“No matter how you cut it,” the fine chief concluded, sifting through the Badawi file in a gunmetal grey attaché, “it’s an open-and-shut case.”

“But Chief–”

“Goddamnit Allen,” the irate chief exclaimed, clearly tired of my shit. “How many times to I have to explain why zippered cases are bad? The teeth get caught on the paper and tear the edges to shreds.”

He motioned to the attaché he had been fiddling with. “You don’t get that problem in clasped cases, which simply open and shut.”

I was about to deliver my well-worn warning on the dangers of briefcase clasps on fingertips when, predicting my reply, he waved his hand in interruption.

“I’m going to cut you off, lest this conversation gets to the point where I irrevocably strangle you to death. Allen, your reopening of the Chris Badawi case has brought in a lot of complaints — even more than usual.”

Complaints, mostly directed towards me, used to take up virtually all of the fine-ance department’s server space before we decided to move the files to the failed East Coast server.

He continued, “You must have done something really wrong, because I’m even getting pressure from higher up.”

“On the contrary, chief. Complaints usually mean that I have done something right,” I quipped. I had first heard that one from Georgallidis. “Besides, I had to reopen the Badawi case. When I was typing up the concluding report, I realized that things simply weren’t adding up.”

The chief’s expression was inscrutable, but his dead eyes betrayed the barest hint of curiosity. I continued, “When Badawi first got himself into trouble talking to KEITH, it was plausible that he either didn’t know what poaching was or that it applied to non-LCS entities. I mean, we didn’t know that the rules applied outside of the LCS either, until we made it up on the spot. But then he tried to poach from TL again, after we had explicitly told him not to. He had no excuse at that point.

“Have you ever taken a good look at our suspect? He’s a retired NYC lawyer. This is someone MonteCristo trusted. He’s too smart to do something as dumb as poaching from a well-respected team… twice. There’s something else going on.”

“If I had a dollar for every idiotic action in the esports industry, I could fundraise a prize pool for a major tournament and Riot would criticise us for not creating a sustainable ecosystem.” The chief slammed the attaché shut, for dramatic effect. “The case stays closed, and that’s final. If I hear one more complaint about this, I’m suspending you. Understood? Now get out of my office.”

I left the room as the chief delicately sucked his index finger, having caught it in the briefcase when it closed.

—-

“Bad news, Lyte,” I told my partner as I got into the squad car. “Chief took us off the case. We’re going to have to go rogue.”

Lyte gave me a look of perplextion. “But Nick Allen, aren’t you the chief?”

I put my keys into the ignition, pretending not to hear him.

“Allen, is that what you’ve been doing with that stupid sock puppet?” Lyte asked. “The one you named ‘Captain McKay’?”

I look at my bandaged index finger resting on the wheel. It still stung a bit.

“Allen, it’s not healthy to manifest parts of your personality into separate objects… Allen, are you listening to me? Allen?”

I let the drawl of the radio and the roar of the highway drown him out. I didn’t want him to distract me from the case; I had to find out what MonteCristo knew about the situation.

To be continued…





