Before Wolverine left my house the day of drop by, he showed another side of himself.  In the future, shaking his hatted head, he advised me to stay in my own lane.  “A smart Tom,” he sighed, “keeps his nose out of other people’s business.”  Besides, the two G-men were no friends of mine and Wolverine didn’t number them among his friends either.  If they had disappeared, maybe they needed a lesson in minding their own damn business.  Perhaps, too, they chose to disappear.  More greedy FBI guys defect to Putin’s Russia than you might think. 

When I told Wolverine, that any defections above zero would be more than I’d think, he grinned.  He also began to pound the thick end of his walking stick into his left paw.  “Nothing good comes to a Mr Nosey,” he muttered. 

All at once, Bart was in the room between us.  She was hissing spit on Wolverine’s bespoke suit as she made to him what she called “promises, not threats.”  The gist of her promise was that if Wolverine didn’t learn to keep his club’s tip on the floor, any Molly might feel justified in abbreviating his lying life. 

At first, Wolverine looked relaxed as he sized Bart up.  Then I heard his suit jacket tearing.  Right behind him, Tank had slashed his back.  You could hear Fielding’s growling battle voice. “Mr Lawless, have we had a proper introduction?  As a rule, critters like you slither or scurry into my house pay a death tax for their visit.  Critters your size are short enough to wind up with their throats cut.  Can you imagine that?  Bart and I have a rule.  Listen up. You must learn it.  We handle Crockey’s discipline.  He is ours to beat and abuse, nobody else’s.  Anybody who forgets that may learn a hard, final lesson about life.”  Bart listened.   Her glinting eyes smiled at Wolverine.

After estimating the odds, Wolverine knew his answer. “Quite so.” Replied a grinning Wolverine. He left humming, an old, old Turtle’s tune, “So Happy Together.”  He then added, “My Day Will Come” once he was on the pavement.

A week later I got a pushy message from Wolverine encouraging me to stick to writing light features or stories from materials he sent me.  For example, he sent me a handsome advance for a story that would appear in L’Afrique Aujourd’hui on what Putin had been doing to “de-nazify” the Crimea for Africans.  I was to explain that the Ukraine was a nest of antisemites, racists, Nazis, and Russian loathing thugs.  If my French was not up to the task, Wolverine told me to write it in English or in High Cat.  He promised to see to a translation.  I’d have refused if that handsome advance hadn’t been a stack of Krugerrands wrapped in Franklins.  Wolverine and Peregrine understand my weakness for 24-carat gold.  He said it was a 10% advance for what he envisioned as a 5-piece story that would convert to a book on the heroic work Putin was doing to gift a restored Russia to the world.