him, even if they don't know precisely where he is.
"Now, where this hooks up with Tai Lee Xiang is that Verne knew Tai Lee's family, years ago." Verne, Kafan, and I had decided that this "take" on the history would be the closest match to allow us to tell what we had to without bringing up certain contradictions which had led to other facts which none of us wanted to talk about. "They saw him as an ally and protector. Verne left for parts unknown and eventually they lost track of the ways to contact him. But the tradition of the protector was still passed down through the family line, along with the unique characteristics that separated this protector from the common man.
"So when Tai Lee Xiang found himself in trouble that he didn't dare bring to the authorities, and in fact was being hunted by the authorities for killing a man who had held him and his family prisoner for years, he came to me to find this legendary protector. By that time, he'd reached the end of his resources and was willing to try anything to find his family or stop the people who were after him. With the publicity of the Wolf incidents, my name seemed the best possible choice; I knew there were Weird Things out there, and if anyone would be both willing to listen to his story and able to find someone from some pretty strange hints, it would be me." I grinned. "As it turned out, he was even luckier than he thought; I'd already met Verne, of course, so once he gave me the list of odd characteristics, I could just turn around and phone his family protector."
She'd sat quietly throughout the whole story, gazing at me intensely as though I was on trial and she was the judge evaluating my testimony—which, now that I thought of it, was a fair assessment of the situation. Finally she leaned back slowly. "That is quite an impressive story, Jason. I would expect that much of this would be information your friend Mr. Domingo prefers to keep secret, since no mention of him has ever been made in connection to prior events in Morgantown. Why was it necessary that you tell me so much?"
"Glad to see you are as quick on the pickup as