by Mojave Dragonfly

Neal opened a magazine and settled back against the seat.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked. "You don't bring a magazine to a stakeout." Across the street from Peter's car stood the nondescript, eight-story brick building they watched; an inexpensive Brooklyn hotel off the beaten path.

"Why not?" Neal asked, riffing the pages.

"Because, we're supposed to be watching that door there at all times." Peter indicated the awning-covered hotel entrance. He had agents watching each floor on the inside, and Jones and Cruz had the back service entrance and fire escape covered.

"Well, we can trade off. When it's your turn to watch, I'm reading."

Peter sighed. "What happened to folding little origami figures?"

"That's a last resort," Neal said. "Last time I didn't realize how boring a stakeout would be. This time I'm prepared." He tapped the small pile sliding off his lap.

Peter picked through them. "Let's see, GQ, New York Magazine, Aviation Week and Space Technology? You're kidding."

"Why?"

"What do you read that for?"

"Why do you care? I suppose you only read Sports Illustrated."

Peter turned back to his window, scanning to make sure nothing had changed in the few seconds he'd been looking away. "No, I read National Geographic, too."

"Oh, well then," Neal said, as if that explained everything.

"And a couple of trade magazines."

"The FBI has trade magazines? What are their names?"

"Look 'em up." Peter glanced back at his "partner," and was struck by the magazine in Neal's hand. "What's that one? Cosmopolitan? Now you have got to be kidding."

"It's useful to read from the other side's playbook." Neal turned a page.

"The other side? I suppose that's why you want to read my Law Enforcement Bulletin, too."

"Peter, that's not fair. You're not the other side; I work for you now, remember?"

"As long as you remember it."

As if reminded of something, Neal put down his magazine and closed it thoughtfully. "Peter, I need to talk to you about that music box," he said.

"Yeah?" Peter kept his gaze on the hotel, but Neal had his real attention.

Neal paused. "You know how I said I knew where it was?"

Something in Neal's tone made Peter turn his head to look at him. Neal regarded him apprehensively. "Yeah," Peter said.

"I may have been," Neal smiled, "exaggerating a little." He watched Peter closely.

"Oh?" Peter turned back to the window and peered briefly through his small binoculars. "So you don't know where it is."

"Not - no." Neal sounded surprised. He'd expected a different reaction.

Peter shrugged. "You fenced it. Well, that's somewhere to start. Who sold it for you? Havisham?"

Neal paused for an even longer time than before. Peter lowered the binoculars. Not good to have them in view for very long. "I ... didn't sell it. I never had it."

Peter turned his full attention on the man in his passenger seat. "What do you mean you never had it?"

"It wasn't my heist."

"Neal-" Peter bit off his first angry words. "What are you playing at?"

Neal's eyes widened. "I'm not, Peter, it's the truth."

Peter fumed. "You really expect me to believe that." He shook his head with disgust. "I've had two days to research that music box myself. Every suspicion, every rumor points to you." Peter jabbed a finger in Neal's direction. "Both in Interpol and with our criminal informants. You honestly think you can play me with this? I know you have that music box."

Neal's mouth fell open a little. "Peter, I'm telling you the truth. I try not to lie to you, uh, very often. It's like a personal resolution of mine." He gave a weak smile that swiftly faded. "But the other day, I wasn't at my best." He looked down. "I thought you were the one holding Kate - " he looked up hastily, "and I'm sorry about that, really; I didn't want to believe it - and then we both almost died and I had this splitting headache from oxygen deprivation, and then you told me you had talked to her and never told me about it -"

Peter started to break in.

"Let me finish. I wasn't on my game. And when you assumed I was cutting you out, not trusting you, I just ... told you what you wanted to hear. I'm sorry I wasn't more straight with you, but I'm trying to put that right, now."

Peter felt almost physically sick. "Neal, Neal, dammit. I thought we were getting somewhere. Yeah, you weren't on your game, and now you've had two days to think about it and change your story."

Neal listened with growing horror on his face. He looked out his own window, away from Peter.

Peter took a quick look at their hotel door before turning back to him. "Oh, you're going to sulk now?"

"Define sulk," Neal said to the window.

"What you're doing," he said. Peter lifted his binoculars. "Let's just do the job." Still angry, he couldn't resist adding, "I'm really disappointed here, Neal."

