She was followed by a flurry of small birds that settled on the street by the exit of the alley, and by one bodyguard. The cape was burly, wearing a skintight suit that showed off his muscles, and wore a heavy cloth hood with eyeholes cut out, a series of ‘x’ stitches forming a frowny-face. The lines around his eyes were cut deep. Very weary. He stood with his hands clasped behind him.

On the other side of the tunnel, one of the men that had been eating in the plaza had approached. He now stood with his back ramrod straight, his hands clasped behind him. Very clean cut, hair short and styled, recently shaved, t-shirt, black slacks, and shiny black shoes.

I knew Tattletale knew how my forcefield worked. If the man had a gun, he was potentially a danger to me.

“I like the cat,” I said, pointing. “Subtle.”

“Fifteen minutes, Vicky,” Tattletale said. “It’s going to be a lot less if you want to make small talk. If this becomes you wagging your finger at me and acting all holier-than-thou, I’m walking. I’m busy these days. The only reason I’m giving you time out of my day is hometown respect.”

I fished in my pocket. I pulled out the paper. “This isn’t because you wanted to talk to me?”

“When you’re positioned like I am, you can’t ever do one thing. That message was intended to do a few things at once.”

“I couldn’t help but notice your use of ‘Glory Hole’. Seemed unnecessarily antagonistic.”

She leaned against the wall by the cat’s head and smiled at me. “One, I’m unnecessarily antagonistic. Two, it serves to let you know who the letter is from, it pushes you off balance if you’re in a position to be easily put off balance, which I would want to know about, and finally, three, if the messenger is the type to ignore my instructions, read the letter and try using that phrasing against you, then they’re liable to get hurt. That makes it clear I’m to be listened to. Cleat isn’t the brightest, and he could stand to learn that lesson.”

“And you wanting to talk to me wasn’t one of your reasons?”

“That’s something else entirely. I offered Hollow Point three asks at a significant discount. Three times they can reach out to me and get info, now that they’ve paid. I did this to get them into my debt, to see if they were intelligent enough to ask good questions, and to get them used to paying me money for intel. If that tide somehow rises, I want my fortunes to rise with it. You turned up, and they wanted to know, were you the first of a larger group of heroes who were going to make a move? Who were you, and what role did you play?”