Lucky reached the pool hall about an hour after they opened. The place was packed, she observed from some distance away, over a dozen people there in the early afternoon. All of them had mob connections, and she recognized a number of scents. They were playing pool and drinking beer, chatting with each other. She listened for a while and picked up the general situation.
    Someone was paying them a lot to sit around and do nothing. Don't go out, don't rob anything, don't run any scams. Do nothing. They grumbled about how hard it would be to get everything rolling again afterward, but for the amount they were getting paid to cause no trouble, it was worth it. She noted that from the way the others spoke to him, Billy had moved up in the organization—not surprising, given the attrition rate in Boston these days. He was Somebody now, or about to be.
    Hm. She called the desk.
    "Sal's Pool Hall," came the answer.
    "Yeah, this is Lucky," she drawled. "Billy there?"
    Silence. "Uh... hold on. Billy, are you here?" Through the window she could see him shaking his head vehemently at someone in back. "No, he ain't here. You want me to take a message in case he shows up?"
    "Yeah." She threw the staff, aiming for where she knew Billy was sitting. It caught him square and sent him spinning to the floor. Everyone in the room turned as she loomed up through the shattered window. Lucky smiled and crooked a finger. "Billy," she murmured, "come here. And if I were the rest of you, I'd leave. Now!"
    A general scramble left Billy alone in the center of the room. He grabbed a pool cue and held it between them defiantly. Then he looked at the glowing staff in her hands and seemed to wilt.
    "You know, I've been wantin' a date with you for years," she told him, still smiling.
    "Jesus, Lucky..."
    "Would you please tell me who you're working for?"
    "I don't know anything."
    "Tell me what you do know!" She vaulted through the window. "Billy..." He was backing away. A few others cowered in corners. She reached out one-handed and flipped over a pool table as she walked past. The remaining witnesses ran for the door. "Billy? On your knees."
    "Jesus don't kill me." His eyes were very wide.
    "Down!"
    Billy dropped. "I just got a name and number," he stammered. "The guy the orders started coming through—"
    "Now. Tell me, now."
    "Tony Z., it's the only name I got, I got a phone number."
    "Tell me the number now."
    He stuttered it out.
    "Thank you. Have a nice day." She turned around. The bartender had one hand on the phone; he froze when she looked at him. "I like you," she told him softly, "and that's why I'm not torching your place. I'd keep my hands off the phone if I were you." She touched her ear. "I got really good hearing. And if I hear you make this phone call before I'm outta here, I'll do it."
    He moved his hand slowly away from the phone. She headed out, back to the base. Called Scott on the way and told him the number, which seemed to be connected to someone named either Gordon or Mitchell.
    "I know where that is, I was there last night," he told her.
    "Where?"
    "It's in the financial district."
    "And? What'd you find?"
    "A hard drive full of encrypted data which includes how to build Needle from a kit. We're working on decoding the rest of it, I have no idea what's in there but it's a very large hard drive."
    "I'm gonna go back to base and do that research you asked me for."
    "I'll see you later."
    "Bye."
    Speaking of research. She called Vincent.
    "You've reached Vincent Guiliani's residence," a pleasant female voice replied.
    "This is Kyla McKay, can I speak to him?"
    "Hold on, Ms. McKay."
    "Kyla, how are you?" he answered, sounding more vigorous than before.
    "Very well, yourself?"
    "I'm on a new medication, it seems to be helping."
    "Glad to hear it. You wouldn't happen to know of any safe houses for a Mr. Gordon?"
    "Don't know the name."
    "How about Lynn Mitchell?"
    "Still a blank."
    "Um. Do you know anybody I can ask?"
    "Are these the name of the people responsible for what has been going on in the city?"
    "I think they might know something about it."
    "If they know something about it, that means they're new. They probably have their own location somewhere. Unless they've gobbled up parts of the business interests that were owned by my... business competitor during their hostile takeover."
    "Okay. By the way, if I were you I wouldn't trust Billy Frascatore."
    "Billy was never mine," he reminded her. "He was Aliese's."
    "I know, but you guys were... friends."
    "I'm finding that a lot of the people in Aliese's corporation have a limited amount of corporate loyalty, and have accepted this buyout with more speed than I would have liked."
    "Sorry to hear that," she told him, for lack of anything better to say.
    "Well, you have to expect a certain degree of 'brain drain' when you have these operations, but it certainly does separate the wheat from the chaff. I'm sure that when I reorganize my business interests, they're be with a sufficiently higher caliber of employee."
    When. Yeah. "I need to go do some research."
    "I'm glad you're working your way through the problem."
    "Thank you for the advice."
    "Good afternoon."

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