Song of the Firebird

Forty

Exasperated, Danny turned off the Lou Bega from the radio. With one hand on the steering wheel, the other one drew out a smartphone from his pockets. Driving at the lowest speed limit, he surfed through his subscribed podcasts and played one of the episodes of 'The Shady Goat' on loudspeaker.

There came a static noise followed by a herd of goats bleating and the last one of them, sneezing.

'Welcome and have a shady day, everyone. It had been one, two, three, four, five, six and seven days, Stahl had been missing to talk to you and I have been entertained by his mixed emotions all through this week. You know, he had been drinking a lot of coffee recently', chirped a woman's voice.

'Enough of the ruse, Tommy', grunted a man's voice.

'Well, well. Raise your goblets for the G-R-U-M-P-Y old man.' She mimicked a clinking sound.

'In our last episode, we talked about the recently uncovered long lost treasure of one of the powerful families. It had been, without the doubt, the talk of the town. For beginners, let me do a recap. One of the You-Know-Whos of the top tier mafia had the chance to reconnect with their family's ancestral artifact, years after it was reported missing. It was believed that the object, more like a bejeweled box, had returned home, spreading happiness to the driest of the souls, as we call it. Even the extravagant party that they hosted for the winning team after they submitted it to the clan head turned all our heads to their side.'

'Pity, we missed all the food and wine.'

'Yeah, I was expecting an invitation from our close allies. How could they forget us, Tommy?'

'So, you're also frustrated about this as well, Honeycrunch.'

'Stop calling me names while we're at work!'

Tommy chuckled. 'Where are we at? Yeah, the party. It had us all hooked besides the tension that we faced.' She cleared her throat. 'The mafia family hosted a party to commemorate the findings and also to honour the gang who discovered it. My acquaintance was there at the scene and he wouldn't stop talking about all the ruckus he witnessed over the dinner until the sunrise.'

'From dinner until sunrise, really, Tommy? You guys must have done things other than talk, haven't you?'

'Hey! Stop interrupting while I am at the juicy part, you dimwit!'

'Now that we are even, we know that many things can happen during and after a grand party. The cops cleaning up the remnants of the crowd for breaking a lot of rules is an after-story. A little birdie told me that a single invitation card alone cost them more than a hundred bucks. Then, imagine the kind of cuisines being served. I can't stop drooling at the moment.

'Let me cut to the chase. Things went back to normal and that's where it went wrong. A week later the party, days ago, there were multiple small scale explosions around different parts of the city, all random but linked to one common factor.'

'Ouch. That is sick. Guess the gross part! All the places were residential areas, more like independent houses, frequented by the very same gang that was honoured at the luxurious meet!'

'Now, this-is-SHADY!'

'Right, aren't I? There were like six casualties and twenty at the hospital, recovering from burns. Thing is, among the injured/killed, five don't have any direct connections to the mafia at all! Poor souls!'

'What do you think the reason might be? Why do they have to celebrate them and dump them at the same time? Had the gang known more about the rumours than the mafia family had known in centuries?'

'The word's out that it is fake. And one of the closest aides to the family, approved it.' Danny smirked at Tommy's part of the news. She continued to ramble, 'The gang had been accused of stealing and that explains the arson. They have selected a team of private detectives to track down the real one and get hold of it.'