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sam_storyteller) wrote2010-11-19 09:48 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2010-11-19 09:48 am
Entry tags:
Exquisite, Chapter 12
Title: Exquisite
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None.
Summary: Neal is finding a place for himself, both at the Bureau and in Peter and Elizabeth's life. Unraveling the mystery of the music box might ruin everything -- but that's a risk he has to take.
Chapter Eleven
***
Elizabeth came back from her last trip ("I swear, this is the last one, no more!") at two in the afternoon, and didn't expect either Peter or Neal to be at the airport waiting for her. Both of them were.
"My boys," she said, as Peter hugged her and Neal lifted her carry-on out of her hands. She hugged Neal next, felt him slip a kiss against her ear, and then she hugged Peter again. He smelled like gunpowder. She leaned back and raised an eyebrow.
"Firing range," he said, holding up his hands. "We stayed out of trouble."
"Good," she told him. "In that case I have presents."
"Seriously?" Neal asked, at the same time Peter said, "Hon, we're not twelve."
Peter glanced at Neal. "Some of us aren't twelve," he corrected himself. Elizabeth just grinned and tugged at her carry-on until Neal held it out so she could open it. One palm-sized silver-and-black box for Neal, and a larger square white box for Peter, who tucked his up in his hand and held it at his side while Neal opened his.
"Wow," Neal said, when he took the lid off, not so much with wonder or joy as sheer dumbstruck numbness. "Wow."
Elizabeth kissed his cheek -- nothing an affection for one's husband's friend couldn't explain away. "Turn it over."
Neal tugged the silver tie bar out of its felt setting, fingers nimble as they rotated it. Engraved on the inside of the front was the legend For N, from E, love. He handled it like it was made of porcelain, cautious and delicate as he undid the bar holding his tie and slipped the new one into its place. The front was engraved too, just a random, swirling design she'd thought might suit him. He looked at her, the smile on his face at once brilliant and shy. Elizabeth felt a circuit complete: Peter had once repeated to her what Neal had said, that they had rings for each other and Neal had a tracker but no way of laying claim to them. No way of showing her claim on him. Now he did.
"And Peter," she said, before the tableau could get embarrassing. Peter held up the box and lifted the top, pulling out a stream of tissue paper and then recoiling in startled horror for a second as he saw what was underneath. Neal leaned over and then started back as well. Elizabeth wished she had a camera.
Peter carefully hooked his finger into the box and pulled out the gift -- a small, taxidermied alligator head.
"They were selling them by the roadside when I was in Orlando," Elizabeth said. "It screamed 'Peter' at me."
"It's screaming something," Neal said. Peter's face, now that he was past the initial shock, was lit up with glee.
"It's great!" he said. "I can put it on my desk. Look, the teeth stick out, I could put my business cards in it."
"You are not well people," Neal informed them. Peter kissed Elizabeth, then carefully tucked the thing back in the box. Neal and Peter exchanged a look over her head.
"Boys..." she said, glancing from one to the other. Neal was better at the poker face; Peter could be slick when he wanted, but not around her.
"We have something for you, too," Peter sighed. "You're not gonna like it."
As they walked to the car, Peter explained (with occasional colorful embroideries from Neal) that one of their witnesses had been threatened and disappeared, and that if the leak got out before Peter and Neal's names were removed from the records, they might be next. Elizabeth was more or less used to Peter occasionally having to watch his back, and she knew Neal had spent a lifetime doing it, so she wasn't worried so much as concerned --
Until she saw the lockbox sitting in the trunk of the car.
"Oh, hon," she sighed, setting her luggage down on top of it. "The gun, really?"
"Told you she doesn't like it," Peter said to Neal, who was sliding into the back seat.
"You think I like this thing?" Neal asked, holding up his arm. Elizabeth saw blacked metal at his wrist. Neal looked at her, pulled his cuff back, and made a face; the blunt end of an asp in a wrist-holster was visible. "He makes me keep a Taser in my desk at work."
"I wish you'd keep it at home," Peter said.
"There are children in my home," Neal retorted. "Samantha comes over all the time, I'm not keeping a Taser anywhere near her."
Elizabeth smiled and ran her fingers up Peter's neck as he pulled them out of the parking garage, stroking the soft hair on the back of his head. "He's looking out for us, Neal. I don't like having the gun, but I know when it comes out he's serious."
"I don't like guns," Neal muttered rebelliously.
"Did I make you take one?" Peter asked.
"So!" Elizabeth interrupted brightly. Both of them looked slightly guilty for fighting. "Are we going home?"
"We are," Peter agreed. "I'm dropping Neal at Federal Plaza."
Elizabeth pouted at Neal in the rearview mirror. He shrugged.
"Looks a little suspicious, apparently," he said, with a darted glance at Peter. "Besides, you know. Time alone. I get it."
He sounded convincing, but Elizabeth was getting better at reading him; he also looked sad. She turned in the seat and rested her chin on it, smiling at him.
"We'll miss you," she said. "Besides, look at it this way -- "
" -- I'm trusting you with the entire FBI without my supervision," Peter finished.
"You know that psychic-married-couple thing you do is scary sometimes," Neal said, but he was smiling now, a real hundred-percent-Neal smile. His hand drifted up to the tiebar on his chest, fingers framing the length of it briefly before he let go.
They left Neal outside the federal building with a wave and another kiss on the cheek from Elizabeth. By the time they got home she was feeling the post-flight exhaustion setting in.
"All I want is something hot to eat and someone to curl up with," she said, as Peter hauled her suitcase out of the trunk. He caught her around the waist and kissed her in the front yard, pulling her close.
"That can be arranged," he said. "Go in, I'll bring your stuff. There's a pot roast."
"You're my favorite husband," she told him, and he grinned goofily as he locked the car.
***
Neal spent most of the afternoon working on cold cases, which was at least better than paperwork. Two of the cold cases were his own work, which was interesting reading -- seeing what slipped through the cracks, finding out what kinds of crimes went past Peter's meticulous and well-researched radar. Perhaps they hadn't; they were Peter's cases. On the other hand, if they were tied to Neal, there was no record of it in the files. They were oddball jobs, after all, not his usual gigs. One had been to secure a birthday gift for Kate; the other had been a favor he owed from his time in Japan.
Kate had looked beautiful, wearing the necklace he'd lifted on the Boston job. He remembered it vividly -- Greek workmanship from the Hellenistic era, alternating links of gold and carved garnet, just a fragment of its original glory but long enough to be worn as a choker, with a little modern gold pin at the back to hold it in place. It was well out of the usual period he dealt in, and the FBI was probably more interested in the fact that someone had broken into the museum to steal it than the value of the thing itself. He wondered what Kate had done with it. Maybe she'd fenced it, or tucked it up in a cache somewhere that might now never be found.
He remembered thinking, as he clasped the necklace around her throat, that men who'd lived and died seventeen hundred years before had handled it, had hung it around the throats of other beautiful women. He'd kissed the back of her neck and murmured that he'd make her a queen.
Two desks down, Jones hung up the phone and groaned, leaning back in his chair, snapping Neal out of his thoughts. He glanced over. "Problem?"
"Nah," Jones waved a hand. "It's the manhunt in Chicago."
"Clive?"
"Yeah. Diana's annoyed. He's pretty much disappeared. Half the Marshals she's working with think someone really did get to him and they're gonna find him in the river," Jones said.
"You think?"
"I think we'd have found a body by now," Jones said. "You kill a witness before a trial, you might hide it. Kill 'em after a trial, that's just plain revenge. People want revenge to be visible."
"They teach you that at Harvard?" Neal asked, grinning.
"Hey, academia is cutthroat. I was varsity in public humiliation."
"Giving or getting?"
"Both," Jones said sourly. "You got any more bright ideas about where he might've gone? Diana's gone through your checklist already."
"He's not a professional." Neal frowned. "He's only done two jobs, unless he was conning me when he said that, and I don't think he was. He shouldn't be able to get away that clean."
"Yeah, well, maybe he picked up a few things."
"He might've shacked up with someone. That was his thing in New York. Clive doesn't like to work alone," Neal added, sitting forward. "I put that in the writeup, though. So -- Diana's still there for a while?"
"Marshals'll handle it from here, and they got some good guys out in Chicago. She's back in a few days. They pick up the trail again, she'll be there," Jones said.
"We should throw her a party," Neal said. "You know. Welcome To The Manhunt."
"Somehow I don't think she'll appreciate that," Jones drawled.
"Hey, it took Peter three years to catch me. Clive's good -- but he's not me," Neal said, grinning. "And from here it looks like quitting time. You wanna get a drink?"
"Sure," Jones said, starting shutdown on his computer. "Nowhere too upscale, some of us pay for our own drinks."
"You know Enright's?" Neal said, pulling his coat on.
"The cop bar on West 22nd?" Jones asked.
"Yeah, I owe a Sergeant a couple of drinks. Besides, they like me," Neal assured him.
"Of course they do," Jones muttered, following him out.
***
The next case they caught, a couple of days after El came home, was of course on a Saturday morning that Peter had planned to spend alternating between a baseball game and some fix-its around the house -- the windows needed sealing and Satchmo had been chewing on the kitchen baseboards again. He wasn't a destructive dog, usually. He just had something against baseboards.
He got the text message from Jones while he was still dressing (Hughes wants us in, call for details) and groaned, throwing his jeans back in the closet and pulling out a clean set of work clothes.
"Neal," he yelled, and the water shut off in the shower. A few seconds later Neal -- damp, naked, toweling his hair -- walked into the bedroom.
"What?" Neal asked. "By the way, this is an ungodly time to be awake on a Saturday."
"It's good we are," Peter said, tossing him the phone. Neal studied it while he dried himself. "They want me, they probably want you too."
"So much for leisurely breakfast," Neal sighed. "I need one of your ties. Not one of the ugly ones," he added. Peter narrowed his eyes at him. "What? Some of your ties, Peter, they cause me pain."
"I like my ties," Peter said.
"That's because you don't have to look at them," Neal told him, going for the rack in the closet. "Where's Elizab -- hm," he grunted, as Peter caught him around the waist, holding him there. Neal turned his head a little to meet Peter's eyes, and Peter smiled.
"Say please," Peter said. Neal rolled his eyes. "I'm the boss, I can deny you access to my ties."
Neal leaned in close, lips near Peter's ear. "Please, sir, may I have a necktie?" he asked, tone only slightly mocking. Peter let him go.
"Elizabeth's downstairs, she has an event," Peter said, as Neal began going through the ties. "Come down when you're ready, I gotta find out what's going on."
He left Neal humming smugly to himself as he dressed. Downstairs, he called Jones, only to find that Jones didn't know anything -- just that everyone was being called in, and it sounded important.
"You want me to go rustle out Caffrey?" Jones asked, right as Peter said No, sugar in response to El's attempts to pass him the cream. "Sorry, what?"
"Not you, Jones," Peter sighed. "No, I'll bring Neal in. Okay, yeah, I'm on my way."
And it wasn't that Peter was tired of Neal, or didn't want him around, but as he and Elizabeth both started gathering up their things for the long workday (long Saturday workday) ahead, he realized they'd hardly had a minute alone together, just him and El, since she'd come back from traveling. Either one or both of them had a late shift or Neal was over, and it felt unfair to El, who had been traveling alone while he'd been in New York with Neal.
Navigating a threesome was turning out to be trickier than he'd anticipated, for reasons having nothing to do with the threat of losing his job or his wife.
