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‘Hi, Daddy!’ calls Trucy’s voice as she jingles her way into the office.
She frisbees her top hat onto the sofa, kicks her sneakers in the general vicinity of the ‘shoe rack’ (the permanently unsorted pile of shoes in the corner) and rains a little shower of silk scarves onto the already-cluttered coffee table. That’s his girl.
‘Hey, Trucy,’ says Phoenix, waving from the kitchenette. ‘How was the rehearsal?’
Little does Trucy know, her observational skills have just gone into a one-on-one battle with Phoenix’s acting skills. Phoenix has been in position for the last ten minutes waiting for Trucy to come home, ensuring he’s acting as casual as possible. In reality, he’s been rehearsing his speech all day. The choreography has to go perfectly; he can’t tip her off too early.
So, you have this secret brother…
The point goes to Phoenix: which is fair enough, since Trucy doesn’t know they’re playing a game. She barely looks at him as she fills a glass of water, knocks it back and sighs in relief.
‘It was hot,’ she belatedly replies, slamming the glass down on the countertop. ‘We had to do a lot of lifting and carrying to set up for the new trick. But I think it’s going to be worth it! Are you gonna come and see it tomorrow?’
‘Course I will,’ says Phoenix. Then he adds, cool as anything: ‘Hey, Truce? Are you busy right now?’
Trucy’s eyes flick nervously to the pile of washing up in the sink, then back. ‘Well, not necessarily, Daddy,’ she says, tone carefully diplomatic, ‘though my arms are really sore from my rehearsal, so…’
‘Don’t worry,’ says Phoenix hastily, before Trucy can refine her already impressive chore-escaping skills any further. ‘I just… wanted to talk to you about something, is all.’
‘Hmm?’ says Trucy, with a frown.
‘So,’ says Phoenix, and after all his practice he still finds himself searching for the right way to say it. It’s just as well he never had to give the opening statements back in his attorney days. ‘This is kind of hard to say, but…’
‘Wait, I think I already know,’ says Trucy, encouragingly.
‘You do?’ says Phoenix. He guesses it’s not a stretch to think his clever, observant daughter might have figured it out. If it turns out he didn’t have to worry this whole time he’s going to have so many bones to pick with the universe.
‘Yeah, Daddy. Everyone does. You and Edgeworth are dating, aren’t you?’
And somehow, the feeling of getting a penalty for evidence he was certain was a perfect fit comes flooding back. ‘Wait,’ he says, dumbfounded, ‘what? I mean, yeah, actually, we are, but – how did you know?’
‘Me and Polly figured it out,’ says Trucy. ‘I mean, when you think about it, it’s really obvious. You kept getting all weird when he came over for dinner, and I know he bought you that new suit because you’re a cheapskate and you’d never spend that much money on your own. And then Polly saw you at the Prosecutors' Office smiling in the corridor, which he said was, quote, a nightmarish insight into your interior life, and…’
‘Okay, okay,’ says Phoenix. ‘Well, tell Apollo he’s just downgraded himself to a maybe on the Christmas card list.’
‘It’s only June,’ says Trucy, untroubled. ‘He’ll make it back onto the definitely by then. So? Was that the thing you wanted to talk to me about?’
In Phoenix’s mind’s eye she points, like a game show host, to a door labelled ‘Coward’s Way Out’. It has flashing lights and everything. Behind it is the status quo, as comfortable as a beam of sunlight spilling through the office windows. Next to it is another door labelled ‘Everything Changes’, which Phoenix is pretty sure is hiding piranhas and paperwork and various other miseries. He gives a cheery wave to the audience and turns the handle of, you guessed it –
‘Yeah,’ says Phoenix, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. ‘Sorry. I guess there’s nothing I can hide from you and Apollo. I was going to tell you eventually, honestly.’
‘But you just did,’ says Trucy, confused.
‘Oh, yeah,’ says Phoenix. ‘So I did.’ And, oh god, so he did. He didn’t prepare for this. As ever, he’s going to have to think on his feet. ‘So, um, is that… Okay? Do you mind?’
‘Of course not!’ says Trucy, quick as a bullet.
Phoenix reflects that, had they made it that simple for themselves, he and Edgeworth probably would have got together a decade sooner; but still, never mind that.
‘Though,’ adds Trucy, carefully easy, ‘you’ll still hang out with me sometimes, won’t you?’
‘Oh, Trucy,’ says Phoenix in a rush of relief, ‘of course I’m still going to hang out with you. Nothing will change. Except for maybe now we’ll be able to get take-out more often than once in a blue moon. And maybe I’ll be a bit less of a sadsack.’
‘You’re not always a sadsack,’ says Trucy, loyally. ‘But why did you only tell me now? You can talk to me about stuff, you know, Daddy.’
