Richard emerged from the parking garage and entered the building’s spacious lobby. Tinted windows flooded the area with mercifully subdued light, reflecting off the polished marble walls. He adjusted his tie as he approached the building’s receptionist, turning the youth pastor’s words over in his head like a scrambled Rubik’s Cube. He warned that Russell sounded really nervous, yet still agreed to the meeting. Richard wasn’t sure how to interpret this, but tried to be ready for anything. He pondered how, exactly, one prepares for “anything”.

The receptionist batted her eyes at him. “Oooh, a new face. How can I help you, hon?”

He flashed his ID. “Richard Schmutz, private detective. I’m just here to ask a few questions.”

“Oh, how exciting!” she lilted, the glow making her momentarily more beautiful, almost compensating for the lazy eye. “I hope you don’t need to use the third degree on me.”

“Not you, ma’am,” Richard clarified. “I’m looking for The Sinterniklaas Group.”

“Aw, too bad,” she pined. “And it was going so well, too.” She blinked, then began digging through a vintage Rolodex. “Who? I don’t think we have anyone here by that name.”

“Really?” Richard grumbled, scanning the building’s manifest, the header proclaiming the street address at the top as if it was something to be proud of. “I was sure this was the right place.”

“Oh! There they are. Forgive me; they changed their name recently.” She dug through a drawer and produced an electronic badge. “This will get you into the elevator and through all the necessary doors.” She sighed as she handed him the badge. “I can’t believe it’s over so soon.”

“So what was their name before?” he asked.

“Oooh, so interrogative! You really are a detective!” she gushed. Pointing to the badge, she added “It’s on there. The names haven’t been updated yet.” The desk phone suddenly rang; she picked it up briskly. “615 Plaza…how can I help you, hon?” Richard made his leave as the phone continued to distract her.

As the elevator door closed behind him, Richard wondered if the building management deliberately hired receptionists based on excessive personality. Alas, he sighed…if only she was twenty years younger, and didn’t dress like Tammy Faye Bakker…maybe if she toned it down to Tomi Rae Hynie.

As he ascended, he finally read the name on the badge. “Dewey, Lutem And Howe?” He scoffed. “Really?”

The building management apparently took security seriously. He had to scan his badge through three separate doors before finding the right office. He wondered when they would get around to securing the parking garage, whose barrier to entry merely consisted of taking a ticket from the machine at the gate.

He arrived at their door; it still had the old name. Acting on a hunch, he scanned his badge. The door promptly unlocked. He smirked as he entered; nothing but security theater. This was the sort of defense that would stop someone unless they looked at it.

Richard stepped into a spacious office with windows looking out over what passed for a skyline; the omnipresent dust kept visibility below half a mile, the muted brown light accentuating the dinginess. Private offices ringed the perimeter, surrounding an open-floor-plan meeting area off to the left. Several people sat around its large rectangular plastic-coated faux-wood table. As he approached, they eyed him warily, then stood up.

One of them spoke. “I’m Russell. You must be Detective Richard Schmutz.”

“Yes, I must be,” he deadpanned.

They exchanged weary glances, then turned to face him. “I guess we all knew this was coming.” One by one, they put their hands in front of them, wrists close together.

Richard’s brow wrinkled. “What are you doing?”

“We surrender,” Russell declared. “It was a good run. We just hope you’ll give us leniency if we cooperate.”

“I’m not here to arrest you,” Richard informed.

“Really? But you’re a detective.”

“A private detective,” Richard clarified. “I just ask questions.”

They brightened visibly. “Really? That’s a relief,” chimed a young lady as they all took their seats.

“Where are my manners?” Russell asked. “Let me introduce the gang.” He rattled off a list of names, each acknowledged with a wave or a grunt. Richard hoped he could remember them all.

“I must admit, I’m a little surprised,” Richard revealed. “You really don’t seem like a rough-and-tumble squad of anarchists.”

“Well, not if anyone starts fighting back,” Brandon admitted. “Then we’re outta there.”