"You and me, bottle of wine, and a movie," he told her. "No work, no discussion of work, no excuses."
Which he really should have known would just curse his whole goddamn day.
The case was a manhunt, which Peter was good at and on some level enjoyed, but they always carried their share of frustration. This one was complicated by the fact that they were hunting one of their own, an FBI agent who was caught up in some mess with the US Marshals -- and of course the Marshals themselves were a problem in the form of John Deckard, who was not nearly as agreeable as Braddock. Deckard hadn't liked Peter poking around for a leak when Clive was threatened, and he obviously didn't like working with Peter or with Neal.
If Peter rubbed Deckard's nose in the fact that the FBI caught Neal, and not the Marshals, well. He was only human. And he got his comeuppance a few minutes later when he found out who they were chasing: Jack Franklin, the FBI's cautionary tale made manifest. Because Franklin was a good agent, a more highly-decorated agent than most, and --
"What happened?" Neal asked, obviously curious about how Franklin had ended up in Bank Fraud.
"He had an inappropriate relationship with a CI," Peter told him. Neal looked more intrigued than anything.
"How inappropriate?" he asked gleefully.
"Do you want me to draw you a diagram?" Peter asked. Neal narrowed his eyes.
"Can we be that inappropriate?"
"Neal -- "
"Are we already?" Neal asked, and then his eyes really lit up. "Are we more inappropriate?"
"This is not a discussion I'm having with you in the middle of the Federal Building!" Peter hissed. Neal closed the folder he'd been studying, looking contrite. Peter sighed. "Of course we're more inappropriate. I'm married, and you're in my custody. This is..."
"Kinda kinky?" Neal prompted, in a low voice.
"So incredibly outside the rules," Peter told him. "Franklin got sent to metaphorical Siberia. This gets out, I lose my job. Maybe I go to prison. That's why we do things the way we do them. You've got to be careful, Neal, do you get this? Really careful."
Neal nodded. "I get it. I'm on board. I swear, Peter."
"Okay. Let's find Franklin before the Marshals do."
The problem with finding Franklin, of course, was that first he had to handle Franklin's CI, which wasn't easy. Every agent had their own way of handling their informants, and building a rapport with one in the course of a five-minute conversation was a challenge. All CIs had trust issues; neither Rebecca nor Neal were exceptions, and they were more alike than he was perhaps comfortable admitting.
Coming face to face with Franklin was a little like looking in a mirror: This could happen to you, Special Agent Burke, so ask yourself if Caffrey's worth it.
He was, of course he was. But it made his guts clench, especially the brief moment where Neal and Franklin met. He felt like the entire mess must be written on his face -- like Franklin, who had crossed a line, must know Peter had crossed the line too. Going on the run meant they'd crossed a new line together, and that forged a bond of sorts, a bond Peter found useful but didn't necessarily want.
Neal, really, was better at this. Better at concealing what he felt, better at working with what he had, and much, much better at this whole "fugitive" deal.
***
Neal might be a great fugitive but he'd had a lot of practice, and Peter was no slouch at it as an amateur. Besides, Peter was better at the chase. Neal didn't have the patience for surveillance and didn't see why he should have to; he preferred the hands-on approach. Why watch a bank for shift changes when you could get the staff schedule out of the manager? Anyone could sit in a van and watch a perp's (a mark's) house for hours, but it took real skill to go up to the door and knock and lure the mark (the perp) out into the open.
Staking out Peter's home felt stupid, which he could have tolerated because Deckard was stupid; anyone with access to Neal Caffrey ought to be able to come up with half a dozen ways of actively tricking a fugitive into showing himself, but Deckard wasn't interested in using Neal's skills, not the way Peter always was. Still, Neal could deal with stupidity when he had to.
The problem was that it also felt wrong, on a visceral level. In order to concentrate even as much as he normally did on a stakeout, he had to find something unlikeable about the person they were watching, and there was nothing unlikeable about Peter and Elizabeth. The worst you could say about Peter was that he'd gone on the run with Franklin and left Neal to make excuses for him, but it wasn't like Peter could help that. They weren't the Bad Guys (Neal tried not to think too much about how he must have been the Bad Guy for upwards of three years).
Neal would never be as good a cop as he had been a thief. Peter's philosophizing aside, that still bothered him. And so did this.
Sometimes he needled Peter, in the van, just to get smacked down; Peter's discipline was reassuringly constant and it was something to do while they waited. It occurred to him that this time, if he couldn't run a con from outside the van, he could run a pretty good one inside it. All you ever had to do was get the mark talking.
"This feels really, really wrong," he told Deckard, pacing back and forth near the cab entrance.
"Well, you could always tell us where he is," Deckard replied. The mark's first bite; always a little bit of a thrill when the game engaged.
"I wish I knew," he said. "Frankly I'm a little offended he hasn't contacted me."
"I'm not," Jones said, and Neal mentally applauded. Jones would make a good con man. "I want nothing to do with this. It's all on Peter."
Deckard didn't bite for Jones's act as hard as Neal would have liked; instead he launched into a speech about how he knew Peter was going to get in touch with one of them. Not the direction Neal wanted this conversation to go. Keep the mark's mind off the goal; make them watch one hand so they didn't see what the other was doing.
He'd noticed Deckard's keychain earlier, a belt-loop multi-ring with a series of digital keys hanging off it, and he'd wondered not so much whether one of the keys was his but just how many cons in New York were tethered like he was, and -- somewhat pointlessly -- how one would go about contacting them. The Tracker Club. Could be funny.
Now he let himself stare at it, long enough to get Deckard's attention, and Deckard bit again. Clearly the Marshals didn't have the high standards the FBI did.
"Yes. One of these keys goes to your anklet. How do you like the new model, by the way?" Deckard asked.
"You know, it's lighter than the last one," Neal said, anything to keep Deckard's attention on him and keep him talking. Jones would take every advantage of this he could, so at the moment it was Neal's turn to play distraction. "It's sleek. I get a lot of compliments."
"And the GPS is more accurate too," Deckard said, as if they were talking cars or grills or something. Neal was opening his mouth to bring up his radius issues when Deckard added, "Down to the yard."
It seemed innocent enough, but Deckard had turned in Franklin for fraternizing with his CI. If he had access to Neal's maps, he might know how often Neal "worked late" at Peter and Elizabeth's house.
"Yeah, I noticed," he said immediately, to keep from showing anything other than casual interest. He was into his patter about the White Bored exhibit and how unfair it was that he had to find an escort (maybe he could start a fight with Jones about it) when Jones cut the game short.
Mozzie was at the door to Peter and Elizabeth's house -- was inside, with Elizabeth, thankfully probably filling her in on where Peter and Franklin were. And when Mozzie emerged he was definitely playing bait, very tempting bait, bait that Deckard followed without a second thought.
Technically they were running a couple of circles around Deckard that balanced things in their favor, but even so Peter never would have fallen for this bullshit. He'd have taken one look at anyone stalling as obviously as Mozzie was and smelled something rotten.
Neal didn't know why they were hiding behind a bunch of cars at Rebecca The Hot CI's dealership, or why Mozzie had led them there, but he was willing to play along. The minute he saw Diana show up he probably would have copped to what was going on anyway, but it did help to get a call from Peter right in the middle of the mess. Peter had a way of explaining things that was a little bit like a sharp blade. It all became very clear very quickly.
"You ever run a Prisoner's Dilemma?" Peter asked, and Neal fought a grin.
"I've been in one," he said.
"Well, now's your chance to run it on a US Marshal," Peter told him. "You clear on what to do?"
"Crystal clear," Neal said, pleased and excited. He'd been set up in a Prisoner's Dilemma three times; time to get a little of his own back. "Thank you, sir."
He meant, of course he meant, to imply he was still talking to Bancroft. ADC Bancroft definitely merited 'sir' even from degenerate discipline-lacking CIs like Neal. On the other hand...
"Good," Peter said, his voice warm and rich, the best response he could give considering who was listening. Neal basked inwardly under the praise.
This was going to be so much fun.
***
Sunday afternoon found Deckard firmly in prison, Franklin reinstated to White Collar, and Peter walking out of a movie with El, bound for Donatella's and then a quiet night in.
"Am I out of the doghouse yet?" he asked, and Elizabeth laughed.
"Honey, you worry too much," she said, taking his hand as they crossed the parking lot to the car. "So Date Night got postponed a night. We've had worse. Effort counts," she added, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "No doghouse. Well. You might still be making it up to Satchmo for leaving him out in the yard for hours."
Peter was opening his mouth to reply when his phone rang; he almost ignored it, but Deckard was too recently imprisoned for him not to be just a little concerned. And sure enough...it was Bancroft.
"Peter Burke," he answered, leaning against the car while Elizabeth unlocked it.
"Burke, it's Bancroft."
"Yessir. Something come up with the case?" Peter asked, because he had to, and because if he was going to miss dinner it had better be for something important.
"Not so far as I'm aware," Bancroft replied. "It's about Caffrey."
Peter groaned. "What's he done?"
"Nothing. I wanted to notify you that he left his radius this morning."
"I didn't get a call from the Marshals," Peter said, frowning.
"I pulled some strings. Didn't want to bother you on your day off. We took in the White Bored exhibit at the Powell."
Elizabeth was watching him. Peter blinked.
"You and Neal," he said.
"Yes..." Bancroft sounded amused. "It really is an excellent installation."
"So I've heard." Peter circled around to the passenger's side as Elizabeth, apparently impatient, climbed into the driver's seat.
"And I thought you should know that I think you've done top-notch work with Caffrey," Bancroft continued.
"Uh...thank you, sir," Peter replied, baffled now.
"He's a very well-spoken, intelligent young man. Not what I would have expected. His views on art are more on the lines of a scholar's than a thief's. He seems to be on a good path. He says he owes you a lot."
"I do my best," Peter said.
"I'd like to see more CIs in such a good working relationship with their handlers."
Peter almost choked. "Thank you, sir."
"Keep it up," Bancroft said, and hung up.
"What was that all about?" Elizabeth asked. Peter looked down at the phone.
"Apparently Neal is a credit to my training and more CIs should have such a positive relationship with their handlers," he said. He looked up; she was trying very hard not to giggle, he could tell.
"You should do a seminar," she managed, before bursting out laughing. Peter leaned back and rubbed his eyes.
"Trade secret," he remarked, and then broke down laughing himself.
***
Of course, it didn't take long for Neal to turn around and become difficult after that; not even two days.
Peter had made the executive decision to leave Deckard in detainment all weekend and let him stew a little. They had a signed confession about his activities from Vogler, his partner in crime, so they didn't really need to interrogate him with any kind of urgency. What Peter had in mind was a fishing expedition, to see if their dirty Marshal was up to anything else, and maybe to humiliate Deckard just a little.
Jones had done good work on the case, and needed practice in interrogation anyway; on Monday morning, Peter tossed him Deckard's file and said, "Playmate for you."
"Yeah?" Jones asked, his face lighting up.
"Get anything you can out of him. Fuck with him," Peter said. "Have fun. I'll be in the observation room."
"Great," Jones replied happily, and went off to arrange for Deckard to be brought to interrogation.
Peter thought questioning someone like Deckard, who knew interrogation tactics and most of the mind tricks employed, would be difficult, and he wasn't proven wrong. Jones was still softening him up mid-morning when Neal (apparently bored with writing his report on the case) slunk quietly into observation.
