Post by Braddoc on Jun 6, 2008 17:37:34 GMT -5
OOC: Pelch, "....more or less."
***************************************************************************
Mao and Pelch are driving North on I 90. It has taken them some time to get back to Seattle. Even as they are almost there word comes through that Widow has just used her communicator to try and contact Freddy, unsuccessfully, and BB has a fix on her position. Mao is heading west and slightly south towards Port Orchard and the city hall building located on Kitsap St. Now Port Orchard has become part of the big Seattle Sprawl. It used to be the richer more staid part of the city and still remains that way. I guess land with a good ocean view is still a premium on the corp markets.
Anyway, Port Orchard is the county seat of Kitsap. But it was not always the county seat, nor was it always called Port Orchard. Originally called Sidney, Port Orchard was platted (in case your wondering platted means it was mapped out or diagrammed,) in 1886 by Frederick Stevens, who named it after his father Sidney. The Illinois inventor, Sidney M. Stevens came west from DeKalb, IL for a family visit to the Long Lake area. He liked what he saw so much that he paid $900 for 88 1/2 acres with the intention of creating a town.
The boundaries were similar to those today-Sinclair Inlet on the north, Mitchell Road on the east, South Street on the south and one block west of Short Street on the west. Early industry was primarily lumber and the loggers that frequented the nine saloons in town. The town of Sidney was incorporated September 15, 1890, and was the first in Kitsap County to be both platted and incorporated.
Shortly after Sidney was platted, the Navy Department was looking for a site for a second naval installation on the Pacific Coast. Sidney residents took an active role in influencing the commission of the Port Orchard Navy Yard (now Puget Sound Naval Shipyard). A.H. Sroufe was a prime mover locally. He and Thomas Cline established the first newspaper in the county in 1886, calling it The Kitsap County Pioneer. Sroufe devoted weeks to touring with the Navy Commission and his persistance paid off when the Navy located the base in Orchard Bay over such communities as Seattle, Tacoma, Port Townsend, Bellingham (called Whatcom then), and others.
Local industrial plants that came during early development of Sidney included two steam sawmills (one at the foot of Grant and one on Bay Street), two shingle mills (one powered by steam and one by water on Black Jack Creek), and a pottery and terra cotta plant (located at the foot of Pottery Hill). As times changed, all of these businesses faded away and disappeared. Many had manufactured supplies for building the shipyard and then supplied the yard with its labor force.
Sidney's officials faced serious challenges from the beginning. In 1890, the town had no streets. It was divided into three sections by Pottery Creek and Black Jack Creek. Bay Street was flooded by the incoming tide twice a day. Since the town had no funds, a tax was put on saloons, polling and other privileges. Sidney Hill was graded; its dirt used for fill on part of Bay Street. A small trolley railroad was constructed from Rockwell Avenue over a salt marsh to the east side of Black Jack Creek. Later Rockwell Avenue was cut down and its sand used to fill the marsh.
The same year the Navy officially dedicated the Port Orchard Navy Yard, Sidney had its first big fire. The town lost the original Sidney Hotel and a couple of residences on Prospect Street. In 1894, all buildings on both sides of Bay between Sidney and Frederick were burned down.
When the county was first established, the county seat was placed in Port Madison. Sidney decided it wanted the county seat and at the general election in 1892, voters agreed since Sidney had such bright development prospects.
In the middle of all this growth and occasional disaster was a political fight of major proportions. Harry Masterman Orchard, ship's clerk attached to the flagship Discovery received credit for discovering the body of water that now bears his name. In December 1892, the people of Sidney requested the legislature and separately to the Post Office Department to change the name of their town to Port Orchard. The legislature refused. Charleston (now West Bremerton) had also requested the name of Port Orchard. Commander Morong requested the Navy yard mail be routed through the proposed Port Orchard post office. Through a series of confusions and misunderstanding by various departments about the geography of this region, the Port Orchard post office ended up in Sidney and the Charleston post office was in Port Orchard. It stayed this way for ten years until Will Thompson, editor of the Sidney Independent, went into State legislature (1902-03) and succeeded in restoring the Charleston post office to Charleston and the Port Orchard post office to Port Orchard. In 1903 the legislature changed the name of Sidney to what we know it as today...Port Orchard.
