The Turning Point [FanFic]
Title: The Turning Point
Author: Tooks
Pairing: Hotch, Reid, Emily, Morgan, & Rossi
Rating: FRT
Summary: Tired of laying in wait Private Investigator Aaron Hotchner and his makeshift team strike David Rossi on the mobster's own turf to get answers.
Notes: This is the thirteenth piece in The Todd Case of my Noir AU "Living For the Night" (thanks let_it_linger21 for the name). Again, first person (this time from Hotch's POV), dark, gritty, real noir title, cursing, little butt-kicking, and guns abound.
I tell Reid to ride with me and for Morgan to go with Emily in her car. I hear the two of them arguing over who’ll drive.
“You know usually I drive my own car.” Emily’s displeasure is evident as Morgan goes to the driver’s side.
Morgan’s amusement shows just as clear. “Then this change of events must be very disappointing to you.”
“Morgan,” I call his attention back to me, “You have the walkie-talkie?”
“Yeah,” he flashes the watch like he would his badge, “Keep in touch.” He climbs in as a bewildered Emily gets in her car on the other side.
***
“There’s a hand pistol in the glove-box,” I inform Reid as we settle in and I start to drive. The young man goes for it without word. “It’s a last resort sort of thing, I’d rather you be armed than not. …How’s your stomach anyway?”
“Itchy.”
I nearly smile. “Use a little aloe vera, that should help.”
“That’s what Emily told me.” There’s a bit of silence, then the kid speaks again. “So, uh, you got walkie-talkies?”
“Oh, uh,” I clear my throat, “yeah, I got a pair for a friend of mine’s son and they, uh, seemed like a good idea. You can get them to run on a different frequency from police radios too so...that's good.”
“They look like the ones Dick Tracy has in his comics.”
I smile some to myself. It was why I first got them for Jack. The boy is obsessed with that character and seems to think I'm the living version…honestly it’s probably still the most flattering thing I’ve heard in years, that I might bare resemblance to somebody’s hero.
“Do we each get one?” Dr Reid asks as he picks the one on the dash up to examine it.
“Right now I only have the two, but I might get more.” If they work out in our favor; this is a trial run for the things outside some testing already done by Morgan, Garcia, and I. Garcia and Morgan love them. True most of the two days of supposed testing they actually spent flirting with each other over the damned things, but the principles of testing were done. Morgan's police issue radio didn't pick us up and the sound quality was excellent considering they're technically a child's toy.
***
About a block away from the building where Rossi keeps his penthouse Emily’s voice comes over the watch.
“There’s a back entrance I can direct you to that’s generally without security if you’d like.”
I ask Emily if she has a key or knows the way to get us in that door as I drive past the building and head farther up the block to turn.
Emily says no, she doesn’t have a key, but the door’s old and so is the lock. It shouldn’t take much to get it open and, if we can, we can sneak up the back stairs to just outside Rossi’s penthouse.
It’s Reid who assures me that he can get us in.
I have no choice but to trust these two like I would Morgan.
I drive according to Emily’s directions, slowing the car down to a slow roll and low rumble once at the back of the building. She’s right, there’s no one there. It’s a dirty little alley that not even stray cats would bother making a rest stop of. It’s perfect.
I stuff the miniature walkie-talkie into my inside jacket pocket and pull out two of the sawn-off shotguns from the trunk. I toss one to Morgan as he heads over.
“Do I get one?” Reid asks with wide-eyes.
“No.” Morgan and I reply in unison.
He’s thinking he’d be better protected with it, I’m sure, but I’m guessing Reid’ll just get himself or one of us hurt or killed with the thing. Being denied doesn’t seem to offend him too much though, he just shrugs it off as he stuffs the gun I gave him in the car into his pants pocket.
“Great, now how do we get in?” Morgan asks as he looks up at the fire escape ladder that’s too high up to grab and pull down before looking at the door itself. He’s thinking of kicking it down already.
Emily shrugs, “That’s for you boys to figure out.” I told Morgan to return her little handgun back to her before we got in the cars and never asks for her own high-powered weapon so I presume she’s all set.
