SMALL TOWN BRINGDOWN    

SMALL TOWN BRINGDOWN
 by Chris Lark cql@hopper.unh.edu
 RATED: PG
 
 As some of you may have noticed, in my story "An Inch An Hour", Kowalski
flashed on Pike's line in the episode "Spy Vs. Spy" about the mob guy who
was killed in a car crash and then impersonated by Ray: "Was it an
accident? You be the judge!" Well, I've been the judge, and here's what
I've ruled; story and parts, as always, named after some favourite
Tragically Hip/Sarah McLachlan songs. Personally, I think Paul Gross was
just yanking our chain with his monologue at the end of "Call Of The
Wild", so I've chosen to ignore most of it (you'll see what parts I've
ignored as you read). 'Sides, he told us what happened, but not when.
Enjoy.
 
 ****************************************************************
 They say that a Mountie always gets his man. But when a legendary Mountie
was murdered, it was left to his son to track the killer...even to the
ends of the earth.
 
 Now, Canada's best is teamed with Chicago's finest, and the city will
never be the same again.
 
 With a little help from a supernatural source, they could become the
greatest crimefighting duo ever...if they can only keep from killing each
other.
 
 --CBS Introduction to Due South
 
 ******************************************************************
 Intro: Get Back Again
 
 Three days? Three days since Benton Fraser had returned from his
undercover assignment as a female teacher at St. Fortunata's? It felt like
three years. Of course, when dealing with Louise St. Laurent, every day
seemed like a year to Ray Vecchio. He'd been spending three days arguing
with her about the perpetrators who had been trying to empty out a
sixty-year-old treasure vault beneath the school, and he had further
argued with her about the person who had led them to that vault. Ray had
done everything short of blackmailing Louise to make his point, and he'd
made it. All he had to do now was brush off some paperwork, so he was
sitting at his desk and doing that. 
 
 Writer's cramp was just starting to set in when Ray finished the last
form, and he dropped it in a desk drawer, threw his pen aside and got up,
striding away from that Godawful desk. He hated it there--the street was
his element, questioning witnesses or pursuing suspects. He might actually
get a chance to do that now. He went out the side door of the 27th
Precinct's squad room, went around the corner, and paused. Celine
Comerford had kept her appointment, and she was sitting on the bench by
the stairs, gazing dejectedly at the floor. Ray walked over and sat down
beside her, and she turned to face him.
 
 "Okay, Celine," he began. "I talked to the State's Attorney, and she says
if you testify against Johnstone and his goons, she'll drop the larceny
charges."
 
 "That's good," Celine said. "I'd testify against that creep even if I
wasn't facing any charges."
 
 "Yeah, well," Ray smiled. "If I'd been kidnapped and assaulted by the
bum, I'd jump at the chance. How are you holding up?"
 
 Celine sighed, gazed at the floor again, and shook her head. "I was just
thinking about Todd. If that guy hadn't chased us, maybe he wouldn't have
gotten hit by the car and maybe he and I could be long gone by now. I just
wish we could charge Johnstone with killing Todd, too."
 
 "It's a long shot, but I'll try it," Ray said, quite suddenly.
 
 "Why?" Celine asked in surprise, staring at him. "Proving it will be
almost impossible, and we both know it."
 
 Ray heaved a sigh of his own and glanced obliquely at the floor before
answering. "Well, because I know how you feel," he said. "I lost someone I
loved just a couple of months ago. Her name was Irene, I knew her in high
school and we dated and danced for a while. The only catch was, her
brother was and still is my archenemy."
 
 "Still is?"
 
 "Yeah, he's a mob guy now. You heard about Louis Gardino, didn't you?"
 
 "Yeah, he was the cop who got killed by the car bomb," Celine recalled.
 
 "The same. We all figured it was Frank Zuko who did it, but Irene stuck
up for him. My pal Fraser, in his infinite wisdom, cleared Zuko and blamed
it on one of his boys. Anyway..." Ray paused to sigh again, blinking a
tear back. "I tried to get Irene out of the house, the killer took a shot
at Frank, he reflexed, and Irene took the bullet. She was gone by
morning."
 
 "I'm sorry," Celine said quietly.
 
 Ray just nodded. "Well, anyway, I know how you feel about Todd. I think
if Fraser could prove on a long shot that that other clown killed Gardino,
maybe we can get Johnstone for Todd. The State's Attorney is an old
'friend' of mine. She might see my point, and if you testify, we might do
it. Johnstone was responsible--inadvertently, yes, but he still was. I'd
guess it's negligent homicide, the minimum is a few years in Joliet."
 
 Celine half-smiled; she liked that idea. She wanted someone, preferably
Johnstone, to take the fall for killing her boyfriend, and she'd testify
to it if it meant he'd go away for it. "When does the trial start?" she
asked.
 
 "It'll be a few months. Johnstone's attorney will be duking it out with
the state and making motions and deals like nobody's business. You just
stay out of trouble for those few months and you'll probably be the first
one on the stand. Think you can manage that?"
 
 "Yeah. I think I learned something when Melissa told me she was going
back to help you and your friend. You know, it's funny, that was the first
thing we wouldn't agree on and finally I was the one who agreed with her.
I always thought it'd be the other way around."
 
 "Well, don't always think you're right, kid. I thought I was right and I
was about to cross the line to prove it, and an innocent man almost went
away. Let's go, huh? The State's Attorney will want to talk to you before
she thinks any more about dropping charges." Ray got up, and Celine slowly
rose and followed him down the hall. A cop who sympathised--that was a new
one on her. From what Todd had told her, the cops were a bitch to get
along with. This made her wonder what else he'd been wrong about before he
died. 

**********
 
 The trial was over and done with five months later, and unfortunately,
Ray hadn't been able to convince Louise to amend the indictment. It took a
few days before a verdict, and from the rear of the courtroom, Fraser, Ray
and Celine watched the jury file back into the box. Johnstone and his two
thugs were standing behind the defense table, and the judge was gazing at
the jury before reading the verdict and passing it back to the foreman.
 
 Guilty as sin on all counts.
 
 Celine was holding her breath as the verdict was read on each defendant,
and she had rarely felt more joyful than she did when they were found
guilty of kidnapping and assault with intent. Thank God the deal had been
worth it. When she found out that the deal had been worth it, Celine's
breath left her in a rush, and she closed her eyes and slumped in her
seat, feeling Ray give her a one-armed hug around the shoulders. She was
immensely grateful, and she didn't even hear the judge pronounce the
sentence as she prayed her thanks to God. While she prayed, she whispered
under her breath, "We got him, Todd."
 
 "I'm just sorry we couldn't get these guys on killing him," Ray said. 
 
 "It's okay," Celine said. "At least you tried. I'm grateful you did."
 
 **********
 
 TWO YEARS LATER...
 
 As Fraser and Ray walked into St. Fortunata's, Fraser looked around,
remembering the days he'd spent here undercover. There were a few points
where he thought he'd almost been caught, but he was glad to be wrong for
once. Of course it was no help that he had lost his disguise in trying to
grab that bottle of Scotch, thus exposing his identity to the girls; but
now it was over and done. 
 
 Beside him, Ray was rather nervously rubbing his hands as he looked
around, and Fraser understood his friend's feelings, or so he thought.
This morning, Ray had been sent down to St. Fortunata's to speak with the
headmistress about a possible case, and Ray was already well acquainted
with that headmistress, one Sister Anne MacRae. Fraser couldn't blame him
for being nervous, now that he knew the story of his and Sister Anne's
past. He had a feeling Ray would try to slough it off with small talk, and
sure enough, Ray tried to strike up a casual conversation with him as they
crossed the nave of the school.
 
 "So, you and Kowalski find the Hand of Frankenstein or whatever it was
you were looking for?" he asked.
 
 "You mean the Hand of Franklin?" Fraser corrected. After a thoughtful
pause, he answered, "I suppose you could say we did. Stan did, anyway, but
I think he was the only one actually looking for it. Might I ask how your
relationship with Stella is progressing?"
 
 Ray shrugged. "Let's just say I'm glad Kowalski's out of town for a few
weeks. Stella's making noises about moving to Florida, but I'd like to
wait on it for a while, maybe several more years. At least till I've got a
decent amount of time in on the force."
 
 Fraser nodded, and there was another thoughtful pause. He himself was
almost afraid to think of the circumstances when Stan Kowalski found out
that Ray was dating his ex-wife. They had met after Ray had come back from
a harrowing undercover assignment with the mob, during which Kowalski had
impersonated him; and Fraser and Kowalski had been tracking gunrunners in
the Northwest Territories when Ray met Stella. As far as Fraser knew,
Kowalski didn't know about this relationship yet.
 
 "You remember your disguise, Benny?" Ray said with a teasing smile.
 
 "Why would I need the disguise, Ray?"
 
 "See if Melissa recognises you if you bump into her."
 
 "Actually, I expect she'd recognise me even without the disguise,
considering that she got the full impact of it when I lost it. A comedy of
error, it was. However, since I long since gave that disguise away to a
needy neighbour, I don't anticipate using it again any time soon."
 
 Sometimes Fraser was so unflappable that Ray felt like throttling him. He
almost had a couple of times since he returned from his undercover
assignment, but now he was no longer undercover with the mob, and he had
to control himself again. He'd been in there close, too--he'd been
impersonating a mob lieutenant by the name of Armando Langoustini, who had
been very, very close to the middle of the cartel. Just over a week ago,
Ray had recovered from a critical gunshot wound he'd received while
defending Fraser from the gunrunner he'd been trying to entrap. Naturally,
the gunrunner--who had also killed Fraser's mother thirty-odd years
ago--was now in maximum security awaiting trial. 
 
 At the door to Sister Anne's office, Ray took a deep breath and knocked,
and at length the door opened. Sister Anne immediately knew who she was
facing, and a pleased grin broke across her face. "Ray!" she exclaimed.
"Hi, how are you?"
 
 "Uh, I'm great," Ray said. "Considering that I just recovered from a
gunshot wound, I'm in okay shape."
 
 "I heard," Sister Anne said. "Ben, you doing well?"
 
 "Fine, thank you, Sister," Fraser said. "For certain, I'm glad to have
Ray back. As you can well imagine, not even the Mafia can keep him down."
 
 "Yeah, well, if my dad couldn't, neither can the Mafia," Sister Anne
joked. "Come on in." She ushered them into her office, and they sidled
inside. Sister Anne closed the door and motioned at the two chairs in
front of her desk, then walked over and sat behind it.
 
 "My lieutenant sent me down here to talk to you about some information
one of your students has for us," Ray said. "Something to do with a member
of the syndicate I was working against?"
 
 "Oh, yes," Sister Anne said. "Lieutenant Welsh said he'd be sending you
our way. You remember Celine Comerford, don't you?" 
 
 "Sure. It was her idea to indict that Johnstone creep for negligent
homicide, even though we couldn't get him on that."
 
 "Hm, she's gotten to be quite a bright girl since then," Sister Anne
said. "Well, she's the one you want to talk to. A friend of hers told her
a few things that spurred her to talk to me about talking to you...now if
you can make any sense out of that, you're even brighter than she is."
Sister Anne laughed, and Fraser and Ray with her.
 
 "Where is she?" Fraser asked.
 
 "Basketball practise in the gym, if you want to go see her now."
 
 "Yeah, we'll do that, thanks," Ray said, getting to his feet. "Good to
see you again."
 
 "You too, Ray, and Ben." 
 
 Fraser nodded and smiled to Sister Anne, turning toward the door. As Ray
was heading toward it, he stopped and turned back with a raised finger.
"Oh, Annie, one more thing," he said. "Celine and her friend didn't
mention any names, did they?"
 
 "I don't know the name, but I know it was some Mafia figure who was
killed in a car crash," Sister Anne said.
 
 Fraser and Ray's eyebrows rose to their hair (or Ray's would have if he
had any hair). They didn't have any hard evidence, but the possibility was
a huge one that the name of this Mafia figure was Armando Langoustini. His
death in a car crash had allowed the Feds to move Ray in there to
impersonate him.
 
 "Is that a fact?" Ray said. "Thanks, Annie. We'll see you." He exited the
office with Fraser on his heels. Why didn't he like the sound of this?
 
 ***********************************************************************
 Part 1: Black & White 

Fraser and Ray ambled down to the school's gym, where they came upon the
middle of basketball practise. Ray guessed correctly that this was tryout
week for aspiring team members, and the newer girls were being trained by
some of the "old pro" types and the coaches. Most of them were doing well,
although others were having a little difficulty here and there. Fraser and
Ray skirted the bleachers on one side of the gym, looking around for a
familiar face. Eventually one came into view, only it wasn't the one they
were looking for; nonetheless, Fraser decided he might as well just say
hi. 

The girl he'd seen was walking over to a bench in front of the bleachers,
wiping her forehead with a small towel. She looked beat and a little
defeated, and she draped her towel across the bench and sat down on it,
facing away from the basketball court. 
 
 "Hello, Melissa," Fraser smiled when he was standing over her.
 
 Melissa looked up, startled, and then she got back to her feet with
surprised pleasure. "Miss...er, Mr...Fraser!" she exclaimed. "Hi! It's
fancy running into you here!"
 
 "I'm rather surprised myself," Fraser said. "Is Celine around?"
 
 "Um, yeah," Melissa said, searching the gym for her friend. "She's over
there." Fraser and Ray followed her gaze, and there was Celine, breaking
in some new recruits. She was proving to be quite a terror with the
basketball, but the new kids were starting to get used to her Jordanesque
playing.
 
 "Ah," Fraser said. "Ray, why don't you go talk to her. I think I'd like
to chat with Melissa for a little bit."
 
 "Sure thing," Ray said. Scratching the side of his neck briefly, he
turned and started around the gym to go over to Celine's hoop. He had a
little idea in mind, and he was pretty sure she would like it.
 
 Fraser and Melissa sat down on the bleachers together, watching the girls
running around in small groups near the gym's six hoops. "So you're going
out for basketball, are you?" Fraser said.
 
 "Yeah, this is the second time," Melissa said. "I tried out last year,
but I didn't make the team. And that was after Celine had been trying to
get me to try out for over a year. I'm really glad, though, that she found
something to get her feet back on the ground."
 
 "So am I," Fraser said. "Even in the North, although they were rather
sparse, there were a few cases of youngsters turning to crime because they
couldn't find any better youth activities to get involved in. I've found
that to be much more common in Chicago. I like to think that Ray was part
of the driving force for Celine to turn her life around."
 
 "I guess," Melissa shrugged, hoping that she'd also been part of that
driving force. She'd been hoping it ever since the vault case was closed.
 
 "Melissa," Fraser said, scratching his eyebrow, "has Celine ever
mentioned any chats she's had with a friend of hers about the recent death
of a Mafia figure?"
 
 Melissa's eyebrows rose, which told Fraser immediately that Celine hadn't
discussed this with her. "No, not to me, she hasn't," Melissa said. "Why?"
 