Phoenix thinks about it for a moment. Then he sinks heavily down the wall until he’s sitting on the kitchen floor.
‘I think…’ he says, and casts for words with a grimace. ‘To be honest, I was kind of waiting to see if he’d leave. He had a habit of doing that, you know, back in the day. Or I had a habit of messing things up, or… I don’t know. I guess it just seemed too good to be true at first. I didn’t want to tell everyone and jinx it.’
And Trucy has that thing again, the thing she’s been having more and more lately: where she looks at her father and realises, like a thunderbolt, that he had a youth all of his own, that he has wants and feelings and gets sad about stuff that isn’t even the electricity bill. It makes her feel grown-up and tender and heart-grippingly scared of the passage of time, all at once. She crouches down on the kitchen tiles and puts an arm round his shoulders.
‘I don’t think he’s going to leave, Daddy,’ she says, gently. ‘He only just got here. And anyway, you have me now, so I can always just disappear his passport if you need me to.’
‘True,’ says Phoenix. ‘I should’ve thought of entrapment a bit sooner. Anyway, sorry, you’re the last person I should be asking for dating advice. Embarrassing to hear from your dad, huh?’
‘You’re not embarrassing,’ Trucy reassures him. If Apollo were here, he might be checking his perfectly loose bracelet in disbelief, but it’s true. Whoever heard of somebody being embarrassed by the other half of their double act?
‘Anyway,’ says Phoenix, lifting himself gingerly back off the ground with a faint pop of his knee. ‘I probably have better places to be than the kitchen floor. Wow, it seriously needs a sweep.’
At the mention of the dustpan and brush Trucy attempts to pull a vanishing act of her own.
‘Oh, and Truce?’ adds Phoenix, before she can slip into her room. ‘You wouldn’t mind doing that washing up, would you? I think it’s your turn.’
The next week, Phoenix finds himself out to lunch with Miles at the usual spot. Under normal circumstances he couldn’t imagine a less Edgeworth-ly place to eat at – it’s a dingy little sandwich bar with plastic chairs – but it has two very important things going for it. Firstly, it’s around the corner from the Prosecutors' Office. Secondly, the service is so fast it verges on brusque, or maybe on outright insulting. Anything that gets Edgeworth back to his precious work sooner earns points with him, and it’s impossible for him to come off as rude there. Phoenix, on the other hand, enjoys that it’s cheap and that his rotation of under-washed, hole-speckled hoodies blends in. There’s something for everyone.
‘So,’ says Miles, pausing from his tuna and sweetcorn sandwich. It looks somehow undignified in his hands, like it’s failing at its job of being caviar toast, or something. ‘How did your grand reveal go at the weekend?’
‘Ah,’ says Phoenix. ‘Yeah, about that.’
Miles responds with a particularly prosecutorial glare. ‘You mean, you’ve put it off again? Remind me how long you’ve had to tell her now? Not to mention Mr. Justice.’
‘It’s not easy,’ protests Phoenix. ‘It’s not exactly the kind of thing you can just drop into conversation, you know. Anyway, we got sidetracked by another topic.’
‘Which is?’
‘Well, uh… Trucy kind of knows we’re dating now.’
‘What?’ explodes Miles. The person at the counter doesn’t even look up; this place is bulletproof. ‘Are you serious, Wright? We agreed we were going to tell her together. How on earth is she going to like me if she thinks I keep things from her?’
‘She does like you,’ says Phoenix, defensively. ‘And I didn’t tell her, she guessed. So did Apollo. Apparently it’s just that obvious.’
‘Well, of course it’s obvious if you go mooning about the office calling me during working hours,’ says Miles with derision, neatly pulling another recurring argument out of his mental file.
‘They’re not my working hours,’ says Phoenix. ‘Anyway, you know what I found out in that Health and Safety assessment Apollo made us do? You’re meant to take breaks, Edgeworth. So really, I’m just keeping you following the letter of the law, like any good Prosecutors' Office should.’
‘You are impossible,’ snipes Miles, though not without affection. ‘So, when will you try again?’
‘Well…’ says Phoenix. ‘I should probably wait a bit. Kind of unfair to drop two bombshells on her at once, you know?’
Miles’s face turns soft and serious. His eyes dart uncomfortably away from Phoenix in the direction of the scrawled chalkboard menus.
‘You know, Phoenix,’ he says, gravely. ‘If I had learned the truth about my childhood sooner, things may have been simpler for me.’
Phoenix sighs; he likes to think that in his old age (his thirties, to some) he knows a losing battle when he sees one. ‘Alright,’ he says, ‘I get it. Guess there’s no comeback to that one.’
Miles recovers himself brusquely. ‘Pity you never had the same attitude in court,’ he says, apparently having missed the memo on the whole ‘sensitive topics’ thing. They still haven’t quite figured out when to tread lightly around each other.