Port Orchard's first water system was on Black Jack Creek in 1911. During the 1920's, this was converted to artesian for more and better water. Electric lights arrived in 1912. The rate maximum was $1 a month for each 16 candle power light. By 1915 Port Orchard had 266 telephones. The first school in Sidney was built in 1889. Numerous schools dotted the South Kitsap landscape and school consolidation was bitterly fought, but was achieved and the South KitsapUnion High School opened in 1922. Transportation depended on the water and in the early days was often by row boat until the introduction of steamer service in 1888. So many small boats dotted the waters they looked like a swarm of mosquitoes and thus got the name Mosquito Fleet.
Not many people go to Port Orchard as such so it explained why BB had such a frightful time locating Widow and Quick. That JJ sure had a sense of humor, hiding them in one of the richer enclaves in town. Now Mao was on his way in our borrowed 'Stormcloud' to pick them up. It it had been left up to me? They would be walking home. Luckily for us we had those papers from BB. We could actually get into the enclave to pick them up. I could picture Widow sitting on a bench in front of the city hall with the ocean behind here like a fragging tourist.
Mao took a hard left as we headed west. He had been quiet for most of the long trip. Luckily I had gotten some well needed sleep by reclining the passenger seat back. For a guy able to sleep on the streets, it was pretty comfy. We had missed breakfast and luch though and it was getting on to afternoon when we pulled into the east end of Port Orchard. Mao had little problem finding Kitsap Street, it was one of the main roads.
Mao looked at Pelch sideays as he drove, "So you can still speak Japanese." He said flatly. I shrugged like it was obvious and nothing. Mao continued, "You should have lost that ability when BB operated. Why do I have the strange feeling you remember more about your time with Headcrack than you let on? Call me paranoid but I've seen you play these kinds of games before. The fact that you put Headcrack in exactly the same situation you were in isn't just a coincidence is it."
Pelch looked out the window but said nothing. Mao continued to drive. "You're playing a dangerous game. I don't like it when you hide information we might need. You going to fill in that gap when JJ beat the drek out of you and the timeframe where Headcrack delivered you to our doorstep almost dead?"
Pelch looked at Mao with a stony expression that revealed nothing. "Tell me about Wheels. I wasn't there when you all took off after the heli got nailed. Bunch of you guys all on this boat together and when it makes dock you all run for the hills without any of you even seeing the others scatter and you all just making some excuse to get alone to split, or as to what your private game plans were? Wheels and BB in another chopper go back to the airport, never questioning a thing about the sudden desertion and do the same thing with each other? They leave the chopper and Wheels vanishes as well and only BB the cordinator is left back at the Lair?They all got the same idea and never said anything to each other or let on? Then suddenly we have a new Johnson and we are messing around in Skagit?"
Mao continued to watch the road driving not looking at his partner. In a neutral voice he responds, "What does all that have to do with Headcrack and Pelch? You trying to divert me like you would BB or Widow? Make a counter accusation out of nowhere so you don't have to answer the question? What are you hiding? And why?"
Pelch smiled tightly, "Maybe everything. I'm just pointing out that I'm not the only one supposedly holding out on the information. What did you do when you split? What was Widow up to? What was Quick doing? Where is Wheels? Why would BB leave JJ out of the loop when she reported the break up of the group to our Control but didn't tell her why or even act like this whole thing wasn't like month old fish? Why the new Johnson to complicate things? Why the sudden interest to get us into Skagit and look at what you an I are getting paid over and above what Dom is giving each of us." Pelch looked at Mao and continued.
"You see like JJ I don't buy the explanations all you guys made, because it makes no sense. Unlike JJ though I don't confront you all with it. So if I am hiding something that pertains only to me, then I am doing nothing more than every one of you are doing. So now suddenly you and I get into Skagit and everyone shows BACK UP? It's a fragging MIRACLE! I'm just supposed to accept it on faith in my good chummers? All except Wheels is back. What happened to Wheels? You and Wheels are the last two people I would think would dive out but you seem to have done just that. The only answer is there's something else going on and it goes back to all those bombs against dwarves."
