Live and Let Drood

no assistants; just one man and his tech in charge of providing Uncanny’s agents with everything they needed to make a proper nuisance of themselves, as the Regent liked to put it.
    “This is Patrick,” he said. “Best weapons master Uncanny’s ever had.”
    Patrick smiled briefly. “You’re only saying that because it’s true. Would this be a good time to mention the raise in budget I was promised?”
    “You can mention it,” the Regent said generously.
    Patrick was a calm, middle-aged man. Completely bald, but boasting a bushy salt-and-pepper beard. He had sleepy eyes and an easy smile, but there was still a definite presence to the man when he stepped forward to greet Molly and me. The Regent said Patrick had been one of his Special Agents once, and I had no trouble believing that. There was something about Patrick, for all his ease and calm, that suggested he could still be very dangerous if the need should arise. He wore a basic lab coat that reminded me immediately of Uncle Jack, probably because some things are just constants, wherever you go. Though Patrick was wearing a heavy pullover under his coat, complete with high roll-neck collar. No accounting for taste.
    “Are you on your own down here?” said Molly, looking around her with larcenous interest. I made a point of standing right next to her, to make sure no unauthorised weapons went walkabout under her sticky fingers.
    “Uncanny is still basically an information-gathering organisation,” said the Regent. “We watch and listen and make many notes. Correlation is our life. Weapons are what we use only when everything’s gone wrong in a hurry. We prefer to err on the sneaky side whenever possible. Right, Patrick?”
    “If you say so, your bossness,” said Patrick. “But when things do go pear shaped, I am here to ensure that our people are in a position to Do Unto Others in a sudden and violent way, before the others can do unto them. Don’t touch that!”
    Molly snatched her hand back from an innocent-looking crystalthing, and tried to look innocent. The Regent looked reproachfully at Patrick.
    “You promised me you’d got the bugs out of that. We’re still cleaning up the mess from last time.”
    “I have!” said Patrick. “But then, there’s bugs and then there’s bugs.…” He smiled easily at Molly and pushed the crystal thing well out of her reach. “Not much money in the budget for research these days. But I do like to potter around, see if I can improvise something useful and horribly destructive out of the various interesting things our agents pick up in the field and bring back with them. I swear, if it weren’t for their basic light-fingeredness, we’d have nothing but empty shelves on these walls.…”
    “We don’t have anything like the Droods’ budget,” the Regent agreed. “We have to scrimp and save and make do.”
    “And steal anything that isn’t actually nailed down,” said Patrick.
    “You’d fit right in here, Molly,” I said solemnly.
    “One more word and I’ll smooth out your balls with Botox while you sleep,” said Molly.
    Patrick smiled. The Regent looked pained.
    “I’m sorry,” I said to Patrick. “We really should have introduced ourselves. I’m Eddie Drood, and this…”
    “Oh, I know who you are,” said Patrick. “Both of you.”
    “You do?” said Molly.
    “Of course,” said Patrick, his dark eyes twinkling cheerfully. “Everyone in our line of work knows all about the redoubtable Eddie Drood and the infamous Molly Metcalf. Your exploits are already the stuff of legend.”
    Molly looked at me. “How is it you get to be redoubtable, but I’m always infamous?”
    “Sounds right to me,” I said.
    “These two incredibly brave young people are about to go up against Unholy Crow Lee,” said the Regent. “What can you offer them, Patrick, to make the job a little less suicidal? In an unofficial, off-the-books and totally deniable way, of course.”
    “Crow Lee? Really?” said Patrick. His smiled broadly, and just like that he seemed as dangerous as I’d suspected he could be. It felt like being trapped in an enclosed space with a huge grizzly bear who’d just woken up from hibernation with fresh meat very much on his mind. Patrick turned away abruptly and moved purposefully along his shelves, pickings things up and putting them down again. “Well…No point in trying a heads-on attack. Not with the size of the private army he’s gathered about himself. No…You