"Anticlimatic."

"If you didn't interrupt so much you'd know that the story doesn't end there."

"It doesn't?"

"Of course not, moron."

"Hey, no need for name calling."

"There is if you ask stupid questions."

"The only stupid question is the one you don't ask."

"Falsities like that are the reason that Yugyeom wants to work with me again."

"That's just because he doesn't like the gore from having to run homicide with me."

"Have you ever considered that he's not a sociopath like you and doesn't like to see people all sliced up?"

"He almost threw up on the scene!"

"He told me about that. I didn't fare too well either the first time I seen entrails used like that."

"Whatever. He'll grow out of it."

"Mmm. I'm sure. I'm just not sure he'll ever grow into you."

"So what happened to Carly? Was that it? Dinner and then she was on her way?"

"You don't know Carly. That's not how she works. She wasn't like that with Jinyoung, she wasn't like that with me."

"What was she like with Jinyoung?"

"She told me that she didn't know him very well, and for Carly, that was true. But she knew more than enough to help us if we had thought to ask her different questions about her involvement with him."

"Involvement? Were they sleeping together, do you think?"

"No. Jinyoung was a friend of hers, nothing else."

"Who confirmed that?"

"Jinyoung did."

"Alright then. What happened next?"

"Well, I got to know Carly better."

---

"What did Silver Belle have to say to you?"

Jaebum stopped as the door to the station swung shut behind him. "Were you just spying on me?"

"Nothing wrong with watching out for a friend."

"And did you just call her Silver Belle? What is she, the title of an novel?"

"No, she was wearing shimmery silver heels. I've never seen something like that before. Think it might be a trademark of hers or something?"

" . . ."

"Don't tell me you never noticed if she had a constantly recurring article of clothing and you missed it."

"I didn't miss it, I just never thought about it like that."

Mark's snarky response died on his tongue and he wrapped an arm around his friend's shoulders. "You're really off your game lately, huh?"

"My entire case lineup involves Carly Lee and I just have the feeling that she's the connecting link but I don't know how. No one in those organizations that I've spoken to know her as much more than someone the bosses bring in occasionally. She doesn't talk to them and she admitted today that she scopes places out. That can't be all she does, though. It just can't."

"How are you so sure?"

"Because people's names don't get out like that unless she's the best at what she does. And I just can't see how her being a bad-guy private detective makes her the kind of invaluable asset that she would need to be to have her name out like that."

"You really need some sleep."

Jaebum rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to clock out now and head home."

"Hey wait, you never told me what she had to say to you in the parking lot." Mark called out after him.

"She wants to take me out for dinner."

"Really?"

He ran a hand through his hair, his cheeks puffing as he blew out air. "Nuts, isn't it?"

"Well, are you going to go?"

"Should I? I don't want to compromise my intergrity on the case. It would be a real pain in the for me to come under investigation for blurring the lines to let her slip away if she had involvement with these groups and I haven't done anything."

"Look, I think you should do it. There are a lot of opportunities when you're not in an interrogation room for intel gathering and people are more likely to talk there. That's why I go to all of my scenes in streetclothes and talk to the witnesses like that. Hell, it's just a dinner. Who in their right mind could convince a panel or judge that you were bribed to help her with a dinner?"

"Okay, okay." Jaebum eyed Mark skeptically. "Why do you want me to go so bad?"

"Well, it'd be good to have you somewhere other than the station or the couch of your apartment with people other than Yugyeom and that creepy cat poster on your living room wall."

"That poster is my motivation for life, don't you dare badmouth it." Jaebum warned playfully. "And there is nothing wrong with Yugyeom. He's good at what he does and is pleasant company."

A short, slender Thai man walked through the door in the front of the station, eyes flickering between the two detectives. He nodded at Mark and circled around them.

"I'll trade you Bambam for Yugyeom."

"Not in a million years. I know how that little talks to you."

"I am not little!" The Thai man yelled, spinning around in indignance. 

