“No,” Fitz said. “It’s about gangs. Dresden said you knew them.”

Nick shrugged one shoulder. “Some.”

“A man I know was abducted,” Fitz said. “There’s a description of the guy we think did it.” Fitz dished out what I remembered about the thug who had broken into Morty’s house.

Nick listened to it all without saying a word. Then he nodded once. Then he asked, “Who is this man to you?”

“No idea,” Fitz said. “You’re the expert.”

“Not the kidnapper.” Nick sighed. “The victim.”

Fitz hardly hesitated. “My uncle.”

Nick mused over that. Then he said, “I am too old to get up in the middle of the night and get conned. Get out.”

“Wait,” Fitz said, holding out a hand. “Wait, please.”

Nick opened the top drawer again, but this time he came out with an old 1911. He didn’t point it at Fitz. “Good try, kid. But I’ve been in this town a while. Walk back to the door and let yourself out.”

“Dammit,” I muttered. “Fitz, listen to me. Tell him this, word for word.”

Fitz listened, nodded, and then said, “I can’t tell you everything for a reason, Mr. Christian. Dresden said you and he had an understanding. That you wanted nothing to do with his side of the street.”

“I don’t,” he said. “Get out.”

I fed Fitz his next line.

“He also said that you owed him a favor.”

Nick narrowed his eyes to slits. “What favor?”

Fitz listened to me, then said, “All the money and fame the Astor case brought you.”

Nick arched an eyebrow. “All the…” He looked away and shook his head. He couldn’t keep the smile off his mouth, until he finally snorted. When he spoke, there was laughter under his words. “That sounds like Harry.”

The Astor case had been about a little girl lost. Her parents cared more about the fame of having an abducted daughter than they did about her, and when she ran off one day, they hired the child-recovery specialist Nick Christian and his apprentice, Harry Dresden, to find her. We did. She hadn’t been kidnapped, but the Astors had reported her so, and, in the absence of an actual perpetrator, fingered Nick and me. It had been a trick and a half to get her safely back into her parents’ custody without going to jail. There was a lawsuit afterward. The judge threw it out. But, all in all, finding that little girl had cost Nick about two thousand bucks.

Nick hadn’t wanted to take the case. I had talked him into it. He had wanted to cut and run the moment I confirmed the kid was at liberty. I had talked him into seeing it through, being sure she was safe. When I’d completed my apprenticeship, Nick’s graduation present had been to forgive me the two grand I owed him.

“You were tight with him?” Nick asked.

“He was sort of my adviser,” Fitz said. “Sometimes it’s almost like he’s right there next to me, still.”