.

He looked up at the old house once more; there was still no sign of his partner and he sat back again, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He knew he was, potentially, in deep trouble, especially with regards to the shooting and incapacitation of the man in black, but he didn't know how far up the food chain he would be handed before the punishment would be meted out.

He heard a door slam and looked up to see a now shaved, suited and fedora'd Mike Stone locking the front door then turn to jog down the stairs, his topcoat over his arm.

"There, that didn't take too long, did it?" the older man said with a chuckle as he opened the passenger door and got in, tossing the topcoat into the back seat.

"No time at all," Steve chuckled, turning on the car and shifting into Drive, heading towards Bryant Street and god knew what else.

# # # # #

"Hey, Mike, great to see you," Norm called from his desk, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone in his hand.

"Thanks, Norm," Mike nodded with a grin as he crossed to his office, fielding other salutations as he hung the topcoat and fedora on the rack and crossed around to his chair, pulling out the top drawer and putting his .38 inside. Steve had stopped at his own desk, dropped his leather jacket on the back of the chair and began going through the messages stacked under his phone.

Mike pulled his chair out and sat, starting to rifle through the messages on his own desk. There were a lot from Captain Olsen and he picked up the receiver and dialed. While he waited for the line to be answered, he pulled his tie loose and undid the collar button. "Yeah, Rudy, it's Mike - …. Yeah, yeah, I'm okay -… Yes, I was released, I just didn't walk - …" He sighed heavily and looked up to see his partner looking at him from the bullpen with a smirk and a chuckle. He rolled his eyes.

Steve picked up his own phone and dialed. The call was answered almost immediately. "Bobby, it's Steve. I didn't think you'd be in."

"Yeah, just catching up on some paperwork. Are you in?"

"Yeah, ah, I brought Mike. What's going on? How's Cole?"

Steve heard a relieved sigh. "He's gonna be fine. His family's with him so I kinda felt like a fifth wheel, but I'm gonna go in and see him tonight."

"That's great. If I'm free, I'll come with you. Listen, ah, what's happening with Danny and the bunch that were arrested at Coopers and the bodega?"

"Kyle and Gary are looking after all that. The rest of us have been…released, I guess you'd call it. They're gonna handle it from here on out and let the rest of us get back on the streets."

"Oh, ah, okay…" Steve tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice as he glanced towards the inner office; Mike was still on the phone.

"So, ah…" Cox began slowly and Steve could hear the apprehension in his voice, "so did you tell Mike what went down over in Sausalito?"

Steve took a deep breath and blew it out. "Ah, yeah, he kinda figured most of it out on his own, don't ask me how…"

"So… what's he gonna do?"

"I have no idea, he hasn't said a word."

"Is that a good or a bad thing?"

"I have no conception. I usually have some idea which way he's leaning on a particular subject, but he's impossible to read on this one…. I just don't know."

"You actually think he might rat you out to the brass?"

"Bobby, I don't think Mike considers it ratting when a subordinate steps over the line as much as I did. He's relatively flexible about a lot of things but, by and large, he's a pretty by-the-book cop."

"And you seriously think he'd hang you out to dry?"

Steve stayed silent for several long seconds, glancing into the inner office once more. He leaned forward, propped his left elbow on the desk and rested his forehead against his hand. "I just don't know, Bobby, I just don't know."

# # # # #

"Okay, Gary, yeah, Steve 'n I'll be right down." Mike hung up and stood. "Steve," he called out as he took his gun from the drawer and snapped it on his belt, "we gotta get down to Vice." He picked his suit jacket up from the back of the chair.

Steve got up, stuffing the unreturned messages under his phone, then fell into step behind his partner as they started towards the door.

# # # # #

"Good to see you, Mike," Newman said with a grin, his right hand out as the two Homicide detectives walked into the Vice office.

Mike shook his hand, laughing. "See, I told you I'd be back." He wagged his left forefinger at Newman then shook hands with Kyle Jenkins as well, adding a wink.

"How are you feeling?" Jenkins asked, chuckling.

"I'm fine," Mike said quickly and dismissively. "Enough about me, all right? So, what's going on here? How many people do you have in custody?"

Smiling and shaking his head, Newman opened a file on a nearby desk and took out a stack of photos. "Nine," he said, picking up the mug shots and spreading them out on the desk. "Six from the bar, including Danny," he explained with a pointed but enigmatic look in Steve's direction, which made the younger man uncomfortable, "two from the bodega and one from the Sausalito pier."