"How's it going?" he asked, sitting down next to Peter and propping his legs up on the table. Peter gave him a look; Neal dropped his legs, leaning forward.
"It's fishing. We'll get something or we won't," Peter said.
"What's he looking at?"
"Twenty-five to life. Probably closer to life. The DA might charge him with treason -- selling classified government information. That would mean no parole."
"Good," Neal said.
Peter glanced at him. "That's a little intense, from an ex-con."
"Yeah, I know," Neal told him. "I blame you."
"Me?"
"It's your fault," Neal insisted. "I've totally bought into the fraternity of officers thing. I mean, I have known some serious scumbags in my time, guys who were at least as evil as him, maybe a lot worse. He's the first one I've ever really, you know, loathed this much, just for being a bent cop. It's kind of startling how much I hate him."
"Well, your scumbags were equal-opportunity scumbags," Peter pointed out.
"How do you mean?" Neal asked.
"They were guys off the street. They didn't have anyone backing them, or if they did, it was other guys off the street. You give a man like Deckard the power of the whole federal government behind him, what he did becomes...worse. It's bullying. People are supposed to trust us. Guys like Deckard are the reason they rarely do."
Neal nodded, silent, still staring at Deckard.
"He's gonna be tough to deal with," Peter added. "He knows too much about the system, too many contacts in bad places. They'll probably send him to prison out of state, where he can't do as much harm. That's anticipating, though. We have to get a conviction first."
"Yeah...speaking of that," Neal said.
"Neal..."
"No, just...he said something that's kind of freaking me out," Neal said. "He said my monitor's accurate to the yard."
"So?" Peter asked. "You knew that already."
"Yeah, and he knew that I knew it. So why tell me? It sounded..." Neal chewed on his lip. "It sounded like a threat. Like someplace I'd been was tipping him off."
Peter fought the cold crawl of anxiety in his chest. "Deckard's dirty. Nobody's going to believe him now, especially since we nailed him. Besides, everything he says sounds like a threat. He was probably bluffing."
"Yeah," Neal said, sounding doubtful, just as the door opened and Diana walked in, carrying a file folder.
"We got the evidence from Vogler's office," she said, handing it to Peter. "Got you a summary of the stuff Deckard didn't get to. The shreds are in evidence now."
"This is good work. Let's put some interns on assembling those," Peter said, flipping through it.
"You should read the last page," Diana said. Peter glanced at her and then turned to the last page in the file, skimming it.
"Oh," he said quietly.
"What?" Neal asked, leaning over his shoulder.
"Deckard's the one who sold out Clive," Peter said. "Clive's the last witness he sold -- after the trial. Barlowe wanted revenge. Apparently he knew who to talk to."
"That son of a bitch," Neal breathed, and Peter looked up in alarm. Very few things made Neal truly angry, or at least very few things made Neal angry enough for it to show on his face. "That son of a -- "
"Neal!" Peter yelped, as Neal made for the door. He flailed and caught Neal's wrist, slowing him just long enough for Diana to block Neal's only exit. "Neal, don't do anything stupid."
"He's a kid, Peter!" Neal snapped, turning around, looking frustrated and impotent when Diana refused to move from the door. "Deckard sold out a kid, and Barlowe's crew went after him and now he's on the run."
"Yeah, and Diana's going to find him," Peter said. "You go in there, Deckard knows you were the one who sold Barlowe to the FBI in the first place and we're all in danger. Don't do something stupid."
Neal seethed, jaw tight, staring through the window at Deckard. Peter stood up and rested his hands on his shoulders from behind.
"We got him," he said, careful not to lean too close. "You know what happens to cops in prison. Let it go, Neal. Nothing we can do about it but put him away."
"What if he sold you too?" Neal asked. "What if they come after Elizabeth?"
Peter tightened his fingers a fraction. "There's no record in the files of our names being involved. We're safe. Elizabeth's safe. Calm the hell down, before I cuff you to something."
Neal barked a laugh, but his shoulders relaxed. "You know that'd only distract me for about ten seconds, right?"
Peter glanced at Diana, who was watching them with a carefully blank face. She nodded.
"Caffrey," she said. Neal glanced at her. "Buy me a coffee."
"Go on," Peter added, jerking his head at the door. "Take a minute, walk it off. Deckard's not going anywhere."
Diana took his arm -- a firm grip, just in case -- and pulled Neal out of the room. Peter walked back to the observation window where Deckard was smirking at Jones.
Clive shouldn't have the hold on Neal that he did. He was just a kid they'd worked with for a few days to hang up a drug kingpin on stolen-property charges. But Clive was a forger, and he'd been in the game. Peter knew that Neal still prized himself on being the man who could fix anything, especially for his brothers and sisters from the game. Until Neal, he'd never really considered the idea that crime was a brotherhood just like law enforcement was. Cops stuck together because they trusted each other. The reason the Prisoner's Dilemma worked so well was that crooks never seemed to have that much trust.
Thinking about it was getting him nowhere; it was an insight, but not useful at the moment.
Unless...
He took out his phone and dialled Deputy Braddock.
"Hey Burke, your name is mud around here," Braddock answered.
"I'm not the crook," Peter replied, grinning.
"Is it true your pet con ran a Prisoner's Dilemma on Deckard?"
"My team ran it," Peter corrected. "You giving me shit about John Deckard now?"
"Hell no. What an asshole. Still, you know how people are. I wouldn't put my face in around here anytime soon."
"Yeah, that's sort of why I called," Peter said. "We're doing a little fishing with Deckard. How'd you like to run a play with me?"
"What did you have in mind?" Braddock asked.
***
Diana made Neal walk with her to the good coffee shop, further away from the Federal building and the cluster of Starbucks clones nearby, and then led him back to a bench in Columbus Park. She didn't seem like she expected him to talk, so he kept quiet, trying to get a harness on his anger. Anger was pointless; it made you sloppy and it didn't get the job done. Cons didn't get angry -- Brunhilda had taught him that. Cons got even, and getting even took patience. It was stupid to get angry about this at all. He didn't even know Clive that well.
He wished he had his sketchbook. He didn't like to be so attached to things, because a lot of times you had to run and leave them behind, but it wasn't the book, not really. If he could get lost in shadow and shape and negative space for a while, maybe this would go away.
"He's a kid," Diana said, and Neal wondered if he'd been talking aloud about Clive, or if she was just good at guessing. "Kids get to you. Everyone, I mean. It's always worse when a kid's involved."
"Clive's old enough to look after himself," Neal said, inexplicably feeling like he should be defending him.
"Yeah, but he's still a kid. It's okay to be pissed. Peter is."
"He doesn't show it," Neal muttered.
"He's had a lot more experience than you," Diana pointed out, as Neal's phone rang.
"Peter," he said, checking the ID. "I should answer." Diana nodded and Neal put the phone to his ear. "Peter?"
"Is Diana with you?" Peter asked.
"Yep."
"Are you alone?"
"Mostly. We're in the park."
"Okay. Put the phone on speaker and then listen," Peter said. Neal frowned, but he took it off his ear and pressed the speaker key. There was a clatter, like Peter's phone was being set down. A second later they could hear a door open and shut, and then another, this time tinny and distant, as if through another speaker.
"Did he leave his phone in the observation room?" Diana asked. Neal shook his head, uncertain, perplexed.
"Okay, Jones," Peter said, in the same slightly tinny tone. Neal raised the volume on his phone. "Game's over."
"Braddock," another voice said -- Deckard. And then Braddock's voice too.
"Deckard."
"You here to spring me?" Deckard asked.
"No," Peter said, and there was a soft thump. A file landing on the table, Neal guessed. "We're passing you back to the Marshals. They asked for you."
"You did one of your own," Braddock said. Diana raised her eyebrows at Neal. "No more FBI deal offers, Deckard. You sold out one of us."
"Clive Banks," Peter's voice. Neal tightened his grip on the phone. "Name sound familiar?"
"He wasn't just a witness," Braddock said.
"Sorry," Peter corrected himself, sounding very insincere. "Deputy Clive Banks. You sold an undercover U.S. Marshal to a drug dealer, Deckard."
"Is that true?" Diana asked.
"No," Neal said, realization dawning. "They're playing him. They're using Clive to get to him. Fraternity," he added, mostly to himself.
"My hands are tied," Peter was saying, still in the same slightly sarcastic tone. "Nothing I can do but give you back to them, see what they can get out of you. Try not to fall down any stairs on the way," he added. Neal knew he was lying -- Peter would never mistreat a suspect in custody, and wouldn't turn a suspect over to anyone who would -- but it still gave him pause.
"I'm not making any promises," Braddock added.
"You can't do this, Burke," Deckard was almost babbling, he was talking so fast. "You can't just hand me back, you know what he's gonna do -- "
"Hey, the only thing we've got you on is accessory to murder. You won't tell us anything, we might as well pass you off," Peter said.
"Wait -- wait, you offered me a deal," Deckard insisted. "I didn't know he was a Marshal. I can tell you things, I can get you connections -- Vogler knew a lot of people, I can give you names..."
Diana took the phone out of Neal's hands and hung up, grinning. Neal grinned back.
"You know what 'Burke' means?" she asked. Neal tilted his head. "The verb. It's an old slang word."
"From Burke and Hare," Neal said. "Resurrection men in the 1800s. They used to rob graves for cadavers for the local medical school."
"And?"
"And then they started killing people when they ran out of corpses," Neal said, intrigued by where this was going. "They used to smother them, that's why smothering was called Burking."
Diana nodded. "It didn't mark up the bodies as much. Burke got so good at killing invisibly that they put his name on it. To Burke actually means to kill without leaving a trace."
"Very symbolic," Neal observed.
"Almost poetic," Diana agreed, standing up. "Ready to go back?"
"Yeah, I think so," Neal said.
He had gotten angry. Peter had gotten even. Quickly, almost effortlessly, and without leaving a trace.
"You ever feel like you've just realized mild-mannered accountant type is Peter's alter ego, and secretly he's a ninja?" Neal asked. Diana laughed.
"All the time," she said. "I think he cultivates it on purpose. You should know, though. He ninja'd you."
"I didn't appreciate it as much, then," Neal admitted.
"And now?"
"Every time he whips out a katana it still surprises me."
***
Peter wasn't sure why, when he told the team he was going undercover as an accountant, Diana and Neal exchanged a private grin. They'd both seen him undercover before -- sometimes with spectacularly death-defying results -- and he did have the degree for it.
"Working late tonight," Neal said to him in an undertone, as the briefing broke up. Not even a question, which was unusual for Neal. Peter glanced at him. "We have to talk."
"Should I be worried?" Peter asked.
"Yes," Neal said, but he was grinning. "You absolutely should."
He didn't worry, exactly, but the day did seem to drag and the drive home took forever, with Neal humming quietly to himself in the passenger's seat. Elizabeth was already home, and a night in seemed like a really good idea.
"You gonna tell me what we need to talk about?" Peter asked, as they pulled up to the house.
"It's more something you show, really," Neal said thoughtfully. Peter glanced at him. "Trust me."
"Yeah, that doesn't set off alarms," Peter replied, but he unlocked the door and stepped inside. "El?"
"Hey," El called from the dining room, coming out to greet them. Peter kissed her -- oh, the absolute best part of the day -- and then stepped aside so Neal could bend down and let her kiss him on the forehead. It was their weird little quirk, but given his own weird giant quirks with Neal he wasn't really in a position to judge.