There’s a lot of stuff they’re still figuring out about each other. Every day there are missteps and miscommunications, unnoticed tells and trigger points. Sometimes Phoenix forgets that when he waved Miles off at the airport eight years ago after Hazakura Temple, their friendship was still new, delicate. Breakable, if you dropped a disbarment and a nine hour time difference on it. And then, after that, seven years of patchy contact in which to become strangers again.
But they’re learning, this time. Day by day, trial and error. Neither of them has walked out yet; neither of them has been whisked away by circumstance. They are eight years more patient and less proud, and this, apparently, counts for something.
‘I’d better get back to work,’ says Miles, brushing stray crumbs off his hands with dignity. ‘I’m meeting with the Chief of Police, more’s the pity. I suppose you’ll want the notes from our meeting so you can broadcast those to the public too?’
Phoenix shrugs, unprovoked. ‘Trucy doesn’t count as the public. Anyway, the worst she’d do is make a stage show out of them.’
They part ways outside the sandwich shop, waving each other off casually; they have dinner planned tomorrow, after all. Phoenix gets a few steps down the road before he notices that a smile is still pulling at the corners of his mouth. Nightmarish insight! He hardens up his face instinctively, evening out his smile so it’s blank and unreadable.
Recently Phoenix’s poker face hasn’t been so reliable. It’s hard to hide your happiness when everyone you care for is back in your life like a magic trick, their disappearing acts finished along with your own.
But he can’t let go of it yet. Most of his secrets are out, but not all of them. He just needs to hold on a little longer; just until the time is right for the truth.
After the whole Gramarye affair was finally settled, Thalassa asked to stay in touch.
‘After all,’ she had said, so gracefully Phoenix hadn’t realised until later she was making a joke, ‘when you spend a decade legally dead, you end up with few of your old friends left.’
So Phoenix had called from time to time, in the uneven gaps between Thalassa’s touring duties. He was never entirely sure what to do with her – Phoenix had never had a friend so disinclined to make fun of him, and it wrong-footed him – but their conversation was pleasant enough. They would discuss work, the tour. Thalassa would ask for news on Machi, implore Phoenix to keep visiting him.
And then the topic of Trucy and Apollo would come up.
‘Please give them my love,’ Thalassa would say. ‘All of my love. Tell them I am thinking of them.’
But when Phoenix passed on the message, watching carefully for their reactions, Trucy and Apollo were always pleased but mostly bemused, and definitely still not aware they were siblings.
(‘Wish everyone I cross-examined was that nice,’ Apollo had groused, having spent the day tussling with a witness in court.
‘I bet I could get Stickler to pass on his love if you really wanted,’ said Trucy, swinging her legs cheerfully off Apollo’s desk where she was sitting on his paperwork.)
When Phoenix first met Apollo, he’d kept the secret reflexively, the same way he’d kept secrets about his work, or his whereabouts, or the number of glasses (or bottles) of wine he’d drunk on any given shift at the restaurant. Phoenix had always preferred to keep a few cards close to his chest, and this habit had been sharpened to a point over the years by proximity to Kristoph.
But now, with his name cleared, and Kristoph in prison, and an actual future stretching out luxuriously in front of him… Phoenix had kind of been ready to put the whole topic to rest. He’d been on a knife’s-edge precipice of accidentally telling Trucy to meet her brother in court for months. He just wanted Thalassa to get on with it and tell them, so that he could turn around and say Wow! Siblings! Who’d have thought? and nobody would be any the wiser about his involvement.
He’d prompted Thalassa. She’d become fretful.
‘I can’t be a mother to them while I’m away halfway across the world,’ she’d said.
Then, in another conversation, backstage noise crackling in and out of the call: ‘I couldn’t even keep Machi out of prison. I still have much to do before I am ready.’
Phoenix could have given an objection to that one. After all, as a freshly-unemployed 26-year-old he wasn’t exactly ready when he adopted Trucy, was he? But Phoenix could never quite bring himself to press or prod Thalassa. It seemed sort of crude and un-chivalrous, somehow. It was the same thing he had felt with Dahlia – well, Iris – with all her baffling niceness.
This comparison was probably his undoing. The third time he asked, he was still taking the gentle approach.
‘You’re so kind to think of us all, Mr. Wright,’ she had said, and there had been the sound of an aeroplane taking off in the background. ‘I appreciate, truly, how you look after them. You should not have to keep my secret for me. I have been unfair, I know. So please, do not wait for me. I will allow you to tell them.’
And somehow, she’d made it sound so gracious and generous that Phoenix had accepted like she was doing him a favour. He’d only realised what he’d signed up for after he got off the call and promptly buried his head in his hands in responsibility-related misery.