"Any you recognize?" Jenkins asked Mike. "Aside from Danny, of course."

Mike fished his reading glasses out of his inside jacket pocket and put them on, leaning over the desk to study the photos. "Yeah," he said slowly, pointing at two photos of rather large, thick-necked men, "yeah, these two are the bouncers, aren't they?" He glanced up at Newman and the Vice lieutenant nodded. "Yeah, they were the two that helped break up that little fracas that Steve got into." He glanced at his partner who was standing beside him, looking at the photos as well.

Steve was nodding. "Yeah, that's them all right. They were a part of the Shanghai gang?"

Jenkins nodded with a facial shrug. "Well, nobody's talking yet but we think so, yeah."

"She's involved?" Mike asked, pointing at a picture of a young dark-haired woman whom he recognized as one of the waitresses.

"Yeah," Newman said slowly, "from what we speculate, she and Danny were the ones doing the 'scouting', I guess you could call it. Finding vulnerable men that they could go after. We're assuming she worked the booths and the tables and Danny handled the bar."

Mike shook his head slowly as he straightened up, taking off his glasses and putting them back in his pocket. "Who are the others?"

"Well, there's two from the bar," Jenkins pointed at two more men neither Homicide detectives recognized, "that we haven't identified yet – nobody was carrying I.D. and we're not sure yet if that was deliberate or accidental. We're leaning more towards the deliberate side of the argument. And we've had no luck yet with fingerprints, but we're still waiting for the FBI and Interpol."

"These two," Newman took up the narrative, pointing to another couple of mug shots, "rented the bodega next door. It was a front, of course, but believe it or not, they were making a pretty good living, from what we can tell, just being a store." He chuckled.

"You said something yesterday about a room under the store, like a cold storage…?" Steve asked, glancing briefly at his partner.

"Yeah," Newman continued the briefing, "in the basement of the bar there's a door that they've got pretty well hidden behind a stack of beer cases and kegs and it leads into the basement of the bodega, into their storage area. But, also well concealed down there, is this room…" He cleared his throat briefly and glanced at Mike almost guiltily. The Homicide lieutenant met his eyes patiently, acknowledging and appreciating the concern.

Newman exhaled loudly. "There's a large room down there filled with hooks hanging from the ceiling, like meat hooks, and rings bolted into the wall. That's where they would keep their abductees before they… well, before they got enough together to make it worth their while."

Mike felt Jenkins hand on his shoulder. "Luckily you were only in there for a day, Mike, but still… Some of the ones we talked to were there almost a week, we think." He cleared his throat. "The guy that died was there for six days, we're pretty sure about that."

Mike nodded slowly, his gaze far away. He took a deep breath then asked quietly, "What did he die of?"

"The, ah, the coroner's only done a preliminary right now, he's waiting for the tox results, but it looks like a combination of drug overdose and hypothermia. But the guy also had some signs of heart disease so that could've played a hand in it too."

"It's still murder," Mike said softly, and they all nodded.

All four of them stared at the photos on the desk for several long silent seconds. It was Mike who broke the spell. "So, ah, so what's next?"

"Well," Newman began slowly, "we have to interrogate everybody, of course, and find out what they know and how high this goes. The feeling we're getting," he glanced at Jenkins and the other man nodded, "is this isn't the entire team, and definitely not the brains behind the operation. I mean, Danny Donaldson is not a dummy but the rest of these guys… there's no way they came up with this."

"That makes sense," Mike agreed, beginning to turn towards his partner, then he stopped abruptly, pointing at the ninth picture on the desk, a DMV photo, not a mug shot. "Who's this guy?"

"He's dead; he's the guy that put the bullet in Harrison on the boat in Sausalito last night when they caught Danny trying to run. Cox took him out."

Steve fidgeted slightly and Mike, sensing the unease, asked quickly, "Do you know who he is?"

"Not yet. Like I said, nobody's really talking yet, but we'll find out. He's one of the ones we're waiting on fingerprints for."

Steve cleared his throat slightly before asking. "What about the third guy on the pier last night? The guy in the black sedan?"

Newman and Jenkins both turned slowly to face the Homicide inspector. "How did you know there was a man in a black sedan on the pier last night?"