The bar in Bushwick didn't have a sign.
You found it through referrals, through knowing someone who knew someone, through demonstrating the kind of discretion that kept criminal enterprises functional. I'd been coming here for three weeks, establishing myself as someone worth talking to, and tonight I'd been invited to a back room meeting with someone who mattered.
Vex waited outside, her surveillance capabilities extended through the building's ventilation system. She'd report anything relevant.
The broker was called Konstantin. He controlled territory allocations for half of Brooklyn's smuggling operations — not the goods themselves, but the corridors through which they moved. Piss him off, and your shipments developed problems. Stay on his good side, and business flowed smooth.
"Cash Dalton," he said, pronouncing my name with the careful precision of a man who remembered everything. "You've been making moves. Small moves, but consistent. People notice."
"I solve problems. People with problems tend to talk."
"They do." Konstantin was old, maybe sixty, with the particular weathering of someone who'd survived decades in spaces that killed most people young. "The question is whether you're building something, or just passing through."
"Building."
"Building what?"
The question hung in the air between us. I thought about the fixer network I'd established, the reputation I'd cultivated, the positioning I'd achieved with Sherlock and Bell. All of it was foundation. But foundations needed names.
"A reputation," I said. "Something people can rely on. When they have problems they can't solve through normal channels, they call me. I make things work."
"And what do I call you? 'Security consultant' is fine for cops and civilians. We use different names here."
This was the moment. I'd been avoiding it, circling around it, but the time had come to decide who I was going to be.
"Moriarty," I said.
The word dropped into the room like a stone into still water. Somewhere behind me, someone whistled low.
Konstantin's expression didn't change, but his eyes did. Recognition. Assessment. The particular calculation of a man deciding whether he was dealing with an idiot or something far more dangerous.
"Bold choice," he said. "That name has weight."
"I know."
"Do you?" He leaned forward. "The real Moriarty — the one everyone's heard whispers about — she's not a story. She's somewhere out there, and she has people who take offense at pretenders."
"I'm not pretending. I'm earning it."
"You think a name like that can be earned?"
"Everything can be earned. Including the attention it attracts."
Konstantin studied me for a long moment. Then he smiled — cold, professional, the smile of a man who'd decided I was useful rather than stupid.
"We have a problem," he said. "Two crews, both my clients. Territory dispute that's about to get bloody. Solve it, and 'Moriarty' becomes something people say with respect instead of curiosity."
I closed my eyes and let the Eyes of Deals activate.
The ability had been dormant for weeks, unused since the early jobs that had established my fixer credentials. Now it surged to life, perceiving the room with a clarity that bordered on painful. Konstantin's true desire shimmered around him like heat distortion: stability, profit, the quiet continuation of operations that made him wealthy without making him visible. The crew representatives in the corners of the room had their own desires — territory, recognition, the particular hunger of men who'd been told they couldn't have what they wanted.
I saw what each side truly needed. I saw what they'd accept. I saw what they were hiding from each other and from themselves.
The solution crystallized in forty seconds.
"The dispute isn't about territory," I said. "It's about respect. The Kowalski crew thinks the Valdez operation disrespected them during the Newark negotiation last month. Territory is proxy."
Konstantin's eyes narrowed. "How do you know about Newark?"
"I know about a lot of things." I turned to the room, addressing both crews directly. "Kowalski gets the warehouse district through summer. Valdez gets first rights on the new corridor opening up through Red Hook next month — better long-term value, they just can't see it yet. And someone apologizes for Newark, publicly, in front of witnesses both sides respect."
Silence. Then the Valdez representative — a woman with scarred hands and cold eyes — laughed.
"He's right about Newark," she said. "We've been looking for an excuse to move past it."
"And Red Hook?" the Kowalski man asked.
"Worth more than the warehouses. By winter, you'll be thanking us."
Within the hour, both crews had agreed. Konstantin watched the negotiation with the particular satisfaction of a man who'd just found a new tool.
"Moriarty," he said, testing the name again. "You might actually be able to carry it."
---
I walked home through streets that felt different now. The name had been spoken in a room that mattered. By morning, it would spread through channels I couldn't trace — whispers and implications, the particular currency of criminal reputation.
Vex materialized beside me as I crossed into Brooklyn Heights.
"You're sure about this?" she asked. "The name attracts attention you might not be ready for."
"I'm not sure. But it's done now."
"There are people who take that name seriously. People who serve the real Moriarty."
"I know." The watch in my pocket had started ticking again — I could feel the faint vibration against my thigh. "But I can't build what I'm building with a small name. This city rewards ambition."
"It also punishes it."
"Then I'll have to be good enough to survive the punishment."
Vex said nothing. Her silence was louder than any judgment she could have offered.
I climbed the stairs to my room at Mrs. Petrova's, feeling the weight of the name I'd claimed settle onto my shoulders. Moriarty. The fixer who saw through problems. The consultant who made things work.
The man who'd chosen the most dangerous title in criminal history and was now waiting to see who came to collect.
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