Reid heads to the door, examining the lock some. “Emily do, um, you have any pins in your hair?”
“Excuse me?” Her eyes go a little wide, then wary.
“Bobby pins? Or, uh, even tiny hair clips will work if, you know, they have metal bits to them.”
She’s not completely following, or doesn’t think Reid’s going to do it, but her hands sweep her hair and she pulls a few black hairpins out and hands them to Reid anyway.
Reid mutters a thanks before going to work the lock with the thin pieces of metal.
“Wait, you can pick locks?” Morgan sounds almost insulted that he didn’t know.
Me? I’m impressed. My own hands were never quite finely dexterous enough to accomplish that trick.
There’s a series of clicks as Reid works before the one of the bolt sliding out of its place comes in loud and clear. The door’s unlocked and Reid slowly, carefully, opens it before smiling some at Morgan. “Uh…yeah…sometimes.”
"Did you know this?" Morgan asks me. I shake my head a touch and my friend turns to Emily, "Did you?"
"No," she's smiling wide, "but Dr Reid here's full of surprises."
Reid grins like he just won the science fair as he holds the door open for us.
Emily heads in first telling Reid he can keep the pins, Morgan follows her, and then I head in leaving Reid to slip in, close, and re-lock the door behind him.
“Prentiss, I need you to be a distraction.”
“Aren’t I always?” the woman’s lips quirk up at me.
My lips curl even as I make the effort to ignore the comment. “I'm assuming at least one guard will be stationed outside. We need you to lure him into the stairwell.”
“And then?”
Morgan smiles, “And then it’s lights out.”
Emily nods her understanding. “I’m taking the elevator though because, trust me, nothing says set up like a beautiful woman hoofing it up the stairs.”
“We’ll take it to the floor below the penthouse and use the stairs on the last flight,” I tell them all, “if there are two guards Emily can either lure both or we'll use one’s disappearance to get the other to come to us. Understood?”
The group, the team, nods.
“Morgan and I’ll take point,” my lingo sweeps back to my days on the force, “we subdue and control, only fire if the threat is eminent. Our aim isn’t to piss this guy off, it’s to get his attention and talk with him. Any questions?”
They all shake their head.
“Good.”
***
I watch through the tiny crack made in opening the stairwell door as Emily presents her best slink to the man outside the penthouse door. She smiles, laughs, pets the man’s arm before convincing him to follow her towards us.
The creep watches her ass the entire time.
As they get closer Emily slips me a wink and wicked little smirk. She waits until she's past our hiding spots in the stairwell then glances back to the thug behind her, “Are you sure no one will hear us?”
“Nah, they won’t hear a peep.”
The moment he’s got an arm close enough Morgan yanks the thug forward and I fall back on the door to shut it.
“Not a word,” I warn as if Morgan’s chokehold isn’t a silencer enough.
Honestly I doubt the guy ever heard or saw any of us he’s out so fast. Morgan drags him down half the flight and rests him in a corner before tying an ankle to the railing with a bit of rope. The poor excuse for a guard should be fine there. He'll wake up in a bit with a sore throat, but otherwise unharmed.
I check the hall for any changes, any sign someone might've gotten suspicious of the chatter out in the hall, and then proceed to exit with the others. Morgan remembers formation, moves swift and low just to the back and right of me with his boomstick out and at the ready. He’s ready. He won’t jump the gun though, he’s seasoned by now and for all his love of jokes and tackling Morgan knows when to get serious. Right now is that time and he is serious.
The other two I hear move behind us in their best attempts at copying our stance. When we reach the door Emily sticks herself behind me with her gun drawn and knees bent a little to keep low. Reid does the same behind Morgan. For civilians they catch on fast.
I signal Morgan with my hands. Three…two…one…
Morgan kicks hard just above the doorknob and the room opens up to us with the splintering of wood. There’s cursing and grumbles from inside, the sounds of pistols bring pulled and cocked, but Morgan and I enter without hesitation.