Richard shook his head. “I guess I was expecting more, with a name like ‘Pelf Punks’.”

The group was silent for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Wow, that takes me back,” Marcus guffawed. “That’s old news. I mean, we still use the name, but only in our off hours. We have a much better hustle now.”

“One that outgrew ‘Dewey, Lutem And Howe’, I suppose?”

Axel chuckled. “I can’t even believe we got away with that. We used that name to rent the office; we were waiting for the building management to figure out the joke and ask us about it. They never did.” He toyed with his tie pin. “So it wasn’t fun anymore. Now we have a new name.”

“Because we’re like Santa Claus!” Dan chortled. “We like to spread the wealth!”

“After taking your cut, I’m sure,” Richard insinuated. “This office can’t be cheap.”

“We’re a limited partnership, not a charity,” Joanne explained. “Though we do make donations to good causes.”

“And the Santa Claus angle was just too rich to pass up,” Dan gushed.

“What Santa Claus angle?” Richard asked.

“Sinterniklaas! Saint Nicholas! It’s right in the name!”

“I thought the Dutch name for Santa Claus was Sinterklaas.”

The group froze. “Really?” They began furiously typing on their phones.

“I think Sinterniklaas is a voice actor. Didn’t he work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot?”

“Oh crap, you’re right,” Russell moaned. He turned to Axel. “Should we change the name again?”

“Forget it,” Axel decided. “We already ordered the stationery. Let’s just roll with it.”

“If you’re lucky, he’ll never visit Tucson,” Richard japed.

“I guess it’ll just be one more way we live on the edge,” Marcus declared. “It’s not like this line of work was safe to begin with.”

Richard checked his notes. “So are you referring to the anarchist protests, or the burglaries?”

The table exchanged knowing smiles. Richard was taken aback. “What…?”

“Is that what you think of us?” Russell accused. “That we’re nothing but petty thieves? Wow…I knew Harmony was low, but even I didn’t think they’d stoop that low.”

“No!” Axel declared. “No, no, no, no, no.” He demurred. “Well, yes. A little. But it’s not our main line. We’ve moved beyond mere burglary; we’re into big-time heists now.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Richard asked. “What do you do around here?”

Joanne proudly handed Richard a business card. “We’re a private equity firm!”

Richard blinked. “What, now…?”

Axel rose and began pacing laconically, his hands steepled. “One day, we realized we could continue our larcenous ways, and yet go legit, with just a little rebranding. We no longer have victims; now we call them clients. We still enter distressed businesses, and take possession of the most liquid assets, enriching no one but ourselves. The only difference is, now we pretend to care about our client’s future viability, even though we really intend to break it into pieces for our own benefit.” Axel flashed a wide grin. “In the end, our activities are not particularly unusual compared to other members of this industry.”

Richard stared blankly. “I don’t know if that’s brilliant or insane.”

“You be the judge!” Axel quipped. “Sure, we still commit burglaries. But our real goal is to gather information. However, we can’t make the hit look like an intel op, so to cover it up, we steal a few things. The sort of highly liquid items a typical drug addict would steal. Lord knows we have plenty of those in this town.”

“And sometimes, we finish a heist by telling some nearby bums that we saw an open door, or a broken window,” Russell added. “Then they go in and stupidly get their fingerprints and DNA all over everything. By the time they figure out there’s nothing left worth stealing, we’ve called the police, and those morons take the blame for whatever we did. Plus, another couple of scumbags get taken off the street, improving public safety!”

“Everyone knows this town is plagued with property crimes,” Dan joined in. “The ones we commit don’t really stand out!”

“And once it hits the police blotter,” Axel continued, “we have an airtight alibi for how we know about it. That’s when our affiliated partners hit them up – for repairs, security upgrades, insurance policies, the works! And the more services they buy from our partners, the more of an aggregate discount they receive. Now it’s in their interest to keep shoveling money at us!”

