After walking outside and locking the door, Laz had a strange feeling walking down the steps. He could still hear the faint noise coming from Joey's place, even if he wasn't focusing on that. Knowing what was happening meant he couldn't ignore it.

If it was before, he would have most certainly did exactly that. Hiding away is easier than confronting something, more so when you can apply the 'out of sight, out of mind' principle. The problem now involved Laz himself. These messed up senses of his made it so that he couldn't ignore things, even if he wanted to.

Sure, powerful strength and superhuman like sight and hearing could be considered awesome, but this also lead to not being able to shut things out like before. If something didn't matter, then his mind would allow him to block it off. Because of this, he was still able to sleep at night despite knowing things happening around him.

It was like how you could fall asleep in cla.s.s, despite the constant noise and such.

But this was different. This was like hearing people sitting right next to you talking about something that meant a great deal to you. Even if you didn't want to listen in, you would still listen in subconsciously.

Getting to his grandpa's door, he knocked and stepped back waiting for a reply.

His grandpa wasn't exactly fast getting there to open it, but he wasn't slow either. Laz could hear that he had been sitting down in the living room and probably sleeping.

"Oh Gabe, why did you knock? Did you forget your key again?" His grandpa asked with concern in his eyes.

's.h.i.+T,' Laz thought to himself. Gabriel was his fathers name and if he was being called that, then that meant this was not a good day for his grandpa. He was always told he looked like his dad when he was younger growing up. Since moving here, he knew that it was a pretty accurate a.s.sessment since he was able to see old photos of his dad when he was Laz's age.

"Yeah dad, sorry about that. I just wanted to tell you I was going to go over and play at my buddy's house," Laz responded thinking quickly.

"Ok. Don't be gone too late. We will have dinner when your mom gets home," Grandpa Crowe smiled, his eyes a little cloudy.

"Right, but dad, don't forget. Mom works late these days and she gets mad if you wait for her to eat. Just set some aside for her so she can eat when she gets home."

This was the usual way Laz handled things after several bad episodes. Making his grandpa think he would be out, using grandma to convince him to eat and make sure he goes to bed without waiting up was the easiest way to deal with it. Grandpa's mind always shoots back to a time when Laz's dad was younger and still living with them. Because of this, he would always play the part of a family man. The first time this happened, Laz didn't know what to do and tried to make his grandpa understand the truth. That just caused his grandpa to have a violent fit and shut down. It was not an experience Laz's likes to remember.

Instead, he finds it easier to play along and try to get his grandpa to go to bed early as he would usually sleep for a good 12 hours and wake up with his memories back in place. When he saw the dinner set aside, he would understand what had happened. Although Laz introduces these thoughts when he makes contact with his grandpa, his grandpa also does a similar thing when he is alone. It's kind of like an auto-pilot. Laz spent a few weeks trying to figure out this pattern.

"Oh, right, right. Thanks for reminding me. Alright, you go have some fun with your little friends and just come back before it gets dark." With that, Grandpa Crowe walked over to the kitchen and started pulling out things to cook with.

Laz breathed a quick sigh of relief and turned around to leave. As he was about to close the door, he saw the building's keys hanging on the hook buy the chain lock. As he paused for a moment, his brained started working really fast and before he knew it, he had grabbed them and shut the door.

Looking at the keys in his hands, an idea started forming in his mind. He was dumb, risky, dangerous and completely unpredictable. But it was the best idea he had.

Steeling up his nerves, he walked back upstairs and completely bypa.s.sed his own door while walking down the cement walkway all the way to the end before turning and facing number 18. He had never even said more then a few words of greeting to Tony, but now he was about to ask for a lot. He wasn't sure how this would go down, but he had a somewhat indescribable feeling at this moment. As soon as he knocked on this door, he would be walking a path that he had never dreamed of walking. It would change everything about his life in ways he couldn't imagine.

The door seemed quite a bit taller and more stifling as he froze up, doubting himself more and more. The impact it gave him was like, getting married or finding out you were going to be a father. Nothing would be the same afterwords no matter how much you tried to tell yourself it would be. You can only lie to yourself so much when you don't believe it anyway.

Laz took one more deep breath and having finally calmed his nerves, he knocked on the door. The reply was so quick it startled him.

"What do you want kid?" Tony asked, standing there in nothing but a pair of boxers and a rather luxurious fur robe.

"I, uh... I." Laz stuttered, somewhat unable to voice what he wanted to.

"Kid, my time is expensive and you are wasting it. If you want something, tell me now or go home." Tony said, neither warmly nor coldly. Apparently he thought Laz was there for some product and Tony just wanted to get the deal done. He was a businessman at heart and wouldn't turn away a customer, but he also wouldn't waste his time when there was no business.

"Actually, I'm... here because there is a problem," Laz finally blurted out.

"Problem?" Tony c.o.c.ked his head and his look went instantly went from a neutral look to a mix of shock and anger.

"Yeah. My grandpa told me about the deal between you two so that I would keep out of things that don't concern me and not ask questions. Since it was my grandpa, I did what he said," Laz said, gaining more confidence the more he talked.

"But there is a problem and my grandpa's not with it today." Laz figured it was better to get to the point so as not to anger Tony.

"What?" Tony was a straight to the point kind of guy. No need for useless words, just say what needs to be said as fast and short as possible.

"Right. So I just got back from visiting a relative and as I walked past Joey's place downstairs, I noticed there was some strange noises coming out from the bottom of the door. Since I could only here so much I didn't think anything of it but I still was kind of curious so I decided to..."

"Wait, stop. Shut the h.e.l.l up for a minute. I want you to finish what you are going to say in one sentence." Tony looked down at Laz, clearly annoyed. Just the fact that he didn't go back inside and close the door was giving a lot of respect to the old man that owned the place and let him do whatever he wanted. Tony could have afforded 10 places like this by himself, but he knew that when you wanted to operate a front, it was best to do it on someone else's property. Especially when they sold out pretty cheaply.

"Joey from downstairs kidnapped some woman and he is beating and raping her in his apartment and I don't know if people are looking for her or if he left clues to lead people here but I don't want police around this place." Laz finally said everything that needed to be said in one sentence.

"f.u.c.king a.s.shole. Get inside now." Tony pulled Laz into the apartment and shut the door.

"But... I just..." Laz tried to argue and was going to back away but stopped after seeing the look in Tony's face.

"Shut up. We are going to take care of this problem. You and me. I ain't doing b.i.t.c.h work and you ain't getting out of this clean. You want to bring me a problem, you're going to have to get your hands dirty. This is just business kid, get used to it."