Ban looked evenly at the middle aged man, Terazuma Yoshigawa, across the booth from he and Ginji. His fine black hair was graying at the temples, and crows feet were etched around his eyes. Eyes that were currently judging Ban and Ginji.

“I need you two to retrieve a statue.”

“Okay. Any idea who took it?”

“Tomura Tekodashi.”

Ban gave a low whistle. “What did you do to piss a guy like him off?”

“I won the statue at an auction. He wanted it, I refused to sell it to him.”

“Ahh. Okay. How much are you willing to pay to get this statue back?”

“Two million.”

Ban choked on his coffee and Ginji’s eyes filled with tears. “Ban-chan! That’s more than enough to get the car back!”

Ban calmed down enough to be able to start breathing again. “The GetBackers take this mission with confidence, Yoshigawa-san!”

Yoshigawa appeared again the next day, looking like he swallowed a live spider.

“What’s up, Yoshigawa-san? We were going to go tonight to check out the mansion-”

“He’s throwing a party tonight. It would be the perfect opportunity for you go steal it.” He held out the invitation to the two. “Of course, this party is not my type of thing, but if you two could fake it long enough to get the statue and get out, I’d gladly pay you double, and supply you with anything you might need.”

Ban opened the invitation and choked. “A PET party?”

“It’s a party where men bring their male lovers, who are dressed up as pets, to show them off to other men. Of course, the ‘pet’ costumes usually leave nothing to the imagination, and are borderline nudity.” Yoshigawa sighed. “As I said, not my thing. If I was going to have my lover dress like that, it would not be in front of other people.”

Ban was torn. On one hand, he and Ginji had their pride. On the other hand FOUR MILLION YEN! “We’ll still do this. We do have our pride as retrieval specialists, you know.”

“Of course.”

Ban turned to Ginji. “We’ll flip to see who will go as the ‘pet’.” Ban gave an inward shudder at this, but as long as the Monkey Tamer didn’t find out about it, he was fine. “Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

Ban flipped the coin.

>> Next Section.