I do what gives us the most leverage the fastest; point the sawed-off shotgun directly at David Rossi as he sits at the poker table. “Tell your men to stand down.” I order with unwavering firmness as I take a quick glance around the room.
Five men at the game table, five men (presumably bodyguards) watching, a guy at the bar, and four ladies who look like they’d like to do nothing more than run screaming from the room. And then there’s Rossi.
Rossi who gives an amused look up from his cards at me. “If you wanted to join the game all you had to do was give us a call and buy in.” He chuckles at his own joke.
I cock my weapon. “I won’t tell you again.”
The mobster sighs, rolls his eyes, and moves his hands as if encouraging us all to sit and settle down. “It’s alright, everyone, Hotchner here just has no manners is all.”
The men at the table are the first to relax. They begin to watch the scene as they might a show onstage while the bodyguards tuck their weapons away but maintain a sharp focus on the four of us. Then the bartender returns to his job and the girls to theirs.
“Now, tell me, to what do I owe this tremendous displeasure?” Rossi asks as he knocks the table to get the game going again.
"Outside what I'd consider a disturbing lapse in security?"
Rossi looks past me to Emily with a smirk, "Shake a little ass at the doorman, Emily?" Her name oozes out his mouth with enough disrespect my trigger finger twitches.
Emily saves me the trouble by charging forward. "Don't you Emily me!"
Morgan jumps ahead of her and blocks her way, "Not worth the effort, beautiful" he warns with a shake of his head.
The woman's glare stays, but she doesn't press forward. Thank god for small favors.
I relax the hammer of the gun to ensure it doesn’t go off before lowering it and walking over to the poker table, “Look, we could go a few rounds of increasingly less witty, more insulting, banter but neither of us have the time and neither does Jordan Todd.”
“This again?” Rossi cuts in.
“I’m not finished,” I cut back with a glare. “You’re getting fucked by your own people and the more you bury your head in the sand the more people are going to die because of it. Now maybe you don’t really care for Jordan as anything more than a good time and her getting murdered on your account is no big deal to to you," I set a hand down on the table and lean in towards Rossi, locking eyes with him, "but it is to me and I promise you, if that happens, I will spend the rest of my time making a point to fuck up your shit every which way I can.”
“Hey,” a loudmouth mobster to the left of me starts to stand up, “who the fuck are you to threaten Rossi?”
“Sit down.” I bark out with little more than a glance at him.
He does. He doesn’t want to, but he does.
“I’m guess Foyet’s behind this,” I turn back to Rossi, “he’s a greedy, egotistical, sadistic bastard and he’s on your payroll. What I can’t figure is why on Earth you’re protecting him. Is it pride David? You don’t want to admit you made a mistake in letting him be a part of your organization?”
The attitude in Rossi’s eyes changes in a single blink. I stand up straight once again and look down on the man knowing I’ve hit the nail on the head, he just doesn’t want to admit it aloud in front of everyone.
“Let’s go in the other room an talk.”
I nod in agreement then turn back, “Emily, come with us.” Emily heads over to me with that same look of annoyance she's had since Rossi addressed. I'm not all that fond of putting these two together, it could cause my talks with Rossi to break down into something personal and petty, but I need Emily. I need her for backup, for fact checking, and because she’s the only other one that might’ve known Jordan as well as Rossi. “Morgan stay out here with Reid.”
“No problem, boss,” Morgna replies in his more serious tone.
“Nobody leaves. If you need me you know what to do.”
Morgan nods and pulls back his coat a little to show he's still got possession of the other walkie-talkie.
Rossi stands up and tells his people he’ll be back shortly then heads towards the back bedroom with Emily and me following behind.
***
The moment I shut the door behind the three of us Rossi sighs, loosens then removes his tie, and settles on the bed. Without his men to play to I see now just how much he knows he’s screwed. It’s actually a bit of a relief. He's stubborn, not dense. Stubborn I work through and with.
“I’m trying to find a way to eliminate him,” the man confesses.
“That’s good, but Jordan might not have time to wait.” My tone relaxes just a little.
