As Clem and O'Connor stepped in to confront the elf, Sam edged backwards, trying to stay out of the immediate danger zone without looking like he was retreating. After O'Connor (and, more importantly, the gun) left, Sam looked at the ork. "The plan," he said, ice in his voice, "is that I go with Matthew to meet his contact and try to get us all back to the city. And if you want that plan to work, that means that you, Mr. Trigger-happy, and the drunk elf over here behave yourselves."
Shaking his head (and making sure that O'Connor was out of earshot), he continued, "Who's bone-headed idea was it to get O'Connor to try to act out an argument? He's got no fuse at all; there's no way he could be expected to hold back from turning it into an actual fight, even if all of the audience had remained off stage. Why didn't you tell him to go to the hunting gear section and start critiquing all of the stuff on offer? He's been making so much love to that rifle that I'm sure he could have handled that. Yeah, he might have gotten into a fight with the clerk, but so what? He gets arrested, drawing even more attention,"--and we get to decide whether to spring him or just cut him loose; extra bonus! Sam added to himself--"you guys would have plenty of time to get whatever you wanted. No problems anywhere."
He sighed. "Fionn, can you sober up enough to listen in on the cop's links, see what they're looking at? I need to know how screwed our con is before we go further."