“Then, using the gathered intel, we follow up with an investment offer,” Marcus clarified. “Since we have the inside scoop, we can fine-tune our offer to match their situation closely.”

“When you think about it,” Brandon concluded, “it’s the perfect business. Much better than what we used to do.”

“Protesting, seriously?” Axel snorted. “That accomplished nothing. Besides, every protester’s goal is to replace the establishment they’re railing against. We just found a faster way!” Axel let out a warbling giggle. “I can’t wait until we’re buying our own politicians!”

Richard paused before speaking. “I guess I can’t refute your logic. Frankly, you sound like all the other businesspeople I’ve ever encountered. Except, maybe, a little more brutally honest.”

“Did you hear that?” Joanne lilted. “He called us honest businesspeople!” She beheld Richard with adoring eyes. “Can we quote you in our literature?”

“Ugh.” Richard winced as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you don’t mind…I came here to ask you questions about something completely different.”

“Absolutely, my good man,” Axel assured. “Fire away.”

“You may know a member of Harmony was killed recently,” Richard related.

“Yeah, we heard about Saint,” Russell grimaced. “Pretty harsh. But a good example of why we got out of protesting.”

“And unless it was just random street crime, I have to assume the killer was someone he knew,” Richard continued. “Sadly, you people are the closest Harmony has to a social circle.”

Russell’s eyes grew wide. “You think one of us did it…? I’m serious, we’re out of that game, and we were never killers, anyway.”

“Yeah; we’re not savages!” Joanne objected.

“I’m not accusing any of you,” Richard clarified. “It’s just that, since the killer acquired a large amount of fentanyl, I thought one of you might know where it could have come from.”

They exchanged uneasy glances. “Sounds kind of like Yuguti,” Dan revealed.

“Who’s that?” Richard asked.

“We used to score weed from this one guy,” Russell explained. “Always had stuff, but a really scary dude. He kept trying to push harder stuff on us. We’d tell him we just wanted weed, and he’d get upset.”

“He didn’t seem like the usual sort of dealer, either,” Marcus added. “He was strong and healthy-looking. That really stood out.”

“But he kept raising his prices,” Russell continued. “So finally we found someone else, and told him so.”

“He didn’t take that well,” Axel revealed. “He made a really odd threat as we parted – that he knew everything about us, and that he’d have his revenge. But nothing ever came of it.”

“And now we don’t do weed any more anyway,” added Brandon. “No time for macraméing ourselves into the couch! We’ve upgraded to cocaine. Gotta work a lot of long hours in this field! We could probably score some from Yuguti, but we don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

“So now I guess I have to find this Yuguti character,” Richard mumbled as he made notes in his pocketbook.

“Oh, we still see him once a week,” Dan revealed.

Richard stopped writing. “You what?”

“Oh, sure,” Dan continued. “He goes to the same club we do. The Beat Street Lounge.”

Richard blinked. “Seriously…?”

“Well, yeah,” Russell clarified. “I mean, sure, there’s bad blood between us, but we settle our differences in a dignified arena of combat!”

“Yeah,” Joanne added. “We’re not savages!”

“What kind of combat is this, exactly?” Richard asked.

Axel slapped Richard on the shoulder. “Why don’t you come by and find out? Tonight, starting around 10. We’ll point out Yuguti, and you can continue your investigation.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Richard noted. “Thanks to all of you for your help. Really, you’ve been tremendous.”

“We’re only too happy to help,” Russell declared. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“Oh yeah…one last thing.” Richard fished around in his suit pocket for a few moments, finally producing a ticket. “Can you validate my parking for me?”

Axel smiled. “We’d be happy to.” He took the ticket and walked to a nearby office.

“I hate to ask,” Richard demurred, “but they charge an awful lot for the simple act of parking a car.”

“You don’t need to explain,” Joanne assured. “We get it.”

“You know,” Russell opined, “if we really wanted to rake it in, we could get into the parking-lot business.” He glowered for a moment. “But we have some principles.”