“I know.” There’s another sigh and he looks over at Emily, “I didn’t realize her disappearance had anything to do with me until recently.”
“Bullshit.” Emily counters sounding more hurt than angry from her spot by a dresser.
“I had a feeling but I didn’t…I didn’t actually know.” Rossi turns back to me. “Not until your boy, the boy, Dr Reid, was attacked outside my club.” My eyes narrow and he quickly adds with a raising of the hands of innocence, “Which I had nothing to do with.”
“But did nothing about.”
“I had my people fix him up and Lila take him back to her place.”
“And then paid off Foyet, again, I’m guessing.” I don’t exactly give credit for a good deed if an equally bad one is done right after.
“It was better than taking the risk of not paying him.” Rossi counters.
I can’t exactly argue that - paying Foyet might be keeping Jordan alive, might be preventing others from being attacked - so instead simply move on. “We need to know about any business you conduct by the tracks.”
“The tracks? You think that’s where Jordan’s being held?”
“We think you’re being set up and along the tracks is a good place to hide a kidnap victim,” Emily elaborates.
“So where would you hide someone along the tracks, David?” I ask. When Rossi hesitates I let my frustration show once more. I head over to him slowly but steadily, “This isn’t the time to be worried about your own crime-committing ass, Rossi. For once, do something selfless."
"And then get screwed after all this is done?"
"I’m not a cop anymore, I don’t give a shit what you have going on except as it relates to this case. This missing girl.” I stand over him, look down on him, let my building aggravation show in eyes and tone. “I have exactly one job to do, one task I want to complete, and that’s finding Jordan. Now stop dicking around and tell what I want to know!”
"When I need to find something out, I just go out and find somebody that knows more than me, and I go and I ask them. Sometimes I ask pretty hard." ~ Marv, Sin City
Next Section:
5 Against the House
Previous Sections:
Nightgale's Welcome Me
On Dangerous Ground
Safe Passage
The Big Scare
The Third Man
The Stallion: Part 1
The Stallion: Part 2
Trouble is My Business
Detour
Night Moves
I Love Trouble
Drive a Crooked Road
Author: Tooks
Pairing: Hotch, Reid, Emily, Morgan, & Rossi
Rating: FRT
Summary: Tired of laying in wait Private Investigator Aaron Hotchner and his makeshift team strike David Rossi on the mobster's own turf to get answers.
Notes: This is the thirteenth piece in The Todd Case of my Noir AU "Living For the Night" (thanks let_it_linger21 for the name). Again, first person (this time from Hotch's POV), dark, gritty, real noir title, cursing, little butt-kicking, and guns abound.
I tell Reid to ride with me and for Morgan to go with Emily in her car. I hear the two of them arguing over who’ll drive.
“You know usually I drive my own car.” Emily’s displeasure is evident as Morgan goes to the driver’s side.
Morgan’s amusement shows just as clear. “Then this change of events must be very disappointing to you.”
“Morgan,” I call his attention back to me, “You have the walkie-talkie?”
“Yeah,” he flashes the watch like he would his badge, “Keep in touch.” He climbs in as a bewildered Emily gets in her car on the other side.
***
“There’s a hand pistol in the glove-box,” I inform Reid as we settle in and I start to drive. The young man goes for it without word. “It’s a last resort sort of thing, I’d rather you be armed than not. …How’s your stomach anyway?”
“Itchy.”
I nearly smile. “Use a little aloe vera, that should help.”
“That’s what Emily told me.” There’s a bit of silence, then the kid speaks again. “So, uh, you got walkie-talkies?”
“Oh, uh,” I clear my throat, “yeah, I got a pair for a friend of mine’s son and they, uh, seemed like a good idea. You can get them to run on a different frequency from police radios too so...that's good.”
“They look like the ones Dick Tracy has in his comics.”
I smile some to myself. It was why I first got them for Jack. The boy is obsessed with that character and seems to think I'm the living version…honestly it’s probably still the most flattering thing I’ve heard in years, that I might bare resemblance to somebody’s hero.
“Do we each get one?” Dr Reid asks as he picks the one on the dash up to examine it.
