Theo wasn't going to go for anything too hard tonight. Instead he ordered "Whatever the house selection is, thanks" and called it done.

"Certainly sir, I'll be right back with menus." The fat man in the apron whisked away through the dense crowd of the restaurant, unlikely to return for the order of around several minutes. These guys were in the weeds tonight and Theo, feeling kind of like a jerk for having Anne jostle their way into someone elses seating arrangement, empathized somewhat. He thanked the Goddesses that he'd chosen a career path where he only had to talk to people that (usually) would take him seriously instead of yell at him from across the whole establishment or loudly refuse to tip him.

While waiting for his beer, he sat back and closed his eyes and tried to tune out the rest of the noisy restaurant. He wanted to hone in on the conversation in the booth behind him.

<-"but Lieutenant Gorobets walks in on me, my hands on the perp's hips, she's sweating bullets because she knows I know about the concealed weapon, and me with a raging rock because this fucking brothel must be pumping their cheap industrial grade aphrodisiacs into the damn vents, and meanwhile the fat bastard I had to tear her off of during the raid is crawling up my leg and he's completely naked. And Gorobets sees all this, me with the hands on the hips and the guy trying to tear my leg off, he says 'Rudy, that's not standard procedure for a 38-b at all!">

*The table erupts into raucous laughter. Three male voices (including that of the storyteller) and two female voices all engage in enthusiastic appreciation of Rudy's plight during his raid on the brothel.

One of the male ones, sounding like he's at the point of tears, speaks up. He struggles to form coherent sentences through his flushed, tear ridden cheeks. It doesn't sound like 'Rudy', must be someone else. <And... a-and you know wh-what Gorobets says later about the whole thing? It didn't make se-ense before you told it right, but the fucker s-say-says to me, *I found Corporal Fremont improvising during the raid, he really knows how to turn a situation to his advantage.*>

All three male voices go into what sounds like seizing fits. The ladies lightly titter but go silent, and one of the male voices follows after that. It sounds like there was a dirty look exchanged, but despite his best (and valiant they were) efforts, the man simply can't help himself.

<"Sorry Marie, i-it's not meant like that, Rudy is just-">

<"Hilarious, I know. Don't worry about it, I'm not that paranoid after the first week.">

<"Heeey, and Karl wasn't even with us on that one. Too green, so you can't blame him for my mistake! You can't even blame me!">

That other male voice, the one other than Rudy and Karl, sputtered from his drink and nearly had a choking fit.

Exclamations of slight panic and fear for the drinker's health follow, but his choking degenerates into coughing fits.

<"Sina, sir! Are you alright Detective?"> one of the women says.

<"Thanks for your concern Fishburn, I'm fine though. Wrong pipe.">

<"Yeeaaaah Danielle, don't worry about Hollis, worry about you!">

<"What's that supposed to mean Fremont?">

The fat man arrives with two gently folded pieces of paper printed with the restaurants menu. Most of this is trumped up bar food, the real emphasis being placed on the fancy drinks. However, with Sinese fair, even the bar food probably has real beef, pork, lamb, what have you in it, instead of fish or some oblique substitution. You can order a steak here (for an exorbitant amount of cash in hand, of course) and have it guaranteed that at some point there was an actual cow involved in the process of putting the meat onto the plate.

Theo, still nursing his beer, orders nothing for the time being. He'd rather drag this out. The drunker the five of them behind him get, the more they might spill. It sounds like its getting good anyway.