Back at the cave, Lucky continued her research and Phoenix got indignant about Holly Shapiro's latest article. After spending some fruitless time with Scott's errand, in which she made some progress but not nearly enough to dig up anything truly useful, something occurred to her. A small smile spreading across her face, Lucky called Muse.
    "Hello, K. Robeson Enterprises?"
    "Hello, this is Lucky, is Muse there?"
    "Who?"
    "Uh, Mr. Oliver."
    "Hold on just a moment. Lucky's on line two," she called.
    "Yes, how are you?"
    "I have an idea."
    "What's that?"
    "We need to stir up some trouble." I could start to like operating like this, she decided.
    "How so?"
    "I've got the names of a bunch of Mafia personalities who aren't supposed to be causing any trouble in the city, and were paid quite a sum of money not to do so. I need some complaints from various personalities to start coming in to the police station about them and a particular bar, Sal's Pool Hall. Here's the names." She listed a dozen.
    "Okay."
    "And one gentleman in particular, Billy Frascatore." The smile became a grin.
    "So you want like local people to be complainin' about da noise and stuff, or are dey actually committin' crimes?" a new accent inquired.
    "Crimes," she replied firmly.
    "I can't believe the nerve of these people," Larry's usual cultured tones responded. "I will see that it's done."

    A different conference room.
    The same men. In addition to the usual five, there were ten or so large, muscular individuals in the shadows. The place would appear to be a warehouse of some sort. The general mood was grim.
    "The bomb went off," the leader stated. "Please tell me that we got some of them?"
    "From the reports we've gotten, I'd have to say no," a reluctant subordinate replied. "It certainly looks like Silver was there, managed to defend one of the strike team, everything else was a loss, at least the media can paint that in our favor. A lot of people saw him there, but it depends on the statement the strike team leader makes."
    "Shit. All right, they've got Gordon?"
    "Yeah."
    Tapped fingers. "Do we think it was them who stole the computer?"
    "The way it looks now, yeah, it doesn't look like Javelin was responsible for it like we thought originally."
    Tap, tap, tap. "We're being outmaneuvered. Someone pointed us in that direction. They knew where to hit us, how did they know where to hit us? Must have been some type of outside influence," he decided.
    "Think it might have been the director?" another offered hesitantly.
    "No," the leader growled. "No. We can still pull out of this. The city is not totally lost. Crime is still at an absolute low, the people are still operating against the—" A phone rang and was picked up by a quick-moving subordinate.
    "Yes?" He set it down after a moment. "Frascatore and his idiots are going on some kind of crime spree in South Boston."
    "What?!" the leader expostulated.
    "We got reports from half a dozen witnesses that they were breaking into buildings, boosting cars—"
    "Oh come on! Is there anything else that can go wrong? All right," he said after a moment to regain control. "Have we had any luck in tracking down Prentice?"
    "No sir, nothing. He's an utterly blank slate."
    "You're kidding me. No one can stay hidden this long."
    "He did." A shrug. "We were tracking all of them, they never went back in any way that we could find, we were never able to keep a tail on them long enough, and as far as any records go he doesn't exist. Wherever he is, he hasn't left the building."
    "It might be him. He could have pointed them in the right direction. All he'd need is one good flash. I can't believe these people are outmaneuvering us," he muttered, flinging himself back in the chair. Tap, tap. Tap tap. "Right. Fair enough. Okay, try and keep a lid on everything. All we need is a couple more hours and we can make sure that all of this works our way. I mean, what else could go wrong?"
    The phone rang again.

    Lucky continued her work. This wasn't getting her anywhere, she decided. Vincent would know these names, would know where to point her, and he had an interest in how it all turned out. She printed out some things to show him and headed toward his Cape Cod house. Traffic was bad.

    Phoenix Talon watched TV and listened to the police scanner. Heard something going on at Sal's. Hey, something he could do! He headed out over the rooftops, surfed the top of the Orange Line for a while, a silent shadow speeding through the city.

    Scott headed for Winters' office and called Needle.

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