"Can't be too many Laney's with a Butch for a son. I could be wrong though." Sullivan had told them.

Raconteur had made a call to a contact at the FBN who had access to a list of residents in the area to narrow the field. Once the agent had finished laughing and realized that Raconteur was serious, he gladly looked and found a list of half a dozen families in town that matched the criteria. A little cross-referencing with the name of the kid who put in the request narrowed it to three nearby.

The first two stops had ended amicably. The first had not enrolled their child in school, opting instead to keep him home and work. The second Butch turned out to be a couple years too young to be the one causing the trouble. After profuse apologies and assurances that there had been a mix-up in paperwork he moved on to the last house confident that all this would be a simple errand.

The house was in a fairly poor neighborhood and looked as though it needed a new roof about three years ago and the residents had never quite got around to it. Or couldn't afford it, He thought to himself looking at the bare shutters and missing paint. He approached the door and knocked, already feeling guilty for coming to impose. A woman timidly opened the door a crack and peered out, not letting herself be seen except for her short trimmed blond hair and a dark patch around her eye. "Sorry, not interested." The woman mumbled and started to shut the door. Raconteur quickly stuck a foot in the gap and swallowed a grunt of pain as the door slammed on it. "Sorry, ma'am, but this is important. Mrs. Laney, I need to talk about your son, Butch." The woman quickly glanced back into the house and back to Raconteur, seemingly torn between two fears, but responded in a quivering voice as she released the pressure on the door and opened it wide enough to look him in the eye for the first time. "Is Butch alright? He's late coming home and I was worried something happened." She again glanced back into the house and a creak was audible somewhere in the house. "Please, just tell me and leave. Don't make this worse than it's got to be."

Raconteur glanced past her into the house and saw disarray. Tables and chairs had been scattered around the room, flipped over, and whiskey bottles lay empty on the floor. He turned his attention back to the woman in front of him and saw that the bruises were spread across her arms as well as her face. He could no longer just fool himself into pretending that maybe she had an accident. Her demeanor and the signs of of a struggle lying in plain sight told the story too plainly. "Your son is fine. He's been involved in some scuffles at school and been a little rough on the other kids so I was asked to come and discuss it to see if I could help you rein it in, but I think I see the root of the problem. Do you mind if I come in and speak with his father? I think we could really make some progress here."

He had begun to push the door open and walk past her even before he asked permission, his heart hardening to what was obviously happening to drive Butch to his behavior. A man who treated his family that way was the lowest kind of dirt there was and needed someone to make that very clear to them for their family's sake. It would also help relieve the burning numbness that Raconteur felt, almost as if he'd had about a half bottle too much to drink even though he was stone sober. A part of him felt horrible for what he was putting Butch's mother through as she pleaded with him to leave, but he couldn't let this go.

A middle aged man, just over six feet tall and wearing a dark work shirt and rumpled slacks walked out the door of a room down the hall just as Raconteur was reaching the corner. The man had time to blurt "What the hell is going.." before Raconteur's fist connected with his gut and doubled him over. Raconteur swung an uppercut that knocked the man back up to the wall, then gave a sharp kick to the man's leg and dropped him to the floor. He went to the ground after the man and drove a knee into his back to hold him down while he grabbed a fistful of the man's hair. "I came to have a little talk with you about a problem, but it looks like I was misinformed. It looks like I have the problem right here." The man, recovering a bit of sense, tried to twist and free himself, but gasped in pain as it drove Raconteur's knee deeper. "Get off of me you crazy bastard! Who the hell do you think you are?"

Raconteur laughed and twisted his knee a bit before he replied, provoking a shout of pain from the man. "You can call me Mister Rigoletti. I do a lot of things, but right now I'm going to be a guidance counselor. Let's start by talking about how you treat your wife, and I'm assuming your kid." The man renewed his efforts and shouted "I'll do whatever the hell I want in my own house! Let me go or we'll call the cops!" Raconteur slammed the man's head forward into the floor with a satisfying thump. "Wrong answer. The correct answer was 'I did a terrible thing to my family and will never hurt them ever again.' You got it?" When the man didn't answer Raconteur gave him another tap on the floor for encouragement. This one left blood behind. He leaned in close to the man's ear before he continued and whispered so Mrs. Laney wouldn't hear the rest. "I have some friends who take care of problems I may run into and I'm going to start having one of them check in with you from time to time. His name is Fillion. If he so much as suspects that you've been hurting your wife or Butch then I'm going to have him bring you to me in whatever shape makes him happy. Then, we're going to discuss this in excruciating detail out in the desert. When I'm done with you there will be tourists turning up pieces of you years from now. Do you understand?" The man had started to tremble and whimpered a weak 'yes'. Raconteur slammed the man's head down once more with a muffled crack and  eased up from the man's back. He stood and quickly took two steps back just in case the man was less stunned than he looked, but he stayed down.

Mrs. Laney looked on at what was happening in shock, a look of confusion and fear on her face as she looked between the two men, a familiar demon and one that she feared could be even worse. Before she could gather her thoughts and act, Raconteur turned to her and began to speak. "I am very sorry you had to see that ma'am. You've been through more than your share already. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to introduce you to someone who might be able to help you and let a doctor check out where you've been hurt. I know a clinic that would be more than happy to help. It's the least I can do." Tears welled up and fell as the woman came to terms with what had just happened. Raconteur didn't know if it was fear or hope that made her agree, but he decided that either way he'd make sure she didn't regret it. He stopped and asked Mrs. Laney for a little space to make a call at a pay phone on his way to drop her off at the Red Rock clinic. Raconteur placed a call to his guard, Fillion, to make sure he watched for Butch to help him make his way to Mrs. Laney. He covered his mouth and whispered into the phone. "If the two of them decide to not go back, we're going to finish up with Mr. Laney one way or another so keep your schedule open." He hung up the phone and returned to his task, determined more than ever to get back to the tower and report.