Out of the Black - Lee Doty [40]
She hobbled toward the bedroom, slamming her shoulder painfully into the doorframe on her way through.
***
Ping stepped through the scanners and into the station.
The duty officer looked up from her work and held up a hand of greeting from behind the glass. Though Ping couldn't see it, he knew the officer was seeing his scan on the HUD projected onto the armored glass between them. Of course, she knew Ping or she would pay a lot more attention to the scans of his guns, badge, and maybe the collapsed sword in his pocket.
Ping smiled and approached the vestibule. "Audrey!"
The sergeant was perhaps fifty, with the soft physique of the desk-set. She had an open face and dark hair with a thin stripe of gray that went from forehead to the end of her ponytail. "Nice keys Bannon, where'd you get them?"
Ping looked at the ring of metal keys he had been spinning absently on his index finger. "I left them on the table."
"When? In kindergarten?"
Ping shook his head, a little confused.
She moved on. "You hear the Feds are looking for you?"
Ping nodded gravely. "I've been hearing rumors of vigorous cavity inspections."
"I've always said you shouldn't store stuff in there, it's just asking for trouble." She said, leveling her stylus at his pants.
Ping gave an amused snort and continued through the door. Upstairs, he headed for the Captain's office. As he approached the glassed-in office in the center of the floor's cubicle farm, he could see the vague forms of three people through the partially polarized glass. Time to meet the Feds.
He knocked; the Captain waved him in. His key clinked off the Captain's smooth doorknob a few times before someone opened the door from inside.
"What are you doing, detective?" the dark-suited man with his hand on the door asked. Reinitiating the keys' orbit around his index finger, Ping ignored the question and entered the captain's office.
As he entered, Ping examined the two Feds. They were both large and moved with the efficiency of athletes. The one who had opened the door looked like a cross between James Bond and an aging surfer. His sandy blonde hair was expensively cut and meticulously arranged. His smile was professional and entirely false, if you spent the time to really look. The Fed leaning against the far wall was a dark-haired, slightly more handsome version of his partner. Both men wore a look of assurance that bordered on arrogance, which was to say that they looked like Feds.
"Lieutenant Bannon!" The blonde agent said, releasing the door and moving to Ping's side by the captain's desk. "Good to finally meet you." He glanced sideways at the Captain and continued, "So this is the man who broke the Three Rings eh?"
"You probably don't want to say that too loud around here... it was a bit of a team effort." Ping said, shaking the Fed's extended hand. "And you are?"
"Garvey, FBI. This is agent Neiland." He said with an absent wave in the direction of his partner. "No need for modesty, detective. We're all professionals here- it's okay to be proud of your accomplishments."
"So, Garvey, were you buttering the Captain this bad before I arrived?"
The Captain snickered, nodding. "He said he liked my painting." The captain hooked a thumb at the oil painting of a pig in a field of daisies that hung behind his desk.
"No. Really?" Ping reexamined the horrible painting the captain's wife had given him.
"I told you he was gonna be a prick." the darker agent said, still leaning against the wall.
"Ah... and you must be Bad Cop." Ping said, holding out his hand.
It went unshaken. "You know Garvey, I already like and trust you, but Bad Cop here scares me. You know..." Ping paused, stroking his chin in a parody of deep thought, "...the weirdest part is that the two of you together make me want to cooperate fully."
"Very funny Lieutenant." Garvey said in a pleasant tone as his partner stepped away from the wall and cut in. "Perhaps you oughta'