 "Then I guess Ray's the first person besides that friend to know about
this," Fraser presumed.
 
 Ray was almost up to Celine's hoop, and he was watching her virtually
climbing all over whoever had the ball. Celine and another senior student
were giving each newbie a chance at feinting and driving for the basket,
and they were taking turns at guarding the person with the ball. The one
who currently had the ball was being guarded by Celine, and she made the
mistake of bouncing the ball too far out in front of her as she tried to
make it to the basket. Celine had the ball in the wink of an eye, and she
turned around, bounced a few steps and tossed the ball cleanly through the
hoop from about ten feet away. 
 
 Ray, now coming under the hoop, grabbed the ball as it fell from the
basket, and he walked onto the court, bouncing the ball with a dangerous
smile. 
 
 "Hey!" Celine said with a reaction quite similar to Melissa's. "Hi,
um...Detective Vecchio, right?"
 
 "That's me, a.k.a. the Terror of Basketball Boulevard," Ray grinned.
"Showdown, kiddo." He paused and bent over, assuming a face-off stance.
Celine did the same, waiting for him to make his move, and the rest of the
girls stood aside and watched the duel. Ray edged to the left, and Celine
matched his move; he edged to the right, and she stayed with him. 
 
 "You better watch out," she told him. "They don't call me the Phantom for
nothing."
 
 Ray noticed for the first time that the only marking on her team uniform
was the name of the school, with no name or number. Sure enough, she was
the Phantom, not once identified at a game except by that nickname. "Yeah,
well, you think 'Terror of Basketball Boulevard' is just some lousy
cooked-up title I pulled out of a hat?" he came back. Eventually he turned
around, making a move toward the basket, and Celine, anticipating this,
bolted after him to grab the ball. But she didn't anticipate Ray throwing
the ball over his shoulder and her head, and he whirled around and leaped
upon the ball, grabbing it. With that, he circumvented Celine and jumped,
not quite high enough for a slam dunk but high enough to get the ball
through safely. Catching the ball, he tossed it to Celine. "Listen, I need
to talk to you for a second."
 
 Celine nodded and passed the ball to her senior friend. "I'll be back in
a little while," she said. While her friend continued training the new
recruits, Celine walked off with Ray, who put his arm around her shoulders
and moved toward the emptier end of the gym.
 
 "I just spoke to Sister Anne," he said. "She said that a friend of yours
had something he'd like to share, something about a mob guy I've been
working against."
 
 "Yeah, only I don't know if you were really working against him. My
friend says he got killed about a year ago, some car accident in New
Hampshire."
 
 "Did your friend say what the guy's name was?"
 
 "Um, yeah, but I can't remember, it was a long and weird name..." Celine
squinted, trying to remember. "Arman something-or-other."
 
 Ray squeezed her shoulders a little tighter, and she stared up at him,
wondering what sort of a nerve this struck with him. "Armando
Langoustini?" he asked tensely.
 
 "That was it," Celine said. "My friend goes to the U of New Hampshire,
and he's home on spring break, and it sounds like this, um, Langou...stini
fellow had a place there. I don't know all the gory details, maybe you
should talk to him."
 
 "Yeah, I should. What's his name?" Ray withdrew his notepad and pen.
 
 "Pete Porter. He lives at ten-seventeen North Octavia. I've never been to
his place, though, I just..."
 
 "Pete Porter?" Ray interrupted. "I know that kid."
 
 "Do you?"
 
 "Yeah, he helped Fraser and me clear some friend of his of burning down
an apartment house a couple of years ago. We stayed in touch for a little
while, but then we both got busy and drifted apart. Thanks a lot, kid,
we'll talk later."
 
 As Ray was pocketing his note pad, Celine raised her finger to keep him
from going away. "Oh, there's one more thing," she said. "My mom is a
librarian for the ATF. She might know about...Linguine or whatever his
name is, and she might not know much, but you could ask her too. I think
she mentioned him one time, and I wasn't sure, but I thought maybe I'd
better ask Sister Anne to let you guys know."
 
 Ray smiled at Celine's mispronunciation, mostly because he liked to think
of it as an insult to the guy. "Langoustini," he corrected her anyway.
"Thanks a bunch, I'll talk to your mom, too. Say, how'd you and Pete get
to talking about this, anyway?"
 
 "Well, I don't know why, but Pete's got some kind of special interest in
the mob. In fact, he has those Far Side page-a-day calendars every year,
and he saves all the mob cartoons in a little pile on his desk. My
favourite is where 'The Sandwich Mafia sends Luigi to sleep with the
fourth-graders' and the picture is these two sandwiches dropping another
one into a cafeteria full of little kids."
 
 Ray laughed. "Only in The Far Side," he said. "Thanks again, Celine. If
you think of anything else, give me a buzz." He pulled his business card
from his inside jacket pocket, and Celine dropped it in the pocket of her
shorts, pleased that he'd called her "Celine" instead of "kid". Ray turned
and started back to the other side of the gym, and Celine returned to her
group of new recruits.
 
 **********
 
 With Ray's recently resurrected Riviera aimed towards 1017 North Octavia,
he was regaling Fraser on some of the operations he'd been involved with
down in Las Vegas. As Ray talked, Fraser wasn't especially amused to hear
that Ray had helped to carry out some hits; he'd thought that Ray was just
a bit too humane for that. He then reasoned that Ray's cover would have
been blown in nothing flat otherwise, so he left the issue alone. 
 
 "Get one gander at the Great Salt Lake, and you'd agree," Ray was saying.
"That's not the place where you'd want to spend eternity. We made a lot of
trips up there, though. Did you see 'The Last Don' last year?"
 
 "I can't say as I did. Stan might have watched it, though."
 
 "Well, it's accurate. We did some of the things they did in that movie,
but not all." Ray smiled, remembering what he'd seen of that movie. "Kind
of weird, though. If Giorgio Clericuzio was a real person, he and I could
be twins. Triplets, if you throw Langoustini in there."
 
 "Really," Fraser said. "Did the character remind you of yourself?"
 
 "Yeah, it was like looking in a mirror. Of course he was a lot older--he
had glasses and some grey hair--but who's to say I won't look like that in
about fifteen years?"
 
 "Certainly not me," Fraser said. Ray hit the turn signal and pulled over
in front of the house, a relatively small affair with one floor and maybe
an attic and basement. From the outside, it looked livable, although
appearances could be deceiving. Fraser and Ray got out of the car, and
they walked up the lawn to the front door. Ray knocked, and shortly
thereafter, a towering young man came to the door and swung it open.
 
 "Hello..." he started, and then he broke off as he recognised his
visitors. "Ray!" he exclaimed. "Hi, how are you!"
 
 "Hey, Pete," Ray said. "All things considered, I'm ginger-peachy.
Yourself?"
 
 "Great, thanks. Come on in." Pete held the door open for Fraser and Ray
to come in, and they entered the house and walked toward the living room.
They sat down on opposite sides of the room, and Pete leaned back on the
couch. 

"So how's Ariel?" Fraser asked.
 
 Pete shrugged and stared down at the floor; hearing about his erstwhile
girlfriend still made him a little discontented. "I wish I knew. She moved
away a few months ago. Her grandmother just felt like getting out of
Chicago for whatever reason, so out they went to Oregon. We just decided
it would be best to end it then and there."
 
 "Oh," Fraser said quietly. "I'm sorry to hear that."
 
 "Well, thanks." There was a long pause, and Pete tried to focus on
something else. He'd done his best to let Ariel go, but apparently, it
hadn't entirely worked. "I take it Celine has talked to you about what she
and I have been discussing," he said finally.
 
 "Well, actually," Fraser piped up, "she told the headmistress of her
school, who told Leftenant Welsh. He sent us to hear what you and she have
been discussing."
 
 "Try making sense out of that," Ray half-smiled. "Well, as you probably
know, I was in Vegas impersonating Armando Langoustini for the last eight
months. You know the name, Celine said."
 
 "Yeah. I'm at the University of New Hampshire, and Langoustini had a
summer place in Portsmouth. Several times, I read stuff in the papers by
reporters who would take a shot at interviewing him about organised crime.
He granted some, but not all. He also never implicated himself in any mob
activities, he always spoke in the third person."
 
 "Did you hear about the car crash that killed him?" Ray asked.
 
 "I heard about it, but probably didn't pay any attention. Car crashes
have become so commonplace in New Hampshire lately that it's easier and
easier to ignore them. There are those in which the victim is never
identified, so I guess that was one of them."
 
 "What newspaper was it that tried the interviews with Langoustini?"
Fraser inquired.
 
 "There were a couple, actually. Most of the time it was the Portsmouth
Herald."
 
 "Any federal law-enforcement offices around there?" Ray asked, jotting
this down on his note pad.
 
 "The only one I know of is a DEA office that opened in Portsmouth last
year. There might be others I don't know about, though." 
 
 Ray closed his note pad, capped his pen, and shoved both into his jacket
pocket. "Well, thanks a heap, Pete," he said. "You've been a big help,
again. Keep Celine out of trouble, willya?"
 
 "I've been doing that," Pete smiled. "It seems to be working so far. I'm
actually quite happy with her."
 
 "Yeah, so are we." Ray shook hands with Pete, as did Fraser, and Pete
showed them outside. They returned to the Riviera, and Ray, taking another
flip through his note pad, found Celine's home address and her mother's
name while he was starting the car.
 
 "Marie Comerford, five thirty-eight Akron Street," he read. "Let's go say
hi." Shifting into reverse, he backed out into the street, and off he
drove to the Comerford place. 
 
 **********
 
 Celine got to that house well ahead of Fraser and Ray, and insofar as the
storm door was wide open, she just popped in. Her mother was taking care
of the plants in the living room, and Celine walked in and dropped her bag
on the floor by the doorway. "Hi, Mom," she called.
 
 "Oh, hello, Celine," Marie Comerford answered, placing one plant on the
bay-window shelf. "What are you doing home?"
 
 "I just came by to get a couple of books I wanted to have at school,"
Celine said. "Oh, and I wanted to tell you about my new friend Pete."
 
 "Oh, who's he?"
 
 "He's a guy I met at the basketball court. Somehow we wound up playing
ball together, and we just got to talking and then friendship."
 
 "I take it he's not another Todd," Mrs. Comerford gathered.
 
 "No, no, he's anything but Todd," Celine said. "I mean, sure, Todd was
really good to me and nice and everything, but Pete's even more than that.
He and I have a lot of common ground already."
 
 "Like what?"
 
 "Oh, writing, music, Star Trek, stuff like that. In fact, he was telling
me about New Hampshire, that's where he goes to college, and he lives with
some relatives over there."
 
 "New Hampshire, hm? One of the microscopic states. He must like having
some elbow room out here."
 
 "He could take it or leave it, he says. What he's told me is actually
kind of interesting." Time to make her move; could she do it without
arousing suspicion from her mother? Without pause, Celine continued, "For
one thing, there used to be some Mafia guy living over there till about
nine or ten months ago. I think you told me about him."
 
 "Oh, really," Mrs. Comerford said with raised eyebrows. "I didn't think
New Hampshire was the mob's kind of state. What was his name?"
 
 "Didn't think so either, but Pete tells a different story." Although she
knew the name, Celine decided that deliberately mispronouncing it would be
a wise move. It would be especially wise, since her mother didn't take
kindly to mispronounced names. With a distant look, she acted like she was
trying to remember. "His name was, um...Arman Linguine or something like
that?"
 
 "You mean Armando Langoustini?" Mrs. Comerford said, finishing with the
plants and sitting in an easy chair across from Celine.
 
 "That was the guy, yeah. Pete says he had a summer place in Portsmouth
until he disappeared a while back." 
 
 "Well, he didn't really disappear. It was a car crash where he died on
impact. He was coming to an intersection, and a trailer truck was either
ignoring the traffic light or its brakes were malfunctioning. It carried
what was left of Langoustini's car for almost a block before the car slid
off its front end. Makes me think the driver might have been drunk."
 
 "Geez," Celine said. "That's a hell of a way to go." So far, this was
working out great. Her mother must have heard this and then some about the
"accident", and it seemed that she trusted her enough to tell her all
about it. Well, that detective would be very happy to hear about this,
Celine thought to herself.
 
 The doorbell chimed, and Mrs. Comerford got to her feet and left the room
to answer the door. Celine cocked an ear to hear who it was, and she
recognised the voice right away; it was Ray.
 
 "Mrs. Comerford?" Ray said, taking his badge from his belt. "Detective
Vecchio, this is Constable Fraser. You mind if we talk to you for a
minute?"
 
 "Sure, come on in." Mrs. Comerford ushered them into the house, and they
walked into the living room. Fraser, seeing Celine on the couch, tossed
her a brief wave.
 
 "Hello, Celine," he said pleasantly.
 
 "Hi," Celine smiled.
 
 "You know each other?" Mrs. Comerford observed.
 
 "Yes," Fraser said. "A couple of years ago, I went undercover to find a
vault on the St. Fortunata's property to which Celine had found some
clues. She was instrumental in convicting a few criminals."
 
 "Oh, I remember." Mrs. Comerford elected not to go into any more details,
particularly the one about Todd. She cleared her throat and looked down at
Celine. "Um, could you go elsewhere for a little while? I need to talk to
these officers for a little bit."
 
 "Sure." Celine got up and retreated to the doorway at the back of the
room, and when her mother's back was turned, she silently mouthed *Back
door* to Ray and gestured over her shoulder. He nodded in understanding,
and he sat down beside Mrs. Comerford while Fraser sat in the chair. In
the meantime, Celine ducked out of the living room, marched in place
briefly to make it sound like she was walking away, and then sat down on
the floor to eavesdrop.
 
 "Here's the point," Ray began. "For the last several months, I've been
impersonating a mobster in Las Vegas. They moved me in there when he was
killed in a car crash. Now a source of ours has a feeling that it wasn't
accidental, so we wondered if you might know anything about it."
 
 "Why come to me?" Mrs. Comerford asked, confused. "There's a lot of other
federal agents around here you could ask. All I am is a librarian."
 
 Not wanting to blow Celine's cover, Ray wracked his brain to think up a
believable excuse. As he was hoping, Fraser beat him to it. "Well, the
mobster Detective Vecchio was impersonating was supposed to negotiate an
arms deal with a renegade militia group. We hoped you might have a little
more information on his contacts in the ATF and FBI who organised the
bust. If anybody in either of those agencies was responsible for the
mobster's death, there may be information that would lead us to whoever
that is."
 
 "Well, it's not anything I'm authorised to reveal, except to my
superiors," Mrs. Comerford said. 
 
 "With a court order?" Ray asked.
 
 "Do you have one?"
 
 "No, but if you can give me an hour or two, I can come to your office
with one."
 
 "Well, if you want your information, Detective, you might want to get
one. Don't count your chickens before they hatch, though. I know some
judges, and most of them don't like giving court orders to release federal
records."
 
