"Gimme some pizza."

"No." Jim's hand hovered over the open box as he tried to decide between pepperoni and sausage-mushroom.

"C'mon, Ellison," Stanley pushed. "Hurry up before the cheese gets cold."

"They have a microwave down the hall."

"It's not the same, and you know it."

"I want some pizza!"

"Tough shit, Solly." Jim finally settled on pepperoni. Despite Stanley's worries, the cheese was still warm and stretchy.

"But I din' have no brekfuss. Not even any a dem shitty hospital powdered eggs."

"Would you have eaten them if they'd brought them?" Jim asked curiously.

"Fuck no. But dey coulda at least offered."

"For the tenth time, Solly," Stanley lifted out a slice of sausage-mushroom and took a hefty bite. "You can't eat cause you're going under sedation in a little while."

"So?"

"So, if you have a reaction, you could upchuck."

"So?"

"Well, personally I think it would be no great loss, but I'd be pissed if you strangled on your own puke before you had a chance to put Bernie away."

"Just a pepperoni?"

"Well..."

"Don't do it, Stanley. You'll teach him bad habits, and he'll think he can beg at the table all the time."

A nurse came in, carrying a tiny, fluted paper cup. She eyed the two pizza munching detectives severely. "You didn't give him any of that, did you?" They shook their heads. "Good. Otherwise I would have had to spank you." Whoa. First those two I saw leaving this morning, now these two. Are they requiring looks now to become a policeman? I gotta start dating more cops. "Okay, Mr. Tyson. I have a little meds to help get you ready for your operation."

Solly bit his bottom lip. Funny Jim thought. When Blair and Stanley do that, it looks sexy. All I can think about with Solly is that Bernie apparently doesn't give his employees dental coverage.

"Don' wanna." Solly mumbled.

"Please, Mr. Tyson," the nurse said tiredly. From her tone of voice, that could have translated as "Look, you sunovabitch..."

"Nurse?" She looked at Jim. "Does that medication come in suppository form? We could stick those pills up his ass for you." That got a smile. Under concentrated glares from the two detectives, Solly swallowed the pills.

"There. Those will work soon, and you'll start feeling groggy." She looked at the other two men. "You'll need to uncuff him so they'll be able to transport him."

"Will do."

When Jim moved to unlock the cuffs, she said, "On second thought, maybe you should wait until after they shave him."

"I don' wanna shave." Solly made a kissing motion at her. "I like da George Michaels stubbly look. Pretty sexy, huh?"

"Oh, I wasn't talking about your face, Mr. Tyson."

Solly looked confused. "No? Den what?" She looked pointedly below his waist. He flushed, then yapped. "No fuckin' way!"

She shrugged. "You're having abdominal surgery. It's standard procedure to cut down on the risk of infection. But maybe you can persuade the orderly to just shave the right side." She left.

Straight faced, Stan said, "Well, Solly, your luck holds. Look at it this way," he comforted. "this should take care of the itchy balls. At least till the stubble starts to grow out."

Blair and Benton sought out the officer who had the most contact with the phony lawyer the day before. "We weren't going to let him in, since he wasn't on the list of regular counselors. But Tyson had been so adamant that a lawyer was on his way, and the guy was from a local firm."

"What was his name?"

"He left a card. Here, let me see..." He checked through a small folder, and came up with a small rectangle of stiff paper, then offered it to Blair. Blair accepted it and scanned it. He sighed, and handed it to Fraiser, who read it and sighed also. "What?"

"Atticus Finch. Mockingbird Associates. Oh, dear." Benton handed the card back to Blair. "I suppose this gentleman is not familiar with classic American cinema."

"Tell me," Blair said, with a touch more sarcasm than Benton thought was entirely nice. "did this guy look anything like Gregory Peck?"

"Who?"

Blair threw up his hands. "C'mon, Benny. Let's take this to the lab and see if we can lift any fingerprints off it that don't belong to you, me, or Barney here."

