KEDPIN SHOKLOP WOKE FEELING WORSE than he ever had before to see Anglang Lehet speaking to Officer Brawg across the back desk of the Canto Bight Police Department.

Kedpin remembered saying, I’m not going to help you hurt anyone else. He didn’t know where the words had come from, but they’d felt right. Then he remembered a flurry of blows from Officer Brawg. Kedpin realized he must have blacked out in the cell.

“Even if you are…affiliated, and this guy is one of yours,” Brawg was saying to Anglang, who was flashing some sort of badge, “you got a lot of nerve coming in here trying to get your merchandise back. Most of the cops here would lock you up for flashing that thing. You boys ain’t got much clout these days.”

Anglang’s voice was quiet and placating. It was the voice Kedpin used on an angry customer complaining about a defect. “Oh, this isn’t about merchandise, Officer. My employers have already written off any such loss as tribute to the tireless law enforcement officers of Canto Bight. My employers are not interested in recovering merchandise, but in…downsizing inefficient operatives.” Kedpin didn’t know what they were talking about, but the look Anglang flashed him was frightening.

Officer Brawg smiled a nasty smile, and he spoke about Kedpin as if Kedpin weren’t sitting right there. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “You want your boy back to spank him.”

Anglang Lehet just shrugged. “We are, of course, willing to provide appropriate recompense.”

“You know, my old man was a cop here in Canto Bight, too,” Officer Brawg said, heading toward Kedpin’s cell. What is happening here? Kedpin was afraid, but he tried not to show it.

“That right?” Anglang said.

With Anglang beside him, Brawg opened the cell. “Eighty years. The old man used to talk about how different it was when the Syndicate was here. How we took care of one another. How there was a pecking order.”

“Rules,” Anglang Lehet said, handing Officer Brawg a small velvet bag that clinked. Kedpin had the terrible sensation that he was being bought for slaughter.

“Exactly!” Brawg said, grabbing Kedpin roughly and shoving him toward Anglang Lehet. “Anyway, I only bopped him a few times. Little wimp passed right out. I didn’t even get ta break nuthin’.”

Anglang Lehet took hold of Kedpin ungently and guided him forcefully toward the CBPD exit.

Kedpin knew he wasn’t the fastest thinker in the galaxy, but even he was beginning to put together the pieces. “You…you’re a criminal, aren’t you, Anglang?”

The tall alien shrugged, his heavy black cloak shifting like a shadow. As they exited the building, he leaned down to speak into Kedpin’s earhole. “If you want to be technical about it, I’m a criminal who’s been planning all day to kill you,” he said quietly. At first Kedpin thought it was a joke. But he saw no mirth in Anglang’s jet-black eyes. “K-Kill me?” he heard himself say stupidly. Kedpin felt sick to his stomach. He stood there for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed by a horrible sense that there was no such thing as paradise and that everyone in the galaxy was a liar.

Then Anglang Lehet pushed him forward and together, they walked out of the jail into the warm Canto Bight night.