 "Well, I know some judges, too," Ray said. "A lot of them do like giving
such orders. God willing, I'll be at your office in an hour." With a
somewhat imperious expression, he got to his feet and walked out of the
living room. Fraser rose with him, and he paused long enough to shake
hands with Mrs. Comerford.
 
 "Thank you kindly for your time," he said.
 
 As they walked down the front steps, Ray half-turned his head. "'Don't
count your chickens before they hatch,'" he scoffed. "Who the hell says
that anymore?"
 
 "Oh, probably a multitude of primary-school students," Fraser presumed.
"Well, at any rate, Celine wants to meet us at the back door. Shall we?"
 
 "We shall." They got into the Riviera, and Ray started up and drove off
to find a side street on which he could circle the block.
 
 Celine gave them a couple more minutes before she came back into the
living room, holding up the books she'd grabbed. "All set," she said.
"I'll get the bus back to the school."
 
 "Okay, see you later," Mrs. Comerford answered, giving her a kiss on the
cheek. "Good luck."
 
 "Thanks. Listen, they weren't rotten to you or anything, were they?"
 
 "They were as good as could be expected from the Chicago police," Mrs.
Comerford said with a smile and a sigh. 
 
 "And the Mounties," Celine reminded her. "Just want to be sure, that's
all. Bye." She headed for the back door, went outside, and waited for
Ray's car to show up. Soon it appeared from the corner down the block, and
it pulled up and stopped behind the house. Fraser let Celine into the back
seat, and Ray drove off for the precinct.
 
 "Were you eavesdropping?" Fraser asked.
 
 "You bet. And she didn't tell you the half of it."
 
 "Oh, what didn't she tell us?" Ray asked.
 
 "The gist of it is, she's in on it," Celine said. "She told me all the
gory details before you guys came in."
 
 "Like..." Ray probed.
 
 "Like the trailer truck that rammed Langoustini's car at an intersection,
then carried it for a block before it slid off."
 
 Fraser nodded. "That's definitely murder, if the truck didn't slow down
or stop even after it rammed the car," he observed. 
 
 "Great, let's go over there, investigate further and hopefully find us a
Fed to bust," Ray said.
 
 "Well, you know, Ray, it's not necessarily the federal police," Fraser
pointed out. "It could easily have been a member of a rival gang, carrying
out a typical mob hit. It doesn't seem likely that Mrs. Comerford will
release her records to us, either."
 
 "Yeah, I was only bluffing about getting a release order anyway," Ray
muttered.
 
 "Why don't you just give me a chance to get some more out of her?" Celine
said. "I'm pretty sure I can do it. If I could get those tidbits out of
her, I'll bet I can get you more. She never said a word about not being
allowed to reveal any of that."
 
 "Indicating that she trusts you enough to tell you what she knows,"
Fraser said. "That could be useful if she doesn't get wise to you."
 
 "And if she does?"
 
 "Then we'll just have to go to New Hampshire to continue the
investigation," Fraser said. "That is, if that trailer truck is still
available. One never knows."
 
 **********
 
 Next stop: precinct. Ray wanted to talk to Welsh about their progress
thus far, and hopefully ask him about a court order to get the information
from the ATF office. Upon his arrival, though, with Fraser and Celine
still at his heels, he found that Welsh wasn't alone. There were two men
in his office, and Ray knew who they were all too well.
 
 "Well, well, well," he observed. "If it ain't Turner and Hooch in the
flesh."
 
 "Actually, I believe their names are Ford and Deeter," Fraser offered.
 
 "It's a comparison," Ray supplied. "Listen, Celine, if they start looking
at you funny, just make like you've got an appointment and beat it."
 
 "Whatever," Celine sighed with a cocked eyebrow, wishing she knew what
Ray meant, but taking his word for it anyway--she knew she could take his
word for a lot of things.
 
 "Say, Benny, I don't suppose those two showed up while I was in Vegas,"
Ray said.
 
 "Now that you mention it, they did," Fraser said, electing not to go into
the gory details, since Ray had a personal involvement in the case Fraser
and Kowalski had been on at the time.
 
 "Did they react weirdly to Kowalski?"
 
 "No, they also seemed aware that he was impersonating you."
 
 "So they knew he was supposed to be acting as you," Celine guessed.
 
 "Yeah, I guess so," Ray said. "How they knew that, though, I wish I
knew." A distant look came over his face as something came to his mind.
"Come to think of it, I don't know who gave the order to send me in. The
only one who said anything to me about it was Welsh. He said it came from
way up the ladder, but that was it."
 
 "That's all he told me, too," Fraser said. 
 
 At this, the door to Welsh's office opened, and the two FBI agents
strolled out and headed for the side door. Glancing in Ray's direction,
they diverted their walk and headed straight over to him. Pompous as
always, Ford put his fists on his hips and stared down at Ray, cocking his
head to one side.
 
 "If you know what's good for you, Vecchio, you'll stay off this one," he
cautioned.
 
 "Stay off what?" Ray said.
 
 "You know what I'm talking about."
 
 "Sorry, Ford, but no, how can I know what you're talking about unless you
tell me?" Ray said, getting to his feet and folding his arms. Being taller
than Ford made him feel a little better, more dominant. He could take this
little slimebag if he had to anyway.
 
 "Your case," Ford answered. "I've just been discussing it with your
lieutenant. Now, naturally he's dissented with me on every point I make,
but I think he'll cooperate on this one. If he'll cooperate, so will you.
Stay away from this case." 
 
 "And I suppose you're investigating it?" Ray said. 
 
 "There's nothing to investigate. The man died in an accident, that's all
there is to it. So for both you and me, there's no case here." Ford looked
down and noticed Celine, who could already tell that Ray had a
not-so-happy history with this character. "Snitch, is she?" he gathered.
 
 "What's it to you?"
 
 "Tell her to keep her mouth shut. We wouldn't want anything to happen to
her because someone talked too loud." Without waiting for another word,
Ford walked out so that he wouldn't have to hear Ray defeating him. Deeter
followed closely, and the three around the desk watched them go.
 
 "Good riddance," Ray said, sitting back down. "Watch out for those two,
kid."
 
 "Yeah," Celine concurred. "Listen, I promised Pete I'd meet him at the
basketball court in an hour. This won't take that long, will it?"
 
 "Not if nobody else bugs us," Ray said, nodding toward his sister, who
had recently taken a job as a civilian aide while Kowalski was in Ray's
stead. Fraser agreed with him a hundred percent, as he was the target of
Francesca Vecchio's attentions more often than anybody else in the
precinct. She'd pursue him beyond the grave, he didn't doubt that for a
second.
 
 **********
 
 After a couple of hours of basketball, Pete gave Celine a lift home.
Since they both knew about Celine's new "job" as a police informant,
neither of them discussed it; they just chatted about their usual subjects
of writing, Star Trek, music, and the like. Celine had found both on and
off the court that Pete was great to talk with, and she was enjoying it as
always.
 
 "You know what I was just thinking?" Celine said as they turned onto her
street. "I was thinking about the first time I met Todd. I was coming out
of art class, and I bumped into him while he was dusting the hall
paneling. We wound up talking, he told me to meet him down in the
basement. That was when all that crap with the vault started. I didn't
like it at the school and neither did he, so we just decided to take off
together as soon as we had the money for it. Then, well...you know the
rest."
 
 "Yeah, I know," Pete answered. "You didn't know he was a criminal, did
you?"
 
 "No. I didn't know till I heard it from the detective. Even though Todd
gave me a lot of things I wanted, I still would have liked a boyfriend who
was more honest with me than he was. I forgave him eventually, but I knew
I wouldn't make that mistake again."
 
 "Well, I know you won't."
 
 Celine stared at him with a frown; she'd been hoping he would take the
hint, but he didn't seem to get her point. As she was already aware, he
would be a tough nut to crack. Oh well, time was on her side.
 
 "Is it coming up?" Pete asked, pointing out the windshield.
 
 "Yeah, we're almost..." Celine's voice trailed off as she saw what was
ahead of them. In the street and on the sidewalk, police cruisers were
parked everywhere, and one of the houses was surrounded by yellow tape and
uniformed officers. 
 
 "There..." Celine finished, dreading what she would see when they got to
the house. Pete pulled over and parked on the roadside, and Celine jumped
out of the car and hurried toward the scene. Just as she had feared, it
was her house. She ran up to one of the cops, who immediately put out his
arm to keep her away.
 
 "Hold on, young lady," he said. "That's a crime scene in there, you can't
go in."
 
 "Crime scene?" Celine protested. "That's my house! What the hell is going
on in there?!"
 
 She was rather surprised when the cop stood back and let her through, but
he did. She bolted past him and up the steps to the front door, running
into the house. There were men tramping everywhere, and the words CRIME
UNIT were stamped on the back of almost every jacket Celine saw. The
terror of the circumstances here enveloped her completely as she saw the
smashed bay window; the glass that wasn't broken was exhibiting a number
of bullet holes, and there were still more bullet holes in the opposite
wall. Just as she was starting into the living room, Ray appeared from it
and stopped short when he saw her.
 
 "Celine," he gasped, reaching forward to take her by the shoulder. "My
God, I was afraid you'd come in." He didn't try to stop her from coming
into the living room. In the middle of a pool of blood on the floor, the
medical examiner and photographer were bending over a body showing more
bullet holes than the wall. Celine barely had to look--she'd spoken to
that body while it was still alive not four hours ago.
 
 Choking on her sobs, Celine whirled away from the sight and sagged
forward. Ray hugged her tightly as she cried on his shoulder, and he
stared across the room at Fraser with a feeling of defeat. It was almost
certainly because of them that Celine's mother was dead, although it was
true that they didn't know where the leak had come from. The mob was onto
them somehow, but Ray didn't care how at this moment. Celine was feeling
terrible. This wasn't the only way he would make her feel better, he
promised himself.
 
 ***********************************************************************
 Part 2: Another Midnight
 
 When Celine had calmed down a little bit, Fraser and Ray took her back to
the precinct while other officers canvassed the neighbourhood. Francesca
procured a cup of water from the canteen, and while Celine sipped, Ray sat
beside her and did his best to comfort her while they waited for some more
information on the hit. In the meantime, he, Fraser and Francesca were all
speculating on how the mob had found them out; Francesca, as usual, had
some of the more outlandish ideas.
 
 "I dunno," she was saying. "Maybe it was another crime of passion. She
was divorced like four times, wasn't she? Could have been one of her--" 

"Frannie!" Ray interrupted, pointing his finger. "Not around her, okay?"
He patted Celine's shoulder again, and Francesca gave him a dirty look,
although she knew it wasn't advisable to be talking about this in front of
Celine.
 
 "Now, Celine," Ray said gently. "Do you know of anybody--I mean, anybody
in this whole world--who would have such a hard grudge against your
mother?"
 
 "Not even any of her ex-husbands hated her that much," Celine sniffled.
"Sure, she had some disagreements with people at the office, but everybody
does. It was nothing this serious."
 
 "Well, we'll know if there's a mob angle as soon as forensics has
something on those bullets," Ray said.
 
 "Ever since you went undercover, Ray," Fraser spoke up, "I've had a bad
feeling about mob spies in the department somewhere. I was afraid that one
of them would catch on to the scheme through a slip of somebody's tongue,
and alert the Iguana family about your presence. Now, while it's true that
your cover held long enough for us to arrest Muldoon and most of the
Iguana family without the mob getting to you, we may still have a spy from
another syndicate in here somewhere."
 
 "Like who?"        
 
 "I wish I knew."
 
 "Give me a week and I'll root the bastard out," Francesca said
resolutely.
 
 "Well, thank you, Columbo, but we can take care of that ourselves," Ray
told her in a low, peremptory tone of voice. 
 
 Through the front doors of the squad room came Jack Huey and Tom Dewey,
who had been in charge of the neighbourhood-canvassing after Fraser and
Ray left. They were both holding open notepads, and Huey was the first to
give a report. "Just about all the neighbours heard everything but saw
nothing," he said. 
 
 "Machine-gun fire, breaking glass, peeling rubber, all the good stuff,"
Dewey threw in. "Big black Lincoln limo. Kind of like the one you like to
brag about, Vecchio."
 
 "I'm guessing nobody caught a licence number?" Ray gathered, ignoring
Dewey's remark.
 
 "Didn't see it or hear it," Huey said, giving Fraser a look. "And just so
you know, Fraser, there wasn't any mud on it either."
 
 "I see," Fraser said. "Well, since the Comerford case and the Langoustini
case are most likely connected, Ray and I may be leaving for New Hampshire
for a couple of days. We'll keep in touch with you about this shooting,
though. Our witnesses seem to have described a classic mob hit."
 
 **********
 
 For fear that Celine would be next, Fraser and Ray left her in protective
custody (for as long as the department could afford) before they left for
New Hampshire. Francesca buzzed the Portsmouth Police Department to advise
them that they would be having some guests, and while she was at it, she
got the name of the detective Fraser and Ray would want to talk to. Since
they were currently suspecting the ATF of Langoustini's demise, Ray
decided that it might be safe to call the DEA office as well, so Francesca
complied. As ever, she was all smiles and good-luck wishes for Fraser when
he and Ray departed the precinct. 
 
 They caught the morning flight from O'Hare to Logan Airport in Boston,
and from there, they transferred to a small courier jet to the Pease
International Tradeport outside Portsmouth. The tradeport had once been an
Air Force base till its closing almost ten years ago, and it was still
home to a few wings of KC-135 tankers and a two-mile runway. The jet,
which was considerably more cramped than the airliner that had flown
Fraser and Ray to Boston, landed smoothly on this runway and dropped its
passengers off on the tarmac in front of the terminal. 
 
 "Will you tell me something, Benny?" Ray asked during the walk from the
plane to the terminal.
 
 "If I can," Fraser promised.
 
 "Why do I think it was a bad idea to leave my car in the hands of my
sister?"
 
 "Well, although there was one time when she threatened to wrap it around
a tree because you wouldn't come out of the bank on time--"
 
 "She WHAT?" Ray demanded.
 
 "Oh, yes, she told me everything. When we were locked in the vault, she
intended to wrap your car around a tree if you weren't out of the bank in
two minutes."
 
 Ray sighed, the first of many. "I'll have to have a talk with her when we
get back. That's if she hasn't already made good on it."
 
 "Oh, I don't think she will, Ray. Since I also left Diefenbaker under her
care, I'm quite sure she'll have her hands full enough with him..."
Fraser's voice trailed off as he realised that he might have made a
critical error. "Oh, dear. Ray, you haven't seen any catalogs for dog
clothing around the house, have you?"
 
 "Well, seeing as my house was burned to a crisp right after I left for
Vegas, I shouldn't think so," Ray reminded him. "But I've been over to her
apartment, and no, nothing of the sort. Don't worry about it."
 
 "As you wish. So, do you think we should try the DEA office first, or the
police department?"
 
 "Let's get the Feds out of the way while we can. DEA office." 

