Valentine Marlar crumpled his empty cheeseburger wrapper and tossed it in the general direction of an overfilled wastebasket as he walked down the street. Not far ahead he could see a crowd growing near one of the entrances to the Park. 'I don't remember any notices for events tonight...' he thought as he ambled closer. It looked like a police blockade was in place, holding back the throng. He moved up to the crowd and stood close to some of the milling looky-loos near the back. His fingers itched with so many backs turned to him, but he held himself in check until he could get a handle on what was going down.<br/><br/>"Hey man, what's goin' on?" Val asked an older, well-off looking gentleman who stood craning his neck beside him. "Someone get murdered or something?"<br/><br/>"Ah, who knows? There was some kind of talk about a creature landing in the Park nearby, people are saying it's a dragon! Can you believe that? Even in this city, people will believe anything..." The old man shook his head, his features a mixture of amusement and disgust as he rose up on his tiptoes for a better view. Valentine noticed the sizable bulge in the old man's back pocket and concealed a grin. He checked around surreptitiously for any do-gooder observers and eased his hand toward the old fellow's back. With practiced ease, his fingers deftly slipped the wallet out of its hiding place and quickly folded it into his own jacket. "Yeah, right. There's a sucker born every minute, huh?" Val said with an amiable smile, and then turned and walked away.<br/><br/>As his distance grew from the crowd, so did his desire to check out his score. But that was a sucker's move, and a lesson he'd learned well. His fingers were positively burning with the completion of a successful lift, and part of him was simply dying to return to the crowd and skim a few more pieces. But that too was an amateur mistake; too many lifts in one spot would get him ID'ed in a heartbeat. He soothed himself with the sure knowledge of future opportunities and walked on.<br/><br/>For a few moments he debated on going back to the scene for an entirely different reason: whatever was going on back there was definitely going to be news. Val would probably catch hell from his editors for not working the 'journalist-on-scene' angle. But, he considered, his job wasn't to cover news. The papers he wrote for hired him for soft articles and reviews only, a few editorials once in a while for variety. Even if he wrote a front-page piece for those buzzards, they'd never give him a by-line.<br/><br/>'Fuck 'em. They've got real reporters; let 'em throw those guys at it. 'Sides, I've already got paid for tonight.'<br/><br/>As the area began to fill with police presence, he sped up his pace and rounded the corner, out of sight.