"...I guess there's no rule that a vampire has to have a certain je ne sais quoi."

"It looked like you recognized what I was talking about, actually, Jing Yi. Have we been talking to the same people?"

"--It's not impossible, but I doubt it."

Terrence tries not to look too curious. Cool as a cucumber. A warm cucumber.

"Who were you talking to, then? I got it from a -- rival antiques dealer."

He should at least try to keep his promise to keep quiet about Sano's involvement.

"...Parker is the only antiques dealer I know. Unless antique books count, in which case there's Oscar. I was talking to... a family friend of Parker's."

"Did that friend have anything else to say?" Terrence do you know what he's on about.

"Well, apparently he has a magic whistle he can use to desiccate people, and is generally not someone you want to cross, on account of that? It's pure paranoid nonsense, of course."

Does... Sal believe too?

"Magic whistles again. At least it's consistent."

Sal definitely seems to believe in something.

"Consistent nonsense has its charms."

Terrence knows what Jing Yi's on about, kind of.

"It suggests there's some reason or common thread afoot," he suggests, helpfully. "I haven't had time to learn much new about the case... Did you know Oscar's bookshop was shut down by the police?"

"...Goodness." 

"I heard. He was real upset about it."

"Understandable! It was his livelihood. God."

And this, dear listener, is why we do not put the pornography in plain view.

"It's a terrible business."

 Terrence frowns. He has a suspicion but is clearly debating whether or not to voice it.

"We ran into him and Ichiro Sano last night hashing it out. --On that subject it's not looking like Sano was involved with the guy who punched you out over Best, Terrence, which is frankly a pity because I don't know who else it could be."

Are there better ways to convey that information? Probably! But there are also worse ones.

"...should I know this Sano?"

"Wealthy Japanese man. Involved in the arts. He's the one who got the King in Yellow performance shut down."

Do not make the connection to the antiques dealer Sal just mentioned.

"...he's the guy who shut down the play?" he says, in the tone of someone finally getting the answer to a mystery that has been bothering them for weeks.

"...Did you learn that he wasn't involved from, perhaps, him telling you?" Terrence is suspicious.

"We told him we were looking into some murders connected to the play, he agreed to tell us what he knew. He told us some things about other occult connections he was following up on, I mentioned you, he frankly acted like you were a solved problem.

I'm not going to say he likes you, Terrence, but he doesn't seem to be thinking of you as much of a threat."

"Which unfortunately implies someone else thinks he is a threat. ...or Sano thinks he can be dissuaded with one punch."

"We shall see about that," says Terrence, bravely. ...It was a very painful punch and he has in fact moved 'getting the play directly performed' to the backburner but he does not say that. "I mean - in any case, I'm just thinking aloud here... Oscar told me that Sano threatened his bookshop too, on similar grounds - even though to my knowledge, Oscar's never touched a copy of the book.

And Oscar rightfully told Sano to piss off. My words, not his."

"It's possible this Sano has connections to the police."