In the terminal, they collected their baggage from the conveyor in the
baggage room, and out they went into the main waiting room. "All right,"
Fraser said with a sigh, looking around the room. "Now, public
transportation." In a corner, he spotted what looked like an information
booth, and walked over to inquire about just that. The information manager
volunteered to divert a bus into the tradeport, and Fraser thanked her
kindly before joining Ray outside the terminal. There was a bus stop right
there, and there were several people already waiting. Most of them
regarded Fraser with curiosity and even surprise, and the rest left well
enough alone.
 
 "I've got to try that uniform another time," Ray said. "Talk about an
attention-getter." Fraser just raised his eyebrows, but didn't reply.
 
 Fifteen minutes later, the bus rounded the curve by the airport and
pulled up at the stop with its hazard lights flashing. The front doors
opened, and although Fraser and Ray were standing near them, Fraser held
Ray back to let the other passengers on board first.
 
 "After you," he said, ushering the first one aboard. "Please, sir, after
you. After you, ma'am..."
 
 "Fraser, do you want to get down there any time this week?" Ray demanded.
 
 "Well, it's only three o'clock, Ray, the office doesn't close till four
thirty."
 
 Ray sighed, rolling his eyes. "Earth to Benny, we're on Eastern Time,
your watch is now an hour slow?" he said irritably.
 
 Fraser looked at his watch, seeing that Ray was right once again. "Oh,
dear," he said. He hopped up the steps onto the bus, dropping his quarters
into the fare box. Ray followed suit, and once they were seated, the bus
took off for downtown Portsmouth.
 
 As it traversed a bridge spanning Interstate 95, Fraser looked around,
taking in the rather agreeable conditions on board. At least, they were
agreeable compared to the conditions on most Chicago buses. Fraser,
certainly glad of this, took a brief look under the seats on the other
side of the bus. There was a fire extinguisher lying there, and Fraser
noted the inspection tag. As he did, a frown creased his forehead. "Ray,
something's wrong," he said, alert. 
 
 "What?"
 
 "That fire extinguisher. I don't know if they're all inspected at the
same time or if each bus's extinguisher is inspected one at a time, but
that extinguisher is tagged for a different bus." With that, Fraser got
up, walked forward and bent down beside the driver. "Excuse me, sir, but I
think it would behoove you to pull over," he advised.
 
 "What's the problem?" the driver asked.
 
 "I believe a fire is imminent on this bus."
 
 Puzzled but concerned, the driver pulled the bus over a short distance
past a traffic light, hazard lights on. He opened the doors, and Fraser
got off and started looking over the outside, while Ray remained aboard
and excused himself to the passengers as he inspected the inside.
Meanwhile, the driver picked up his radio phone, watching Ray search the
bus's interior. He tried twice to call the base, but got no response.
 
 "No answer?" Ray said.
 
 "None. Radio seems to be working fine, but they're not answering."
 
 "Great," Ray growled to himself, resuming his search. The muttering was
increasing in volume, and Ray hoped he and Fraser would find any problems
and eliminate them before panic struck. He dropped to his knees in the
middle and peered at the heaters under the seats, and in there, he found
just what he was after. He got up and got off the bus, going around the
front to meet Fraser.
 
 "This was in one of the space heaters under a seat," he said. "Oily rag,
might have caught fire if the heat was on long enough. The bus's radio is
down, too."
 
 "And this was in the engine," Fraser said, holding up a vial. "Gunpowder.
If the engine got much hotter, this could have exploded and ruptured the
radiator coolant, or worse yet, ignited the fuel."
 
 "You don't think we're being followed, do you?" Ray asked with a touch of
concern.
 
 "I'm not sure, Ray, but I think it's something we should consider at
least. I don't like this. Let's get down to the DEA office, perhaps
something will arise."
 
 **********
 
 Fraser and Ray spoke with one Agent Dexter at the DEA office. Ray had
never met this fellow, but he had a feeling that Dexter had been in on the
accident that killed Langoustini. However, Dexter didn't give him and
Fraser any comments or expressions that suggested he'd been in on it.
Fraser was content with the agent's mood, but Ray had a mind to push the
envelope.
 
 They walked from the front office into some of the personal ones, and
Dexter led the way into his, making a beeline for the file cabinet with
several folders to dump in it. "What did you say the guy's name was
again?" he asked.
 
 "Armando Langoustini," Ray answered. "He was a member of the southwest
arm of the Iguana family, had a summer place here."
 
 "Oh, yeah, Iguana family. Actually, we didn't have many dealings with
them. We do drug busts, the Iguanas aren't that involved in drug traffic.
They're gunrunners."
 
 "Well, we understand that, sir," Fraser piped up. "However, since we
understood that Mr. Langoustini had a summer home here and this was the
closest federal office, it seemed appropriate to come to you."
 
 "And why exactly is that?"
 
 "We've got a suspicion that some Feds planned and caused Langoustini's
death," Ray said. 
 
 Sticking a folder into the file cabinet, Dexter turned around and gave
him a demeaning glance. "That's kind of hard to believe."
 
 "What if it's true?" Ray demanded. "What if one of your own associates
planned and committed a murder? Are you just going to let him kill a guy
and get away with it?"
 
 "When I'm trying to work, like I am now, I probably will. Excuse me."
Dexter pushed between Fraser and Ray and returned to the main office, and
they watched him go. 
 
 "Strike one," Ray muttered, skulking away. Fraser followed, and he paused
before the door and turned around to observe Dexter speaking to another
agent. Ray paused with him, and although neither man could hear the
conversation, Fraser could lip-read it. He watched them talk until the
other man turned and went back to his desk, and then Fraser and Ray
departed.
 
 "What was that?" Ray asked.
 
 "Dexter was speaking to that other agent about Langoustini," Fraser said.
"They both agreed they didn't know a thing about him. I don't think
there's anything for us here, Ray. Let's talk to the police, they might be
a little more cooperative."
 
 The police cooperated, all right, but it was only through Fraser's
politeness and virtual brainwashing that they did so. Ray was surprised
that he didn't use an Inuit tale on them, and he followed the detective
Francesca had told them to speak to. However, the detective was not as
forthcoming as he and Fraser had been hoping.
 
 "What do you mean, you don't have it on file?" Ray demanded. "How can you
not have it on file? A guy got killed in a violent automobile accident at
a downtown intersection in broad daylight, and you don't have it on file?"
 
 "I'm sorry, but we don't," the cop insisted. "I wish I could help you,
Detective, but if we don't have a case file for it, we don't know if it
even happened."
 
 "Well, actually," Fraser stepped in, "we do have a source who has
informed us that there was a car crash in this city last year. A man was
killed."
 
 "There, you see?" Ray said. "If a Mountie is asserting this, how can it
possibly be a lie?"
 
 "I hate to disappoint the two of you," the Portsmouth cop said, sounding
stressed. "But we have no such case file, so we can't help you."
 
 "Yeah, well don't expect such an easy extradition when one of your perps
flees to Chicago!" Ray yelled after him as the cop walked away into the
squad room. Fraser took him by the arm, and they went into a corner of the
hallway, where Fraser looked both ways and lowered his voice.
 
 "Ray," he muttered, "if there's no case file, that means there was no
investigation."
 
 Ray's eyes widened as he saw what Fraser was getting at. "Yeah," he said.
"And it's not in the local police department's case files, yet it is in
the files of the Chicago ATF office."
 
 "Two plus two equals four," Fraser said.
 
 "Okay, I have to make a phone call. Why don't you borrow a phone and call
over to the Chicago P.D. Maybe Huey and Dewey have something more with the
hit on Celine's mother."
 
 "I think I'll also ask them to get a court order on those ATF files,"
Fraser said. 
 
 "Good idea."
 
 **********
 
 Fraser borrowed a detective's desk phone to call over to Chicago, while
Ray found a pay phone and made his own phone call. Fraser got the
information on the hit from Huey and Dewey, and they agreed to go over to
the courthouse and get a warrant for the ATF files. That done, Fraser went
off to locate Ray, and he found him at the pay phone in the hallway, just
hanging up. 

Ray turned away from the phone, nodding to Fraser. "Well, you were right
about the fire extinguishers on those buses," he said. "They're inspected
one at a time. I asked them to do a double-check, and somebody switched
that bus's extinguisher for another one, which was two weeks overdue for
inspection. Somebody also pinched the transmitter from the radio."
 
 "Interesting," Fraser said thoughtfully.
 
 "It gets better," Ray said. "The mechanic I talked to said that he saw
somebody hanging around the garage the other day, and he'd seen this
somebody driving for them about ten months back, a temp job as an interim
replacement. He was also a temp driver for a trucking company based out of
Dover. Now the guy I talked to didn't know his name, but I'm thinking
about seeing how long this fella worked for the bus and trucking
companies."
 
 "Let's find out," Fraser said. "While we're at it, perhaps we should try
and get a description, and correlate his terms of employment with the time
of Langoustini's death."
 
 "You read my mind. We're onto something, Benny, we'd better get on it
before this trail freezes up."
 
 "Agreed," Fraser said, walking with Ray to the main doors of the station.
"Actually, I wasn't reading your mind. While it is true that some people
have clairvoyance enough to be aware of others' thoughts, I'm not one of
those people."
 
 "It's a figure of speech, Fraser, you were just thinking the same thing I
was."
 
 "Oh, so it's the lingo thing. Yes, I got a long and involved lesson from
Stan on that subject."
 
 "Greeeat."
 
 They walked outside to hitch a ride with another detective who was
heading out on an assignment, and Fraser quickly told his two cents to Ray
before that detective came outside. "Huey says that they have a rough lead
on the hit," he said. "They've matched the bullets to a few others from
some past hits. They're tracing them back to several origins, but the most
likely one seems to be either the Iguana family or the Crosetto family."
 
 "Iguana family?" Ray echoed, stopping dead in his tracks and spreading
his hands. "That's the one I was working against!"
 
 "Hmm," Fraser said. "So if they are responsible for the hit on Celine's
mother, and they've also done their best to get you out of the way by
setting a fire on a bus, that means that they're onto you somehow."
 
 "How, I really wish I knew," Ray said. "Did you ask Huey to look into
that?"
 
 "Well, no, Ray, he was busy enough, and you did ask him to get the court
order as well."
 
 "Yeah, okay, can we dispense with the guilt trips? Let's just talk to the
truckers."
 
 The detective drove them up to the trucking company in Dover, where they
had a chat with the security guard on duty. He'd been working as such for
several years, and when Fraser asked him about the accident, he lit right
up and led them into the garage. He remembered the truck that had been in
the accident, having been on duty when it came in for repairs to its front
end. He found it after a fashion and thumped a hand on its side.
 
 "You're sure this is the one?" Ray asked.
 
 "Positive," the guard said, reading the licence plate. "June twelfth of
last year, it came in after a run up from Portsmouth with damage to its
bumper, grille and right side. Word was, it had hit a car at an
intersection."
 
 "Was there any further word from the Portsmouth P.D. on that case?"
Fraser asked.
 
 "None."
 
 "Well, the licence plate is still bent out of shape, which indicates that
it did strike a hard object with great force," Fraser observed. "Can we
get forensics over to dust the steering wheel and other instruments?"
 
 "Give me five," Ray said.
 
 Fraser held up his hand, waiting for Ray to slap it. Ray, however, just
stared in bafflement. "What?" he asked.
 
 "Well, you said to give you five, Ray," Fraser said.
 
 "Benny, I meant five minutes, not five like that," Ray said.
 
 "Oh, sorry. I stand corrected."
 
 "Nothing to be sorry for. I guess Professor Kowalski should attend a
teacher workshop some time." Ray turned and loped off to the office to
call the Dover P.D.'s forensics team down to the garage.
 
 A couple of hours later, Fraser was in the squad room at the Dover P.D.
when Ray entered with the forensics report. He handed a copy to Fraser and
kept one for himself, and they went to the station's lunch room to sit
down and start reading through the names. "They found a couple dozen sets
of prints on the wheel and the switches in the cab," Ray said. "I asked
them to narrow it down to anyone who works or has worked for the Feds at
any time. Here's what they spit out."
 
 "Still a number of names," Fraser said. "I suppose the federal agencies
have sent several people undercover with that company."
 
 "Let's see if we recognise any," Ray said. They sat down, and they
started reading names. Fraser wasn't looking for any in particular, and he
wondered what names Ray might be looking for. After about a minute, he
found out.
 
 Ray looked up from his copy of the list with a gleam in his eye, and his
smile was all but feral. Fraser knew right away that Ray had seen exactly
what he wanted to see. "Ford, Mark Allan," Ray said. "How many Mark Allan
Fords do we know who work for the FBI?"
 
 Fraser thought for a moment before answering. "I can't think of any more
than one," he said. "But Ray, it is somewhat circumstantial. I mean, just
because Ford's fingerprints are on the steering wheel doesn't necessarily
mean that he drove the truck when the accident occurred."
 
 "Then why do you suppose he told me to stay away from the Langoustini
case?" Ray asked smugly.
 
 "Point taken," Fraser said after a thoughtful pause. "Back to Chicago, I
take it?"
 
 "Next flight from Logan has our name on it."
 
 **********
 
 Fraser and Ray got a description of the temp driver from the bus mechanic
and the trucking-company guard, and they hardly rested while going back to
Chicago. They took a night flight from Logan to O'Hare, and they checked
up on Celine first thing in the morning before going to the precinct.
Celine expressed a desire to come along, and Ray didn't see why not, so
all three of them went to the precinct with one cruiser some distance
ahead and another just behind. Still, Fraser and Ray kept an eye out for
trailer trucks at the intersections, as well as snipers or pedestrians who
might be toting firearms.
 
 At the precinct, who should they run into but Stella Kowalski, who had
been called there by Welsh after he heard the news from Ray, Fraser, Huey
and Dewey. They passed the ladies' room as she was coming out, and
naturally, she and Ray had some surprised and pleased greetings.
 
 "Ray, hi!" Stella said, kissing him on the cheek.
 
 "Hey, Stella," Ray kissed her back. "On your way to Welsh's office?"
 
 "Yeah."
 
 "Good, us too. We've got some news you'll enjoy hearing."
 
 However, Stella didn't enjoy it as much as Ray was hoping. She
congregated in the office with Fraser, Ray, Huey, Dewey, Welsh and Celine,
and they talked behind closed doors and window blinds. "I'm sorry, Ray,"
she was saying, "but what makes you so sure that this Agent Ford is
responsible for the death?"
 
 "One, he's had this massive grudge against me for beating him to the
solution to at least three cases," Ray answered. "Two, his fingerprints
were on the steering wheel of the truck that was used in the accident.
Three, a mechanic who works for the local bus company, and a security
guard for the trucking company, both gave us the same matching
description. The mechanic told us that he'd seen Ford working as a temp at
the time of the accident."
 
 "It's circumstantial at best," Stella said with a shake of her head. "How
many other agents came up on your fingerprint list?"
 