Phoenix is no stranger to dropping a bombshell. In fact, it’s what he’s famous for, if Maya’s telling the truth about what comes up when you type his name into a search engine. But back in his courtroom days, the truth often only came to him a few minutes before he made an objection (and sometimes a few seconds afterwards). Even the final answers to the mystery of Kristoph and the Gramaryes and his disbarment only arrived the day before the trial, when the news of Drew Misham’s death came through. Phoenix may have become an expert at keeping secrets, but he has no idea how to give them up without a deadline.
Perhaps he could ask the Judge to follow him around, dangling a penalty over his head unless he spits it out, Mr. Wright? …No, too suspicious.
Edgeworth and Maya keep telling him there’s nothing to be afraid of. Trucy and Apollo already get on like a house on fire, so why wouldn’t they be delighted? And Phoenix can’t find any contradictions there. It’s no big deal. Trucy’s not going to switch surname to Justice, and Apollo might, if anything, dangle a little further away from the precipice of quitting his job if his sister’s there.
So why is Phoenix hesitating? There’s no logical reason for it. It’s an automatic thing, a flinch.
Maybe it’s because he knows that Trucy and Apollo, sharp as they are, will ask the obvious question: why didn’t you tell us earlier? And the answer to that question is long – about seven years long, to be precise – and complicated. It involves things he hopes his daughter will never have to understand, like struggling to get out of bed in the morning, or wasting years on a destructive, compelling mess of a pseudo-relationship that he could only tear himself away from once the other person was locked up with a death sentence. Phoenix doesn’t want to go into it. He doesn’t even want to think about it himself. As far as he’s concerned, the case is closed on the seven years between losing his badge and meeting Apollo.
And speaking of those seven years… Well, maybe Phoenix doesn’t quite believe after all that there’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s learned to be a cynic: that things change quickly, and in unpredictable ways. What if Trucy left on tour with her magical, multi-talented mother? She’s always dreamed of performing to big crowds, after all. And what if, without Trucy, Apollo leaves? What if Phoenix winds up alone in the office in the daytime again, counting down the hours until the next poker game?
It’s no big deal. Phoenix knows it’s no big deal. But… well, alright, he’s a coward. He’s found his first good rhythm in a long, long time, and he’s reluctant to knock it off course. He has to say something eventually, but for now, what’s the harm in enjoying things as they are, just in case everything is about to change?
Come to think of it, there is a contradiction in Maya’s testimony. Nothing to be afraid of? Interesting, then, how often Maya complains how big and lonely the house feels when Pearl is away visiting Iris.
Maybe being selfless doesn’t get you anywhere, after all.
‘Yeah, pretty good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How was yours? … Oh, no way. I didn’t know a snowmobile could go that fast either.’
Apollo momentarily stops squinting at his spreadsheet in order to send a withering look in Mr. Wright’s direction. Mr. Wright, mid-rotation in his office chair, doesn’t notice.
‘Uh-huh. How’s Pearls? … Oh, you’re kidding. They grow up fast, huh? … Yeah, she’s good. He’s good too. Nope, not yet. I will, alright? Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you when I’ve done it.’
Apollo catches Mr. Wright’s eye to mouth a suspicious done what?. Mr. Wright sends him a cryptic smile and a head shake back. Apollo lets out a loud hiss of exasperation and returns, concentration utterly shattered, to his spreadsheet-wrangling.
‘Alright, have fun. Catch you later, Maya. Sorry, I mean Mystic Maya, for any villagers who heard that. … Alright, you too. Later!’
Now, if there was ever a day to do it on... There’s no courtroom appearance today, and the office is quiet and warm. Trucy, now officially on her summer break, looks seraphic with concentration sorting through a pack of cards at the desk. Apollo is writing in his notebook with a lazy scrawl rather than his usual frantic scribble. Phoenix is about to clear his throat – so, guys, you ever noticed you have exactly the same nose? – when there’s a knock on the door and in, without waiting for a response, bursts a whirlwind of rattling lab coat and rustling snack packet.
‘Ema!’ says Phoenix, delighted. ‘What brings you here?’
‘A complete disrespect for other peoples’ caseloads?’ suggests Apollo.
‘Actually, I’m here to settle an argument,’ says Ema, flicking a pair of Phoenix’s crusty socks off the clients’ sofa and flumping down.
‘Yep,’ mutters Apollo acidly, ‘absolutely vital police work, as I thought.’
Ema responds by sending a Snackoo sailing in his direction. It misses and lands on Apollo’s keyboard, shedding crumbs between the keys.
‘Ooh, what’s the argument?’ says Trucy, scattering cards over the floor in her haste to get out of the desk chair and into the action. She never could resist a performance.
Ema adjusts her glasses. ‘Okay, think carefully. Are there more doors in the world… or more wheels?’