Behind him he heard papers rustling. "You do the job," Neal said. "I have Cosmo to read."

"Sulking," Peter said.

Neal turned a page. "I'll give you that. This is sulking."

"Aw, did I hurt your feelings?"

"If you tell me to cowboy up, I am out of this car."

"Yeah, you would shoot yourself in the foot like that."

"Can we go now? He's probably not even in there anymore." Neal shook Cosmo for punctuation.

"And why would you say that?" Peter's heart beat faster. This was where Neal earned his pay, he hoped.

"This guy does museum heists," Neal said with an intent look. "You think he doesn't know ways out of a hotel that's being watched? There are a dozen exits to that place that we can't even guard. It's early nineteenth century construction and it was built to be a boarding-house. There are dumbwaiters. At least four in a building that size. There are steam tunnels to an old place like this. That's where they laid the gas lines. There's a laundry in the basement; he can go out with a cart full of sheets. There are uniformed staff. You think he won't be in disguise because he doesn't know you're watching, but what if you're wrong about that? He's smart. And he's probably already rabbited. We might as well read magazines." Neal finished with a flourish and took up Cosmo again.

Peter got on the radio. "Jones, this is Burke. You watching the laundry door?"

"Sure boss," the radio crackled, "but he hasn't come out of there."

Neal ignored them, pretending to read.

"What about laundry carts? Anyone pushing one of those?"

"Well, they're coming out now," Jones said. "The laundry truck is here."

Peter sat up straight, fighting to restrain himself from leaping out of the car. "Get on that! Search every cart, and check everyone wearing a uniform. He might have got suspicious."

Neal turned a page.

Jones gave two clicks of his hand receiver in assent, probably just prior to leaping out of his own car. Peter made a fist to keep from activating the radio and barking out more orders.

"Oh, look," said Neal. "Katie Lee's recipe tips for seducing your man."

"Oh, shut up," Peter prayed. Neal smiled and turned another page.

It was a long wait; Peter was tense. Neal wisely didn't read any more headlines from Cosmopolitan and he eventually put down the magazine and looked at Peter with an impatient expression that matched Peter's own feelings. "This is the hard part," Peter admitted. "Holding your own position when you think the action might be somewhere else."

"I could go. I could help look." Neal's eager-to-help look was back.

"No."

"Agent Burke!" came Jones's excited voice on the radio. "We have him. He was in a laundry cart. We have him in custody."

Peter acknowledged while he slapped the dashboard in mingled triumph and frustration. "All agents, converge on the service entrance," he ordered. On his way out of the car he barked at Neal, "Just stay here and read your magazines."

Neal threw down Cosmo and followed him.

Sure enough, their suspect was in handcuffs in Cruz's care when Peter got there. Jones was questioning the startled laundry woman who had been pushing the cart. Peter's other agents from the upper floors began to arrive and Peter assigned them to taking statements from the staff and the driver of the laundry truck.

There wasn't really much to do, but when Peter was done doing it, he spotted Neal watching from the fire escape of another building across the back alley while he scratched the ears of a large yellow tomcat. Peter sauntered over, grinning, his mood ebullient.

"Why don't you ever stay where I tell you to?" The yellow cat startled and slithered between the stairs.

Neal gave him a big pleased smile. "I'm not supposed to be out of your sight."

"C'mon, back to the car." Neal put his hat on and joined him, his step jaunty. They headed around the building. "I thought you were busy sulking," Peter said.

"I got over it." Still smiling.

"Had to come see yourself proven right, didn't you?"

"Feels pretty good," Neal said, glancing at Peter sidelong.

"You could've said something earlier. You're supposed to be working for us, remember?"

"My mind was on other things. Like you not believing me."

"I'm over that, too."

"You are?" Neal asked from across the roof of the car.

Peter opened the driver's door. "Yeah. You don't have it, so we'll have to talk later about where we go from here." He got in.

Neal got in and buckled up, his curious gaze on Peter. "What makes you believe me now?"

Peter smiled. "I remembered who you are."

Neal frowned. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that. Who am I?"

Peter started the car and pulled into the street. "When you're not on your game is not when you tell the truth," he said. "You're the guy who takes two days to work up the courage to tell the truth."

Neal lifted his eyebrows and looked straight ahead. He opened his mouth, then closed it. "I - so resemble that remark," he said.

Nailed it, Peter thought to himself.

The End.

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