"So," she said, as Peter dropped a handful of files on the coffee table and wandered into the dining room, "Undercover, huh?"
"Yeah, Peter said regretfully, undoing his tie. God, there was food on the table and it smelled really good. "Might be gone for a couple of d -- "
He'd spoken as he was turning around, only to find that Neal had wrapped his arms around Elizabeth from behind and they were both watching him, smiling, Neal's head over Elizabeth's shoulder.
"What?" he asked.
"Let's have dinner," Elizabeth said, patting Neal's hands at her waist before pulling away gently. "You can tell me about your case."
"Is this tag-team, or ganging up?" Peter asked, but he sat down at the table and picked up a fork.
"Which works better?" Neal asked Elizabeth. She took them both in with an amused look.
"Tell me about the case," she said. "Your email was a lot about how sorry you are that you're going undercover and a little short on details."
So Peter put aside his vague uneasiness and talked about the case. He had a decade of experience in this, in the way Elizabeth should be told about cases: embroidering the funny parts (there were usually funny parts; law enforcement was funnier than most people or cop shows thought) and downplaying the danger. It wasn't lying, exactly, it was just...making sure Elizabeth didn't worry too much about him. Still, he caught Neal's expression once or twice and knew that Neal was sizing up this move, studying it and pulling it apart and would probably bring it up at some very inconvenient later date.
"This Kent guy you're auditing," Neal said, pushing the last of the potatoes around the plate with his fork. "He's a tech dweeb, right? A self-made nerd?"
"Don't underestimate him," Peter replied. "The key words in that sentence are self and made. He runs a multi-million-dollar corporation."
"Yeah, but still basically a dweeb," Neal said.
"Neal, can you tell Elizabeth what a quantum microprocessor is?" Peter asked.
"It's a tool for binary codebreaking," Neal said promptly.
"And that means...?"
Neal flushed slightly.
"He heard that from Jones," Peter told Elizabeth. She smiled at him in the way she had which said he was drastically missing the point.
"It's a different world," Neal said.
"The world of dweebs?" Peter drawled.
"High finance. High-tech," Neal replied. "You're gonna have to freak them out, Peter."
"Have you ever known meekness to be a problem of mine?" Peter asked. Neal's eyes flicked, strangely, to his shirt. Elizabeth put one hand on Peter's.
"Sweetie, I think Neal's trying to say there's more to posing as an accountant than having the right credentials," she said.
"It's a suit-and-tie job," Peter answered, confused.
"Very specific suits. Very specific ties," Neal told him, looking triumphant, like he'd already won this bizarre debate. Maybe he had; Peter wasn't quite following the theme of it. "You're the auditor, Peter. You're the man with all the power."
Peter just tilted his head slightly.
"I love it when he does that," Elizabeth stage-whispered to Neal.
"Are we going to approach a point anytime soon?" Peter asked.
"Come on upstairs, sweetie," El said, rising out of her chair and tugging him along.
"Hey, we can digest first," Peter protested, but he didn't even try to stall their progress. Neal gave him a sardonic look, the half-full bottle of wine in one hand and their glasses cradled in the other.
"It's all sex with you," Neal said.
"I'm sorry, who begged me for -- "
"Boys," El warned, already pulling Peter up the stairs.
When they reached the bedroom she pushed him gently down into the chair near the doorway, and Neal slid a glass of wine into his hand as he passed, filling his own glass and El's and setting the bottle on the bedside table. Elizabeth opened the closet doors, then gestured for Neal to take over and came back, settling herself sideways on Peter's lap so she could watch too.
Peter nosed against her ear, dropping a kiss into her hair. "Okay, this is nice."
"Good," she said. "Just remember, when you get the urge to stand up, I get angry when I'm dumped on the floor."
"When I -- " Peter looked at her, brow furrowing. He glanced back at Neal, who was head-and-shoulders deep in the closet. "Neal, what are you doing to my clothing?"
"Weeding it," Neal said absently, not bothering to look around at them.
"It's not that your suits are bad, hon," Elizabeth said, resting her head on his shoulder. "It's just that -- "
"You dress to blend in," Neal finished. "You want to stand out -- " he leaned out of the closet, holding something up with a look of horror on his face. "Oh, Peter. A sweater vest?"
"That was a gift," Peter protested.
"It's button front!"
"Not guilty," Elizabeth said. "His mom gave him that."
"When he was fifteen?" Neal asked, putting it back in the closet. "You need shirts."
"I have shirts," Peter growled.
"Shirts that say 'I'm a powerful man with the ability to ruin your company'," Neal corrected. He emerged again, this time with an armful of dress shirts. "You wear a lot of pink."
"I'm secure in my masculinity," Peter told him.
"And just the tiniest bit gay," Neal replied, setting the shirts on the bed. He shot him a grin and went for the ties.
Peter had learned early on, working with Neal, that Neal could and should be trusted when he was in his element. After all, why keep a con man and ignore the tools he had to offer? If Neal were painting a mural he wouldn't have stood by and offered suggestions, and this was no different. Peter sat quietly, occasionally nuzzling Elizabeth's cheek, and watched Neal study the clothing laid out in front of him.
"It's all about power and where you apply it," Neal said as he worked, and Peter wasn't sure if he was talking to them or to himself. "Always give the mark a little shot at the crack in the armor. Nobody's all-powerful. So Peter Lassen wears expensive shirts, but his ties never quite match, and he's always just a little uncertain when people are nice to him."
"Whose undercover gig is this?" Peter asked. "Yours or mine?"
Neal studied a tie, then hung it back up on the rack in the closet. "You're my partner. Your gig is my gig."
"That's sweet," El said, kissing Peter on the cheek. "I think we should keep him."
"At this point I'm not sure I have a choice," Peter said. Neal began hanging up the shirts he'd rejected. Peter caught a glimpse of the same brilliant, delighted smile that Neal usually tried to hide in the darkness.
"Okay, fashion show," Neal said, picking up one of the shirts and a tie. He held the shirt up, hooking the hanger against his neck so that it rested against his chest, and then brought the tie around. The shirt was one Peter generally saved for special occasions, a little too loud for work -- wide pink stripes, french cuffs, and a higher collar than usual. The tie was a pastel blue diagonal stripe, and he wasn't sure he remembered the last time he'd worn it.
"I'm going to look like an Easter egg threw up on me," he said.
"That's the point," Neal said patiently. He set the clothing aside. "You have presence, Peter. You're not good enough at this to hide that. So you're going to walk in and everyone's going to know you're the boss. But this tie says Maybe you can get to me anyway."
"I've done undercover work for twelve years," Peter pointed out. "I'm not new at this."
"I know that," Neal drawled. "I'm making it easier, that's all. People might not know what they see sometimes but they react to it anyway. Little details matter. They can make a con easier to pull off. I mean, you work with what you've got, but it's better if you've got more."
"Better with more. Life philosophy?" Peter asked.
"Less is only more in architecture and stripteases," Neal said absently, still digging through the ties he'd picked out as, apparently, ugly enough.
"Neal, I want you to go back to where you were telling Peter he has presence," Elizabeth said, grinning.
"Oh, the part where I was complimenting your husband?" Neal asked, turning to her.
"Backhanded compliment," Peter grumbled.
"Why, because you can't hide it? Hey, it's not easy. You walk into a room, you own that room," Neal said. "That's hard to conceal. It's easier to pretend to have all the power than to pretend you don't have it."
Peter frowned, confused by the turn Neal's little lecture had taken. Neal caught it and laughed.
"Peter," he said, shaking his head. "You really don't even see it, do you? Look, I'm a nice guy, I'm a charming guy, but if I want to dominate the room I have to work for it. You just...do. Some people got it. Some people gotta earn it."
"It's okay, sweetie, we won't hold your natural charisma against you," Elizabeth said.
"I'm not following," Peter admitted.
Neal rolled his eyes. "Okay. You know me. You know my MO. You know how I work. Think about that. Now. Watch."
At any given time, Neal radiated confidence, but it was a trickster's confidence, and Peter had been able to see through it years ago, even before Neal got out of prison. It was ladies' man charm, all shiny teeth and eyes and wits. Now Peter watched as Neal stood in the middle of the room and without even closing his eyes seemed to drop that away like a shed skin. It wasn't any single thing, though it was a lot of small things: the stance of his legs, the tilt of his shoulders, the shape of his smile. In its place there was a certain -- weight, a solidity that made him seem somehow more real.
"Wow," Elizabeth said. Neal's smile was all quiet confidence. Peter stared -- Jesus, that was his smile on Neal's face.
Neal held out a hand and turned it over, curling his fingers a little. Elizabeth kissed Peter's cheek and climbed off his lap, taking Neal's hand. Neal wrapped his other arm around her waist and held her there, as if he were about to start slow-dancing her.
"So," he said, and his voice was deeper, too, "come here often?"
Elizabeth burst out laughing. Neal grinned and then he was himself again, slick and casual and loose. He tightened his arm around Elizabeth and spun her, winking at Peter.
"Is that what I look like?" Peter asked, as Neal pulled Elizabeth into a waltz.
"You do it better," Neal told him, dancing effortlessly. "What, you think I'd roll over for anyone less than you, Peter? Even if someone caught me -- not if they weren't you."
He drew to a stop, Elizabeth still laughing and a little breathless in his arms, and bent to kiss her. She raised a hand to thread it through his hair. They were so beautiful and so good together that Peter forgot about Neal's little demonstration, forgot about the ugly ties and the loud shirts and just sat there, watching.
"I like special, rare things," Neal said, when Elizabeth was done kissing him. "One-of-a-kind sort of things."
"I think we've been collected," Elizabeth said. Peter got out of the chair and walked across to where they stood, drawing Neal's face around and kissing him.
"Now, about that rolling over," he said, and Neal laughed into his mouth.
***
Chapter Thirteen
References:
Necklace with pendant Eros, the inspiration for Neal's birthday gift to Kate.
Enright's, the cop bar frequented by the White Collar crowd and Peter's contacts with the NYPD, is named after Richard Enright, one of the NYPD's early police commissioners.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None.
Summary: Neal is finding a place for himself, both at the Bureau and in Peter and Elizabeth's life. Unraveling the mystery of the music box might ruin everything -- but that's a risk he has to take.
Chapter Eleven
***
Elizabeth came back from her last trip ("I swear, this is the last one, no more!") at two in the afternoon, and didn't expect either Peter or Neal to be at the airport waiting for her. Both of them were.
"My boys," she said, as Peter hugged her and Neal lifted her carry-on out of her hands. She hugged Neal next, felt him slip a kiss against her ear, and then she hugged Peter again. He smelled like gunpowder. She leaned back and raised an eyebrow.
"Firing range," he said, holding up his hands. "We stayed out of trouble."
"Good," she told him. "In that case I have presents."
"Seriously?" Neal asked, at the same time Peter said, "Hon, we're not twelve."
Peter glanced at Neal. "Some of us aren't twelve," he corrected himself. Elizabeth just grinned and tugged at her carry-on until Neal held it out so she could open it. One palm-sized silver-and-black box for Neal, and a larger square white box for Peter, who tucked his up in his hand and held it at his side while Neal opened his.
"Wow," Neal said, when he took the lid off, not so much with wonder or joy as sheer dumbstruck numbness. "Wow."
Elizabeth kissed his cheek -- nothing an affection for one's husband's friend couldn't explain away. "Turn it over."