‘Oh, that’s a good one,’ says Phoenix, setting aside the dusting cloth he’d been vaguely considering doing something with. ‘I’m gonna say… Wheels.’
‘No, Daddy, it has to be doors, surely. Look at the kitchen cupboards. Door, door, door. And there are a few on my trick box alone!’
‘Guys,’ says Apollo, testily, ‘I have a potential client coming in about twenty minutes. So if you could maybe keep it down while I finish preparing…’
‘Sorry, Trucy, but it’s definitely wheels,’ says Ema, ignoring him wholesale. ‘You have to think about it scientifically, see. So wheels are a core component of one of the primary six simple machines, right?’
Apollo groans, and buries his face in a legal form.
‘I mean, they’re an older invention than doors, definitely,’ she continues, her eyes bright and elsewhere. ‘And, wheels always come in multiples. Think of a train, for example. I mean, obviously the fop keeps trying to argue it’s doors. But, Fräulein,’ – she stands up in order to loom over Trucy for effect – ‘I can only count two wheels on my hog, ja?’
Phoenix and Trucy shout with laughter at her impression; a little more unkindly on Phoenix’s side.
‘Where is Prosecutor Gavin, anyway?’ says Apollo, not quite as lost in his work as he was attempting to appear. ‘I haven’t seen him in ages. Is the investigation nearby?’
‘Oh, he let me go early. It was a simple case,’ says Ema, dismissively.
‘But Ema, he’s got a point!’ says Trucy. ‘Look at the Gatewater Hotel, there are loads of doors there.’
‘Yeah,’ says Apollo, finally abandoning all pretence of self-restraint and entering the fray, ‘but think of all the drawers in the desks in all of those rooms, Trucy. They run on wheels, right? So that’s more wheels than there are doors.’
‘Now you’re talking, Justice!’ says Ema, approvingly.
‘Playing devil’s advocate,’ says Phoenix, to a chorus of groans, ‘couldn’t you say that…’
But he’s cut off by the office phone ringing. ‘That’s probably my client,’ hisses Apollo, diving protectively for the receiver, ‘everyone shut up.’ His voice turns ear-splitting. ‘H-hello, Wright Anything Agency, Apollo Justice speak–’
‘Herr Forehead,’ interrupts a tinny voice from the other end. ‘What a pleasure to hear your dulcet tones.’
Ema rolls her eyes to high heaven. Apollo glares accusingly, and pointedly presses the button to put Klavier on speaker phone.
‘Might I enquire if Fräulein Detective Skye is currently at the agency?’ says Klavier. His tone is, as ever, fighting a war between disaffected superstar-cool and the embarrassingly strained notes of somebody who cares very, very much for the rules. The rules are currently winning.
Ema makes throat-cutting motions. Phoenix wags his finger at her mock-disapprovingly.
‘She is, yeah,’ says Apollo, mercilessly. ‘Though she was probably just leaving, because I have a client coming soon.’
‘Well,’ says Klavier, frostily, ‘if you could perhaps be so kind as to jog her memory about the ongoing investigation she’s working at, that would be appreciated.’
Ema, eyes vengeful, pulls up two strands of her hair into the shape of gelled horns and mimes cutting them off with a pair of scissors. Then, with the slow, grim resignation of somebody lowering themself into a waist-deep bog, she trudges over to the receiver.
‘Keep your hair on, fop,’ she tells Klavier down the phone. ‘I’ll be back in twenty.’
‘Ten,’ says Klavier, ‘if you know what’s good for your payslip.’
‘Ha!’ says Ema. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ Then, she adds: ‘Fifteen.’
‘Ach, I can hardly wait,’ says Klavier, which makes Ema glare at the receiver in response.
‘Wait!’ calls Trucy across the room. ‘Prosecutor Gavin, before you go? I think you’re right, you know, about the doors.’
There is a stiff pause. Then there is a sigh of resignation.
‘Danke, Fräulein,’ he says. ‘You always were sensible.’ And then, more animated: ‘I’m just saying, if you imagine a block of apartments…’
‘Objection,’ says Phoenix, with an instinctual point of his finger towards the phone. ‘C’mon, Gavin, imagine every car owned by every resident.’
‘Ja, but each car has four wheels and five doors, if you include the trunk, so –’
There is a very official-sounding knock at the door. And, worse, whoever’s knocking actually waits for a response.
‘Oh god,’ says Apollo, in wide-eyed horror. ‘The client’s early. Of course the client’s early. Okay, everyone out.’ He unceremoniously slams down the phone, frantically kicks a few pieces of household detritus under the sofas, and nudges Phoenix’s polyester-clad shoulder in the direction of Trucy’s bedroom. ‘C’mon, out.’
