Cardenas was fond of the Glacial. With its retro-2040s Alaskan decor, soft lights, and Brazilian-Namerican fusion menu, it reminded him of the good times of his youth. Married once, he had few dates these days. Relationships often began well, only to end in shock and wariness on the part of his partners when they found out he was an intuit. Explaining that he could not read minds, that he was only making use of highly specialized police training for which he had demonstrated a particular aptitude, did little to bolster a woman's confidence in her ability to feint and jab.

"You know what I'm thinking!" they would exclaim.

"No I don't," he would invariably protest. "Intuits aren't mind readers."

"But you can extrapolate from everything I do, everything I say. The way I look at you, the inflection of every syllable I mouth, how I hold my left hand, the way I…" At about that point they would break off the argument to declare, "You knew I was going to say all this, didn't you?"

Protests of innocence were of no use. Most women were convinced that dating an intuit was akin to trying to run through the starting defensive line of the Moscow Dynamo: a girl was simply outmatched before she could get started.

Not, Cardenas reflected as he and Hyaki settled into an empty booth, that the majority of single cops didn't lead lonely lives anyway.

Vitalizing before him, the menu politely inquired if he wanted to null the audio and read about the establishment's offerings in peace. Correctly taking Cardenas's lack of response as permission to continue, it proceeded to recite the late-night specials. Stuffed into the opposite side of the booth, Hyaki was mooting whether to order the tambaqui and chips or fejoada with barbecued capybara.

Not long after their respective orders were relayed to the kitchen, a waitress appeared with Cardenas's keoki coffee and the sergeant's double espresso milkshake. Hot and cold for slim and large, the Inspector reflected as he dosed down on his steaming mug. The confused identity of the corpse they had just encountered collided in his thoughts with the puzzling response of the man's wife-not-wife. One did not need to be an intuit to realize something more than the usual mug-and-drug was involved in the man's death. It was turning rapidly into a bona fide realimad, non compos mental, strain on the brain, jane. Cardenas didn't like that. He liked things direct and straightforward, in the manner of most cops. Neat and clean on the scene. Better if the scan on the dead cleanie had turned up no identity instead of two.

The ganglet of ninlocos arrived before his food did. They swaggered in past the protesting door, the lanky chieflado in the lead spizzing it with a spinner whose ident was torqued to reflect instead of inform. Behind the chingaroon ambulated a group of negs and poses, though which was who and who was witch was hard to say at first glance. Hyaki looked over his shoulder, grunted a kata, and wished that their food would hurry up and emerge from hibernation in the kitchen.

Traying chow, the waitress delivered to another table. One of the nins, of inscrutable gender, tweeted at her and accompanied the whistle with an obscene vapowraith that oozed from the lipgrammable stimstick held in his/her mouth. The scented smoke sculpture wrapped itself around the unwilling waitress, wisps of pale suggestiveness clinging to her like glued air until with flailing hands she slapped the last of it away. Laughing at her fretful efforts to maintain her dignity, the nins took over a particularly well-situated table from a pair of uni students. Wholly intimidated, the young couple abandoned it without a word, pocketing their glowing vits and fleeing the restaurant with as much haste as they could manage.

One of the negs reached out to grab a rough handful of the girl's backside as she tried to hurry past. Hyaki started to get up. Cardenas motioned him back down. The neg held on to the terrified student for a few seconds before letting her go. The Inspector knew that he would. The antisoc had strutted a series of raw movements even a novice could have intuited.

When their food arrived, the two officers ate in silence. Like everyone else in the cafe, they ignored the loud and boorish antics of the ganglet. Collective rudeness was not yet a federal crime. But the ninloco cacophony did nothing to soothe Cardenas's already troubled thoughts, or improve his digestion.

Why wouldn't the woman give them a name she must know they could, and would, soon learn for themselves? Why wouldn't she admit to at least a live-in relationship with George Anderson? Or Wayne Brummel, the Inspector reminded himself.

"Yolaolla! Si-you-you with the nasty 'stash. You sitting front-eyes with el gordo, there."

Ignoring the intrusion, Hyaki continued to nibble on the last of his fried fish. The yakk was directed at Cardenas anyway.

The Inspector looked up from his bison and eggs. Perpetually mournful eyes regarded the neg. The would-be chingaroon was not quite two decades, all sass and flash. How many kids had he dealt with like this one, busy burning their souls like matches? It was late, he was tired and hungry, and not in the mood to baby-sit. He could have let Hyaki deal with it, but there was always hope. Hope that a small lesson might spark a hint of maturity. Where feasible, words were always more efficacious than an arrest. In jail, kids tended not to talk to other kids about being kids.

"Don't do it." As always, his tone was quiet but firm. A little firmer now, perhaps, than when he had been delivering his supper order to the attentive menu.

It was not a response the ninloco had expected. It showed in the fleeting glance he gave his expectant colleagues. "Cay-yeh, homber- you don' ask me no questions. I'm the one hackin' the yakk here."

Picking up his knife and fork, Cardenas resumed eating. "Just don't do it."

Brows furrowing, the neg leaned toward him. "Didn' you hear me, homber? Just for the yell of it, what 'it' is it you don' want me to do?" He favored his companions with a knowing smirk, and they smiled appreciatively at their topboy's wit.

Sitting back, Cardenas dragged a cloth napkin across his lips, the slight charge in the fabric instantly disinfecting them. "Well, crazy-boy, since you ask, first thing you need to turn off the knife in your calf scabbard. Don't you know that leaving something like that on is dangerous? The safety could slip, and you'd lose a leg." He looked up, past the leader of the ganglet. "The big kid behind you needs to forget about frogging my partner. Even with the slywire he's holding, Fredoso would break his arm. You young ladies," he continued, addressing the now wide-eyed and uncertain pair of poses, "want to leave your ordnance holstered. You don't want to see where mine is, because I don't flash it unless I intend to use it, and you don't want me digging yours out from where you have them supposedly perfectly concealed."

In full verbal if not physical retreat, the chieflado was glaring at the imperturbable Inspector. "Yola, homber, you spazzing, man! We don' got none of what you bubble. We just wanted to toss a little flak-chat, sabe? We only-"

One of the girls interrupted him. "Mesmo, Taypa-the homber's an intuit! He's comping your moves!" She and her companion were already backing away from the table.

Smiling while still chewing his fish, Hyaki raised his left arm. The sleeve slid back to reveal a blue bracelet alive with blinking LEDs. One vitalized a symbol morph that halted a few centimeters in front of topboy's face. The ninloco's eyes widened as he focused on it.

"We didn' mean nothing." Looking suddenly less imposing, the bigger boy had turned in the blink of an eye from predator to pound cake. He was backpedaling so fast he threatened to run over the two rapidly withdrawing poses. Eyeing the two soft-voiced men in the booth, the waitress gratefully resumed her rounds.