At the lab, they had the card dusted. "Well," said the technician. "Luckily people tend to handle business cards by the corners and edges. I've eliminated both of you, and the genius who took the card, and I still got a couple of good ones from when the guy handed the card out, probably. Enough to run through the system for a pretty firm ID."

"I would suggest checking the Illinois database first. We believe that this person was dispatched by an individual in Chicago to perform an assassination here in Cascade." Fraiser offered.

The lab worker shrugged. "Couldn't hurt." He fed the information into the computer, a digitized image of the fingerprints from the card popping up on the screen. Then he logged into the print database in Illinois, and the program began a rapid check. In a moment, the screen stopped flickering, and one name appeared on the screen. "Whoa! Bulls eye on the first try!" He punched a few keys, and a picture and file information filled the screen. "What's this guy supposed to have done?"

"Given a possible snitch a cup of cafe au Blackflag."

"Oo, nasty. The name's Pavel Kol. Immigrated from Russia in 1991. No, um, official record over there. Charged with manslaughter, dropped. Manslaughter, case dismissed due to lack of evidence. Assault with a deadly weapon. Simple assault. Grievous bodily harm. Dumped battery acid on a guy's crotch." Both the Guide and the Mountie winced, Blair unconsciously covering his own crotch protectively.

Benton studied the mug shot. "He does not look like an excessively violent individual." The man in the picture was tall, but very thin, almost reedy looking. He had thinning hair, and a mild, bland face.

"Well, he's rumored to be enforcement for hire in Chicago. People pretty much don't fuck with him. The Feebs have had him in for questioning a time or two, but he's never been caught on anything definite."

"Well, he has now." Blair declared. "Run us off a copy of his picture, and a few others that are close to his description. I want to take them down and see if the Incredible Gullible Guard can identify him. The prints should be enough to have a warrant issued for him, but I'd like to have it clinched as firmly as possible."

"Can do." In a few moments, they had a printed copy of Kol's picture, and five others of men who were approximately his size and coloring. They went back down to the holding area, and showed the pictures to the guard.

He shuffled them, then handed back Kol's picture. "That's him. Tall, skinny guy. But he had a beard."

"You're sure?"

"With that nose? I've seen smaller beaks on toucans. Yeah, it was him.

"Bingo. C'mon, Frase, let's go get that warrant issued. Attempted murder, impersonation of an attorney, presenting false information to the police, possession of a set of brass balls as big as cantaloupes... We'll see what we can come up with."

Solly was giggling again.

"Geez, isn't he supposed to be asleep by now? She gave him that stuff, what, two, three hours ago?" Stanley stared at Solly, pained. Solly had a laugh that sounded almost like the seal snort that blonde on Three's Company used to make. Not that he'd watched her much. He'd been too busy watching the guy who played Jack Tripper.

"I saw her when I went out for coffee. Things have gotten balled up in the OR. Big car accident came in, and they have to take care of the trauma first. The antibiotics are helping Solly, so he's not at the end of the list, but he's not at the top, either. It may be four, four-thirty before they take him. We'll just have to stand it."

"I guess it's good he was blissed out when that orderly shaved him. Though I don't think the guy was prepared to have Solly ask him to shave the pubes in a heart shape."

"Who'd have thought Solly was a romantic?" Solly was still giggling, but he had his eyes closed. Stanley was sitting in the only chair. Jim casually rested a buttock on the arm, and looked down at him. "You ever thought about doing that?"

"What?"

"Shaving."

Stanley blushed furiously. "Geez, Ellison."

"No, really. Ever been with someone who shaved?"

"No." He paused. "What's it like?"

"Smoooth."

"Um."

"Sometimes Blair lets me shave his face. I've gotten real good at it. He's got surprisingly sensitive skin, with that beard growth, but I can do it without irritating or nicking him."

"Are you hinting at something?"

"Yes."

"Uhhhh..."

"Think about it."

Pause. "Okay."

"Okay."

"I'll think."

"That's all I ask," Jim grinned.