 "At least five or six others, but Ford was the only one of them who told
me to stay off the Langoustini case," Ray said. 
 
 "He came to me with the same gripe," Welsh spoke up. "He came into my
office the other day and said that he knew we were investigating
Langoustini's death. He didn't say how, but he told me to stay away from
the case."
 
 "Remember on the same day, he also told me to keep my mouth shut?" Celine
said. 
 
 "It doesn't prove anything," Stella dispelled. "For all we know, he could
have been acting under the orders of a superior who didn't want the mob
getting wise to this investigation. I can concur, I wouldn't want Ra--er,
Detective Vecchio to be found out and victimised by the Iguana family."
 
 "Well, we got the court order to release the ATF records," Dewey said.
"Not only was there a load of literature on Langoustini and plans to get
him out of the way, but we also found information on a few FBI and ATF
agents working undercover with the Iguana family. Ford's partner was among
them, so my partner and I figure two plus two equals four."
 
 "Which in turn equals no evidence, unless you've got some proof against
Ford himself," Stella said.
 
 "All right, then explain this," Welsh said. "I called to some of my
colleagues in various other precincts around the city. Ford never came in
to talk to any of them. Looks like I was his only concern."
 
 "I doubt it's a coincidence that Detective Vecchio is a member of your
unit, sir, and that he impersonated Langoustini for several months,"
Fraser pointed out. "We must also consider the fact that the Portsmouth
P.D. had no case file on the crash that killed Langoustini. If Detectives
Huey and Dewey's suspicions are correct, it's possible that whoever is
responsible for the death, if anyone, attempted to erase all evidence that
it happened. The only people who can erase a case file are members of the
police department or a power higher in the chain of command."
 
 Stella stared at him, starting to see the collective point of everyone in
this room. At this, Welsh chimed in, "I'm sold."
 
 There was a long pause while Stella put everything together and worked it
out to a tangible conclusion. A positive I.D. from two parties, the
opportunity, the motive, erased evidence, corroboration from federal
records...no question, they had a case. "Okay," she said finally, nodding
to Ray. "Pick him up."
 
 **********
 
 Still towing Celine, Fraser and Ray went straight to the courthouse for a
warrant, and then went straight to the Chicago FBI office and asked after
Ford. Provided with his location in the office, they marched purposefully
toward it. Ray was rather surprised that the secretary had allowed them
in, but he decided that an arrest warrant had to mean something even to
the 
 Feds. 

Celine had decided wisely to stay back out of sight while Fraser and Ray
went in to conduct their business; she had no intention of drawing any
more attention to herself than she had to. Fraser himself was content to
stand back out of Ray's way while this was going on, seeing as this would
likely get awfully heated and he wanted no part of that. He went into the
bullpen with Ray, and they found who they were looking for in no time.
 
 "Ford, just the man I wanted to see," Ray said pontifically, striding
over to him.
 
 "What do you want, Vecchio?" Ford demanded, glaring up from a file folder
in front of him.
 
 "I want to talk to you, that's what."
 
 "Well, I don't have time for that," Ford snapped. "In case you hadn't
noticed, I'm in the middle of a case here, so if you'll excuse me." 

"Well, you want to know something?" Ray cut him off before he got very far
away. "Interrogation is like Jell-O, there's always room for it." Moving
in behind Ford, Ray withdrew his handcuffs from his belt. "Mark Ford,
you're under arrest for the murder of Armando Langoustini. You have the
right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used against
you in a court of law..."
 
 ***********************************************************************
 Part 3: Fear
 
 Ray spent most of the morning processing and booking a sullen Ford, who
was then dumped in the lockup to await his extradition to Portsmouth,
since the crime had been committed there. Before long he had a visitor,
and it rather gratified him to discover that it was his partner, Deeter.
 
 "Guess now you know what it's like on the other side of the gate," Deeter
observed from his side of the glass partition in the visiting room.
 
 "Don't start, Deeter," Ford said sternly. "I take it you know why this
happened?"
 
 "Vecchio and the Mountie over in New Hampshire, plus the Comerford kid
getting information from her mother. We don't have to be rocket
scientists."
 
 "You take care of things, understand?" Ford instructed.
 
 "You got it," Deeter said, hanging up the phone. Take care of things he
would, and he got up and left the visiting room to take care of them.
 
 **********
 
 Celine didn't feel the least bit safe anymore, not now that the
department had run out of money to keep her in protective custody or under
surveillance. She'd done her best to understand that it just wasn't within
the department's budget. The only solace she had was that she'd be meeting
Fraser and Ray at the basketball court, and as she left the locker room
and the building, she couldn't wait to see the huge old car sitting by the
sidewalk. Funny--it had to be one of the most unattractive cars she'd ever
seen, but seeing it was always a comfort to her lately.
 
 "Celine Comerford?"
 
 Celine spun around, seeing a tall, rather craggy-faced character coming
toward her with a badge in his hand. There were two other slick-looking
individuals with him, and Celine didn't like the looks of any of them.
 
 "Agent Deeter, FBI," the tall one said. "You mind coming with us?"
 
 "Yeah, actually, I do," Celine said.
 
 "Well, I think you'd better, kid. All we want to do is ask you a couple
of questions."
 
 "About what?" Celine said suspiciously, backing away. It did no good. The
further she backed away, the further they advanced toward her. 
 
 "You'll know when we get to where we're going."
 
 "Well, sorry, but I'll pass," Celine said. With that, she whirled around
and bolted down the sidewalk, running like the wind away from the supposed
FBI agents. They were running after her in a pinch, and she sprinted
around a corner and looked over her shoulder, seeing that they were still
on her.
 
 Suddenly, a rushing motor and a screech of rubber caught her attention,
and a snazzy-looking, dark blue Lincoln town car skidded to a halt beside
her. From its open passenger window, she heard the driver call, "Get in!"
Glad for any chance to get away from the three men on her tail, Celine
ripped the rear door open and dived into the back seat, and the car was
squealing away from the sidewalk before she had even closed the door. The
FBI men stopped short, well aware that they'd never catch up with the car
while it was at that speed.
 
 Celine looked out the back window and took a relieved breath, then turned
forward again. The man in the driver's seat was middle-aged and portly,
and he wore a grey fedora and trench coat. He held a smouldering cigar
between his fingers, and he turned his head to her and nodded once.
"Name's Pike," he informed her.
 
 "Glad to meet you. Hey, watch out!" Celine cried, pointing ahead of the
car. Pike was hardly startled, and he just swerved to the left to go
around the parked taxi ahead. The car was now moving at at least ninety
miles an hour, and the swerve threw Celine up against the door. She
recovered and watched the surroundings flash past, and by the time the
horns started beeping, they were almost too far behind to hear.
 
 "Pike," she said. "Thanks for getting me away from those guys--"
 
 "Well, the least I could do for a kid like you who's done her best to
turn her life around," Pike grinned, puffing his cigar.
 
 "How do you know that?" Celine frowned. "You don't even know my name!"
 
 "Care to bet?" Pike said with a cagey smile, constantly changing lanes to
get ahead of the slower traffic. The way he was driving, all of the
traffic was slower. "Your parents must have had a thing for the letter C
when they were thinking up names. Celine Christina Comerford, born July
second, nineteen seventy-nine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, height five
feet ten inches, weight a hundred and thirty pounds, hair and eye colour
brown, eyesight twenty-twenty, blood type A positive, religion Catholic,
school grades average. Lived in Pittsburgh till the age of seven and then
moved to Chicago. Parents divorced just afterwards, mother remarried,
divorced when you were ten, divorced again two years later, then two more
divorces each two years apart. Mother just gave up after that."
 
 "Yeah, don't remind me," Celine said, trying not to think of her mother.
 
 "Sorry to hear about your mom, kid, I really am. But I know who it was."
 
 "You do?" Celine asked breathlessly.
 
 "Hey, I know everything, didn't I just prove it?" Pike said, taking a
curve on two wheels and going under a bridge. 
 
 As Celine was thrown repeatedly from one side of the back seat to the
other, she wondered if Pike's decidedly atrocious driving habits were his
normal style, or if he was just putting them on to get her away from the
FBI guys. "Holloway Muldoon had a buddy, some don named Vincento Iguana,"
Pike rattled on. "Muldoon was planning an arms deal with Armando
Langoustini until the Bookman's untimely demise in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire about ten months ago, but you know about all that. Langoustini
was the liaison between Muldoon's gang and Iguana's, but the new contact,
still Armando Langoustini alias Ray Vecchio, was too busy with Muldoon to
worry about Iguana. Anyway, word gets around about that untimely demise,
and not all of it's good. Suspects aren't just confined to their side of
the law. Somebody's been talking, kiddo, I don't know who, but somebody's
been talking and word got to Iguana just after Vecchio returned to the
fold. The gist of it: hit Marie Comerford. Iguana gets his hit men
together, drives by your place, end of story."
 
 "Somebody's talking," Celine said.
 
 "Like I just said, baby."
 
 "You don't mean me or my friend Pete, do you?"
 
 "You got anything to do with the ATF?" Pike asked, tossing his spent
cigar out the window and running a traffic light. As he did so, he veered
to avoid some traffic coming on the perpendicular route.
 
 "My mom was an ATF librarian, but that was it."
 
 "Well, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes, then. She's been squawking
to somebody and it's been getting to the cops. Gimme a day, though, and
I'll know who it is."
 
 "I thought you knew everything," Celine said.
 
 "Hey, I only know everything when I'm smoking a cigar." With that, Pike
picked up another cigar from the tray by his seat, and he shoved it in his
mouth and lit it. Celine, although she knew that was absurd, was still
wondering if it was true, and she waited to see what he'd say.
 
 "Hang on..." Pike said, taking a 270-degree turn onto a side street and
almost throwing Celine out the door in the process. She struggled upright
and rubbed the back of her head, wincing in pain.
 
 "Hold it, hold it--she's been talking to you, hasn't she?!" Pike barked.
"And you've been talking to the cops! There's a bigger leak here than the
Hoover Dam!"
 
 "It's not just me!" Celine protested, amazed that Pike's earlier comment
seemed true. 
 
 "I know, I know," Pike said. "Your pal Pete's as good as a snitch,
y'know? But in my business, who needs him?"
 
 "I do," Celine told him.
 
 "Don't pour the syrup all over my upholstery there, kid," Pike said.
"Just watch your back. The Feds are the Feds and the mob is the mob. Don't
trust either of 'em, they're getting to be one and the same."
 
 "Thanks, I won't," Celine said. 
 
 "Well, then, nice talking to you, here's your stop. Have a good day."
Pike slowed down to about forty miles an hour while Celine opened the
door, and she jumped out of the moving car and into a pile of discarded
mattresses and garbage bags lying on the sidewalk. She was vaguely aware
of screaming rubber as she collected herself and got up, and by the time
she looked up the street, Pike's car had already disappeared. 
 
 Weird, she thought to herself. Highly weird. She wasn't at all sure if
she wanted to run into that guy again; but one redeeming factor was that
she knew who had put the hit on her mother. 
 
 **********
 
 Knowing that Fraser and Ray would be almost fascinated to hear about
this, Celine called them and told them what had happened, and Ray agreed
to come and pick her up. Celine hid out in a dilapidated tenament near the
place where Pike had dropped her off, and when Fraser and Ray showed up,
Pete was with them--he'd been hoping to meet Celine at the basketball
court, and perhaps share a game with Fraser and Ray. However, all four of
them decided that the precinct's gym would suffice, so they returned there
for a game and a talk about the status quo.
 
 All four except Fraser, who as usual wore his riding breeches with his
undershirt sleeves rolled up, were in gym clothes, and Fraser and Ray
formed one team while Pete and Celine formed the other. They were running
around near one of the hoops at the corner of the gym, and Fraser and Ray
had racked up twelve points, Pete and Celine eight.
 
 "You know, Celine," Fraser was saying, "it's interesting that you should
run into Pike. The last I heard from him, Detective Kowalski and I
received a letter saying that he would continue searching for a spy he'd
been hunting for the past twenty years. I hardly think he's the kind of
man who would take a break to assist a murder investigation." He tried to
cut around to the left, but both Pete and Celine were blocking him off no
matter where he went.
 
 "Well, didn't you say that he knew just about everything about Ray
impersonating Langoustini, and Kowalski impersonating Ray?" Pete inquired.
 
 "That's right," Fraser said. Deciding that his best move would be to
shoot from here, he did exactly that, and the ball sailed right over the
kids' heads. It fell cleanly through the basket, and Pete went over to
catch the ball and toss it to Ray, who then returned it to him. 
 
 "Well, then," Pete went on, "he probably got wind of the Langoustini
case, and God knows most of Chicago knows about the hit on Celine's mom.
Could be he had some information he wanted to share."
 
 "Yeah, let's hope that's all it was," Ray said. Pete took advantage of
the lull, bolting far enough around Ray to pass the ball to Celine. She
was about to go for the basket when she found herself facing off with
Fraser, and she bounced the ball from hand to hand while Fraser stood
ready and waiting. Celine kept it up for almost half a minute before she
made her move. She feinted to the left and leaped to the right, and she
was making for the basket when she quite suddenly found the ball swept out
from under her left hand. Fraser had it, and he made another successful
shot.
 
 "Geez," Celine said. "That always works on the guard. I just keep it up
for about a minute before I move. I just get them so bored with it that
they don't expect it when I go."
 
 "Well, obviously they never learned how to stay alert," Fraser said.
"Alertness is one of the most basic concepts in the RCMP. Never let your
guard down."
 
 "Yeah, never try to fool a Mountie, either," Ray grinned. "That's one
thing I learned the hard way, kid."
 
 "Yeah," Celine agreed. "There's a lot of stuff I'm learning the hard way
right about now, too."
 
 "Such as?" Fraser said, tossing the ball back and forth with her. 
 
 "Such as the fact that my mom was involved in a conspiracy to kill a guy.
I mean, sure, it allowed them to get a cop in there undercover, but that
doesn't make it right." Celine threw the ball to Pete so he could make a
shot, but Ray neatly intercepted it and dashed to the rear right corner of
the court. 
 
 "No, you're right, it doesn't," Fraser said.
 
 "It's just a little too disquieting." Celine was pretty good at tricking
guards--she jumped for the ball just as she finished her sentence. Ray had
his own share of tricks, though, and he sidestepped Celine and got around
Pete. Fraser was wide open, so Ray tossed the ball to him, and he made a
shot. However, he was too far away, and the ball rebounded, to be caught
and dunked by Pete.
 
 "Ha ha!" he yelled. "Nice rebound, Fraser!"
 
 "That's a matter of opinion," Fraser said. Ray and Pete tossed the ball
back and forth, and Pete started bouncing it around. He eventually dashed
for the basket with Ray on his tail, and concentrating on the basket, he
sent the ball aside and right into Celine's hands. Both Fraser and Ray
focused on her, and once she was just below the basket, she spun around
and passed the ball back to Pete. Before Fraser and Ray could guard him,
he'd already dropped the ball through the basket.
 
