Previously on Questionable Authority...

Undercover operation begins with the ancient narcotics technique of hiding Sonny in a bush.

The plan was simple: hide near the park bench, watch the deal go down and move in once we had enough. Laura took one side of the park while I found a decent-sized bush near the bench and crouched down inside it.

A few minutes later, two guys met up. Money changed hands, then drugs. I waited until the deal was finished, came flying out of the shrubbery with my gun drawn and ordered both of them to freeze. One did. The other ran.

Laura went after the runner while I cuffed the kid in front of me. He couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen. I searched him and found a little cellophane packet of cocaine. Outside the park, Laura had caught the other guy. The kid was Victor. The dealer was Colby, and I knew that name. Colby was the asshole who had been selling coke to Jack Cobb's daughter.

Colby had several concerns about the arrest process and chose to express all of them at once.

We hauled them both to jail. Victor got booked for possession of cocaine. Colby got the same charge plus resisting arrest, which seemed fair considering he'd made Laura chase him through a park.

Once we were done, she told me Jack wanted to see me over at the Blue Room, so I headed over. By the time I got there, Laura was no longer in the car. I didn't remember dropping her off anywhere. I looked at the empty passenger seat for a second, then went inside.

Jack was sitting at the bar looking like shit. I took a seat beside him and told him we'd caught Colby. That's when he told me Kathy was in a coma from an overdose.

I tried working this out in my head. Earlier, I'd called Jack and the whole conversation had sounded like something terrible had already happened to his daughter. Except she was still alive now. Had I somehow spoken to future Jack? I wasn't ruling it out.

Before I could think about that too much, Keith walked in and told me Jason Taselli had escaped.

I had just put the bastard in jail, yet in the short amount of time since then he'd somehow been transferred, booked, knocked out a guard, stolen his keys, made his way into the yard and climbed over a barbed-wire fence.

Either Taselli had superpowers or this jail was complete shit.

Lytton County Jail: now featuring same-day checkout.

I headed back to HQ still thinking about the whole Jack situation. Maybe Taselli wasn't the only man in Lytton with special abilities. Maybe I was psychic. I decided to keep that to myself for now.

Laura had already made it back to the station, and once again I had no idea how. I was beginning to suspect there was more to this woman than met the eye.

Lieutenant Morgan told me to keep digging into everything that had been going on, so I headed down to Evidence and learned absolutely nothing. I went back upstairs, where Morgan finally had something useful. Sweet Cheeks Marie Wilkans had been arrested, and she was willing to help us with a sting at the Hotel Delphoria.

Marie was back in custody. Paul was way too excited about it.

I stopped by the office looking for Laura.

Gone again.

Marie agreed to cooperate with us. The idea was to get me inside the Hotel Delphoria, work my way into whatever shady shit was happening there and hopefully find someone connected to Taselli or the Death Angel.

Before we got very far, another call came in from Cotton Cove. Possible 11-44. Fatality. I headed over and found Officers Mike and Todd standing near a covered body. I walked up, pulled back the sheet and saw it immediately.

Rose tattoo. Left nipple.

Taselli.

Well, shit. At least he wasn't going to escape again.

Someone had killed him, and my money was on the Death Angel cleaning up loose ends.

Taselli escaped jail just in time to become evidence.

I left Cotton Cove and drove over to the Hotel Delphoria. The place looked like some kind of pastel-colored nightmare. I wandered into the bar first and briefly considered having a drink before remembering I was supposed to be working.

I went back to the front desk and rang the bell. The clerk took one look at me, recognized me from my picture in the newspaper and told me there weren't any rooms available. Then he walked away.

I stood there for a second, pretty sure I'd missed something, so I went back to HQ. Morgan was waiting for me along with Laura and Marie.

Yep. I'd missed something.

Several people in this room understood the sting operation. Sonny was about to become one of them.

Back at HQ, they finally explained what the hell I was supposed to be doing. I was going undercover as Jimmy Lee "Whitey" Banksten.

Jimmy Lee "Whitey" Banksten.

I was supposed to rent a room at the Delphoria, head to the bar and work my way into an illegal gambling operation. The bartender was believed to be setting up private poker games, and one of the people involved might lead us to the Death Angel.

This wasn't quite what I'd been expecting. I thought Marie was going to help us set up some kind of prostitution sting. Instead, everything seemed to hinge on me getting invited to play cards with a bunch of criminals.