Once Phoenix, Trucy and Ema have bundled themselves into Trucy’s bedroom, Phoenix decides that now is the time for an impromptu performance review. He pointedly ignores Trucy and Ema, who have instantly folded under the pressure and started giggling, and presses his ear against the door.
The client sounds desperate, tripping up over her words so much Phoenix can barely make out what she’s saying. Apollo isn’t phased, though.
‘Don’t worry, I believe you,’ he says, firm and steady. There’s no hint of the over-eager rookie Phoenix first took on. ‘Your brother won’t go to prison. I’m going to help you, alright?’
When Phoenix backs away from the door, he finds that Trucy has shuffled over to sit next to him, looking pleased. ‘You’re getting all soppy and proud, aren’t you Daddy?’ she says. ‘It was written all over your body language. I knew the WAA was right to represent him.’ Then, she adds, ‘You should tell him, you know.’
Phoenix raises his eyebrows and searches Trucy’s face for a bluff. It’s hard to read, and he considers that maybe not all of his lessons to her have been good ones. ‘Tell him what?’ he says.
Now Trucy’s face breaks into fond exasperation. ‘That he’s doing a good job, Daddy!’
Oh, thank god. Phoenix laughs his easiest, blandest laugh to cover up his relief. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he says. ‘Of course I will. I’m not that bad a boss, you know.’
It’s true. Phoenix should tell both of them. They both work so hard looking for the truth, in their own individual ways, that they deserve to know the whole of it.
…Any day now.
‘Afternoon, Eldoon,’ says Phoenix, taking a well-worn seat at the stand. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Oh, tricks are as well as I could hope for, Phoenix,’ replies Eldoon solemnly, with a sage stir of the broth pot. ‘The usual?’
‘Please. …No extra salt.’
The savoury smell of miso ramen fills the air, and Eldoon deposits the bowl into Phoenix’s usual place. Phoenix, wary after a decade’s worth of mouth burns, blows steam across the surface and waits. One of these days he’ll have to ask Maya how she always managed to dig in immediately without melting the inside of her cheeks off.
‘Speaking of tricks,’ says Eldoon, ‘how’s young Trucy, then? And that brother of hers? You manage to tell them yet?’
Phoenix adopts a world-weary look. ‘Not yet. I keep meaning to, but some distraction always seems to come up.’
Eldoon nods wisely. ‘That’s a real head-scratcher. Did you try my suggestion from last week? Can’t be upset about unexpected news if you’ve got a nice bowl of noodles to take your mind off it.’
‘Maybe it’ll come to that,’ says Phoenix, dipping his spoon disconsolately into the broth.
‘Well, every empty bowl has its ramen waiting,’ says Eldoon philosophically, sprinkling another absent-minded pinch of salt into the pot. ‘I’ve heard the good news about your new fella. How’s he doing, then? Mr. Edgeworth, was it?’
‘Yeah, he’s al–’ Phoenix stops so suddenly he nearly inhales a noodle. ‘Wait a minute. How do you know about that? Trucy didn’t tell you, did she?’
Eldoon frowns thoughtfully. ‘Well, now you mention it, it must have been Trucy-doll. She was round here just the other day, showing off her new trick. Very impressive, it was. Wouldn’t tell me where she got the rabbit from.’
‘And,’ says Phoenix, in growing dismay, ‘did she tell you not to mention anything to me?’
‘Something about that rings a bell. Does sound like the sort of thing she’d say, doesn’t it?’
‘Eldoon!’ exclaims Phoenix. ‘Whatever happened to patient confidentiality?’
‘Well, you know,’ says Eldoon, ‘hospitals are hospitals, and noodles are noodles. Wouldn’t want to bring a broken leg here. Broth has some healing properties, mind you, but nothing that strong.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind next time I get hit by a car,’ mutters Phoenix, darkly. ‘Er, Eldoon? You really won’t mention this to Trucy or Apollo, right?’
‘Well, I’ll certainly try. Can’t make any promises though. It gets lonely on the stand, you know. Not much to do but…’
‘Thanks,’ says Phoenix, in defeat. ‘Put these on my tab, will you?’
If Larry was as deeply disturbed as he’s claiming to be, he probably wouldn’t be propping his shoes up casually on the coffee table, but hey, Phoenix learned long ago that trying to understand the mind of the Butz is more trouble than it’s worth.
‘So all I was doing was trying to pay him a visit, right?’ bemoans Larry. ‘Me, Larry, his oldest friend! So I get to the Prosecutor’s Office and I ask for Edgey, and the receptionist doesn’t let me in so I just jump over the turnstile because all I have to do is find the fanciest room, right, and I get all the way to the Chief Prosecutor’s office, and guess what Edgey does?’
‘What did he do, Uncle Larry?’ choruses Trucy, gamely. Whether they’re doing comedy or melodrama, she’ll join any troupe.