Jaebum looked him up and down once, eyebrow raising. "I just interrogated a woman with more muscle mass in her bicep than you have in your thigh. You're definitely small."

"See? You could definitely handle Bambam."

"My name is Kunpimook!"

"It's more than I don't want you to make Yugyeom cry. You can be a real hardass."

"Oh, and you aren't?"

"Not like you."

"Just go have dinner, you pain in the ." Mark griped, dismissing him. "C'mon, Bam. We have the reports from the coroner's office to look through."

"Ugh. I hate that guy. Do we have to? Can't we knock off early?"

Mark cuffed up upside the head anad pulled him under his arm. "Absolutely not. We've got three homicides we're working on. That's three families who deserve answers."

". You know I was joking."

"Mmm." Mark waved over his shoulder at Jaebum, walking off with his younger counterpart. "Good luck tonight, Jae!"

"Is that why you had me-? Oooooh." Bambam gave him a dark smile and waved too. "Have a very good nght, Detective Im."

Jaebum watched them until they disappeared around the corner into another nest of cubicles. He shook himself out and went down to his locket, grabbing his stuff and going to his car. He didn't know what they were up to, but he was too tired to figure it out and frankly, he didn't want to know.

---

Jaebum hadn't been in the pub for more than five minutes before Carly slid into the booth across from him. Her hair was loose still, but she had traded her business attire for soft, black skinny jeans that hugged powerful thighs and an overlarge black t-shirt. It caught his attention now that Mark had mentioned it - she was wearing those silver shoes. 

"I honestly didn't think you'd come." She said, smiling. "I'm glad you did."

"Well, it would be rude to make a date and not come, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose. Have you ever been here before?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Do you like burgers or more a chicken man?"

"Burgers are fine."

"There's a good sirloin one he does here and his fries are to die for, even if its a little bit of a longer wait than normal."

"It's fine."

A waitress floated over, handing them menus and taking their drink orders. When she was gone, Jaebum leaned back in his seat and caught Carly's gaze. 

"So, what did you bring me out here for? What's your real motive?"

Carly sighed, pushiing come silvery blonde hair out of her face. "I know you gathered that I'm an information broker. I'm not interested in hiding anything from the cops or the feds. I don't do info dealing on government institutions. Not even hospitals or schools."

He blinked. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you need to know." She pushed down the neckline of her shirt, showing off a portion of her shoulder. Along her shoulder was a thick patchwork of scarring. "This was because of a cartel in Texas. They wanted information from DEA units in Dallas and I refused. They shot me, asked me again, and I refused a second time."

"How are you still alive?"

"I hadn't finished another job they asked of me. So, when they paid me, I sent them the information in the mail and left for Nevada."

Jaebum shook his head and she let her shirt go, the collar jumping back up to sit where it was supposed to. "You're crazy."

She smiled. "A little."

"But seriously, what's your angle? You have to have a reason to bring me out here. You have stuff you want to say, but didn't want to say in the station."

She grinned. "Okay, I do want to talk to you about things, but not things I wouldn't happily repeat infront of your cameras."

"What is it then?"

She watched him for a moment. "You have the most stunning, sharp eyes I've ever seen. Not to mention those cheekbones of yours and the smooth flex of your face. I've had to try really hard not to trace it with my fingers."

"No, seriously."

"That was serious. You're beautiful. as for the cases, though, I think I need to know more about them to know what you're looking for from me. I told you that I have no problem working with you and helping you and I intend to prove that."

"And you want me to tell you the intimate details of this case."

"I would like you to, but ultimately, that's your call, Detective JB." She winked at him, a smile on her face that seemed permanent. How was it possible for someone to be so happy and carefree all the time?

"What I'm looking to do is establish your relationship to organized crime to help us decide whether or not you count as an accomplice to their recent crime and killing sprees. They all tell us your name and we need to know what you have to do with them."