“Right now I only have the two, but I might get more.” If they work out in our favor; this is a trial run for the things outside some testing already done by Morgan, Garcia, and I. Garcia and Morgan love them. True most of the two days of supposed testing they actually spent flirting with each other over the damned things, but the principles of testing were done. Morgan's police issue radio didn't pick us up and the sound quality was excellent considering they're technically a child's toy.
***
About a block away from the building where Rossi keeps his penthouse Emily’s voice comes over the watch.
“There’s a back entrance I can direct you to that’s generally without security if you’d like.”
I ask Emily if she has a key or knows the way to get us in that door as I drive past the building and head farther up the block to turn.
Emily says no, she doesn’t have a key, but the door’s old and so is the lock. It shouldn’t take much to get it open and, if we can, we can sneak up the back stairs to just outside Rossi’s penthouse.
It’s Reid who assures me that he can get us in.
I have no choice but to trust these two like I would Morgan.
I drive according to Emily’s directions, slowing the car down to a slow roll and low rumble once at the back of the building. She’s right, there’s no one there. It’s a dirty little alley that not even stray cats would bother making a rest stop of. It’s perfect.
I stuff the miniature walkie-talkie into my inside jacket pocket and pull out two of the sawn-off shotguns from the trunk. I toss one to Morgan as he heads over.
“Do I get one?” Reid asks with wide-eyes.
“No.” Morgan and I reply in unison.
He’s thinking he’d be better protected with it, I’m sure, but I’m guessing Reid’ll just get himself or one of us hurt or killed with the thing. Being denied doesn’t seem to offend him too much though, he just shrugs it off as he stuffs the gun I gave him in the car into his pants pocket.
“Great, now how do we get in?” Morgan asks as he looks up at the fire escape ladder that’s too high up to grab and pull down before looking at the door itself. He’s thinking of kicking it down already.
Emily shrugs, “That’s for you boys to figure out.” I told Morgan to return her little handgun back to her before we got in the cars and never asks for her own high-powered weapon so I presume she’s all set.
Reid heads to the door, examining the lock some. “Emily do, um, you have any pins in your hair?”
“Excuse me?” Her eyes go a little wide, then wary.
“Bobby pins? Or, uh, even tiny hair clips will work if, you know, they have metal bits to them.”
She’s not completely following, or doesn’t think Reid’s going to do it, but her hands sweep her hair and she pulls a few black hairpins out and hands them to Reid anyway.
Reid mutters a thanks before going to work the lock with the thin pieces of metal.
“Wait, you can pick locks?” Morgan sounds almost insulted that he didn’t know.
Me? I’m impressed. My own hands were never quite finely dexterous enough to accomplish that trick.
There’s a series of clicks as Reid works before the one of the bolt sliding out of its place comes in loud and clear. The door’s unlocked and Reid slowly, carefully, opens it before smiling some at Morgan. “Uh…yeah…sometimes.”
"Did you know this?" Morgan asks me. I shake my head a touch and my friend turns to Emily, "Did you?"
"No," she's smiling wide, "but Dr Reid here's full of surprises."
Reid grins like he just won the science fair as he holds the door open for us.
Emily heads in first telling Reid he can keep the pins, Morgan follows her, and then I head in leaving Reid to slip in, close, and re-lock the door behind him.
“Prentiss, I need you to be a distraction.”
“Aren’t I always?” the woman’s lips quirk up at me.
My lips curl even as I make the effort to ignore the comment. “I'm assuming at least one guard will be stationed outside. We need you to lure him into the stairwell.”
“And then?”
Morgan smiles, “And then it’s lights out.”
Emily nods her understanding. “I’m taking the elevator though because, trust me, nothing says set up like a beautiful woman hoofing it up the stairs.”
“We’ll take it to the floor below the penthouse and use the stairs on the last flight,” I tell them all, “if there are two guards Emily can either lure both or we'll use one’s disappearance to get the other to come to us. Understood?”
The group, the team, nods.