"Now I get to thinking, is Wheels BB's new Johnson? You see everything that the Johsnon is supposed to have done could have been done by BB with Wheels funding her. He has the cash for it and BB certainly can make matrix runs and skim Nuyen as they need it. That begins to explain a lot. It also explains why JJ hired Headcrack. If BB and Wheels were skimmimng money from JJ without her knowledge and she noticed it, she would have hired an investigator to follow the money trail. Now she's set a rigger to catch a rigger."
"My guesses is that Headcrack is after Wheels but it ain't for money. It's because of the reason Wheels was getting bombed so much. He has something a lot of people want. JJ knows what it is. Dom knows what it is. Wheels knows what it is. It must be big and of course no one fragging told US what it was. You might not even know. Everyone wants it though so I did some looking back."
"There's your proof that you can check. Before Wheels came to work for us he was messing with some kind of Key Card thing. The last person who had said Key Cards was Wheels. They never got turned over to Dom. JJ would know that. Quick might know it but doesn't even consider it as important. The rest of us were clueless which is why we were so confused and couldn't answer the questions on all the bombings but Wheels was the target and your pointing out Wheels started the whole mess."
" Want to bet that his heli was searched before it got melted? They were looking for those cards but Wheels was smart enough NOT to have them on him or easily available. He had them hid somewhere you can bet on that, probably trying to figure out what they did. If he talked to BB maybe she gave him the final clue. It explains why those two were so close near the end of the last run. It also explains why a burner like her left KD&A to work with us. Want to bet that BB works directly for Eon and even Ronilion out of the Security side of KD&A? She has a lot of access to KD&A and that call to get Dom to arbitrate proves it. Then look at the troll ambush on the interstate out of the clear blue sky orchestarted by who?. Someone else knew before you opened your big mouth in the Jackal's Lantern and set the Spike Wheels to hit us for a crash and dash robbery just to try to get those cards or Wheels."
" Maybe the cards were with his friend that died, maybe not. We still don't have all the info on that mess because it was started by a different group.It would explain why Wheels bucked Widow's orders and left the Lair though. He knew they were the cause probably from BB and he went to get them from his firend before his friend became a target. To bad his friend was still eliminated. I bet Tony and his bunch of fraggers knew it though and when they realized Wheels was now working with us? They must have been looking for him with his old group. How many others are still looking for him?"
Mao shrugged, "So I'm supposed to be part of this big conspiracy? Where's your proof? Otherwise you're just reaching and it's all pie-in-the-sky."
Pelch nodded in agreement, " Possibly. If I'm close or even right though you have to ask the question, why does Wheels want into Skagit? Let's look at those Cards a little closer. Skagit was an old energy facility before Krass got his meaty, sweaty paws on it. Those cards were related to some kind of energy facility with a dragon. That speaks of Hasselich and UniOil. Now Skagit has a lot of underground area. WE KNOW THAT and a lot of it you can't get into yet. You have to ask, what those old key cards might open down there. You think Ronilion and Eon wouldn't be interested? BB is in a perfect position on our intelligence team to feed them info. I'm betting there is one other person for contacts. Someone else who BB seems to spend time with and he wears a hat." Mao adjusted his turban self consciously as Pelch smiled.
"That makes those cards fragging invaluable if the dragon was hiding something down there and it could be magical or technological. It would explain why Wheels would want in there, or anyone else for that matter.You want proof. I did the research, you can too. Now what about your proof? Why did you show back up as soon as I walked into the Lair? Don't tell me it's coincidence again. We have to many coincidences in this whole mess for there be to be so many constant MIRACLES. You see no one but you, me and BB is getting that second check for investigating Skagit. Isn't it inetersting that you and I are pulling down THREE paychecks on this job? Dom is paying us. The Johnson is paying us. Skagit is giving us a paycheck. Why is that?"
"Well first I'm a dwarf. I'm greedy and stupid and will just look at the money. I'm a perfect pawn for you all and I could be useful as a point man to spring traps when I take those cards in with my good buddy and partner to open those doors. I'll bet Tony will be real interested to come see me when I get those cards. Obviously because of a trust issue. I didn't walk and I came back, so I got pulled in as a junior pawn for that reason. You, BB, Wheels and a possibly several others are behind this latest run. YOu are all getting a Skagit paycheck just like me.. The rest? They're mushrooms."
