"You tell me I am not allowed to talk to my friend?" Neal heard Ben say to his parole officer.

"Not when your friend has a record and shows up at your job."

"I wasn't doing anything wrong," Ben claimed.

"If you're gonna violate your terms, at least have the decency to do it in private."

"Whatever, man. We done here?"

"Think of this as a chance to enjoy my company twice a week instead of just once." Neal grinned at the parole officer's answer. Not that he had that much experience, but he knew it was not a great idea to be cocky in Ben's shoes.

"Two dates a week?" Ben sighed. "I'll have to take you ring shopping soon."

Ben rose from his chair, and Neal slipped inside the empty office next door, leaving the door ajar as was customary.

"No, I can't come back tomorrow," he barked. "How am I supposed to keep a job when you keep dragging my ass down here all the time?" Neal noted at the corner of his eye that Ben had stopped outside in the corridor. "Don't look at me like — You know what? Call my supervisor, okay? He's gonna fire me." As he had no one to talk to, he could not keep up with this for long. "W— you got nothing to say to that?" Ben moved on down the corridor. "All right, you know what? See you later." He left the room and joined Ben. He had dressed the same way, casual, cheep, like he had to use what he had no matter how worn and washed out. No matter how environmentally friendly that attitude was, he missed his suits.

"The screws on the outside are worse than the screws on the inside," he said to Ben with a sigh.

"Yeah. You got that right."

Neal glanced over his shoulder as to see if any of their parole officers were looking. They were not supposed to make friends with other criminals.

"Nick Halden," Neal introduced himself, not shaking hands to keep it off the record, so to speak.

"Ben Ryan," he answered in the same low-profile way. However, he kept his focus on his phone. Neal needed a little more than that.

"You know where to get a drink around here, Ben?"

"I was just headed over to my buddy's place. You want to take a walk?"

"I'm not supposed to be palling around with ex-cons."

"Yeah, me either. If I had a dime for everything I wasn't supposed to do..."

"I'd call it a steady gig," Neal grinned. Rule number one to spot you're being conned: if you feel overly comfortable with a person you never met before, there's probably a reason.

"You like strip joints?" Ben asked. Neal almost stopped in his tracks. But as when one doing the con, all he could do was playing along.

"Sure. I'm not dating at the moment."

"What's that got to do with it?" Ben smiled.

"Nothing. It's just looking, right?"

"Right."

They walked a few blocks, keeping the conversation neutral, but Neal gave slight hints of his experiences. Then Ben entered a place called Stardust, and Neal followed. He stared at the women dancing between the two rows of tables. And considering there were men in suits, the place was not cheap.

"Listen, I'm not real flush at the moment, so..."

"Hey, relax," Ben said. "I got you covered."

"Thanks."

"Hey, baby," Ben greeted one of the waitresses and kissed her on the cheek.

"Hey, honey."

"How long've you been out?" he asked as they walked to a table.

"Long enough."

"You got something going on?"

"Doing all right," Ben answered curtly.

"You need a wheelman?" Neal asked bluntly.

"Now, see, there you go," Ben sighed. "Just 'cause I did time, you assume I'm a lifer."

"Isn't that the way it is with guys like us?" Neal shrugged. "You've been to Lompoc, you're guilty. At some point, you got to say, 'If the world sees me that way, it's who I am.'" Peter would sure never see him as anything else, and he was not alone. The society he lived in never forgot.

"I'll let you know if I need a wheelman," Ben said.

"I knew it," Neal chuckled. "I knew you had something."

"Yeah, I ain't admitting nothing," Ben chuckled back. Then his phone rang. Ben took the call. "Yeah, you got it?" Ben pulled out a pen and wrote on the top napkin. He hung up. "Listen, I got to go talk to a friend of mine. Why don't you order a drink? I'll be right back."

"Thanks."

Ben rose with the napkin and Neal saw him rounding the strippers and sitting down with another man, handing him what he had written.

Neal looked at the napkins left on the table. He needed some… He moved over to a woman doing her makeup.

"How're you doing?"

"I'll be on stage in five, baby," she answered, totally uninterested.

"Great. Listen, um... I like your eye makeup. It'd look good on my girlfriend." He pulled out a twenty. "Want to part with it?"

Now he got her interest.

"You gonna tell her where you got it?"

"Our little secret," he said. She gave him the eye shade, and took the twenty. "Thank you."

He glanced at Ben but was still conversing with the other man. He took the napkin that had been under Ben's and drew makeup with the little brush over the markings of Ben's pen. The napkin turned blue except where the pen had made a ditch. He had a number.


"That's a bright eyeshadow," Peter said looking at the napkin. "What color would you call that?"

Neal looked closer.

"Kingfisher," he said.

"What?"

"It's in the turquoise family."

"Oh. Made yourself right at home at the Stardust."

"Well, when you do a rubbing at a strip club, your options are limited."

"Oh, I'm tempted to make a 'rubbing at a strip club' joke."

"Floated it right across the plate for you," Neal played along.

"You did."

"I'm glad you're above it."

"I am."

"What do you think it is?" Neal asked.

"I'm betting that it's the work order they've been waiting on," Peter smiled.

"My thoughts exactly."

"I called the strip club's owner. Evidently, Connor is their daytime manager."

"What, they hired an ex-con?" Maybe where was hope for the world after all.

"Off the books." Of course. Peter's desk phone rang. "This is Burke… Yeah, Jones. What do you have?… Midtown telephone. Thanks." Peter hung up and grabbed his suit jacket.

"Phone company work order?" Neal asked.

"Midtown crew's on site now."

"I bet Ben and Connor are close by."

"In their uniforms. You and your eyeshadow may have cracked this case."


"Look at that," Peter said, comparing a copy of Neal's rub with Jones' copy of the work order.

"It's a match," Neal agreed.

"I'll get a work stoppage until we know what's going down," Jones said.

"Great," Peter nodded, and Jones left. But it was something that did not make sense. He took a look at his watch. "It's almost two o'clock," he said to Neal. "Why would Ben need a work order for this job?"

"What if they cut the line and called it in to Midtown Telephone themselves?"

"Then Ben gets a call back with the order number," Peter continued.

"The phone company alerts the businesses in the area that they're gonna be doing repair work today."

"When our boys show up in phony uniforms with a work order that checks out..."

"They walk right in," his pet convict filled in.

"Lions for lambs," Peter sighed. "Jones!" The man was talking to people from the phone company. "They're gonna hit somewhere close. Fan out. Check to see who's talked to a phone repairman today."

"We're on it!" Jones replied and got going.

"Yeah, but where?" Peter looked around. Then he saw something on a truck parked beside them. A painters protective canvas. "I've seen this paint before. That's the color that was on Ben's hands."