 "I'm guessing your mom didn't get to tell you anything else before she
was hit?" he said to Celine.
 
 "No," Celine said with a downcast look. "Hey, let me ask you guys
something. Didn't you say that that guy Ford was seen over in New
Hampshire shortly before you got there?"
 
 "Yeah," Ray said.
 
 "And there was almost a fire on the bus you took from the airport?"
 
 "We thought about that," Ray answered. "We figure if Ford wants us out of
the way that badly, he must really be desperate to cover this up."
 
 Celine's reply was delayed by Ray's sudden move to the right. She chased
him around in a circle, and when Ray shot, Celine leaped. She pulled
herself up by the basket, grabbed the ball, and dropped it in. Ray was
nothing if not amazed.
 
 "Well, I was thinking he might also have had something to do with the hit
on my mother," Celine went on. "I mean, until I met Pike. She talked to me
about the Langoustini case, and I thought if Ford was covering it up, he
might have her killed and make it look like a mob hit. But since this Pike
guy seems to know everything else about my family and me, it's pretty easy
to believe his story about the Iguana family."
 
 Fraser took the opportunity of Celine's speech to start his run, so
Celine bolted after him. Fraser threw the ball to Ray, but when the latter
found Celine all over him, he had to return it to Fraser. Pete had other
ideas. He came up behind Fraser, intercepted the ball, circled behind
Fraser, made it to the basket and got in another shot. He and Celine
high-fived, grinning at the prospect of drawing even with Fraser and Ray.
Pete did another ball-toss with Fraser, and Ray waited for Fraser to pass
the ball to him. 
 
 "But maybe it's still worth looking into," Celine suggested. All three of
her companions turned to face her--but she wasn't there. She had been
standing below the basket, but she had just vanished.
 
 "What the..." Ray murmured. "Where'd she go now?"
 
 "I'm right here," Celine's voice came out of nowhere. "I'm the Phantom,
remember? You guys can go on without me, I'll be back." 
 
 "Well, whenever you return," Fraser said to the thin air, "I have
something else I need to talk about." Hiding his footsteps under the sound
of the bouncing ball, he was following Celine's voice to somewhere behind
the backboard. He was nearly there--
 
 Celine dropped from her "hangout" in the backboard frame, swiped the
ball, and jumped backwards to send it into the hoop. "Like what else?" she
asked innocently.
 
 "Phew, they don't call her the Phantom for nothing," Pete observed with
admiration.
 
 Everybody knew where she'd been hiding, so when they had gotten over
their surprise at this little stunt, Fraser continued. "The bullets
extracted from the wall of your house have been analysed, and they've been
traced to a possible two crime syndicates, Iguana and Crosetto. Unless
Agent Ford has some sort of connection with either of those syndicates, I
don't see how he could have put the hit on your mother." Having taken the
ball, he resumed bouncing.
 
 "As in, if he was undercover?" Pete suggested.
 
 "No, he and Agent Deeter were both at the precinct at the time of the
Kuzma case, so he couldn't have been undercover then," Fraser said. A
distant look came over his face, and he held the ball for a short while.
"But he or Deeter might have been undercover at a different time, before
or after the Kuzma case. Detective Dewey did say the Ford's partner was
undercover in the Iguana family at one time. In fact, they may well have
suspected that Ray would try to find out more about Langoustini's death
after he returned, so they could have covertly asked some of their fellow
agents to deliberately blow his cover."
 
 "Wouldn't put it past them," Ray said. 
 
 Fraser's trick had worked, so he sprinted for the hoop and slammed the
ball inside it. Celine made a mental note not to let herself be disturbed
in a game again, and to try and recognise it when someone was deliberately
trying to distract her. "Well," Fraser went on, exchanging the ball with
Pete, "in that case, it's more likely that they didn't suspect any leaks
from the FBI or ATF offices. Ergo, I doubt that we could tie them to the
hit."
 
 "Well, I know a way to find out," Ray said. "When you and Kowalski went
to the armpit of the Frozen North to stop Muldoon and Bolt, I questioned a
guy from the Iguana family and made him think I was Langoustini. He told
me everything I wanted to know. If we could pick up somebody else from
that family, I could do it again."
 
 Pete was listening attentively, but he was also targeting the basket
again. He caught Fraser and Ray with their guard down, and he took three
long strides for the basket and dunked the ball straight in. Catching it,
he turned to Fraser and grinned. "So much for never letting your guard
down, eh, Fraser?" he smirked.
 
 "Hey, look, we're still even," Ray said, pointing his finger. Then he
lowered it with a distant look of his own. "Benny, what was that you said
about the Crosetto family?"
 
 "That it was one of the possibilities for the hit on Marie Comerford,"
Fraser said.
 
 "It's also one of the chief rivals of the Iguana family," Ray said.
 
 "Interesting," Pete mused. "Then it could be that when Ford killed
Langoustini, he tried to make it look like the work of the Crosetto
family."
 
 "Maybe," Fraser said, making another drive for the basket. Celine was
ready for him, though. There was a brief showdown, during which Celine
eventually claimed the basketball and got it in before Fraser or Ray could
stop her.
 
 "Even, huh?" Pete said to Ray.
 
 Ray gave him a dirty look, and he walked over to Celine. "All right,
look," he said. "I hear that you've demonstrated some pretty cool
disappearing acts during basketball games. So I hope you're used to
disappearing, because you'll have to for a while. Whenever there's a
chance that the mob could be coming after a witness, we need to get them
either out of town or into witness protection."
 
 "Is that what you want?" Fraser asked.
 
 "Well, I don't really have anybody here anymore, except maybe for
Melissa," Celine shrugged. "I get the feeling I can't live with any of my
relatives." Ray shook his head sympathetically.
 
 "Can I think about it?" Celine asked.
 
 "Well, think fast," Ray said. "We can't keep you under surveillance and
we can't leave you alone any time, either. We'll have to get you out of
here, and soon."
 
 "Okay, I'll try."
 
 "That's good enough," Ray smiled, patting her on the arm. "Thanks for the
game." He walked over to a nearby bench to grab his towel, and he and
Fraser retired towards the locker room. Pete and Celine remained by the
bench for a bit, and they each took a gulp of water from their bottles and
wiped away the sweat. 
 
 "You know, Celine, I'm a light sleeper when the window's open," Pete
said. "Is there still a stretch of yellow tape around your house?"
 
 "Yeah." Celine stared at him as his suggestion dawned on her. "You mean,
you'd like to have me over for a night?"
 
 "Well, for as long as I need to before you decide what to do. Just ask
Fraser and Ray, you can trust me."
 
 "I don't need to ask," Celine smiled. "I already know I can."
 
 "Um...okay," Pete said, wishing his girl-shyness would leave him alone
long enough to keep Celine out of trouble. "I'll pick you up after we
change and give you a lift."
 
 "I'd like that, thanks." Celine kissed him on the cheek, picked up her
water bottle and towel and loped off to the women's locker room. Pete
sighed, shuddered a little bit, and followed Fraser and Ray, wondering how
his family would take this tonight.
 
 **********
 
 As it turned out, they were more than happy to have Celine over for
dinner and for the night, and Pete graciously gave up his bed and rolled
out his sleeping bag at the foot of the bed despite Celine's objections.
It was rather safe, though--as far as they knew, nobody except Fraser and
Ray knew that they'd been seeing each other. Over an hour after the rest
of the family had hit the sack, Pete opened his bedroom window and let the
cool air in, and Celine piled on the covers before sliding under them.
She'd have to sleep in her street clothes, since they hadn't been able to
return to her house or St. Fortunata's to pick up sleepwear, but she
didn't mind. 
 
 "Trouble getting to sleep?" Pete asked after a while.
 
 "Not really. No more than usual."
 
 "Then I'll give you a hand," Pete said, grinning to himself. "An FBI
agent, a Customs agent and a DEA agent die and go to heaven, and St. Peter
meets them at the Pearly Gates. He takes the FBI agent aside and puts him
in a little room, and there's a mad dog in there. St. Peter locks him in
and calls through the door, 'Mr. FBI agent, you have sinned. You must
spend five years in here with this mad dog.'"
 
 Celine giggled, and Pete continued. "Then St. Peter takes the Customs
agent aside and locks him in another little room, there's a mad gorilla in
there. St. Peter calls, 'Mr. Customs Agent, you have sinned. You must
spend ten years in here with this mad gorilla.' So then he takes the DEA
agent aside and into another little room, but it's empty. St. Peter tells
him to wait, so the DEA agent sits down and waits for a little while. Then
Madonna comes in. St. Peter locks them inside and calls, 'Madonna, you
have sinned!'"
 
 At this, Celine laughed out loud, and Pete just snickered. That was one
of his favourite Fed jokes, and he'd told it to Fraser and Ray once, and
Ray had laughed just as hard as Celine was. Fraser, of course, hadn't
gotten it, and he hadn't gotten it even after both Ray and Pete explained
it meticulously to him twice.
 
 "Oh, geez, thanks, Pete," Celine sighed happily. "You know, that's
actually made me feel better."
 
 "That was the general idea. Good night."
 
 "Good night," Celine replied, rolling over on her side. She drew up the
covers and closed her eyes, and she was content, feeling a little safer. 
 
 Or rather, she was feeling a little safer until she heard the sound of
breaking glass from somewhere outside the bedroom. She and Pete
immediately sat bolt upright, and Pete was on his feet in an instant,
dashing toward the door of his room. Just as he was getting there, the
door flew open and slammed him in the head, knocking him out cold. He
tumbled backwards to the floor, and Celine leaped out of the bed and tried
to get to the window, but she was too late. The man inside the room was
already on top of her, and he raised the window screen and crammed Celine
out the window into the arms of two more men waiting outside. Stifling her
screams, they picked her up at either end and bore her down to the waiting
limousine in the road. Unfortunately, Pete was the only light sleeper in
the family; none of the rest had heard a thing. And right now he wasn't
sleeping so lightly.
 
 **********
 
 Sunlight was starting to dance through the window by the time Pete was
revived by a cold breeze from the still-open window. The immense headache
helped to bring him around, and he shook his head and got up, holding onto
it with both hands. He staggered over and closed the screen and the
window, silently cursing himself for not being more alert. How could the
mob have possibly found out about this?
 
 How they had found out wasn't important to him. Where they had taken
Celine was the main thing on his mind. He turned around to look for
anything on the floor of the room that might indicate where they had come
from and where they might have gone. What he found were several wood
shavings on the floor, as well as some sawdust here and there. He got up
and went back to the window, and as he'd suspected, there were more
shavings and dust on the ground below it.
 
 "Oh, my God," he muttered to himself in consternation, racing out of his
room. He'd barely have time to call Ray and change his clothes before
going out to do something.
 
 In the meantime, just as Ray was arriving at his desk in the precinct,
the phone rang. Wondering who could be calling him at this ungodly hour,
he dropped his lunch bag in a drawer and picked the receiver up.
"Vecchio," he said.
 
 He listened for a minute, and his eyes widened in shock. "Oh, God," he
said. "Okay, I'll be there with backup ASAP!" He hung up and dashed back
to the squad-room doors. "Frannie, get a SWAT team together and get 'em up
to the Wooden Leg Sawmill pronto! We've got a mob hit on our hands!"
 
 "The sawmill?" Francesca gaped. "Team's on the way!" She was on the phone
before Ray was even out the doors, calling for a full team. Ray nearly
bumped right into Fraser coming down the stairs, and Fraser didn't say a
word; he just dashed back the way he had come with Ray.
 
 In the meantime, the Wooden Leg Sawmill was in operation, with one man
working at the moment. He was at the headsaw, running the saw carriage
back and forth and turning a large pine log into fifteen-odd boards. He
had just finished sawing up half the log when he felt somebody patting his
shoulder, and he turned around. The somebody rammed a very hard, very fast
fist into his face, and he toppled across the carriage track and fell into
the wood-shaving pit below. The somebody stepped across the track, made
sure the carriage operator was unconscious, and closed the trap door over
the pit.
 
 Outside the sawmill, the same limousine that had made the quick getaway
from Pete's house last night was coming to a halt. From the rear seat, two
men in lumberjack clothing pulled a bound and blindfolded Celine out of
the car and pushed her across the dirt road to the sawmill. She nearly
tripped on the raised floor of the mill, and they brought her to a halt at
the saw carriage. Untying her hands, they forced her to lie down on the
flat top of the log that was still sitting on the carriage, and with that,
tied her down to it.
 
 "What's this?" she wondered, turning her head both ways. "What are you
doing?"
 
 "You don't need to know," one of the hitmen answered. "Put it this way,
you're going to have a splitting headache in a few seconds." He and his
partner exchanged evil grins, and he reached forward and untied the
blindfold. Celine blinked rapidly and looked around, and when she saw what
the hit man meant by "splitting headache", she let out a shriek that
raised almost every hair in the mill. 
 
 "Oh, God, no!" she screamed desperately. "Please, don't do this! I'll
keep quiet, what can I do to keep quiet?!"
 
 "You can just lie there," the hit man said sadistically. He nodded to the
new carriage operator, who pushed the lever forward. Celine's screams died
down to terrified sobbing, and she prayed hard and fast as she felt the
carriage moving toward the headsaw without slowing. Much too soon, the
wind from the headsaw, now spinning at its top speed of 105 miles an hour,
was starting to riffle her hair. She shut her eyes tightly and steeled
herself for the end, but no end came.
 
 Instead, she heard the sound of the lever being snapped backward, and the
carriage ground to a halt and regressed from the headsaw, rolling in
reverse until it hit the huge rubber tires that acted as a stop. The hit
men stared at the carriage operator in surprise, and he turned around and
shoved up the face shield on his hard hat, revealing himself to be no one
but Pete Porter. 
 
 He'd punched out the erstwhile carriage operator (also a hit man), and
now he punched out the nearer one, giving him a backhanded swing that sent
him flying over one of the log-rolling runners and onto the floor, dazed.
The other hit man drew a pistol, and the time it took him to remove the
safety was enough time for Pete to leap over the left log-rolling runner
and right into his adversary. The gun went off, and the bullet hit one of
the fuse boxes on the other side of the mill just before Pete slapped the
gun out of the hit man's hand. 
 
 He needn't have tried to incapacitate the mob guy--Ray Vecchio had
appeared out of nowhere, dragging the hit man backwards across the
right-hand runner and booting him in the kidney before depositing him on
the floor. Ray then vaulted over the runner, and Pete snapped out his
Swiss Army knife and worked swiftly with Ray to free Celine from the log.
Looking behind them, they saw that the bullet striking the fuse box had
resulted in a fire that was spreading like the bubonic plague. That mill
was pretty old, ergo highly combustible, and the fire was getting much too
close to the log-rolling door. Pete gave the still-trembling Celine some
support getting up and running for the door, and they dashed outside
before the fire got very far. 
 