"All the rest of the so-called group is just getting a Dom check and Widow doesn't even question that because she's so fragging out it that a steamroller could sneak up on her and run her down even with the little warning beep going off. Maybe I need to keep my mouth shut until I get some answers myself. So you want to start some explanations about what you did in your timeframe and exactly what you were up to? Then you might give me some proof so I can check out your story as well. If you ain't willing to talk then don't be asking me nothing either. I'll tell you what I think you should know and you'll have to live with it."
Mao pulled up in front of the Port Orchard City Hall. Widow and Quick had obviously been told the Dumb Duo were on the way by BB. They got in the back seat and Mao started the drive to Z Street. Pelch smiled as he looked in the rear view mirror at Widows and Quick's ripped clothes and mussed up look. He spoke sincerely to Widow," You know Widow, fortunately for you, not every guilty pleasure has to break the bank, ruin your gums, cause brutal hangovers or result in motherhood, although if you didn't take precautions you could be up the duff.. Some guilty pleasures even have a positive side. Looks like you and Quick found something to do in your threesome with JJ. The upside is you're going to need a new wardrobe, the downside is you better stock up on baby formula and diapers from the look of you two. It's so nice that you found consolation in each others arms during your trying ordeal or did you include JJ and she was so pleased she just HAD to let you guys go. So where's the three way wedding ring?" He looked at Mao, What is it with humans and elves boffing everything in site? There you are putting the meat to two underage blonde elf girls out at Yakima and now Widow and Quick are doing the same with that elf biff JJ in Port Orchard City Hall. Everyone seems to have gone all Krass style. Is it the breeding season or something?" Mao sighed and ignored the dwarf.
Quick's face rapidly turned red as Widow glared at the dwarf. "Just fragging shut it." She hissed in anger her face white and red by turns. Pelch snickered and even Mao was hard put to keep a straight face. Mao started to whistled Brahms lullabuy as he drove while Widow glared.
***************************************************************************
Mao and Pelch are driving North on I 90. It has taken them some time to get back to Seattle. Even as they are almost there word comes through that Widow has just used her communicator to try and contact Freddy, unsuccessfully, and BB has a fix on her position. Mao is heading west and slightly south towards Port Orchard and the city hall building located on Kitsap St. Now Port Orchard has become part of the big Seattle Sprawl. It used to be the richer more staid part of the city and still remains that way. I guess land with a good ocean view is still a premium on the corp markets.
Anyway, Port Orchard is the county seat of Kitsap. But it was not always the county seat, nor was it always called Port Orchard. Originally called Sidney, Port Orchard was platted (in case your wondering platted means it was mapped out or diagrammed,) in 1886 by Frederick Stevens, who named it after his father Sidney. The Illinois inventor, Sidney M. Stevens came west from DeKalb, IL for a family visit to the Long Lake area. He liked what he saw so much that he paid $900 for 88 1/2 acres with the intention of creating a town.
The boundaries were similar to those today-Sinclair Inlet on the north, Mitchell Road on the east, South Street on the south and one block west of Short Street on the west. Early industry was primarily lumber and the loggers that frequented the nine saloons in town. The town of Sidney was incorporated September 15, 1890, and was the first in Kitsap County to be both platted and incorporated.
Shortly after Sidney was platted, the Navy Department was looking for a site for a second naval installation on the Pacific Coast. Sidney residents took an active role in influencing the commission of the Port Orchard Navy Yard (now Puget Sound Naval Shipyard). A.H. Sroufe was a prime mover locally. He and Thomas Cline established the first newspaper in the county in 1886, calling it The Kitsap County Pioneer. Sroufe devoted weeks to touring with the Navy Commission and his persistance paid off when the Navy located the base in Orchard Bay over such communities as Seattle, Tacoma, Port Townsend, Bellingham (called Whatcom then), and others.