Neal tugged the silver tie bar out of its felt setting, fingers nimble as they rotated it. Engraved on the inside of the front was the legend For N, from E, love. He handled it like it was made of porcelain, cautious and delicate as he undid the bar holding his tie and slipped the new one into its place. The front was engraved too, just a random, swirling design she'd thought might suit him. He looked at her, the smile on his face at once brilliant and shy. Elizabeth felt a circuit complete: Peter had once repeated to her what Neal had said, that they had rings for each other and Neal had a tracker but no way of laying claim to them. No way of showing her claim on him. Now he did.
"And Peter," she said, before the tableau could get embarrassing. Peter held up the box and lifted the top, pulling out a stream of tissue paper and then recoiling in startled horror for a second as he saw what was underneath. Neal leaned over and then started back as well. Elizabeth wished she had a camera.
Peter carefully hooked his finger into the box and pulled out the gift -- a small, taxidermied alligator head.
"They were selling them by the roadside when I was in Orlando," Elizabeth said. "It screamed 'Peter' at me."
"It's screaming something," Neal said. Peter's face, now that he was past the initial shock, was lit up with glee.
"It's great!" he said. "I can put it on my desk. Look, the teeth stick out, I could put my business cards in it."
"You are not well people," Neal informed them. Peter kissed Elizabeth, then carefully tucked the thing back in the box. Neal and Peter exchanged a look over her head.
"Boys..." she said, glancing from one to the other. Neal was better at the poker face; Peter could be slick when he wanted, but not around her.
"We have something for you, too," Peter sighed. "You're not gonna like it."
As they walked to the car, Peter explained (with occasional colorful embroideries from Neal) that one of their witnesses had been threatened and disappeared, and that if the leak got out before Peter and Neal's names were removed from the records, they might be next. Elizabeth was more or less used to Peter occasionally having to watch his back, and she knew Neal had spent a lifetime doing it, so she wasn't worried so much as concerned --
Until she saw the lockbox sitting in the trunk of the car.
"Oh, hon," she sighed, setting her luggage down on top of it. "The gun, really?"
"Told you she doesn't like it," Peter said to Neal, who was sliding into the back seat.
"You think I like this thing?" Neal asked, holding up his arm. Elizabeth saw blacked metal at his wrist. Neal looked at her, pulled his cuff back, and made a face; the blunt end of an asp in a wrist-holster was visible. "He makes me keep a Taser in my desk at work."
"I wish you'd keep it at home," Peter said.
"There are children in my home," Neal retorted. "Samantha comes over all the time, I'm not keeping a Taser anywhere near her."
Elizabeth smiled and ran her fingers up Peter's neck as he pulled them out of the parking garage, stroking the soft hair on the back of his head. "He's looking out for us, Neal. I don't like having the gun, but I know when it comes out he's serious."
"I don't like guns," Neal muttered rebelliously.
"Did I make you take one?" Peter asked.
"So!" Elizabeth interrupted brightly. Both of them looked slightly guilty for fighting. "Are we going home?"
"We are," Peter agreed. "I'm dropping Neal at Federal Plaza."
Elizabeth pouted at Neal in the rearview mirror. He shrugged.
"Looks a little suspicious, apparently," he said, with a darted glance at Peter. "Besides, you know. Time alone. I get it."
He sounded convincing, but Elizabeth was getting better at reading him; he also looked sad. She turned in the seat and rested her chin on it, smiling at him.
"We'll miss you," she said. "Besides, look at it this way -- "
" -- I'm trusting you with the entire FBI without my supervision," Peter finished.
"You know that psychic-married-couple thing you do is scary sometimes," Neal said, but he was smiling now, a real hundred-percent-Neal smile. His hand drifted up to the tiebar on his chest, fingers framing the length of it briefly before he let go.
They left Neal outside the federal building with a wave and another kiss on the cheek from Elizabeth. By the time they got home she was feeling the post-flight exhaustion setting in.
"All I want is something hot to eat and someone to curl up with," she said, as Peter hauled her suitcase out of the trunk. He caught her around the waist and kissed her in the front yard, pulling her close.
"That can be arranged," he said. "Go in, I'll bring your stuff. There's a pot roast."
"You're my favorite husband," she told him, and he grinned goofily as he locked the car.
***
Neal spent most of the afternoon working on cold cases, which was at least better than paperwork. Two of the cold cases were his own work, which was interesting reading -- seeing what slipped through the cracks, finding out what kinds of crimes went past Peter's meticulous and well-researched radar. Perhaps they hadn't; they were Peter's cases. On the other hand, if they were tied to Neal, there was no record of it in the files. They were oddball jobs, after all, not his usual gigs. One had been to secure a birthday gift for Kate; the other had been a favor he owed from his time in Japan.
Kate had looked beautiful, wearing the necklace he'd lifted on the Boston job. He remembered it vividly -- Greek workmanship from the Hellenistic era, alternating links of gold and carved garnet, just a fragment of its original glory but long enough to be worn as a choker, with a little modern gold pin at the back to hold it in place. It was well out of the usual period he dealt in, and the FBI was probably more interested in the fact that someone had broken into the museum to steal it than the value of the thing itself. He wondered what Kate had done with it. Maybe she'd fenced it, or tucked it up in a cache somewhere that might now never be found.
He remembered thinking, as he clasped the necklace around her throat, that men who'd lived and died seventeen hundred years before had handled it, had hung it around the throats of other beautiful women. He'd kissed the back of her neck and murmured that he'd make her a queen.
Two desks down, Jones hung up the phone and groaned, leaning back in his chair, snapping Neal out of his thoughts. He glanced over. "Problem?"
"Nah," Jones waved a hand. "It's the manhunt in Chicago."
"Clive?"
"Yeah. Diana's annoyed. He's pretty much disappeared. Half the Marshals she's working with think someone really did get to him and they're gonna find him in the river," Jones said.
"You think?"
"I think we'd have found a body by now," Jones said. "You kill a witness before a trial, you might hide it. Kill 'em after a trial, that's just plain revenge. People want revenge to be visible."
"They teach you that at Harvard?" Neal asked, grinning.
"Hey, academia is cutthroat. I was varsity in public humiliation."
"Giving or getting?"
"Both," Jones said sourly. "You got any more bright ideas about where he might've gone? Diana's gone through your checklist already."
"He's not a professional." Neal frowned. "He's only done two jobs, unless he was conning me when he said that, and I don't think he was. He shouldn't be able to get away that clean."
"Yeah, well, maybe he picked up a few things."
"He might've shacked up with someone. That was his thing in New York. Clive doesn't like to work alone," Neal added, sitting forward. "I put that in the writeup, though. So -- Diana's still there for a while?"
"Marshals'll handle it from here, and they got some good guys out in Chicago. She's back in a few days. They pick up the trail again, she'll be there," Jones said.
"We should throw her a party," Neal said. "You know. Welcome To The Manhunt."
"Somehow I don't think she'll appreciate that," Jones drawled.
"Hey, it took Peter three years to catch me. Clive's good -- but he's not me," Neal said, grinning. "And from here it looks like quitting time. You wanna get a drink?"
"Sure," Jones said, starting shutdown on his computer. "Nowhere too upscale, some of us pay for our own drinks."
"You know Enright's?" Neal said, pulling his coat on.
"The cop bar on West 22nd?" Jones asked.
"Yeah, I owe a Sergeant a couple of drinks. Besides, they like me," Neal assured him.
"Of course they do," Jones muttered, following him out.
***
The next case they caught, a couple of days after El came home, was of course on a Saturday morning that Peter had planned to spend alternating between a baseball game and some fix-its around the house -- the windows needed sealing and Satchmo had been chewing on the kitchen baseboards again. He wasn't a destructive dog, usually. He just had something against baseboards.
He got the text message from Jones while he was still dressing (Hughes wants us in, call for details) and groaned, throwing his jeans back in the closet and pulling out a clean set of work clothes.
"Neal," he yelled, and the water shut off in the shower. A few seconds later Neal -- damp, naked, toweling his hair -- walked into the bedroom.
"What?" Neal asked. "By the way, this is an ungodly time to be awake on a Saturday."
"It's good we are," Peter said, tossing him the phone. Neal studied it while he dried himself. "They want me, they probably want you too."
"So much for leisurely breakfast," Neal sighed. "I need one of your ties. Not one of the ugly ones," he added. Peter narrowed his eyes at him. "What? Some of your ties, Peter, they cause me pain."
"I like my ties," Peter said.
"That's because you don't have to look at them," Neal told him, going for the rack in the closet. "Where's Elizab -- hm," he grunted, as Peter caught him around the waist, holding him there. Neal turned his head a little to meet Peter's eyes, and Peter smiled.
"Say please," Peter said. Neal rolled his eyes. "I'm the boss, I can deny you access to my ties."
Neal leaned in close, lips near Peter's ear. "Please, sir, may I have a necktie?" he asked, tone only slightly mocking. Peter let him go.
"Elizabeth's downstairs, she has an event," Peter said, as Neal began going through the ties. "Come down when you're ready, I gotta find out what's going on."
He left Neal humming smugly to himself as he dressed. Downstairs, he called Jones, only to find that Jones didn't know anything -- just that everyone was being called in, and it sounded important.
"You want me to go rustle out Caffrey?" Jones asked, right as Peter said No, sugar in response to El's attempts to pass him the cream. "Sorry, what?"
"Not you, Jones," Peter sighed. "No, I'll bring Neal in. Okay, yeah, I'm on my way."
And it wasn't that Peter was tired of Neal, or didn't want him around, but as he and Elizabeth both started gathering up their things for the long workday (long Saturday workday) ahead, he realized they'd hardly had a minute alone together, just him and El, since she'd come back from traveling. Either one or both of them had a late shift or Neal was over, and it felt unfair to El, who had been traveling alone while he'd been in New York with Neal.
Navigating a threesome was turning out to be trickier than he'd anticipated, for reasons having nothing to do with the threat of losing his job or his wife.
"You and me, bottle of wine, and a movie," he told her. "No work, no discussion of work, no excuses."
Which he really should have known would just curse his whole goddamn day.
The case was a manhunt, which Peter was good at and on some level enjoyed, but they always carried their share of frustration. This one was complicated by the fact that they were hunting one of their own, an FBI agent who was caught up in some mess with the US Marshals -- and of course the Marshals themselves were a problem in the form of John Deckard, who was not nearly as agreeable as Braddock. Deckard hadn't liked Peter poking around for a leak when Clive was threatened, and he obviously didn't like working with Peter or with Neal.
If Peter rubbed Deckard's nose in the fact that the FBI caught Neal, and not the Marshals, well. He was only human. And he got his comeuppance a few minutes later when he found out who they were chasing: Jack Franklin, the FBI's cautionary tale made manifest. Because Franklin was a good agent, a more highly-decorated agent than most, and --
"What happened?" Neal asked, obviously curious about how Franklin had ended up in Bank Fraud.
"He had an inappropriate relationship with a CI," Peter told him. Neal looked more intrigued than anything.
"How inappropriate?" he asked gleefully.
"Do you want me to draw you a diagram?" Peter asked. Neal narrowed his eyes.
"Can we be that inappropriate?"
"Neal -- "
"Are we already?" Neal asked, and then his eyes really lit up. "Are we more inappropriate?"
