The Saylor Jerry Casino in Chicago may not have been the ideal meeting place, but it had a hotel and the suites allowed for a certain level of privacy often lacking in smaller establishments. The drive in from the airport had been bitterly cold for Liar, conditioned to the balmy weather of Los Angeles he was unused to the icy wind that howled around the airport. Standing in the taxi rank, he wondered, not for the first time today, if they were taking this too far. Normally he'd have had a car waiting, a nice, warm, chauffer driven...

He snapped from his internal dialogue as a pair of taxis finally approached, instinctively he offered the first to the woman behind him in the queue. This was not from any sense of chivalry, but because the Feds had recently found one of Kates' stash houses in New Orleans when one of her team had used a taxi from the airport, driven by an agent.

"Saylor Jerry's please."

He pulled out a newspaper and, although not really reading it, he didn't want the driver to have cause to remember him. Once they arrived, he handed over the fare, a decent tip, neither too generous nor too cheap, and headed inside. The ornate deep carpets seemed to muffle the sound, the desk fortunately empty besides the one receptionist staffing it.

"I believe you have a reservation in the name of Smith?" He waited while she looked up the booking, and delivered the extra-warm smile that came with realising it was a customer of some importance, even if the name smith was so obviously a fake. "The Ambassadors suite, that's right. Thank you, no no, I'll be fine it's just an overnight bag, I'm sure I can handle that myself."

The elevators took The Liar up to the 6th floor, the suite was as advertised, a well stocked bar, a seating area suitable for the meeting, a private corridor, and thick curtains to block the winter outside. In summer, the view may have been impressive, overlooking the lake, but on a day like today it was just grey and miserable. Even the fishing vessels out on the water looked sad to be there somehow. He switched on every light in the room and closed the curtains, as much to defend against the new zoom lenses the feds had as to block out the gloom.

Moments later, there was a knock on the door. Liar drew his revolver and checked the safety before opening it a crack, seeing the smiling face of JkL on the other side he opened it wider to let his friend and superior into the room.

"This will do." He said with a smile, heading to the bar and pouring himself a large tumbler of water. No drinking yet, maybe later, once business was out of the way. "I think I saw our guests arriving just as I was coming up, they'll be here in a minute."

Sure enough Liar saw them coming out of the elevator, a surge of adrenaline shot through him as it always did when meeting men of this stature. Diemne wasn't much to look at, short, balding, turning a little to fat, but his eyes were as intense as ever. You didn't get to be the Godfather of New York without having something about you, power surrounded him like an aura.

"Godfather" Liar held out his hand, surprised that only three of his bodyguards had come upstairs with him, two stopped at the door without even acknowledging Liar's presence, the other swept past him into the suite, checking every room with his weapon drawn before his leader to enter.

Shaking his hand Deimne said, "Liar, you can wait outside with them, I'm never sure if I should believe a word that comes out of your mouth." With that he breezed past him into the suite, "Mr L, I'll take a water too if you would, drinking this early isn't good for a man of my age."

Liar looked to Mr L for some kind of defence, some hint that he wanted him to stay; instead he just got a nod towards the door. You didn't argue with this man, not if you wanted to make the plane home.

- - - - -

"Godfather Diemne, a pleasure sir, shall we?" Jake motioned toward the armchairs allowing Diemne to choose where he would like to sit before joining him. The Godfather sat as still as a rock, his eyes boring into JkL as he waited, clearly small talk was not going to be on the cards today.

"So, here's the situation. The LA business district is, well, it's due a change. The current business owners need to go, and there's only one way to get that done properly, we want all but one burned down. RedBuddies runs damned fine tailors out of there, but he's far enough out of the way that he shouldn't get caught, and if he does so be it, we will help him re-build."

Jake took a sip of water, "Ordinarily this is something we would handle in house, but our explosives guy got caught coming out of a bank vault he'd just blown last month and won't be around for a while. There are thugs that could do it with some petrol bombs I guess, but we would like a professional job. Not so much a fire, as a demolition."

Jake reached into his suit pocket and pulled out an envelope, laying it on the table in front of Diemne. "This is a list of the businesses we want taken out, I have heard about Ire in your organisation. She's said to be quite an artist with a stick of dynamite. Will you help?"

Diemne hadn't moved a muscle while Jake talked; his face gave no hint of the calculations that were going on behind that cold exterior. Without warning Diemne stood, grabbed the envelope from the table.

"Today, tomorrow, the day after at the latest, I will do this thing for you; it will cost you nothing, not yet anyway."

Those last three words stopped Jake cold. He'd known there would be a price, but he had hoped it would just be financial.

"Thank you Godfather," was all he could manage before Diemne had left the room. The Liar shot him a questioning look as he came back into the suite, "And?"

JkL poured himself a large whiskey before he answered. "He'll do it."