Local industrial plants that came during early development of Sidney included two steam sawmills (one at the foot of Grant and one on Bay Street), two shingle mills (one powered by steam and one by water on Black Jack Creek), and a pottery and terra cotta plant (located at the foot of Pottery Hill). As times changed, all of these businesses faded away and disappeared. Many had manufactured supplies for building the shipyard and then supplied the yard with its labor force.
Sidney's officials faced serious challenges from the beginning. In 1890, the town had no streets. It was divided into three sections by Pottery Creek and Black Jack Creek. Bay Street was flooded by the incoming tide twice a day. Since the town had no funds, a tax was put on saloons, polling and other privileges. Sidney Hill was graded; its dirt used for fill on part of Bay Street. A small trolley railroad was constructed from Rockwell Avenue over a salt marsh to the east side of Black Jack Creek. Later Rockwell Avenue was cut down and its sand used to fill the marsh.
The same year the Navy officially dedicated the Port Orchard Navy Yard, Sidney had its first big fire. The town lost the original Sidney Hotel and a couple of residences on Prospect Street. In 1894, all buildings on both sides of Bay between Sidney and Frederick were burned down.
When the county was first established, the county seat was placed in Port Madison. Sidney decided it wanted the county seat and at the general election in 1892, voters agreed since Sidney had such bright development prospects.
In the middle of all this growth and occasional disaster was a political fight of major proportions. Harry Masterman Orchard, ship's clerk attached to the flagship Discovery received credit for discovering the body of water that now bears his name. In December 1892, the people of Sidney requested the legislature and separately to the Post Office Department to change the name of their town to Port Orchard. The legislature refused. Charleston (now West Bremerton) had also requested the name of Port Orchard. Commander Morong requested the Navy yard mail be routed through the proposed Port Orchard post office. Through a series of confusions and misunderstanding by various departments about the geography of this region, the Port Orchard post office ended up in Sidney and the Charleston post office was in Port Orchard. It stayed this way for ten years until Will Thompson, editor of the Sidney Independent, went into State legislature (1902-03) and succeeded in restoring the Charleston post office to Charleston and the Port Orchard post office to Port Orchard. In 1903 the legislature changed the name of Sidney to what we know it as today...Port Orchard.
Port Orchard's first water system was on Black Jack Creek in 1911. During the 1920's, this was converted to artesian for more and better water. Electric lights arrived in 1912. The rate maximum was $1 a month for each 16 candle power light. By 1915 Port Orchard had 266 telephones. The first school in Sidney was built in 1889. Numerous schools dotted the South Kitsap landscape and school consolidation was bitterly fought, but was achieved and the South KitsapUnion High School opened in 1922. Transportation depended on the water and in the early days was often by row boat until the introduction of steamer service in 1888. So many small boats dotted the waters they looked like a swarm of mosquitoes and thus got the name Mosquito Fleet.
Not many people go to Port Orchard as such so it explained why BB had such a frightful time locating Widow and Quick. That JJ sure had a sense of humor, hiding them in one of the richer enclaves in town. Now Mao was on his way in our borrowed 'Stormcloud' to pick them up. It it had been left up to me? They would be walking home. Luckily for us we had those papers from BB. We could actually get into the enclave to pick them up. I could picture Widow sitting on a bench in front of the city hall with the ocean behind here like a fragging tourist.
Mao took a hard left as we headed west. He had been quiet for most of the long trip. Luckily I had gotten some well needed sleep by reclining the passenger seat back. For a guy able to sleep on the streets, it was pretty comfy. We had missed breakfast and luch though and it was getting on to afternoon when we pulled into the east end of Port Orchard. Mao had little problem finding Kitsap Street, it was one of the main roads.
Mao looked at Pelch sideays as he drove, "So you can still speak Japanese." He said flatly. I shrugged like it was obvious and nothing. Mao continued, "You should have lost that ability when BB operated. Why do I have the strange feeling you remember more about your time with Headcrack than you let on? Call me paranoid but I've seen you play these kinds of games before. The fact that you put Headcrack in exactly the same situation you were in isn't just a coincidence is it."
Pelch looked out the window but said nothing. Mao continued to drive. "You're playing a dangerous game. I don't like it when you hide information we might need. You going to fill in that gap when JJ beat the drek out of you and the timeframe where Headcrack delivered you to our doorstep almost dead?"
