Hardly a wilting flower when it came to rain, Al pressed on for a few blocks. He didn’t frequent this part of the ‘plex, but the sort of place he was seeking was never far, and he had a nose for it. Sure enough, ten more minutes of getting drenched and he was entering the smoke-filled gloom of Haskell’s Heave Ho. Half empty at this time of day (and therefore half full of the sorts that didn’t care what time of day it was), he easily found a table in the corner near the rear exit. He sat with is back to the wall. Ordered a beer and told the skeezy waitress to keep them coming. The he used his ‘link, earbud in, to scan the newsfeeds for what had been showing in the cafe. He manually set his ‘link to receive only, with no outgoing signal. It took slightly longer to search that way, but not much given his skill and the Fairlight’s processing power.

He was pretty sure his face was no part of the broadcast, having not exited the ambulance until he’d found his blind spot, but he wanted to stay abreast of whatever mayhem had been caused before going back out into the open. One thing he quickly found was that law enforcement had responded quickly to the ruckus, which was scant seconds after Miss Manners had narced them out, making it very difficult to discern through indirect searches whether she had indeed sent Jan and Johnny’s pictures to the cops. Either she’d lied then, or lied later, which equal\led zero credibility either way, and his money was on her indeed having sent the pix and then backtracking, most likely in an attempt to lure them back into the cops’s clutches.

No real problem for him, since she supposedly had deemed him worthy of exemption from her wrath (another reason he was sure she had sent the pix – a tactical bluff would have worked better by saying she’d named and shamed them all). Of course he took the opportunity to congratulate himself on having the natural charm and winning personality that could tame even the most histrionic of mercenary shrews.