“Morgan and I’ll take point,” my lingo sweeps back to my days on the force, “we subdue and control, only fire if the threat is eminent. Our aim isn’t to piss this guy off, it’s to get his attention and talk with him. Any questions?”
They all shake their head.
“Good.”
***
I watch through the tiny crack made in opening the stairwell door as Emily presents her best slink to the man outside the penthouse door. She smiles, laughs, pets the man’s arm before convincing him to follow her towards us.
The creep watches her ass the entire time.
As they get closer Emily slips me a wink and wicked little smirk. She waits until she's past our hiding spots in the stairwell then glances back to the thug behind her, “Are you sure no one will hear us?”
“Nah, they won’t hear a peep.”
The moment he’s got an arm close enough Morgan yanks the thug forward and I fall back on the door to shut it.
“Not a word,” I warn as if Morgan’s chokehold isn’t a silencer enough.
Honestly I doubt the guy ever heard or saw any of us he’s out so fast. Morgan drags him down half the flight and rests him in a corner before tying an ankle to the railing with a bit of rope. The poor excuse for a guard should be fine there. He'll wake up in a bit with a sore throat, but otherwise unharmed.
I check the hall for any changes, any sign someone might've gotten suspicious of the chatter out in the hall, and then proceed to exit with the others. Morgan remembers formation, moves swift and low just to the back and right of me with his boomstick out and at the ready. He’s ready. He won’t jump the gun though, he’s seasoned by now and for all his love of jokes and tackling Morgan knows when to get serious. Right now is that time and he is serious.
The other two I hear move behind us in their best attempts at copying our stance. When we reach the door Emily sticks herself behind me with her gun drawn and knees bent a little to keep low. Reid does the same behind Morgan. For civilians they catch on fast.
I signal Morgan with my hands. Three…two…one…
Morgan kicks hard just above the doorknob and the room opens up to us with the splintering of wood. There’s cursing and grumbles from inside, the sounds of pistols bring pulled and cocked, but Morgan and I enter without hesitation.
I do what gives us the most leverage the fastest; point the sawed-off shotgun directly at David Rossi as he sits at the poker table. “Tell your men to stand down.” I order with unwavering firmness as I take a quick glance around the room.
Five men at the game table, five men (presumably bodyguards) watching, a guy at the bar, and four ladies who look like they’d like to do nothing more than run screaming from the room. And then there’s Rossi.
Rossi who gives an amused look up from his cards at me. “If you wanted to join the game all you had to do was give us a call and buy in.” He chuckles at his own joke.
I cock my weapon. “I won’t tell you again.”
The mobster sighs, rolls his eyes, and moves his hands as if encouraging us all to sit and settle down. “It’s alright, everyone, Hotchner here just has no manners is all.”
The men at the table are the first to relax. They begin to watch the scene as they might a show onstage while the bodyguards tuck their weapons away but maintain a sharp focus on the four of us. Then the bartender returns to his job and the girls to theirs.
“Now, tell me, to what do I owe this tremendous displeasure?” Rossi asks as he knocks the table to get the game going again.
"Outside what I'd consider a disturbing lapse in security?"
Rossi looks past me to Emily with a smirk, "Shake a little ass at the doorman, Emily?" Her name oozes out his mouth with enough disrespect my trigger finger twitches.
Emily saves me the trouble by charging forward. "Don't you Emily me!"
Morgan jumps ahead of her and blocks her way, "Not worth the effort, beautiful" he warns with a shake of his head.
The woman's glare stays, but she doesn't press forward. Thank god for small favors.
I relax the hammer of the gun to ensure it doesn’t go off before lowering it and walking over to the poker table, “Look, we could go a few rounds of increasingly less witty, more insulting, banter but neither of us have the time and neither does Jordan Todd.”
“This again?” Rossi cuts in.
“I’m not finished,” I cut back with a glare. “You’re getting fucked by your own people and the more you bury your head in the sand the more people are going to die because of it. Now maybe you don’t really care for Jordan as anything more than a good time and her getting murdered on your account is no big deal to to you," I set a hand down on the table and lean in towards Rossi, locking eyes with him, "but it is to me and I promise you, if that happens, I will spend the rest of my time making a point to fuck up your shit every which way I can.”