Pelch looked at Mao with a stony expression that revealed nothing. "Tell me about Wheels. I wasn't there when you all took off after the heli got nailed. Bunch of you guys all on this boat together and when it makes dock you all run for the hills without any of you even seeing the others scatter and you all just making some excuse to get alone to split, or as to what your private game plans were? Wheels and BB in another chopper go back to the airport, never questioning a thing about the sudden desertion and do the same thing with each other? They leave the chopper and Wheels vanishes as well and only BB the cordinator is left back at the Lair?They all got the same idea and never said anything to each other or let on? Then suddenly we have a new Johnson and we are messing around in Skagit?"
Mao continued to watch the road driving not looking at his partner. In a neutral voice he responds, "What does all that have to do with Headcrack and Pelch? You trying to divert me like you would BB or Widow? Make a counter accusation out of nowhere so you don't have to answer the question? What are you hiding? And why?"
Pelch smiled tightly, "Maybe everything. I'm just pointing out that I'm not the only one supposedly holding out on the information. What did you do when you split? What was Widow up to? What was Quick doing? Where is Wheels? Why would BB leave JJ out of the loop when she reported the break up of the group to our Control but didn't tell her why or even act like this whole thing wasn't like month old fish? Why the new Johnson to complicate things? Why the sudden interest to get us into Skagit and look at what you an I are getting paid over and above what Dom is giving each of us." Pelch looked at Mao and continued.
"You see like JJ I don't buy the explanations all you guys made, because it makes no sense. Unlike JJ though I don't confront you all with it. So if I am hiding something that pertains only to me, then I am doing nothing more than every one of you are doing. So now suddenly you and I get into Skagit and everyone shows BACK UP? It's a fragging MIRACLE! I'm just supposed to accept it on faith in my good chummers? All except Wheels is back. What happened to Wheels? You and Wheels are the last two people I would think would dive out but you seem to have done just that. The only answer is there's something else going on and it goes back to all those bombs against dwarves."
"Now I get to thinking, is Wheels BB's new Johnson? You see everything that the Johsnon is supposed to have done could have been done by BB with Wheels funding her. He has the cash for it and BB certainly can make matrix runs and skim Nuyen as they need it. That begins to explain a lot. It also explains why JJ hired Headcrack. If BB and Wheels were skimmimng money from JJ without her knowledge and she noticed it, she would have hired an investigator to follow the money trail. Now she's set a rigger to catch a rigger."
"My guesses is that Headcrack is after Wheels but it ain't for money. It's because of the reason Wheels was getting bombed so much. He has something a lot of people want. JJ knows what it is. Dom knows what it is. Wheels knows what it is. It must be big and of course no one fragging told US what it was. You might not even know. Everyone wants it though so I did some looking back."
"There's your proof that you can check. Before Wheels came to work for us he was messing with some kind of Key Card thing. The last person who had said Key Cards was Wheels. They never got turned over to Dom. JJ would know that. Quick might know it but doesn't even consider it as important. The rest of us were clueless which is why we were so confused and couldn't answer the questions on all the bombings but Wheels was the target and your pointing out Wheels started the whole mess."
" Want to bet that his heli was searched before it got melted? They were looking for those cards but Wheels was smart enough NOT to have them on him or easily available. He had them hid somewhere you can bet on that, probably trying to figure out what they did. If he talked to BB maybe she gave him the final clue. It explains why those two were so close near the end of the last run. It also explains why a burner like her left KD&A to work with us. Want to bet that BB works directly for Eon and even Ronilion out of the Security side of KD&A? She has a lot of access to KD&A and that call to get Dom to arbitrate proves it. Then look at the troll ambush on the interstate out of the clear blue sky orchestarted by who?. Someone else knew before you opened your big mouth in the Jackal's Lantern and set the Spike Wheels to hit us for a crash and dash robbery just to try to get those cards or Wheels."
