You can purchase “Switching Sides” in the 2006 Yaoicon Anthology, available at the Yaoicon site!

The pink neon sign reflected in a black pool of rainwater. A cab droned down the street, wheels splashing through the puddles. The inverted image shattered like fragments of a glittering mirror, until, after a few still and silent moments, the pieces slid back into seamless place.

The doorway of the boarded up store across the street offered little shelter, but at least it kept the rain off his cigarette. A steady formation of discarded stubs grew around his feet, none of them burned down entirely. He liked the sound they made when they hit the damp sidewalk, the fizzling, spitting struggle before the embers died.

Letting the cigarette dangle precariously between his lips, he carefully pulled the photograph from his pocket, studied it for a moment, then put it back

It had been three days since Frankie Gillespie showed up at the narrow room that passed for Kieran Murphy’s office. He used to have a swishy place of his own; all he could get now was a room above an Italian restaurant. Clients could salivate for the rich aroma of pizza and pasta sauces drifting from downstairs while they poured out their grievances about a cheating spouse or a missing uncle who’d run off with a gogo dancer, a .38, and all the savings they kept in a mason jar in the kitchen.

Frankie Gillespie’s savings wouldn’t fit in a mason jar. Well, maybe the amount he’d acquired legally might.

He’d strolled in with a swagger that spoke more of ambition than position. Kieran had to admit that if style really did compensate for substance, Gillespie should have been out of these minor leagues by now.

He hadn’t waited for an invitation, just swung out the chair and took a seat.

“How’ve you been doing lately, kid?”

Kieran wasn’t quite young enough to be called `kid` anymore, and Gillespie wasn’t old enough for it to be cute, but he’d let it slide.

“Fine.”

“Good, good. Heard a while back you were having some problems.” It wasn’t a question, but Gillespie had let it hang in the air as though it was, as though he was expecting an explanation.

He wasn’t going to get one.

“I dealt with them.”

“That’s my boy.” Gillespie smiled wide, showing too-white teeth. Despite the words, he wasn’t a man who liked people dealing with their own problems, not when he could have had a hand in them. It was a shame to miss out on the potential debt, financial or otherwise.

Kieran didn’t owe Gillespie money, and from the way the other man was looking at him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what `otherwise` would be.