"This is not a discussion I'm having with you in the middle of the Federal Building!" Peter hissed. Neal closed the folder he'd been studying, looking contrite. Peter sighed. "Of course we're more inappropriate. I'm married, and you're in my custody. This is..."
"Kinda kinky?" Neal prompted, in a low voice.
"So incredibly outside the rules," Peter told him. "Franklin got sent to metaphorical Siberia. This gets out, I lose my job. Maybe I go to prison. That's why we do things the way we do them. You've got to be careful, Neal, do you get this? Really careful."
Neal nodded. "I get it. I'm on board. I swear, Peter."
"Okay. Let's find Franklin before the Marshals do."
The problem with finding Franklin, of course, was that first he had to handle Franklin's CI, which wasn't easy. Every agent had their own way of handling their informants, and building a rapport with one in the course of a five-minute conversation was a challenge. All CIs had trust issues; neither Rebecca nor Neal were exceptions, and they were more alike than he was perhaps comfortable admitting.
Coming face to face with Franklin was a little like looking in a mirror: This could happen to you, Special Agent Burke, so ask yourself if Caffrey's worth it.
He was, of course he was. But it made his guts clench, especially the brief moment where Neal and Franklin met. He felt like the entire mess must be written on his face -- like Franklin, who had crossed a line, must know Peter had crossed the line too. Going on the run meant they'd crossed a new line together, and that forged a bond of sorts, a bond Peter found useful but didn't necessarily want.
Neal, really, was better at this. Better at concealing what he felt, better at working with what he had, and much, much better at this whole "fugitive" deal.
***
Neal might be a great fugitive but he'd had a lot of practice, and Peter was no slouch at it as an amateur. Besides, Peter was better at the chase. Neal didn't have the patience for surveillance and didn't see why he should have to; he preferred the hands-on approach. Why watch a bank for shift changes when you could get the staff schedule out of the manager? Anyone could sit in a van and watch a perp's (a mark's) house for hours, but it took real skill to go up to the door and knock and lure the mark (the perp) out into the open.
Staking out Peter's home felt stupid, which he could have tolerated because Deckard was stupid; anyone with access to Neal Caffrey ought to be able to come up with half a dozen ways of actively tricking a fugitive into showing himself, but Deckard wasn't interested in using Neal's skills, not the way Peter always was. Still, Neal could deal with stupidity when he had to.
The problem was that it also felt wrong, on a visceral level. In order to concentrate even as much as he normally did on a stakeout, he had to find something unlikeable about the person they were watching, and there was nothing unlikeable about Peter and Elizabeth. The worst you could say about Peter was that he'd gone on the run with Franklin and left Neal to make excuses for him, but it wasn't like Peter could help that. They weren't the Bad Guys (Neal tried not to think too much about how he must have been the Bad Guy for upwards of three years).
Neal would never be as good a cop as he had been a thief. Peter's philosophizing aside, that still bothered him. And so did this.
Sometimes he needled Peter, in the van, just to get smacked down; Peter's discipline was reassuringly constant and it was something to do while they waited. It occurred to him that this time, if he couldn't run a con from outside the van, he could run a pretty good one inside it. All you ever had to do was get the mark talking.
"This feels really, really wrong," he told Deckard, pacing back and forth near the cab entrance.
"Well, you could always tell us where he is," Deckard replied. The mark's first bite; always a little bit of a thrill when the game engaged.
"I wish I knew," he said. "Frankly I'm a little offended he hasn't contacted me."
"I'm not," Jones said, and Neal mentally applauded. Jones would make a good con man. "I want nothing to do with this. It's all on Peter."
Deckard didn't bite for Jones's act as hard as Neal would have liked; instead he launched into a speech about how he knew Peter was going to get in touch with one of them. Not the direction Neal wanted this conversation to go. Keep the mark's mind off the goal; make them watch one hand so they didn't see what the other was doing.
He'd noticed Deckard's keychain earlier, a belt-loop multi-ring with a series of digital keys hanging off it, and he'd wondered not so much whether one of the keys was his but just how many cons in New York were tethered like he was, and -- somewhat pointlessly -- how one would go about contacting them. The Tracker Club. Could be funny.
Now he let himself stare at it, long enough to get Deckard's attention, and Deckard bit again. Clearly the Marshals didn't have the high standards the FBI did.
"Yes. One of these keys goes to your anklet. How do you like the new model, by the way?" Deckard asked.
"You know, it's lighter than the last one," Neal said, anything to keep Deckard's attention on him and keep him talking. Jones would take every advantage of this he could, so at the moment it was Neal's turn to play distraction. "It's sleek. I get a lot of compliments."
"And the GPS is more accurate too," Deckard said, as if they were talking cars or grills or something. Neal was opening his mouth to bring up his radius issues when Deckard added, "Down to the yard."
It seemed innocent enough, but Deckard had turned in Franklin for fraternizing with his CI. If he had access to Neal's maps, he might know how often Neal "worked late" at Peter and Elizabeth's house.
"Yeah, I noticed," he said immediately, to keep from showing anything other than casual interest. He was into his patter about the White Bored exhibit and how unfair it was that he had to find an escort (maybe he could start a fight with Jones about it) when Jones cut the game short.
Mozzie was at the door to Peter and Elizabeth's house -- was inside, with Elizabeth, thankfully probably filling her in on where Peter and Franklin were. And when Mozzie emerged he was definitely playing bait, very tempting bait, bait that Deckard followed without a second thought.
Technically they were running a couple of circles around Deckard that balanced things in their favor, but even so Peter never would have fallen for this bullshit. He'd have taken one look at anyone stalling as obviously as Mozzie was and smelled something rotten.
Neal didn't know why they were hiding behind a bunch of cars at Rebecca The Hot CI's dealership, or why Mozzie had led them there, but he was willing to play along. The minute he saw Diana show up he probably would have copped to what was going on anyway, but it did help to get a call from Peter right in the middle of the mess. Peter had a way of explaining things that was a little bit like a sharp blade. It all became very clear very quickly.
"You ever run a Prisoner's Dilemma?" Peter asked, and Neal fought a grin.
"I've been in one," he said.
"Well, now's your chance to run it on a US Marshal," Peter told him. "You clear on what to do?"
"Crystal clear," Neal said, pleased and excited. He'd been set up in a Prisoner's Dilemma three times; time to get a little of his own back. "Thank you, sir."
He meant, of course he meant, to imply he was still talking to Bancroft. ADC Bancroft definitely merited 'sir' even from degenerate discipline-lacking CIs like Neal. On the other hand...
"Good," Peter said, his voice warm and rich, the best response he could give considering who was listening. Neal basked inwardly under the praise.
This was going to be so much fun.
***
Sunday afternoon found Deckard firmly in prison, Franklin reinstated to White Collar, and Peter walking out of a movie with El, bound for Donatella's and then a quiet night in.
"Am I out of the doghouse yet?" he asked, and Elizabeth laughed.
"Honey, you worry too much," she said, taking his hand as they crossed the parking lot to the car. "So Date Night got postponed a night. We've had worse. Effort counts," she added, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "No doghouse. Well. You might still be making it up to Satchmo for leaving him out in the yard for hours."
Peter was opening his mouth to reply when his phone rang; he almost ignored it, but Deckard was too recently imprisoned for him not to be just a little concerned. And sure enough...it was Bancroft.
"Peter Burke," he answered, leaning against the car while Elizabeth unlocked it.
"Burke, it's Bancroft."
"Yessir. Something come up with the case?" Peter asked, because he had to, and because if he was going to miss dinner it had better be for something important.
"Not so far as I'm aware," Bancroft replied. "It's about Caffrey."
Peter groaned. "What's he done?"
"Nothing. I wanted to notify you that he left his radius this morning."
"I didn't get a call from the Marshals," Peter said, frowning.
"I pulled some strings. Didn't want to bother you on your day off. We took in the White Bored exhibit at the Powell."
Elizabeth was watching him. Peter blinked.
"You and Neal," he said.
"Yes..." Bancroft sounded amused. "It really is an excellent installation."
"So I've heard." Peter circled around to the passenger's side as Elizabeth, apparently impatient, climbed into the driver's seat.
"And I thought you should know that I think you've done top-notch work with Caffrey," Bancroft continued.
"Uh...thank you, sir," Peter replied, baffled now.
"He's a very well-spoken, intelligent young man. Not what I would have expected. His views on art are more on the lines of a scholar's than a thief's. He seems to be on a good path. He says he owes you a lot."
"I do my best," Peter said.
"I'd like to see more CIs in such a good working relationship with their handlers."
Peter almost choked. "Thank you, sir."
"Keep it up," Bancroft said, and hung up.
"What was that all about?" Elizabeth asked. Peter looked down at the phone.
"Apparently Neal is a credit to my training and more CIs should have such a positive relationship with their handlers," he said. He looked up; she was trying very hard not to giggle, he could tell.
"You should do a seminar," she managed, before bursting out laughing. Peter leaned back and rubbed his eyes.
"Trade secret," he remarked, and then broke down laughing himself.
***
Of course, it didn't take long for Neal to turn around and become difficult after that; not even two days.
Peter had made the executive decision to leave Deckard in detainment all weekend and let him stew a little. They had a signed confession about his activities from Vogler, his partner in crime, so they didn't really need to interrogate him with any kind of urgency. What Peter had in mind was a fishing expedition, to see if their dirty Marshal was up to anything else, and maybe to humiliate Deckard just a little.
Jones had done good work on the case, and needed practice in interrogation anyway; on Monday morning, Peter tossed him Deckard's file and said, "Playmate for you."
"Yeah?" Jones asked, his face lighting up.
"Get anything you can out of him. Fuck with him," Peter said. "Have fun. I'll be in the observation room."
"Great," Jones replied happily, and went off to arrange for Deckard to be brought to interrogation.
Peter thought questioning someone like Deckard, who knew interrogation tactics and most of the mind tricks employed, would be difficult, and he wasn't proven wrong. Jones was still softening him up mid-morning when Neal (apparently bored with writing his report on the case) slunk quietly into observation.
"How's it going?" he asked, sitting down next to Peter and propping his legs up on the table. Peter gave him a look; Neal dropped his legs, leaning forward.
"It's fishing. We'll get something or we won't," Peter said.
"What's he looking at?"
"Twenty-five to life. Probably closer to life. The DA might charge him with treason -- selling classified government information. That would mean no parole."
"Good," Neal said.
Peter glanced at him. "That's a little intense, from an ex-con."
"Yeah, I know," Neal told him. "I blame you."
"Me?"
"It's your fault," Neal insisted. "I've totally bought into the fraternity of officers thing. I mean, I have known some serious scumbags in my time, guys who were at least as evil as him, maybe a lot worse. He's the first one I've ever really, you know, loathed this much, just for being a bent cop. It's kind of startling how much I hate him."
"Well, your scumbags were equal-opportunity scumbags," Peter pointed out.
"How do you mean?" Neal asked.
"They were guys off the street. They didn't have anyone backing them, or if they did, it was other guys off the street. You give a man like Deckard the power of the whole federal government behind him, what he did becomes...worse. It's bullying. People are supposed to trust us. Guys like Deckard are the reason they rarely do."
Neal nodded, silent, still staring at Deckard.
"He's gonna be tough to deal with," Peter added. "He knows too much about the system, too many contacts in bad places. They'll probably send him to prison out of state, where he can't do as much harm. That's anticipating, though. We have to get a conviction first."
"Yeah...speaking of that," Neal said.