" Maybe the cards were with his friend that died, maybe not. We still don't have all the info on that mess because it was started by a different group.It would explain why Wheels bucked Widow's orders and left the Lair though. He knew they were the cause probably from BB and he went to get them from his firend before his friend became a target. To bad his friend was still eliminated. I bet Tony and his bunch of fraggers knew it though and when they realized Wheels was now working with us? They must have been looking for him with his old group. How many others are still looking for him?"
Mao shrugged, "So I'm supposed to be part of this big conspiracy? Where's your proof? Otherwise you're just reaching and it's all pie-in-the-sky."
Pelch nodded in agreement, " Possibly. If I'm close or even right though you have to ask the question, why does Wheels want into Skagit? Let's look at those Cards a little closer. Skagit was an old energy facility before Krass got his meaty, sweaty paws on it. Those cards were related to some kind of energy facility with a dragon. That speaks of Hasselich and UniOil. Now Skagit has a lot of underground area. WE KNOW THAT and a lot of it you can't get into yet. You have to ask, what those old key cards might open down there. You think Ronilion and Eon wouldn't be interested? BB is in a perfect position on our intelligence team to feed them info. I'm betting there is one other person for contacts. Someone else who BB seems to spend time with and he wears a hat." Mao adjusted his turban self consciously as Pelch smiled.
"That makes those cards fragging invaluable if the dragon was hiding something down there and it could be magical or technological. It would explain why Wheels would want in there, or anyone else for that matter.You want proof. I did the research, you can too. Now what about your proof? Why did you show back up as soon as I walked into the Lair? Don't tell me it's coincidence again. We have to many coincidences in this whole mess for there be to be so many constant MIRACLES. You see no one but you, me and BB is getting that second check for investigating Skagit. Isn't it inetersting that you and I are pulling down THREE paychecks on this job? Dom is paying us. The Johnson is paying us. Skagit is giving us a paycheck. Why is that?"
"Well first I'm a dwarf. I'm greedy and stupid and will just look at the money. I'm a perfect pawn for you all and I could be useful as a point man to spring traps when I take those cards in with my good buddy and partner to open those doors. I'll bet Tony will be real interested to come see me when I get those cards. Obviously because of a trust issue. I didn't walk and I came back, so I got pulled in as a junior pawn for that reason. You, BB, Wheels and a possibly several others are behind this latest run. YOu are all getting a Skagit paycheck just like me.. The rest? They're mushrooms."
"All the rest of the so-called group is just getting a Dom check and Widow doesn't even question that because she's so fragging out it that a steamroller could sneak up on her and run her down even with the little warning beep going off. Maybe I need to keep my mouth shut until I get some answers myself. So you want to start some explanations about what you did in your timeframe and exactly what you were up to? Then you might give me some proof so I can check out your story as well. If you ain't willing to talk then don't be asking me nothing either. I'll tell you what I think you should know and you'll have to live with it."
Mao pulled up in front of the Port Orchard City Hall. Widow and Quick had obviously been told the Dumb Duo were on the way by BB. They got in the back seat and Mao started the drive to Z Street. Pelch smiled as he looked in the rear view mirror at Widows and Quick's ripped clothes and mussed up look. He spoke sincerely to Widow," You know Widow, fortunately for you, not every guilty pleasure has to break the bank, ruin your gums, cause brutal hangovers or result in motherhood, although if you didn't take precautions you could be up the duff.. Some guilty pleasures even have a positive side. Looks like you and Quick found something to do in your threesome with JJ. The upside is you're going to need a new wardrobe, the downside is you better stock up on baby formula and diapers from the look of you two. It's so nice that you found consolation in each others arms during your trying ordeal or did you include JJ and she was so pleased she just HAD to let you guys go. So where's the three way wedding ring?" He looked at Mao, What is it with humans and elves boffing everything in site? There you are putting the meat to two underage blonde elf girls out at Yakima and now Widow and Quick are doing the same with that elf biff JJ in Port Orchard City Hall. Everyone seems to have gone all Krass style. Is it the breeding season or something?" Mao sighed and ignored the dwarf.
Quick's face rapidly turned red as Widow glared at the dwarf. "Just fragging shut it." She hissed in anger her face white and red by turns. Pelch snickered and even Mao was hard put to keep a straight face. Mao started to whistled Brahms lullabuy as he drove while Widow glared.