“Hey,” a loudmouth mobster to the left of me starts to stand up, “who the fuck are you to threaten Rossi?”
“Sit down.” I bark out with little more than a glance at him.
He does. He doesn’t want to, but he does.
“I’m guess Foyet’s behind this,” I turn back to Rossi, “he’s a greedy, egotistical, sadistic bastard and he’s on your payroll. What I can’t figure is why on Earth you’re protecting him. Is it pride David? You don’t want to admit you made a mistake in letting him be a part of your organization?”
The attitude in Rossi’s eyes changes in a single blink. I stand up straight once again and look down on the man knowing I’ve hit the nail on the head, he just doesn’t want to admit it aloud in front of everyone.
“Let’s go in the other room an talk.”
I nod in agreement then turn back, “Emily, come with us.” Emily heads over to me with that same look of annoyance she's had since Rossi addressed. I'm not all that fond of putting these two together, it could cause my talks with Rossi to break down into something personal and petty, but I need Emily. I need her for backup, for fact checking, and because she’s the only other one that might’ve known Jordan as well as Rossi. “Morgan stay out here with Reid.”
“No problem, boss,” Morgna replies in his more serious tone.
“Nobody leaves. If you need me you know what to do.”
Morgan nods and pulls back his coat a little to show he's still got possession of the other walkie-talkie.
Rossi stands up and tells his people he’ll be back shortly then heads towards the back bedroom with Emily and me following behind.
***
The moment I shut the door behind the three of us Rossi sighs, loosens then removes his tie, and settles on the bed. Without his men to play to I see now just how much he knows he’s screwed. It’s actually a bit of a relief. He's stubborn, not dense. Stubborn I work through and with.
“I’m trying to find a way to eliminate him,” the man confesses.
“That’s good, but Jordan might not have time to wait.” My tone relaxes just a little.
“I know.” There’s another sigh and he looks over at Emily, “I didn’t realize her disappearance had anything to do with me until recently.”
“Bullshit.” Emily counters sounding more hurt than angry from her spot by a dresser.
“I had a feeling but I didn’t…I didn’t actually know.” Rossi turns back to me. “Not until your boy, the boy, Dr Reid, was attacked outside my club.” My eyes narrow and he quickly adds with a raising of the hands of innocence, “Which I had nothing to do with.”
“But did nothing about.”
“I had my people fix him up and Lila take him back to her place.”
“And then paid off Foyet, again, I’m guessing.” I don’t exactly give credit for a good deed if an equally bad one is done right after.
“It was better than taking the risk of not paying him.” Rossi counters.
I can’t exactly argue that - paying Foyet might be keeping Jordan alive, might be preventing others from being attacked - so instead simply move on. “We need to know about any business you conduct by the tracks.”
“The tracks? You think that’s where Jordan’s being held?”
“We think you’re being set up and along the tracks is a good place to hide a kidnap victim,” Emily elaborates.
“So where would you hide someone along the tracks, David?” I ask. When Rossi hesitates I let my frustration show once more. I head over to him slowly but steadily, “This isn’t the time to be worried about your own crime-committing ass, Rossi. For once, do something selfless."
"And then get screwed after all this is done?"
"I’m not a cop anymore, I don’t give a shit what you have going on except as it relates to this case. This missing girl.” I stand over him, look down on him, let my building aggravation show in eyes and tone. “I have exactly one job to do, one task I want to complete, and that’s finding Jordan. Now stop dicking around and tell what I want to know!”
"When I need to find something out, I just go out and find somebody that knows more than me, and I go and I ask them. Sometimes I ask pretty hard." ~ Marv, Sin City
Next Section:
5 Against the House
Previous Sections:
Nightgale's Welcome Me
On Dangerous Ground
Safe Passage
The Big Scare
The Third Man
The Stallion: Part 1
The Stallion: Part 2
Trouble is My Business
Detour
Night Moves
I Love Trouble
Drive a Crooked Road