"Neal..."
"No, just...he said something that's kind of freaking me out," Neal said. "He said my monitor's accurate to the yard."
"So?" Peter asked. "You knew that already."
"Yeah, and he knew that I knew it. So why tell me? It sounded..." Neal chewed on his lip. "It sounded like a threat. Like someplace I'd been was tipping him off."
Peter fought the cold crawl of anxiety in his chest. "Deckard's dirty. Nobody's going to believe him now, especially since we nailed him. Besides, everything he says sounds like a threat. He was probably bluffing."
"Yeah," Neal said, sounding doubtful, just as the door opened and Diana walked in, carrying a file folder.
"We got the evidence from Vogler's office," she said, handing it to Peter. "Got you a summary of the stuff Deckard didn't get to. The shreds are in evidence now."
"This is good work. Let's put some interns on assembling those," Peter said, flipping through it.
"You should read the last page," Diana said. Peter glanced at her and then turned to the last page in the file, skimming it.
"Oh," he said quietly.
"What?" Neal asked, leaning over his shoulder.
"Deckard's the one who sold out Clive," Peter said. "Clive's the last witness he sold -- after the trial. Barlowe wanted revenge. Apparently he knew who to talk to."
"That son of a bitch," Neal breathed, and Peter looked up in alarm. Very few things made Neal truly angry, or at least very few things made Neal angry enough for it to show on his face. "That son of a -- "
"Neal!" Peter yelped, as Neal made for the door. He flailed and caught Neal's wrist, slowing him just long enough for Diana to block Neal's only exit. "Neal, don't do anything stupid."
"He's a kid, Peter!" Neal snapped, turning around, looking frustrated and impotent when Diana refused to move from the door. "Deckard sold out a kid, and Barlowe's crew went after him and now he's on the run."
"Yeah, and Diana's going to find him," Peter said. "You go in there, Deckard knows you were the one who sold Barlowe to the FBI in the first place and we're all in danger. Don't do something stupid."
Neal seethed, jaw tight, staring through the window at Deckard. Peter stood up and rested his hands on his shoulders from behind.
"We got him," he said, careful not to lean too close. "You know what happens to cops in prison. Let it go, Neal. Nothing we can do about it but put him away."
"What if he sold you too?" Neal asked. "What if they come after Elizabeth?"
Peter tightened his fingers a fraction. "There's no record in the files of our names being involved. We're safe. Elizabeth's safe. Calm the hell down, before I cuff you to something."
Neal barked a laugh, but his shoulders relaxed. "You know that'd only distract me for about ten seconds, right?"
Peter glanced at Diana, who was watching them with a carefully blank face. She nodded.
"Caffrey," she said. Neal glanced at her. "Buy me a coffee."
"Go on," Peter added, jerking his head at the door. "Take a minute, walk it off. Deckard's not going anywhere."
Diana took his arm -- a firm grip, just in case -- and pulled Neal out of the room. Peter walked back to the observation window where Deckard was smirking at Jones.
Clive shouldn't have the hold on Neal that he did. He was just a kid they'd worked with for a few days to hang up a drug kingpin on stolen-property charges. But Clive was a forger, and he'd been in the game. Peter knew that Neal still prized himself on being the man who could fix anything, especially for his brothers and sisters from the game. Until Neal, he'd never really considered the idea that crime was a brotherhood just like law enforcement was. Cops stuck together because they trusted each other. The reason the Prisoner's Dilemma worked so well was that crooks never seemed to have that much trust.
Thinking about it was getting him nowhere; it was an insight, but not useful at the moment.
Unless...
He took out his phone and dialled Deputy Braddock.
"Hey Burke, your name is mud around here," Braddock answered.
"I'm not the crook," Peter replied, grinning.
"Is it true your pet con ran a Prisoner's Dilemma on Deckard?"
"My team ran it," Peter corrected. "You giving me shit about John Deckard now?"
"Hell no. What an asshole. Still, you know how people are. I wouldn't put my face in around here anytime soon."
"Yeah, that's sort of why I called," Peter said. "We're doing a little fishing with Deckard. How'd you like to run a play with me?"
"What did you have in mind?" Braddock asked.
***
Diana made Neal walk with her to the good coffee shop, further away from the Federal building and the cluster of Starbucks clones nearby, and then led him back to a bench in Columbus Park. She didn't seem like she expected him to talk, so he kept quiet, trying to get a harness on his anger. Anger was pointless; it made you sloppy and it didn't get the job done. Cons didn't get angry -- Brunhilda had taught him that. Cons got even, and getting even took patience. It was stupid to get angry about this at all. He didn't even know Clive that well.
He wished he had his sketchbook. He didn't like to be so attached to things, because a lot of times you had to run and leave them behind, but it wasn't the book, not really. If he could get lost in shadow and shape and negative space for a while, maybe this would go away.
"He's a kid," Diana said, and Neal wondered if he'd been talking aloud about Clive, or if she was just good at guessing. "Kids get to you. Everyone, I mean. It's always worse when a kid's involved."
"Clive's old enough to look after himself," Neal said, inexplicably feeling like he should be defending him.
"Yeah, but he's still a kid. It's okay to be pissed. Peter is."
"He doesn't show it," Neal muttered.
"He's had a lot more experience than you," Diana pointed out, as Neal's phone rang.
"Peter," he said, checking the ID. "I should answer." Diana nodded and Neal put the phone to his ear. "Peter?"
"Is Diana with you?" Peter asked.
"Yep."
"Are you alone?"
"Mostly. We're in the park."
"Okay. Put the phone on speaker and then listen," Peter said. Neal frowned, but he took it off his ear and pressed the speaker key. There was a clatter, like Peter's phone was being set down. A second later they could hear a door open and shut, and then another, this time tinny and distant, as if through another speaker.
"Did he leave his phone in the observation room?" Diana asked. Neal shook his head, uncertain, perplexed.
"Okay, Jones," Peter said, in the same slightly tinny tone. Neal raised the volume on his phone. "Game's over."
"Braddock," another voice said -- Deckard. And then Braddock's voice too.
"Deckard."
"You here to spring me?" Deckard asked.
"No," Peter said, and there was a soft thump. A file landing on the table, Neal guessed. "We're passing you back to the Marshals. They asked for you."
"You did one of your own," Braddock said. Diana raised her eyebrows at Neal. "No more FBI deal offers, Deckard. You sold out one of us."
"Clive Banks," Peter's voice. Neal tightened his grip on the phone. "Name sound familiar?"
"He wasn't just a witness," Braddock said.
"Sorry," Peter corrected himself, sounding very insincere. "Deputy Clive Banks. You sold an undercover U.S. Marshal to a drug dealer, Deckard."
"Is that true?" Diana asked.
"No," Neal said, realization dawning. "They're playing him. They're using Clive to get to him. Fraternity," he added, mostly to himself.
"My hands are tied," Peter was saying, still in the same slightly sarcastic tone. "Nothing I can do but give you back to them, see what they can get out of you. Try not to fall down any stairs on the way," he added. Neal knew he was lying -- Peter would never mistreat a suspect in custody, and wouldn't turn a suspect over to anyone who would -- but it still gave him pause.
"I'm not making any promises," Braddock added.
"You can't do this, Burke," Deckard was almost babbling, he was talking so fast. "You can't just hand me back, you know what he's gonna do -- "
"Hey, the only thing we've got you on is accessory to murder. You won't tell us anything, we might as well pass you off," Peter said.
"Wait -- wait, you offered me a deal," Deckard insisted. "I didn't know he was a Marshal. I can tell you things, I can get you connections -- Vogler knew a lot of people, I can give you names..."
Diana took the phone out of Neal's hands and hung up, grinning. Neal grinned back.
"You know what 'Burke' means?" she asked. Neal tilted his head. "The verb. It's an old slang word."
"From Burke and Hare," Neal said. "Resurrection men in the 1800s. They used to rob graves for cadavers for the local medical school."
"And?"
"And then they started killing people when they ran out of corpses," Neal said, intrigued by where this was going. "They used to smother them, that's why smothering was called Burking."
Diana nodded. "It didn't mark up the bodies as much. Burke got so good at killing invisibly that they put his name on it. To Burke actually means to kill without leaving a trace."
"Very symbolic," Neal observed.
"Almost poetic," Diana agreed, standing up. "Ready to go back?"
"Yeah, I think so," Neal said.
He had gotten angry. Peter had gotten even. Quickly, almost effortlessly, and without leaving a trace.
"You ever feel like you've just realized mild-mannered accountant type is Peter's alter ego, and secretly he's a ninja?" Neal asked. Diana laughed.
"All the time," she said. "I think he cultivates it on purpose. You should know, though. He ninja'd you."
"I didn't appreciate it as much, then," Neal admitted.
"And now?"
"Every time he whips out a katana it still surprises me."
***
Peter wasn't sure why, when he told the team he was going undercover as an accountant, Diana and Neal exchanged a private grin. They'd both seen him undercover before -- sometimes with spectacularly death-defying results -- and he did have the degree for it.
"Working late tonight," Neal said to him in an undertone, as the briefing broke up. Not even a question, which was unusual for Neal. Peter glanced at him. "We have to talk."
"Should I be worried?" Peter asked.
"Yes," Neal said, but he was grinning. "You absolutely should."
He didn't worry, exactly, but the day did seem to drag and the drive home took forever, with Neal humming quietly to himself in the passenger's seat. Elizabeth was already home, and a night in seemed like a really good idea.
"You gonna tell me what we need to talk about?" Peter asked, as they pulled up to the house.
"It's more something you show, really," Neal said thoughtfully. Peter glanced at him. "Trust me."
"Yeah, that doesn't set off alarms," Peter replied, but he unlocked the door and stepped inside. "El?"
"Hey," El called from the dining room, coming out to greet them. Peter kissed her -- oh, the absolute best part of the day -- and then stepped aside so Neal could bend down and let her kiss him on the forehead. It was their weird little quirk, but given his own weird giant quirks with Neal he wasn't really in a position to judge.
"So," she said, as Peter dropped a handful of files on the coffee table and wandered into the dining room, "Undercover, huh?"
"Yeah, Peter said regretfully, undoing his tie. God, there was food on the table and it smelled really good. "Might be gone for a couple of d -- "
He'd spoken as he was turning around, only to find that Neal had wrapped his arms around Elizabeth from behind and they were both watching him, smiling, Neal's head over Elizabeth's shoulder.
"What?" he asked.
"Let's have dinner," Elizabeth said, patting Neal's hands at her waist before pulling away gently. "You can tell me about your case."
"Is this tag-team, or ganging up?" Peter asked, but he sat down at the table and picked up a fork.
"Which works better?" Neal asked Elizabeth. She took them both in with an amused look.
"Tell me about the case," she said. "Your email was a lot about how sorry you are that you're going undercover and a little short on details."
So Peter put aside his vague uneasiness and talked about the case. He had a decade of experience in this, in the way Elizabeth should be told about cases: embroidering the funny parts (there were usually funny parts; law enforcement was funnier than most people or cop shows thought) and downplaying the danger. It wasn't lying, exactly, it was just...making sure Elizabeth didn't worry too much about him. Still, he caught Neal's expression once or twice and knew that Neal was sizing up this move, studying it and pulling it apart and would probably bring it up at some very inconvenient later date.
"This Kent guy you're auditing," Neal said, pushing the last of the potatoes around the plate with his fork. "He's a tech dweeb, right? A self-made nerd?"
