magibrain

Title: Hound's Got the Hunter (and the hunter's got the gun)
Rating: T.
Genre: Character study, backstory, plotless bunches of talking
Beta: Slipped their surveilance.
Continuity: Should be canon-compliant, with no spoilers past "Forging Bonds".
Prerequisites: Forging Bonds
Summary: Neal and Mozzie have a conversation about the feds, and one in particular. (Pre-canon.)
Disclaimer: If I showed up at USA or Fox's door, they'd probably just send me on my way, not give me rights to this. The opinions expressed herein are the properties of the characters, and not of Jim Stafford. Don't keep your eyes on the shells. Don't keep your eyes on the cards. Questions, comments and criminal fraternities can be left in replies or directed to magistrata(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you for reading!

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Neal is still getting used to New York – the cadence of its life, the anonymity of its streets, the vertical reach of its buildings all climbing past each other as though in a rush to get to the sky, as if any moment now they'll start elbowing each other aside. He's been here less than a month and already he's either stumbled on something great or is in so far over his head that he can't even be certain that he's being conned.

Mozzie walks into his apartment without knocking or announcing himself in any way, and Neal's first instinct is to look for the Marshals who are supposed to keep this sort of thing from happening. He quashes it. It's a stupid instinct, anyway, from a life he's already decided to leave behind.

Which doesn't change the fact that he really wishes he knew how Mozzie got in here. He feels like he would have heard someone picking the locks, and this isn't the kind of door that can be slipped with a credit card. He's checked.

"You owe me," Mozzie says, by way of a greeting.

"Hi," Neal says back. "Why do I owe you? –what are you doing here?"

"I'm here because you need to rehearse for Adler's dinner," Mozzie says. "And you owe me because I've done a little digging on the fed you so ill-advisedly decided to confront."

And with that, he heaves an overstuffed messenger bag onto Neal's counter, displacing a mostly-empty pizza box and a mostly-full two-liter bottle of club soda.

"I've also made a few illustrations if you do wind up putting him in a petting zoo," he says, waving a hand over his shoulder. "You know, you could put them on little plaques with information about his natural habitat, and a coin-operated dispenser so you could buy handfuls of incriminating evidence to feed him."

Neal shoots a bewildered look across the studio's single, tiny table. "You're really still upset that I talked to him?"

"No, I'm not upset," Mozzie stresses, despite the fact that upset is pouring off him like turpentine fumes from a just-cleaned canvas. He turns, folding his arms across his chest. "I'm disappointed. I thought you had a natural instinct for the criminal life."

Neal quirks an eyebrow. "My instincts are fine."

"Obviously not," Mozzie retorts. Neal has a brief, peevish urge just to say Are too, but he clamps down on that.

Mostly. "I was doing just fine before I met you, you know."

"Uh, yeah," Mozzie says, with his you're missing the incredibly obvious voice. "Running street cons. Not dealing with the Federal government. Different ball game."

"Haven't been arrested yet," Neal points out.

Mozzie raises an illustrative index finger. "Yet."

Neal rolls his eyes.

Mozzie takes the lull to haul a stack of folders and files out of the messenger bag and carry them to the table, where he pushes aside two bonds and the hollowed-out book where Neal stores his pocket change. "There is a natural order to these things," Mozzie says, in a tone that reminds Neal of some of his least-favorite teachers in St. Louis; the ones that thought their kids might be just a little too slow to pick up on what was right in front of them. "We are like crafty foxes–" his hands come up, and make a gesture which Neal suspects is supposed to illustrate craftiness or vulpinity, though he's not sure how, "–who survive on cunning and caution, and they are like an entire pack of foxhounds backed by the landed aristocracy of the US Government and the horses of their secret technology."

"Secret technology," Neal repeats.

"The point is, when we see them, we go to ground." Mozzie gives him a warning look. "That way they don't shoot us and hang our hides on their walls."

If there's one thing Neal is learning about Mozzie, it's that he's smart, but that intelligence often comes with a patina of eccentricity and tangents that you either have to mock or ignore. He's feeling sufficiently piqued at the moment to go for mockery. "Do federal agents actually do that?"

"They take trophies," Mozzie insists. "Those bonds of yours would make good ones. Specialized printing equipment. Anything you've touched."

"...evidence," Neal translates.

Mozzie shrugs. "You say tomato."

A moment passes in which Neal tries to find something to say to that, and then he realizes that his priorities are out-of-whack. Mozzie's managed to talk him around two or three different topics with him not being able to do much more than keep up with the flow of bizarre metaphors and logical swan-dives. It's the verbal equivalent of the shell game.

That rankles. He tries to shove the pique to the back of his mind. "So what about this agent?"

"Agent Peter Burke," Mozzie says, and excavates a folder stuffed with papers – different sizes, a few ruled pages stuffed with chickenscratchings, a rat's nest of assorted files that Neal suspects will be a pile of ashes within a day or two. Probably intentionally. Maybe. "This guy has a reputation. I'd heard of him before, of course."

Mozzie has a very specific rhythm, when he gets in a groove; it's just that the specificity doesn't make it any easier to anticipate. There's a very specific form to the paint in a Pollack painting, after all, and Neal still wouldn't know where he'd even start on crafting a replica.

Yet.