‘Well, Trucy,’ says Larry, working up to it, ‘he mutters something into the phone, and next minute, guess who shows up? This big burly security guy! And he grabs me by the arm, and next thing I know I’m out on the street! Me! Like I’m some kinda criminal! Can you believe it, Nick?’
‘Wow,’ says Phoenix, flatly, ‘I couldn’t possibly imagine you being a disturbance.’
After the end of the MASON Project, Phoenix had been assigned a massive report, so big and complex and fiddly it wasn’t due for months. It was due so far in the future, in fact, that Phoenix had been happily thinking of its deadline as ‘not due for months’ for the last few, er, months. Now, two weeks before he needs to submit the report, he’s discovered his error. Who could have seen it coming?
As a result, Phoenix has been reduced to a twitchy, irritable, sleep-deprived zombie, glued miserably to his desk. Trucy has gone on coffee-making strike. Apollo keeps making fun of him for not knowing keyboard shortcuts. Work sucks. So naturally it follows that this is also the week where every Tom, Dick and Larry wants to swing by the office for a visit.
‘So,’ continues Larry, basking – Phoenix notes sourly – in the attention, ‘I thought, well, who else is in the area? And then I thought, hey, my good buddy Nick and my favourite niece Trucy don’t even always have hot water, so they definitely won’t have security.’
‘Apollo’s got a pretty good swing,’ points out Phoenix, which makes Apollo’s face do something very confusing, as if he’s not quite sure whether to glare or be gratified.
Larry’s eyes, which were previously glossing over Apollo’s studiously-concentrating form in the corner, focus.
‘Yo, Polly!’ he says. ‘How’s it going? I didn’t even notice you there behind all those files. You shouldn’t work so hard, man! Take a leaf out of Nick’s book.’
Phoenix, hand shaking with caffeine overdose on the computer mouse, mutters a few invectives under his breath.
‘Er, hi, Larry,’ says Apollo, warily. He still doesn’t quite know what to do with Larry. The first time he’d come waltzing joblessly into the office Apollo had pegged him as a Hydeout regular, and possibly one who’d come looking for the money he was owed. Probably it didn’t help that Phoenix had darkly told Apollo they had ‘history’ and left Trucy to explain things in her own time.
But Larry has already lost interest in Apollo. Instead he’s aimlessly poking his way around the office, turning over props and making Trucy laugh by posing – ta-da – in the spare top hat.
‘Larry, do you seriously have nothing better to do?’ says Phoenix. ‘It’s like having a mosquito buzzing around my head.’
‘Aww, Nick, not you too,’ says Larry, with depthless hurt in his eyes, like a puppy whose nose has been pushed off-course from a dinner plate. ‘It’s like you and Edgey are conspiring or something. Are you two hanging out without me? Should I be jealous?’
Phoenix shudders. ‘No, Larry, you absolutely shouldn’t be jealous.’
To Phoenix’s displeasure, Larry comes to a meandering halt behind the desk and peers at the computer screen over Phoenix’s shoulder. Phoenix keeps his eyes locked firmly on the word processer, like he could Gramarye-perception-power up a full report if he tried hard enough, but he still sees Larry do a double take in his peripheral vision.
‘Whoa, Nick,’ says Larry. ‘Don’t tell me you’re working?’
‘He’s a very good worker when he puts his mind to it,’ chips in Trucy, encouragingly. ‘And he may look scruffy, but he scrubs up well, you know.’
‘Don’t bother taking on Larry as a client, Trucy, he won’t pay you,’ says Phoenix.
‘Dude, she’s right, you look like garbage,’ says Larry cheerfully, transferring his inspection from Phoenix’s screen to Phoenix’s face, in all its dark-shadowed, unshaven, frown-lined glory. ‘How many hours you been awake?’
‘He was sitting there when I left last night,’ points out Apollo.
‘Heh,’ says Larry. ‘Just like the good old days. You shoulda seen him in high school when papers were due. Hey, Nick, remember when you pulled that all-nighter before exam day and fell asleep on your bike? And then you cycled into the pond? Oh, man, the look on your face when you woke up – the whole class was laughing at you –’
‘At least I turned up to my exams,’ says Phoenix, scowling. ‘Unlike some.’
‘And, you’ll like this one, Trucy,’ continues Larry. ‘Did I ever tell you about the time in college when he ate… huh.’
And here's the thing. On any other day, Phoenix would treat the combination of ‘Larry’ and ‘silence’ with the same caution he would ‘bleach’ and ‘ammonia’. But today he's so busy not passing out in his desk chair that he isn't prepared when –
‘Hey, you guys look, like, identical when you laugh! You ever noticed that?’
‘Larry,’ says Phoenix, cautiously, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Really?’ says Trucy, thrilled. ‘Polly, come here and laugh for me so I can compare.’