"Don't underestimate him," Peter replied. "The key words in that sentence are self and made. He runs a multi-million-dollar corporation."
"Yeah, but still basically a dweeb," Neal said.
"Neal, can you tell Elizabeth what a quantum microprocessor is?" Peter asked.
"It's a tool for binary codebreaking," Neal said promptly.
"And that means...?"
Neal flushed slightly.
"He heard that from Jones," Peter told Elizabeth. She smiled at him in the way she had which said he was drastically missing the point.
"It's a different world," Neal said.
"The world of dweebs?" Peter drawled.
"High finance. High-tech," Neal replied. "You're gonna have to freak them out, Peter."
"Have you ever known meekness to be a problem of mine?" Peter asked. Neal's eyes flicked, strangely, to his shirt. Elizabeth put one hand on Peter's.
"Sweetie, I think Neal's trying to say there's more to posing as an accountant than having the right credentials," she said.
"It's a suit-and-tie job," Peter answered, confused.
"Very specific suits. Very specific ties," Neal told him, looking triumphant, like he'd already won this bizarre debate. Maybe he had; Peter wasn't quite following the theme of it. "You're the auditor, Peter. You're the man with all the power."
Peter just tilted his head slightly.
"I love it when he does that," Elizabeth stage-whispered to Neal.
"Are we going to approach a point anytime soon?" Peter asked.
"Come on upstairs, sweetie," El said, rising out of her chair and tugging him along.
"Hey, we can digest first," Peter protested, but he didn't even try to stall their progress. Neal gave him a sardonic look, the half-full bottle of wine in one hand and their glasses cradled in the other.
"It's all sex with you," Neal said.
"I'm sorry, who begged me for -- "
"Boys," El warned, already pulling Peter up the stairs.
When they reached the bedroom she pushed him gently down into the chair near the doorway, and Neal slid a glass of wine into his hand as he passed, filling his own glass and El's and setting the bottle on the bedside table. Elizabeth opened the closet doors, then gestured for Neal to take over and came back, settling herself sideways on Peter's lap so she could watch too.
Peter nosed against her ear, dropping a kiss into her hair. "Okay, this is nice."
"Good," she said. "Just remember, when you get the urge to stand up, I get angry when I'm dumped on the floor."
"When I -- " Peter looked at her, brow furrowing. He glanced back at Neal, who was head-and-shoulders deep in the closet. "Neal, what are you doing to my clothing?"
"Weeding it," Neal said absently, not bothering to look around at them.
"It's not that your suits are bad, hon," Elizabeth said, resting her head on his shoulder. "It's just that -- "
"You dress to blend in," Neal finished. "You want to stand out -- " he leaned out of the closet, holding something up with a look of horror on his face. "Oh, Peter. A sweater vest?"
"That was a gift," Peter protested.
"It's button front!"
"Not guilty," Elizabeth said. "His mom gave him that."
"When he was fifteen?" Neal asked, putting it back in the closet. "You need shirts."
"I have shirts," Peter growled.
"Shirts that say 'I'm a powerful man with the ability to ruin your company'," Neal corrected. He emerged again, this time with an armful of dress shirts. "You wear a lot of pink."
"I'm secure in my masculinity," Peter told him.
"And just the tiniest bit gay," Neal replied, setting the shirts on the bed. He shot him a grin and went for the ties.
Peter had learned early on, working with Neal, that Neal could and should be trusted when he was in his element. After all, why keep a con man and ignore the tools he had to offer? If Neal were painting a mural he wouldn't have stood by and offered suggestions, and this was no different. Peter sat quietly, occasionally nuzzling Elizabeth's cheek, and watched Neal study the clothing laid out in front of him.
"It's all about power and where you apply it," Neal said as he worked, and Peter wasn't sure if he was talking to them or to himself. "Always give the mark a little shot at the crack in the armor. Nobody's all-powerful. So Peter Lassen wears expensive shirts, but his ties never quite match, and he's always just a little uncertain when people are nice to him."
"Whose undercover gig is this?" Peter asked. "Yours or mine?"
Neal studied a tie, then hung it back up on the rack in the closet. "You're my partner. Your gig is my gig."
"That's sweet," El said, kissing Peter on the cheek. "I think we should keep him."
"At this point I'm not sure I have a choice," Peter said. Neal began hanging up the shirts he'd rejected. Peter caught a glimpse of the same brilliant, delighted smile that Neal usually tried to hide in the darkness.
"Okay, fashion show," Neal said, picking up one of the shirts and a tie. He held the shirt up, hooking the hanger against his neck so that it rested against his chest, and then brought the tie around. The shirt was one Peter generally saved for special occasions, a little too loud for work -- wide pink stripes, french cuffs, and a higher collar than usual. The tie was a pastel blue diagonal stripe, and he wasn't sure he remembered the last time he'd worn it.
"I'm going to look like an Easter egg threw up on me," he said.
"That's the point," Neal said patiently. He set the clothing aside. "You have presence, Peter. You're not good enough at this to hide that. So you're going to walk in and everyone's going to know you're the boss. But this tie says Maybe you can get to me anyway."
"I've done undercover work for twelve years," Peter pointed out. "I'm not new at this."
"I know that," Neal drawled. "I'm making it easier, that's all. People might not know what they see sometimes but they react to it anyway. Little details matter. They can make a con easier to pull off. I mean, you work with what you've got, but it's better if you've got more."
"Better with more. Life philosophy?" Peter asked.
"Less is only more in architecture and stripteases," Neal said absently, still digging through the ties he'd picked out as, apparently, ugly enough.
"Neal, I want you to go back to where you were telling Peter he has presence," Elizabeth said, grinning.
"Oh, the part where I was complimenting your husband?" Neal asked, turning to her.
"Backhanded compliment," Peter grumbled.
"Why, because you can't hide it? Hey, it's not easy. You walk into a room, you own that room," Neal said. "That's hard to conceal. It's easier to pretend to have all the power than to pretend you don't have it."
Peter frowned, confused by the turn Neal's little lecture had taken. Neal caught it and laughed.
"Peter," he said, shaking his head. "You really don't even see it, do you? Look, I'm a nice guy, I'm a charming guy, but if I want to dominate the room I have to work for it. You just...do. Some people got it. Some people gotta earn it."
"It's okay, sweetie, we won't hold your natural charisma against you," Elizabeth said.
"I'm not following," Peter admitted.
Neal rolled his eyes. "Okay. You know me. You know my MO. You know how I work. Think about that. Now. Watch."
At any given time, Neal radiated confidence, but it was a trickster's confidence, and Peter had been able to see through it years ago, even before Neal got out of prison. It was ladies' man charm, all shiny teeth and eyes and wits. Now Peter watched as Neal stood in the middle of the room and without even closing his eyes seemed to drop that away like a shed skin. It wasn't any single thing, though it was a lot of small things: the stance of his legs, the tilt of his shoulders, the shape of his smile. In its place there was a certain -- weight, a solidity that made him seem somehow more real.
"Wow," Elizabeth said. Neal's smile was all quiet confidence. Peter stared -- Jesus, that was his smile on Neal's face.
Neal held out a hand and turned it over, curling his fingers a little. Elizabeth kissed Peter's cheek and climbed off his lap, taking Neal's hand. Neal wrapped his other arm around her waist and held her there, as if he were about to start slow-dancing her.
"So," he said, and his voice was deeper, too, "come here often?"
Elizabeth burst out laughing. Neal grinned and then he was himself again, slick and casual and loose. He tightened his arm around Elizabeth and spun her, winking at Peter.
"Is that what I look like?" Peter asked, as Neal pulled Elizabeth into a waltz.
"You do it better," Neal told him, dancing effortlessly. "What, you think I'd roll over for anyone less than you, Peter? Even if someone caught me -- not if they weren't you."
He drew to a stop, Elizabeth still laughing and a little breathless in his arms, and bent to kiss her. She raised a hand to thread it through his hair. They were so beautiful and so good together that Peter forgot about Neal's little demonstration, forgot about the ugly ties and the loud shirts and just sat there, watching.
"I like special, rare things," Neal said, when Elizabeth was done kissing him. "One-of-a-kind sort of things."
"I think we've been collected," Elizabeth said. Peter got out of the chair and walked across to where they stood, drawing Neal's face around and kissing him.
"Now, about that rolling over," he said, and Neal laughed into his mouth.
***
Chapter Thirteen
References:
Necklace with pendant Eros, the inspiration for Neal's birthday gift to Kate.
Enright's, the cop bar frequented by the White Collar crowd and Peter's contacts with the NYPD, is named after Richard Enright, one of the NYPD's early police commissioners.
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"All the time," she said. "I think he cultivates it on purpose. You should know, though. He ninja'd you."
"I didn't appreciate it as much, then," Neal admitted.
"And now?"
"Every time he whips out a katana it still surprises me."
Best. Peter. Description. Ever.
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(Anonymous) 2010-11-19 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/necklace-with-pendant-eros-186441
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Also, Neal being Peter was sizzling.
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I had a lot of fun with the "Look at me, I'm Peter" moment...
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YES. This exactly is why white collar works. YES.
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Then: "I'd like to see more CIs in such a good working relationship with their handlers." /splutter-sporfle-snort/ AHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Ninja-Peter - then accountant - I. Oh, God. Sam I think you broke me
And clothes/suit and Neal, acting confident etc...
Oh, fan-TAS-tic! /Nine/ :D
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And then a few weeks later I got one from them in the mail. :D His name is Headley.
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From this bit: Anyone could sit in a van and watch a perp's (a mark's) house for hours, but it took real skill to go up to the door and knock and lure the mark (the perp) out into the open.
I see that you've reversed mark and perp - I'm not sure why. Is it a Neal correcting Peter in his head, and then vice versa? I'm assuming it might have been intentional, but I wasn't sure what the effect/point you were going for was. Is it because the former is mostly done by law enforcement, and therefore it's usually a perp (but Neal would say mark) but for the latter it would normally be the other way 'round? I'm not sure this came through clearly since I was trying to figure out whose voice was saying which bit.
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ok back to reading this chapter! i love this fic so much. :DD
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Not that you couldn't guess what I was gonna say. :P Namely, I loved this chapter and you're awesome. Specific things: Neal and Peter having to be all discrete and Elizabeth's present. <3
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A couple of weeks later they were in New Orleans and SAW ONE for sale, so they bought it and shipped it to me. SO NOW I HAVE ONE TOO.
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Speaking of things you should have, I saw a miniature table gong at the bookstore the other day. It looked exactly like the one in CG. Had it not been super expensive, I totally would have bought it and found a way to get it to you. :P
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True facts, the reason this is titled Exquisite is basically that I told someone, while watching it, "I think I could write exquisite fanfic for this show" :D
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I also love Peter's con with Braddock on Deckard. Nothing less than he deserves.
"Secretly he's a ninja". That needs to be an icon. Hmmmm. *contemplates screencaps*
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http://tv.rawr-caps.net/index.php?cat=2
If you find one you like, I'd be happy to icon it for you :)
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Btw, I had a go at some icons, including a couple from the Dressing Peter scene. Here if you're interested. :o)
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Those icons are awesome!
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~ c.
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(Anonymous) 2012-09-25 05:49 pm (UTC)(link)And the first thing I thought of was Lee Allison!
I'm just getting around to reading this; you have absolutely ruined my productivity, and I love you for it!
Carmy_w