Then they told me I had to bleach my hair.

I went down to the locker room, did the hair, put on a giant white leisure suit and took a look at myself. Son of a bitch. Jimmy Lee Banksten was one handsome bastard.

During the final briefing, Sergeant Dooley came in with bad news. Kathy Cobb had died. Jack's daughter.

For once, I didn't have much to say. Then I remembered the phone call. I'd spoken to Jack before I knew any of this, and he'd already sounded devastated. Yet Kathy hadn't died until now.

There was only one reasonable explanation left.

I was psychic.

For once, the briefing room wasn't funny.

I decided not to tell anybody.

I did make myself a promise, though. Whoever was behind Kathy's death was going down.

Kathy. Yes. That was her name.

Back at the Delphoria, things went much better. Marie vouched for Jimmy Lee, and I rented Room 202 for seventy-five bucks before heading into the bar. She was already there doing her thing, so I had a couple drinks, turned on the charm and eventually got the bartender's attention. Before long, she invited me back later for a private poker game.

Marie and I went upstairs to Room 202, courtesy of the Lytton Police Department. Once the door closed, she made it pretty clear she had something else in mind. I considered it, then had a vision where my career, the investigation and basically everything else went straight into the toilet because I couldn't keep my pants on.

The powers were getting stronger.

Room 202: seventy-five dollars, one undercover cop, and several career-ending possibilities.

I behaved myself. Mostly.

I called 411, got the number for a local cab company and arranged a ride for Marie. Things were getting dangerous, and there wasn't much reason for her to stick around. Once she left, I headed back downstairs and slipped Alex the bartender two hundred bucks.

She took me into a back room full of the kind of guys you'd expect to find playing illegal poker in the back of a hotel. I sat down, pushed into a high-stakes hand and landed three of a kind. That ended things pretty quickly, and the guys invited me back later for a more exclusive game.

Illegal gambling. Finally, police work Sonny could understand.

I went back upstairs to get ready. My first move was calling 911 and asking them to connect me to Lieutenant Morgan. They weren't interested, so I remembered his actual number and called him myself.

Morgan sent over a couple detectives with some equipment, including a transmitter hidden inside a pen. That was cool as shit and much better than having wires taped all over my chest.

They also gave me a photograph of the man they thought might be the Death Angel. I knew that face. He'd been at the poker game.

I tucked the pen away and headed downstairs for round two. Waiting for me were Otto Lipschitz, Gene "The Bambino" Bamboni and Frank Magpie. Those were their real names.

I sat down and started playing. The cards liked me. Three fours gave me a huge pot and pushed me up to two hundred chips. A few smaller wins later, the other guys had enough.

I'd beaten them. Fuck yeah. America.

Magpie got up and headed toward the elevator. Before getting on, he looked back and invited me along. I followed. I had a pretty good idea where this was going.

Frank Magpie was Jesse Bains. The Death Angel really needed better aliases.

Up in the penthouse, Magpie dropped the act. His real name was Jesse Bains.

The Death Angel.

I did my best to look shocked.

Bains started offering Jimmy Lee a job in his drug operation. Jimmy Lee hadn't even existed that morning and already had a job offer from a drug lord.

Then a phone rang in the bedroom, and Bains walked off to answer it. I looked around and noticed another phone near the bar with the number 401 written on it. I used the transmitter pen to let my backup know where I was.

Bains came back looking pissed. Someone downstairs had recognized me.

Not Jimmy Lee. Me. Sonny Bonds.

Well, shit.

Bains pulled his gun, but my backup came through the door before he could use it. Gunfire tore through the room, and Bains went down.

Undercover operation ends in the traditional Sierra manner: everybody points guns at everybody.

The room smelled like gunpowder. Bains was bleeding on the floor, cops were yelling and sirens were getting closer from somewhere below. He was still alive, and the paramedics kept him that way. Good. I wanted the bastard alive long enough to go to prison.

Later, the city held a ceremony in my honor. Me, Sonny Bonds—the same guy who'd started this whole mess wandering around the station stealing random shit and staring at Fudley in the shower—was getting an award.

I even had a date with Marie later that night. Not bad.

Justice had been served.

Lytton honors the man who solved the case with a nipple tattoo and a white leisure suit.

Somewhere back at the station, Sergeant Dooley was probably still trying to figure out who put that fucking chicken in his office.

I hoped he caught the bastard.

THE END(?)

Next Time on Questionable Authority...