 "You okay?" Ray said to Celine.
 
 "No," Celine answered shakily, sinking to the ground and leaning back
against a small birch log.
 
 "Okay, just sit tight, we'll be back," Ray said. With that, he and Pete
charged right back into the fire; they weren't going to let those hit men
escape justice that easily. Celine, wishing she knew what they were
thinking, looked over toward the road as she heard the sirens on their way
in.
 
 It took Pete and Ray a painfully long, broiling minute to pull the two
hitmen out of the sawmill and toss them aside a safe distance from it, but
they weren't done yet. "Come on, Ray," Pete shouted. "There's still one
more in there!"
 
 "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Ray snapped, running back inside after
him. That fire was spreading so fast that they might have to go for the
other exit to get out of here. It was already licking across the ceiling,
and it had engulfed most of the wall where it had started. On the other
side of the mill, Pete heaved the trapdoor open and jumped into the pit,
pulling the erstwhile carriage operator/hit man up and shoving him up to
Ray's reach. Ray dragged the man out of the pit and then helped Pete up,
and together they carried the hit man out of the mill by the far exit.
They ran around the corner to find a full team on the scene, and they
dumped their man with the other two and went to find Celine.
 
 But she wasn't there.
 
 Looking around frantically, they both saw one other person worth looking
for: Bill Deeter. Motioning to Pete to stay put, Ray stormed over to him
and stepped right in front of him, glaring into his eyes. "Where'd you put
her?" he demanded.
 
 "I don't know who you're talking about," Deeter stonewalled, starting
past him.
 
 Ray grabbed his shoulder and shoved him backwards. "Don't get cute with
me, pal, you damn well know who I'm talking about," he barked.
 
 "Don't you get cute with me, Vecchio," Deeter snapped. "I'm a federal
agent, you're a police detective."
 
 "Yeah, and you're also a suspect in a conspiracy to commit murder, Old
Mr. High-and-Mighty Federal Agent," Ray bluffed. "That means you don't
tell me, I tell you. Now where'd you put her?"
 
 "Witness protection. No cause for worry." Ray had kind of thought that
Deeter was stupid enough to fall for the bluff. Deeter marched around him,
and Ray turned.
 
 "If she's in your hands, I've got plenty of cause for worry," he yelled
back, but Deeter ignored him. Ray turned around again, seeing Fraser
coming forward from Huey's car. Ray shook his head in defeat, and Fraser
closed his eyes with the same feeling. So close, and yet so far. What had
gone wrong?
 
 ******************************************************************
 Part 4: Locked In The Trunk Of A Car
 
 "Twice in a row," Pete grumbled, shaking his head as he leaned heavily
against the Riviera. "Twice in a row, I've dropped the ball and I've lost
Celine. I'd make a lousy Secret Service agent."
 
 "Don't worry," Ray said. "How could you know? Look, at least we've got a
lead. Deeter told me that she's in witness protection somewhere. There's a
lot of places where she could be, but we'll check them all and find her."
He turned to Fraser, who was standing beside him and not looking terribly
assured.
 
 "We will find her, right, Benny?" he said.
 
 "We'll certainly try, Ray."
 
 **********
 
 They would try, but it didn't mean they would succeed. All three of them
spent the entire morning searching for Celine, and God only knew what was
happening to her while they were looking. They searched every possible
witness-protection location they knew of, showing her picture, giving her
name and description, providing any information that might lead them to
her, to no avail. Celine had well and truly disappeared, and they were
running out of places to look.
 
 At the second to last place, the trio got out of the Riviera and walked
toward the building, and Pete overheard some rather suspicious noises from
an alley across the street. He decided to jog across and investigate while
Fraser and Ray continued to the building, and when he got into the alley,
he saw a few men surrounding a huge black Cadillac. One of them was
shutting the trunk, and Pete walked slowly and quietly toward him as he
was locking the tailgate.
 
 It was then that he heard somebody else coming up behind him, so he
turned to see who it was. As he expected, this person was holding a gun on
him. Pete promptly grabbed him and flung him bodily into the man by the
rear of the car, dumping them both on the ground. The other two at the car
got right into action, and Pete slugged the closer one, then turned to
take the other one. The second man had other ideas, though, in the form of
a small spray can of ether. Pete didn't know it till it was too late, and
for the second time in the last 24 hours, he was knocked senseless to the
ground. The trunk man reopened the car's tailgate, and with a snide
comment about what Pete and Celine would be doing in there together, waved
to his partners to dump the other kid in the trunk.
 
 It was then that Fraser and Ray arrived, and noting the gun in Ray's
hand, all four mob guys opened fire. Fraser and Ray ducked aside, and Ray
fired back, shouting to Fraser.
 
 "I'll cover, you get out of here!" he yelled. He came out from his hiding
place to provide covering fire, and Fraser bolted from the alley, running
off to the left. Now Ray had his hands full.
 
 Once again, it was one gun against four, but Ray was used to odds like
those. He took cover behind a pile of junk just long enough to fire a few
shots in return, and then he kept running, keeping his head down. He
zigzagged down the alley, and just as he was coming to the end of it, a
dark blue Lincoln town car screeched to a halt in front of him. He looked
over his shoulder and fired a few more shots at his pursuers, then exited
the alley.
 
 "Get in!" the car's driver called. Ray opened the back door, threw his
gun inside, and scrambled in after it, and the car laid about half a
tire's worth of rubber pulling away from the sidewalk. By the time the hit
men had gotten to the sidewalk, the car had already melted into the
traffic and was speeding away at nearly a hundred miles an hour.
 
 Ray sighed with relief, shoving his gun into his belt, and was about to
voice his thanks to the driver when the man turned to him. "Name's Pike,"
he said through a cloud of cigar smoke.
 
 "Yeah, hi," Ray said. "I'm--"
 
 "Raymond Ignazzio Vecchio, a.k.a. Armando 'The Bookman' Langoustini for
the past eight months, and now the primary investigator into his death,"
Pike interrupted.
 
 "Hey, how'd you know that?" Ray asked.
 
 "Just ask your snitch Celine Comerford, I know everything when I'm
smoking a cigar." Pike took another drag on the cigar, veered into the
other lane to avoid a garbage truck, slipped the car between two others in
the opposite lane, and continued. "So, have fun getting your life back
from Kowalski?"
 
 Ray, bracing one hand against each side of the car, stared in disbelief.
"How'd you know about that?" he repeated.
 
 "Like I said, when I'm smoking a cigar, I know everything. Maybe you
could've asked Celine if you'd been able to save her from the Feds."
 
 "Yeah, I try to save her from the Feds and instead I bump into a gang of
mob thugs," Ray said. "What the hell's going on here?"
 
 "You really want to know?" Pike asked. Without waiting for an answer, he
plunged on. "There's a Fed, I don't know who, but he's in it with them.
You, my friend, didn't make a false arrest when you busted Ford. Whoever's
in with the mob was planning to kill the Bookman at the same time, only
Ford got to him first."
 
 "Yeah, the fingerprints on the truck's steering wheel dropped me a hint,"
Ray said sarcastically.
 
 "Annnyway, our guess is, this Fed was undercover with either the Iguana
family or the Crosetto family, we're not sure which since those bullets in
the wall of the Comerford place make both of them likely suspects. It was
a few months ago, though. Now this Fed is a double agent. He spends enough
time in with the mob that he gets really friendly with the top dogs,
friendly enough that he turns the other cheek. They make him an offer he
can't refuse, so to speak, and he takes it and becomes what he's beheld.
Now he's telling the mob what the Feds are doing."
 
 "If it was me, I'd say he was in with the Crosetto family," Ray said.
"They're rivals of the Iguana family, of which Langoustini was a major
part. In fact, I'll betcha it's this Ford guy I busted."
 
 "Want to bet?" Pike said, veering into an alley and avoiding all the junk
piled in it as he drove through it. "Ford's still in the clink, but
somebody's still out to get you and Celine and everybody else who's
involved in this case."
 
 "Oh, great," Ray grunted. "That's got to leave somebody I can suspect..."
His eyes widened as it came to him. "Wait a minute," he said. "I think I
know who it is!"
 
 "Well, not bad for you, buddy," Pike said with a grin. He exited the
alley, swerved back onto the street and was already too far ahead to hear
any horns honking at him. Ray's head nearly broke the window of the back
door. "Then I guess you know one of this guy's favourite M.O.s." 
 
 "I mean, I'm not sure who he is," Ray admitted. "Any ideas?"
 
 "Yeah, it's big, it's metal and it turns cars into pancakes," Pike said.
"People, too, if there are any in them."
 
 "Oh, my God," Ray exclaimed. "Can you give me a hand stopping this guy?"
 
 "'Fraid not if I don't want to blow my cover, but I bet your Mountie
friend can help." Pike did a 180 right in the middle of the crowded
street, and Ray tumbled to the car's floor. As he picked himself up,
grunting, Pike was already speeding back toward the place where Fraser and
Ray had split up.
 
 "I'd wish you luck, but you don't need it," Pike said. "See, I know a lot
about you. I'd give you a rundown, but we'll be there before I'm done."  

"Yeah, the sooner, the better," Ray grumbled, rubbing the back of his
head.
 
 "Illinois Central freight yard, track forty-seven, road switcher number
Seventy-three-oh-eight," Pike said. "You'll find it with four or five
flatcars on the ol' drawbar."
 
 "And you're telling me this because?"
 
 "'Cause you don't want to look any more suspicious than I do, do you?"
Pike said, turning to give him a look. "Okay, here we are. See, red jacket
right where I said." Ray looked ahead, and sure enough, they were coming
up on the red jacket with dizzying speed.
 
 "Thanks for the lift," Ray said.
 
 "Hey, no problem, just had to give the ol' carburetor a good workout,"
Pike said. "I should get a seventy-one Riv myself. Like you always say,
they haven't built a car yet that can take one of them."
 
 "Is there anything you don't know about me?" Ray demanded.
 
 Pike slowed down till the speedometer was reading 40. "I'd tell you, but
there's no time," he said. "Well, it's been fun, Vecchio. Say hi to
Kowalski for me." Ray just nodded, opened the door and jumped out of the
moving car, running forward till he could stop himself. Fraser helped him
with that, jarring him to a halt as Pike's car melted back into the
traffic and was gone from view.
 
 "Long story, Benny," Ray explained. "Let's get to the Illinois Central
freight yard."
 
 "I brought the car around to the front," Fraser said. "I take it Pike had
more useful information?"
 
 "Like I said, long story."
 
 **********
 
 With the help of Ray's red dashlight, they were at the freight yard in
record time. Ray found the described track and locomotive, and he came to
a halt next to it and cut the engine. He and Fraser got out of the car and
leaped up the ladder to the engine's catwalk, then entered the cab.
 
 "Better find the on switch soon, Benny," Ray said.
 
 Fraser hesitated briefly, prompting a deprecating reaction from Ray. "I'm
sorry for lingering, Ray, but it's recommended that we let the engine idle
for one hour before we set it in motion, so..."
 
 "And you seriously think we have an hour?" Ray demanded.
 
 "Understood." Fraser punched the ignition switch, and the engine trembled
and rumbled to life. Once its pitch had risen to a steady idle, Fraser
started studying the myriad levers and switches pointing at him. "All
right," he said. "Now, on the Musical Ride train a couple of years ago, I
was able to take a cursory note of the basic operations of the locomotive.
Although it was a different model from this one, I don't believe it's
entirely dissimilar--"
 
 "Okay, my turn," Ray said, elbowing him out of the way. 
 
 "You know the operations, Ray?"
 
 "You're not the only one who studied operations on that train, Benny."
Ray plunked himself down at the controls, located the throttle, and
notched it out two spots. The engine noise rose in pitch, and the short
train shuddered into motion, moving on out of the yard. Ray notched the
throttle out a little more, and Fraser stood back, rather impressed to see
Ray handling it so well. He just wished that the startup could go a little
faster.
 
 **********
 
 It was the noise of crunching metal that woke Pete up. He was a tad
groggy, and he shook his head to clear it. As he tried to rub sleep out of
his face, that was when he discovered that his right hand was cuffed to
the steering wheel of a stripped and dilapidated car. He looked around
him, and the car was some distance off the ground, probably sitting on top
of several cars in similar condition. It was in the middle of an auto
junkyard, and the crunching metal turned out to be another car being
flattened by the crusher. 
 
 Immediately Pete's breath and pulse quickened, because he knew that was
the fate that awaited him. He felt a warm presence beside him, and he
found that the same fate awaited Celine; she was in the driver's seat
beside him, and her left hand was cuffed to the doorjamb. She was still
unconscious, and Pete decided not to wake her up, preferring that she die
without fear or pain. 
 
 The forklift picked the flattened car up from the crusher and conveyed it
over to a heap of other flattened cars nearby, and then it turned toward
the car they were in. Pete got his breath under control, accepting his
imminent death, and just hoping that someone would find out about it and
bring the Iguana family to justice. Unfortunately, his knowledge of the
mob told him that it was highly unlikely anybody would find out. Now the
forklift was picking the car off the pile, and the rocking and clunking
awoke Celine.
 
 "Hmm..." she groaned, raising her head. "Where are..."
 
 "Um, you don't want to know," Pete told her.
 
 Celine blinked rapidly, cleared her vision, and looked out the window
beside her. On seing the car crusher growing closer, she gasped and
recoiled. "Ohmigod," she cried. "Oh, God, no, not this!" As she fought
frantically to break the handcuffs, Pete grabbed her by the shoulders with
his free arm and hugged her close to him.
 
 "Celine, no!" he said. "Celine! Calm down, this won't do any good. We're
perfectly stuck."
 
 "Then this is it," Celine said tonelessly. "We're gonna die. After
everything, the protection, arresting Ford, finding out who put the hit on
my mom, you getting me out of the first scrape, now we're gonna die."
 
 "It does look that way," Pete noted. "At least you'll see your mother
again. That's the bright side--well, it's the only bright side I can think
of."
 
 Celine turned her head and gazed up at him, and he could read the mixture
of fear and sorrow in her eyes. "I didn't think it would come to this so
soon," she said softly. "Now that it's coming, I want you to know I'm
grateful for everything you did, and I always was. And I'm glad we're
going to die together. And..." Celine's voice trailed off, and the
forklift started to lower as it drew near the crusher.
 
 Pete cocked an eyebrow and squeezed Celine's arm, and it prompted her to
finish thickly, "And I love you."
 
 Pete smiled, and a wistful look crossed his face. "You know, at first it
was your basketball prowess, but soon it was a lot more than that," he
said. "It was how much fun you were to be with and talk to, your warm
feelings, the beautiful personality you developed in no time, that made me
love you too." 
 
 The forklift rather abruptly dropped the car into the crusher, jolting
both kids around a little in the seat and bumping their heads together
right at the mouth. The kiss was almost entirely accidental, but now that
it had come about, neither of them wanted it to end. Celine's kiss nearly
sucked Pete's breath out, and Pete felt like the rest of his life had gone
by before it was over.
 