"Oh." Her smile fell. "In that case, this is what you need to know. They don't tell me anything about the locations they send me to. All locations are public access and everything I report back to them are things that anyone, if they were looking for it, would know about. Things like fire escapes, common patrons, shift changes, camera positioning and number of staff members. They don't tell me why they want me to go to these places, usually don't tell me what they're looking for or if what they'e paid me to find and report to them is the info they even need. I get paid ten days after the deal and deliver the information usually in person to them on the eleventh day. I am an independant contractor as far as they're concerned. I warn all my clients that I don't want to know what they're up to, why they want it and make it very clear that I will cooperate with the police and am totally willing to sell anything they give to me anyone willing to pay for it."

"So you have no connnections to mafia or gang violence?"

"None. I don't know if getting plain-sight information counts as being an accomplice or an assistant to these murders you're dealing with or not, but that's the bare bones of the issue."

"If I were to give you a list of names, couold you check off your employers?"

"Absolutely. I am usually contacted by the same people over and over again."

"Would you do it?"

"Absolutely."

"Would you be willing to testify against them?"

"Yes."

"Even with threats against you?"

She sat forwards and leaned over the table. "JB, that's the beauty of living in the States alone. There is no one to hold over my head and if they come to kill me, so be it. I've done fine in life and I have no regrets to die with."

"Everyone says that before the guns and knives come."

She raised an eyebrow. "I've already been shot. What more is there really?"

He shrugged. "I'm not arguing, just pointing out the fact that you have options."

"If my clients don't believe me, that's their problem, but I was explicitly clear. I'm not willing to go to jail for anybody I work for."

"Even Park Jinyoung?"

"Junior never did anything wrong. He was just a casino-hotel manager." She replied.

The waitress came back with their drinks and their food, smiling at them as she left, sending more of a leer Jaebum's way.

"Is it my turn to ask questions?"

Jaebum looked up from his meal. "If you want to."

"What's with all the piercings?"

" . . . I like them."

"I do to, that's why I want to know why you got them."

He munched thoughtfully on a fry. "I used to be a real when I was a teenager. One of the things I did to give my mother a heart attack was get all these piercings. But even after I grew out of that phase, I still liked them, so I kept them."

"Are you American?"

"Nah. Korean."

"I thought so. Do you speak Korean?"

"Yeah."

The switch in her voice caught him off guard and her nearly flawless Korean even more so. "Good then. I don't like when I'm having personal conversations and other people can listen in."

He hadn't used his Korean in almost six years - sans talking to his mom - and it felt a little rusty to use it again. "Wow. I woudn't have guessed you speak Korean."

"Normally I don't. Don't know a lot of Korean people. I was really into languages as a kid and learned a whole bunch. It came in handy for passing Junior information in a crowded location."

"I bet." He considered something. "Did Jinyoung ever give you specific instructions?"

"More often than not. He had things he was looking for. Mostly, I watched employees for him and the comings and goings on in the VIP areas of the hotels and casinoes. He would send me to specific ones each day for specific times and I would pass on observations about the goings on when he came in for his shifts."

"Huh."

"Yeah. I can't say that I understood why he had us doing things that way, but that's how it was. Why are you so interested in him, specifically, if I may ask?"

"In order to get help from the FBI on the case in LA, they want me to do work for them first involving you and the happenings in Vegas."

She nodded in solemn understanding. "Well, they probably already know everything I just told you, but you're free to tell them about what I said."

He gave a rueful smile. "Thanks."

"I'm sorry I'm not much help. You would really think I know more about all this, but I purposefully kept my nose clean so that nothing bad could happen."

"No, no. I'm happy you did. The less people who are guilty, the better it is. I don't like sending people to prison and certainly not the innocent ones if I can help it."

"That's pretty noble."

"Well, I try."

She paused in eating, taking a moment to grab a sip of her drink. "It's a violation of privacy and policy to tell me the ins and outs of the case, isn't it?"

Jaebum caught her eye. "Afraid so."

She wrinkled her nose playfully at him. "Too bad. Otherwise I might be able to help you."

And just like that, he got an idea.