Still, he's known Mozzie for a little while, now, and Neal has always been a quick study. Now is the time to salve Mozzie's ego, regardless of whether or not it's actually bruised, and whether or not he's in the mood to salve the ego of the man intent on poking his own with sharp objects. This is the game; this is how he gets information. "But you can't keep an encyclopedic knowledge of every FBI agent in the city."

"Oh, actually, I could," Mozzie says. "But I usually only bother with the ones who are after me."

"You think everyone is after you," Neal points out.

"Yes," Mozzie says. "But there are degrees."

Not for the first time, Neal wonders if there's an actual train of logic to Mozzie's thoughts, or if he just says words. "...so what have you found out?"

Mozzie plants a paper in front of him. A newspaper, actually, or the cut-out, relevant bits of one. "He's the Bureau's newest darling for white-collar crime. Apparently, they're letting him set up his own division. Cut his teeth on copyright infringement and identity theft, then got his big break busting up a money-laundering ring run by Eliza and Benjamin Sottersand."

Neal blinks. "Who?"

Mozzie drops his hands to the table. "You are a disgrace to the criminal fraternity," he says. "I'm going to give you a list of names to memorize."

"Names?" Neal asks. "What names?"

"The names of your contemporaries," Mozzie says, like it should be obvious. "No man is an island. We're more like those little peninsulas between the fjords."

Slowly, Neal realizes he's being run around in circles again.

"Is there a reason you don't want to talk about this guy?" he asks. "Beyond the fact that you don't approve of me talking to him, I mean."

"Hm?" Mozzie looks genuinely confused, by that. As much as Mozzie ever looks genuinely anything. Neal can't actually tell, half the time, whether Mozzie is putting on an act or not, and he's not used to that – his life has made him pretty good at sussing out liars, with a few notable exceptions.

"Every time you're about to start talking about him, the conversation takes a turn and it ends up in Bermuda," Neal says.

At that, Mozzie looks unabashedly pleased. "Oh! Good. You noticed that." He raises his index finger, again, delivering the point like he's doing Neal a favor. "Always be aware of the flow of a conversation. There's no telling when someone will try to stall you. Or trip you up into a clever web of implication to get you to incriminate yourself, or try to implant subconscious messages into your brain."

That, Neal thinks ruefully, would sound a lot more comfortingly paranoid if Mozzie hadn't been grilling him on subconscious cues and if he hadn't already had Neal out practicing how to get a mark to order a very specific drink off a bar's very expansive menu. It's not even been a month, and Mozzie is already messing with his perception of reality.

He decides to extricate himself from this web of misdirections and take the direct route. "Tell me what you found on Burke."

"Exhibits A through Qof," Mozzie says, indicating the papers. Neal decides not to ask. It's the only way they'll actually be able to have this conversation. "Long story short? If you're going to be investigated by someone, he's one of the last people you want to be on the case. But if you're going to get caught, it's hard to do better."

Neal shakes his head, and starts to say something to get Mozzie to clarify, but Mozzie is already clarifying.

"He's like a very slow, methodical Terminator. If he's on your trail, you can expect him to investigate you until the day you die. Even if you hide somewhere and let the statue of limitations expire, he'll probably keep a file on you and use everything he's learned to catch you if you pull any future heists. And he's smart – this guy once tracked down a check forger from an online purchase of nalgene water bottles. Using a prepaid card."

Neal looks dutifully impressed by that.

"But he's... weird, for a fed," Mozzie says.

"Weird, how?"

Mozzie shifts, uneasily. "He's not – well, you know how feds are usually in it for the takedown? –of course you don't," he corrects himself. "With most feds, it's a war. The war on crime," he says, with attendant air quotes. "For Burke, it's like a con – you don't hate your mark, not usually, I mean, unless they do something to deserve it; it's just the way the game is played. Someone has to win, and someone's gotta be the loser. Burke doesn't go in for damage. He's not a shock-and awe type. He even went so far as to suggest that a lesser sentence might be in order for Perry Ibassi, 'cause the guy only started embezzling to pay his brother's medical bills." Mozzie narrowed his eyes at Neal. "I'm going to guess you've never heard of Perry Ibassi either."

"Why do I need to know the names of all these people?"

"Because crime is a fraternity, Neal." Mozzie puts his hand down on the files, splaying his fingers. "It's made up of alliances of convenience, rivalries, favors and economies of reputation. Fortunately, you have me as an introduction."

Which is a mixed blessing, Neal thinks. "You know, I was doing just fine."

"You were doing okay," Mozzie grants. "The bonds were good. Had promise. But you're still thinking small-time; a little bit of extra cash here and there. Trust me, when I'm through with you, you'll have it in you to become truly world-class." He gives Neal a hard, long look. "That is, assuming you don't wind up in a federal prison before you do."

"Wasn't planning on it," Neal says.

Mozzie nods, shortly. "Right, well, let's keep it that way. After you learn all this financial news, we're going to start on a few remedial survival skills. Slipping a tail, picking up surveillance, that sort of thing."

"Great," Neal says, ruefully. He has the feeling that it's going to be a long afternoon. Has to wonder again how all this happened. There's really no reason for this strange little man to have walked into his life and started rearranging it. Really no reason for Neal to have let him, except–

Well. Except something.

"Let's get started," Mozzie says, and lays his materials out.

–END–