The tea shop on Mott Street smelled like jasmine and old wood and something sharper underneath — desperation, maybe, or the particular anxiety of a man watching his business bleed out.
Henry Chen sat across from me in the back room, hands wrapped around a cup he hadn't touched in twenty minutes. The tea had gone cold. So had his expression, settling into the blank mask of someone who'd already decided things couldn't get better.
"I don't know you," he said for the third time. "You walk in off the street, say you can help. How?"
"I solve problems." I kept my voice even, unhurried. The room was small — storage space converted into an office, filing cabinets against one wall, a calendar from three years ago still hanging by the door. "You have a problem. Your partner is bleeding you dry, and you can't prove it without lawyers, and lawyers cost money you're losing to the bleeding."
His jaw tightened. "Who told you about David?"
"Nobody told me anything." That was almost true. I'd pieced it together from three days of observation — the partner's new car, the shop's declining inventory, the way Henry's wife looked at him like she was already mourning. "I watched. I listened. You're not hard to read, Mr. Chen."
"And you think you can fix it?"
"I know I can."
He studied me across the table. I let him look. Whatever he saw — the cheap jacket, the face that belonged to a dead man, the confidence I was still learning to fake — it was apparently enough to keep him talking.
"David has lawyers. Family money. If I accuse him publicly, he'll bury me." Henry's voice cracked on the last word. "I've been partners with him for eight years. I thought he was my friend."
"He probably was. People change when money gets tight." I leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Here's what I need from you. A photograph of David. Access to your business records for the last six months. And trust."
"Trust?"
"You let me handle this my way. You don't ask questions about methods. You pay me when it's done, and you tell people I'm good at my job." I paused. "That last part's the most important. I'm building a reputation. You're going to help me build it."
Henry reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph. David Reiss — I'd seen him from a distance, but the photo was clearer. Round face, receding hairline, the soft body of a man who'd stopped trying. He looked like someone's uncle. He looked like a thief.
I took the photograph and something shifted behind my eyes.
The pressure was gentler this time, not the overwhelming warehouse flood of the Memory Palace but something more focused. Like a lens adjusting. Like tuning a radio until static resolved into signal.
David Reiss wanted out.
The knowledge arrived without context, without evidence, just certainty settling into my bones. He didn't want confrontation. He didn't want lawyers or accusations or Henry's wounded eyes across a courtroom. He wanted the partnership dissolved quietly, wanted to walk away with enough money to pretend he hadn't stolen the rest, wanted to never see Henry Chen again.
And Henry — I turned the lens toward him, felt it flicker and strain — Henry wanted his money back. The betrayal stung, sure, but what kept him awake was the account balance, the inventory he couldn't replace, the wife who'd trusted him to provide.
Punishment was secondary. Restoration was primary.
The pressure released. My vision swam for a moment, then cleared. Three seconds had passed, maybe four. Henry was still watching me, waiting.
"Your partner wants to leave," I said. "He's been looking for an exit. The embezzlement wasn't greed — it was severance. He's been paying himself because he knows you'd never agree to a fair buyout."
Henry's face went pale. "How could you possibly—"
"I read people." That would have to be enough explanation. "Here's what we're going to do. You're going to offer him exactly what he wants: a clean exit. Ten percent of current business value, calculated fairly, paid out over twelve months. He walks away, you recover. Nobody goes to court, nobody gets buried."
"Ten percent? After what he's stolen?"
"What he's stolen is maybe fifteen percent. You claw back five by ending this now instead of feeding lawyers for two years." I pushed the photograph back across the table. "The alternative is a war you can't afford. He has family money. You have a shop that's already bleeding. How long do you last?"
Henry picked up his tea, realized it was cold, set it down again. His hands were steadier now. The desperation was still there, but something else too — the first flicker of hope in what looked like months.
"You can arrange this? A meeting?"
"That's what I do." I stood up, signaling the conversation was ending on my terms. "I'll contact you tomorrow with details. My fee is five hundred dollars, payable when the deal is signed."
"Five hundred..." He almost laughed. "David's lawyers would have charged ten times that."
"David's lawyers would have dragged this out for years. I'll have it done by Friday."
I left him sitting in that back room with his cold tea and his first real chance at a future. The shop's front was quiet — mid-afternoon, between the lunch rush and the evening crowds. A young woman behind the counter watched me leave but didn't ask questions.
Outside, Mott Street was doing its usual dance — tourists with cameras, locals moving with purpose, the endless negotiation of too many people in too little space. I found a bench half a block down and sat heavily.
My hands were trembling.
That lens thing — the Eyes of Deals, some part of my mind supplied, the terminology surfacing from the same place the Memory Palace had — wasn't supposed to work that clearly yet. According to the warehouse in my head, according to the fragments of knowledge about my own impossible abilities, I was still in Phase One. Chaotic, unreliable, barely functional.
But I'd seen exactly what both men wanted. No guesswork, no deduction, just pure perception of their deepest motivations.
Maybe stress was accelerating development. Maybe I was further along than the Palace's self-documentation suggested. Maybe I was going to give myself a stroke if I kept pushing without understanding the costs.
My stomach growled. I'd skipped breakfast and lunch, too focused on the approach to remember biological imperatives. The trembling in my hands might be ability strain or might just be low blood sugar.
I bought a sandwich from a cart on the corner. Pastrami on rye, mustard leaking out the sides, exactly the kind of greasy perfection I'd forgotten existed. I ate it standing on the sidewalk, watching the city flow past, and let myself feel something that might have been satisfaction.
First job. First client. First step toward the reputation I needed to build before Sherlock Holmes landed at JFK and the real game began.
Fifteen days. The countdown was shrinking, but so was my desperation. I had money now. I had a plan. I had abilities that were developing faster than expected, assuming they didn't kill me in the process.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number — Dmitri, probably, since he was the only person who had this number.
Grayson update. You were right.
I typed back: I'm usually right. Documents ready?
Three dots. Then: Tomorrow. Bring payment.
Payment. Right. The information I'd promised him, the leverage that would clear his debt and cement his trust. I'd been so focused on the Henry Chen situation that I'd almost forgotten I had another deadline.
The Memory Palace stirred, offering fragments of Grayson's future. Arrests, connections, the web of criminal finance that would eventually draw Sherlock's attention in Season 3. From that future, I could extrapolate the present — but extrapolation wasn't certainty. I'd been lucky with the creditor timing. I might not be lucky again.
I finished the sandwich, wiped my hands on a napkin, and started walking. Fifteen days until Sherlock. Twenty-four hours until I picked up the documents that would make Cash Dalton real.
The countdown continued. The foundation was being laid.
Henry Chen's handshake, when we'd sealed the deal, had held on too long. Gratitude he was already feeling for a solution I hadn't delivered yet. Trust I hadn't earned in any life, past or present.
I was going to have to get used to that.
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