 "Do you remember the Twenty-third Psalm?" he asked, resting his forehead
against hers.
 
 "Clear as a bell."
 
 "Let's pray that God listens." Pete hugged Celine as closely as he could,
and they both started to whisper the Psalm in unison. They heard the
grinding sound of the crusher descending toward the car's roof, and Celine
squeezed her eyes tightly shut and prayed even harder. Pete bent over and
covered her as if to protect her from the unforgiving machine, and he
watched it swinging gradually down upon the car. A tear trickled down
Celine's face, and she ground her teeth together, not daring to look.
 
 Also watching the crusher was Bill Deeter, standing at the controls and
occasionally looking at the two inside the car. Funny, they didn't look as
terrified as he'd expected, or hoped. Religious types--he'd never gotten
along with them. It was no wonder he hadn't gotten too close to the center
of the syndicate. 
 
 Pete could see that the crusher would be touching the car's roof any time
now. He squinted as he looked up and saw the ceiling start to buckle, and
Celine clenched her teeth even tighter and gulped. She was wincing so hard
that her neck muscles cramped.
 
 Intently watching the crusher, Deeter wasn't aware of the locomotive and
brief train rumbling up the tracks right behind him. He wasn't the least
bit aware of it until Ray Vecchio, standing on the catwalk around the
engine's nose, leaped off of it and into Deeter from behind. He knocked
him flat to the ground, scrambled to his feet, took a long step over to
the crusher controls and shoved every lever into reverse. The crusher
halted just as the car's ceiling was about to touch Pete's head, and it
began to swing back up. Pete stared in amazement, and he shook Celine, who
opened her eyes and saw the crusher receding. She gasped for joy and
almost laughed, and she and Pete hugged each other tightly with their free
arms.
 
 Ray was otherwise engaged at the moment, and couldn't rejoice in
anything. The guy in the forklift was getting up with a gun in his hand,
and Ray plugged him as quickly as he could. The forklift operator cried
out in pain and fell backwards out of the lift, and Ray trained his gun on
Deeter, who was getting back to his feet.
 
 "Not another twitch, pal, or you're going to hell with him," he barked.
"Iron on the ground. NOW!"
 
 Stiffly, Deeter reached back and took his gun from his belt, then tossed
it aside and raised his hands. "You're not scaring me, Vecchio," he said.
"I know you're not the Bookman."
 
 "No, you know the Bookman was killed by your partner's own hand," Ray
snapped. "But he wasn't the only victim of this little conspiracy of
yours. Marie Comerford joined him in that capacity."
 
 "You know this for a fact?"
 
 "Yeah, I do. You went undercover with the Iguana family long before I
did, that's how you knew about Langoustini in the first place. If I don't
miss my guess, you got corrupted pretty damn bad, you went from undercover
agent to full-blooded mob guy. You came back, and you and Ford would have
loved to see me dead, so you whacked Langoustini and sent me in on the off
chance that they'd find me out and kill me, too. You did that by sending
in those other Feds to blow my cover. Only catch was, Fraser and Kowalski
showed up and gave me the chance to eliminate that."
 
 "You're getting as clever as your Mountie friend," Deeter noted. "Yeah,
this is all great, but what makes you think we had anything to do with
Marie Comerford?"
 
 "Because you and Ford told me to stay off the Langoustini case," Ray
answered, noticing that Pete and Celine were listening closely. "That's
when you found out Celine was my snitch. There was only one place she
could have gotten that information, and that was from her mother, the ATF
librarian. You couldn't have information getting from Marie to Celine to
me, so you had to kill Marie and make it look like a mob hit. You'd be in
the clear if we thought the Crosetto family was behind it, and you called
in your cronies from the Iguana family to hit Marie. Cover story: you'd
blame Langoustini's death on the Crosetto family and make it look like
Marie was leaking that information to us. No loose ends, either, so you
had to kill Celine as well, and you got some guys from the FBI to kidnap
Celine so you could hold her for your mob pals. Cover story: you were
taking her to the witness protection program. And you had to kill Fraser
and me, too, to keep us from squawking, so you asked Ford to go to New
Hampshire and set up a fire on the bus. Nice solid alibi for you."
 
 "You'll have a hard time proving that, Vecchio," Deeter said scornfully.
 
 "The hell he will!"
 
 Deeter spun around at the sound of the new voice, and Ray stared past
him. From behind the forklift came Pike, gun held on Deeter and still
puffing that cigar. "He'll have me to back him up," Pike said. "And I know
everything. I know everything about you, the Iguana family, Langoustini,
Ford, the Comerford case, and I couldn't have said it any better than he
did."
 
 "Who the hell are you?"
 
 "Name's Pike. Suite Three, Sixth Sub-basement, Building Twelve, Third
Sub-area, Chicago Office, Midwestern Area, Eastern Division, Central
Intelligence Agency. We know everything, buddy. We know who you are and we
know what you did. I've got me a full covert strike team just waiting for
you to make a funny move. So, you going to make a funny move, or you going
to own up to this?"
 
 Deeter sighed; he was cornered, and he no longer had any backup. There
was nothing else he could say to dispel what Ray had said. Now there was
corroboration, and from Ray's mention of the Crosetto family, Deeter knew
that there was proof. He turned his back to Ray and lowered his hands, and
Ray stuck his gun in his belt and pulled his handcuffs out. As he was
doing so, Pike saw the train backing up and slowing to a halt on the
tracks near them, and Fraser stepped out of the cab and climbed down to
the ground.
 
 "William Deeter," Ray announced in a low voice, "you're under arrest for
the murder of Marie Comerford, and the attempted murder of Celine
Comerford. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can
and will be used against you in a court of law, assuming the jury will
want to listen to you. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot
afford an attorney, which everyone here knows is a damned joke, one will
be provided for you without charge if he's stupid enough to want to defend
you. Do you understand these rights? Good. Let's go." He hadn't allowed
Deeter a word in edgewise, and he shoved him over to the forklift, to
which he cuffed him and then dug his cell phone out of his pocket. 
 
 "One more time, couldn't have said it better myself," Pike said to Ray
with a complimentary grin.
 
 "Yeah, thanks," Ray said, dialing the precinct number.
 
 "Good work, Ray," Fraser called to him, walking toward the crusher.
 
 "Same to you, Benny," Ray said, getting an answer on the phone. He called
in for backup, and Fraser reached the car and bent down to peer inside.  

"Are you two all right?" he asked.
 
 "We're okay now," Pete said, grinning. "But I think you'd better move
over, Fraser. Ray's getting to be a contender for you."
 
 "Ah," Fraser said. "Well, a little friendly competition can't hurt, he
and I have been having it for years. Just sit tight, we'll have you free
soon."
 
 "We can wait," Celine answered. Fraser just nodded and smiled,
understanding fully. He straightened up and walked over to Ray, who had
finished putting in the call. When Fraser's back was turned, Pete and
Celine just remained in an endless hug.
 
 Within the half hour, they were free of the car, and they were standing
off to one side as the crime unit milled around the scene. Fraser and Ray
were in the middle of it, having incited Deeter to call his cronies over
to the junkyard with the story that the last information leak was dead.
Now the lot of them were being crammed into the paddy wagon, and Fraser
and Ray watched it drive around the forklift and away from the junkyard. 
 
 "Well, doesn't that make you feel warm all over, Benny," Ray said. "About
a half dozen more mob guys safely ensconced into the lockup."
 
 "Quite warm all over, Ray. One thing I'll never understand is how a
federal agent can be so completely corrupted by organised crime. I mean,
money isn't everything."
 
 "Yeah, well, maybe in Canada, money isn't everything because there's
hardly anything to use it for. But south of the border, let's just say
that growing lettuce is a hobby you might want to get into."
 
 "Understood." They walked past the forklift, and the happy couple
consisting of Pete Porter and Celine Comerford still stood there watching
the proceedings.
 
 "Well, I've heard from some folks who don't enjoy the witness protection
program," Ray said to Celine. "There are others who like their new lives a
lot better, though. There's a lot of reasons why. But then again, you
could just leave the city altogether."
 
 "That I'd like," Celine said. "I mean, I know I'd be losing all my best
friends and I wouldn't be able to contact them, but I'd like it a lot
better than having to change my identity and make them adapt to a new
person."
 
 "Yes, that would be easier," Fraser said. "I'm sure Melissa will
understand, though, and she'll be glad to know that the Celine Comerford
she made friends with is still extant somewhere. Have you thought about
where to go?"
 
 "Didn't have to," Celine said, smiling up at Pete.
 
 "I've just been here on spring break from the U of New Hampshire," Pete
told them. "I'm going back there on Monday. Celine jumped at the chance to
come with, so all that has to get done is a little paperwork before she
can come back with me."
 
 "I'm positive I'll love it," Celine said. "We figure, there's no way the
DEA guys there have to know about me. Of course I can still hang around
for the big game tomorrow, but after that, I'm free to go."
 
 "Sounds great," Ray said. "But in that case, you'd better leave tomorrow
soyou can get her out of here ASAP." Hearing the sound of a motor, he
looked past the pile of cars behind them and saw Pike's car zooming up and
to a halt. The passenger window was open, and Pike was leaning over to it.
 
 "Can I give you lovebirds a lift?" he grinned.
 
 "Um, thanks, but I think we should..." Celine started, but she couldn't
finish, unable to think up a good excuse. Truth be told, she wasn't
looking forward to another drive with Pike.
 
 "We'd be delighted," Pete said to Pike. "Right?"
 
 Celine hesitated. Oh well, if he was happy, she might as well be happy
too. "Right," she said. They got into the back seat, and Fraser stooped to
the window.
 
 "I imagine you'll return to your search for Nautilus now," he said to
Pike.
 
 "Seek and ye shall find," Pike said. "It's been nice knowing you,
Mountie. Adios." He tossed Fraser a half-salute. 
 
 "Good day, and good luck," Fraser said, straightening up. With that, Pike
closed the window, hit the accelerator and drove out of the junkyard at
his customary eighty miles an hour. The car sped out of sight in seconds,
and Fraser and Ray watched till it had disappeared from view.
 
 "Long story?" Ray guessed.
 
 "I think we have time," Fraser said.
 
 ***********************************************************************
 Coda: Phantom Power
 
 The next day, Fraser and Ray went over to St. Fortunata's to attend the
basketball game. As Fraser had thought, Melissa was also there, and Sister
Anne. The four of them found seats together in the bleachers, and they
watched the St. Fortunata's team and the rival team, St. Anna's, warming
up. Fraser, sitting next to Melissa, glanced down at her. "So," he said
finally, "did you have any luck?"
 
 "You mean making the team?" Melissa asked. "No. I just barely missed it.
It's okay, though, Celine wasn't too disappointed. I'll really miss her." 

"Well, thanks to Detective Vecchio, there's not much left of the Iguana
family," Fraser said. "Maybe Celine can come home within a year."
 
 "I sure hope so. I mean, we're best friends, I'd hate never seeing her
again. But I guess it's better if I don't see her because she's out of
town and not dead."
 
 Fraser nodded in agreement and cocked an ear to Ray's chat with Sister
Anne. "We've concealed a metal detector at the door," Ray was saying. "If
anybody comes in with a firearm, we'll know about it. I've also got
undercovers in here watching any possible sniper spot." 
 
 "That's great, Ray, thanks," Sister Anne said. "That's the best sense of
security we could have, for me as well as Celine. This is one time when
Celine's nickname will come in handy."	

"You mean the Phantom?" Ray said. "She proved it when we were playing a
couple of days ago. She'll be okay."
 
 Sister Anne nodded, a little more reassured. She looked down the
bleachers and saw Celine standing behind the player bench with Pete,
having a pre-game chat.
 
 "I talked to Ray, and he said it would be best if we leave right after
the game, and not let anybody hold us up," he said. "We'll be under escort
all the way."
 
 "Good. My last big game in this gym, I'll miss it." Celine looked around
rather wistfully, and Pete patted her arm. 
 
 "I know plenty of others at UNH," he said. "Be a great way to kill time
together. Anyway, since it's your last game here, best of luck." He gave
Celine a kiss, and she thanked him, knowing now that she'd do well.
 
 Pete sat with Fraser, Ray, Sister Anne and Melissa in the bleachers, and
the game was on. Living up to her nickname, Celine was hiding in the back
of the St. Fortunata's team, waiting for an opening to get to the front
and pinch the ball. She found such an opportunity in no time, moving
forward, hiding behind other players, stooping to keep herself concealed,
until she made it to the ball and whipped it out of a knot of three or
four players who were trying to claim the ball simultaneously. Celine
vanished, and when she reappeared again, she was running like the wind
alongside the foul line. She got within maximum range of the basket and
shot, leaping so high into the air that Ray could see a contender for
Michael Jordan in her. He was positive of it when the ball fell through
the basket without a hitch, and Sister Anne repeated to herself that it
was a good thing that the announcer was referring to her only as "The
Phantom." She and the others applauded, and the game resumed.
 
 It went on like this for all four quarters, except that Celine had plenty
of other tricks up her sleeve. Hanging from the backboard and then swiping
the ball from an opposing player worked to perfect advantage, as did
hiding behind other players, many times. Unfortunately, there was a point
in the middle of the second quarter when St. Anna's was pulling ahead, but
a glut of encouragement from Fraser, Ray and company spurred Celine to
dive right into the action. 
 
 By the end of the quarter, she'd helped to bring it up to a tie. A free
throw by one of her teammates broke the tie and got St. Fortunata's back
into the lead, and she went back to appearing and disappearing with
regularity. She was bouncing the cover off the ball by the middle of the
fourth quarter, and her uniform was sopping wet. The fourth quarter was
ending in another tie, until a notorious St. Anna's player got the ball
and drove for the basket, dodging St. Fortunata's players like nobody's
business. She was within throwing range in seconds, and she made a shot
that was inevitably going in and breaking the tie in St. Anna's favour.
 
 Not if Celine had anything to say about it.
 
 Hiding on the other side of the team, she sprinted for the basket, leaped
up and grabbed it, and pulled herself up just far enough. The ball flew
into her free hand, and she dunked it, receiving a deafening cheer from
the St. Fortunata's spectators and players. Game over, 42-40 win for St.
Fortunata's. Celine was thankful that it was a different kind of mob that
was all over her after the buzzer sounded, and soon, the hugs from Fraser
and Ray and their companions were making her back sore. Nonetheless, in
the middle of all the hard changes she'd have to make, she had something
to be happy about while leaving Chicago. 
 
 finis
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 Copyright 1998 by Chris Lark. All rights to Due South are reserved by
Alliance Communications and CTV, and no infringement in the least is
intended. Please do not reproduce this work for any purpose but personal,
or copy to any other Web sites, without author's permission. Please do
feel free to E-mail me at cql@hopper.unh.edu with any questions you might
have.
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