‘Yeah, yeah, stand next to each other,’ says Larry, nudging Apollo out of his seat by the shoulders like he’s a shy audience member at a magic show. He lines them up and paces in front of them, cocking his head, occasionally holding his fingers up in a frame and peering at each of them in turn.
‘Can I sit back down yet?’ says Apollo, to selectively deaf ears.
‘The nose, the cheeks… It’s like you’re the same person! This is seriously weird. Nick, don’t tell me you’ve never noticed?’
‘Well,’ says Phoenix, hastily, ‘that’s what happens when you spend a lot of time around someone. You start to look alike. You know, me and Maya got mistaken for siblings a couple of times, back when she was staying at the office.’
Larry scoffs. ‘No way. You'd have to be blind to think that. The Fey girls are smoking hot, and you're you. But these two…’ He clicks his fingers. ‘Nick, you’ve got it! What if they’re secretly siblings?’
Every single nerve in Phoenix’s body pulls taut.
Luckily for him, and for the expression on his face, he’s drawn some very bad hands in poker before.
‘Apollo!’ says Larry. ‘You’re adopted, right?’
Apollo looks horrified. ‘Um,’ he says, ‘what?’
Larry, face brightening, has spotted Trucy’s prop magnifying glass on the table. He snatches it up and begins pacing back and forth again, waving it in Trucy and Apollo’s faces as if he’s running a security scanner over them.
‘See, I’m going to get to the bottom of this, right?’ he says, with the manful assurance of a smoker rushing in to fix a gas leak. ‘Take that!’ he shouts abruptly, with such force everyone jumps. ‘You both have brown hair! Huh, that felt great. Maybe for my next job I’ll be a lawyer.’
‘Well, Uncle Larry,’ says Trucy diplomatically, ‘that’s true, but…’
Larry enthusiastically ignores her. ‘Take that! You’re both short! Take that! You both hang out with Nick a lot! Take that! Um, er… Um… You both have a super freaky stare! No offence.’
At this, Trucy frowns. ‘That is true,’ she says after a moment. ‘I’ve never met anyone who can perceive things like we can, Apollo.’
‘Well, yeah,’ says Apollo, returning defiantly to his desk chair, ‘but… Wait, no, I’m not even entertaining this argument. This is stupider than wheels and doors.’
‘That’s the Butz for you,’ says Phoenix, releasing his vice grip on the mouse.
But then, a few moments later, Trucy says: ‘Polly… Random question, but how do you feel about cilantro?’
Apollo wrinkles his nose. ‘Fine, if you like pouring dish soap into your food.’
Suddenly, Phoenix notices with alarm, Trucy and Apollo are wearing odd, thoughtful looks. Matching ones.
‘Okay, just out of interest, Trucy,’ says Apollo, ‘how many times have you had tonsillitis?’
‘Oh, loads,’ says Trucy. ‘Daddy says it’s my most expensive trait!’
Larry is beginning to look disconcerted. He chuckles nervously. ‘Whoa, relax, you’re both taking this pretty seriously. I was only joking, you know?’
Trucy and Apollo don’t even bother looking at him. Instead, they’re frowning at each other like they’re seeing each other for the first time.
‘Uh, actually,’ says Larry, his eyes shifting, ‘I just remembered I had, uh, a thing to take care of elsewhere, so I’d better dip. Take it easy, guys.’ And he’s strolled out of the door before Phoenix can say anything.
Larry Butz, thinks Phoenix with violence, you are a snivelling coward and I hope no supermodel ever looks at you again.
Trucy raises her eyebrows in the direction of the door. ‘So, Daddy, what do you think of Uncle Larry’s theory?’
‘What do I think? I think Larry’s an idiot who doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together, and anything he says should be taken with a mountain of salt.’
And Trucy turns her head, and smiles good-naturedly, and says: ‘You’re lying, Daddy.’
It’s not just Trucy who’s looking at Phoenix. Apollo is staring at him too, clutching at his bracelet like he’s trying to stop it squeezing his wrist off. Two matching pairs of eyes are cornering him like prey.
Phoenix engages every muscle of his poker face. He keeps his voice perfectly even. ‘What do you mean by that, Truce?’ he says, pleasantly.
Apollo’s eyes flick suspiciously over Phoenix, up and down. But he doesn’t say anything. He has no proof that Phoenix is lying, not if he won’t talk, and Phoenix’s body language is absolutely silent.
Another moment passes under the heat-lamp gaze of those eyes, and Phoenix thinks he might have won. They have nothing to call him on.
But then he feels the sweat that’s been beading at his temples beginning to drip down underneath the hem of his beanie.
Their eyes fasten. Their faces burst into triumphant smiles. Apollo stands up and points his finger.
‘Gotcha!’