Terriers and poodles
He just has to keep digging at it, doesn't he? Has to keep interrogating me-
Then his fucking partner drags me in for actual, honest-to-God po-leece interrogation, and I start thinking that maybe criminals and thugs and Friends of Humanity have a point about our society's chosen authority figures.
Fuck. Then he looks at me. Just looks at me, with such sorrow and disappointment, and it's like Dad all over again. Detective John Beston is mourning for me, sitting across from me at that cheap-ass table, and I'm not even dead. But might as well be, right?
Rossi got kicked out of the room. Antagonistic. And sleeping with the witness. I'm sure he'll yell at his captain, and she'll take care of him, of course . . . and he'll still want to take care of me. Or is he mourning me, too? For a second, there by the windows, when he held my hand, rubbed the blood off my face, I thought that - the look in his eyes-
No. Doesn't matter. I didn't say anything of substance to them, either of them, and they can fucking well arrest me to get answers out of me if they really want.
And he can return my goddamned robe!
11/20/2005
Logfile from Leah of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Brownstone Apartments #300 - Leah
Plentiful light and air combine to make this tall and narrow apartment seem larger than its floor plan suggests. Directly opposite the entry's little foyer, a trio of high, leaded-glass windows dominates the main area: the central living room, the kitchen next to the entry, and the eating nook in the corner between kitchen and window. On the other side of the apartment lies private space: a tiny office next to the entry, the bedroom on the other side of a short hallway, and the bathroom between.
The decor is simple but pleasant with many touches of nature, from the polished woods of floor and furniture to the scattered arrangements of seashells, dried flowers, and framed landscapes that complete the essence of a peaceful haven.
--
Sunday: God's day. In Chris Rossi parlance, a different matter altogether, fallen hard and fast from the Church's grace and bidding fair to plummet farther. Temper in abeyance, a newspaper's front page rolled for smiting purpose in a hand, he ambles up the hallway to Leah Canto's apartment, girded in righteous judgment and -- for modesty's sake -- jeans and a T-shirt. A fist knocks doom upon the door. Thump. Thump. "Police. Open up." Thump.
...Thump. A softer one: a pillow, pushed off Leah's bed with her convulsive reentry into consciousness. Blearily she blinks towards the door, then at the clock, and then at the pillow (why not). "I'll kill him," she mumbles and drags herself out of bed and into a fuzzy, ratty blue terrycloth robe. Goes to the door. Opens it. Announces, "I'll kill you."
"Threatening bodily harm to a cop," mocks Rossi, pushing his way past Leah with peremptory assurance. "That'll look good on your record. We do a mug shot, you should wear that outfit. The blue sets off your teeth. --What the fuck, Canto. The /Friends/?"
Leah peers into the empty hallway for a suspended moment. Thought finally kicks in, kicks /her,/ and she shuts the door and turns around. "Huh?"
The newspaper slaps to the coffee table, showing an irrelevant byline; a frown skips across to Leah, measures her, then moves on to the kitchen. "You got coffee? Let me make you some coffee. Then we can have a little talk about you and some of your new associates. How's that?"
Leah blinks. "I don't have a record."
"You will if you keep this shit up," pitches the drawl of baritone from the kitchen. Cabinets slam; water sluices into the coffeemaker's carafe. "Go wash your face. Get find wherever it is you've been keeping your brain and stick it back in your head. Kidnapping, Canto. Not to mention association with a terrorist organization. What do you think you are, Barney? Think you'll squirm out of it with great big purple charm?"
"I'm not purple!" protests Leah on her wander back into the living room. Her hands hang loose and heavy in the robe's pockets, and she stares at him. "Barney? I just wrote a thing. Got me a lot of money. And press. Did you see me on TV?"
A green eye caps itself with black, and squints at Leah across the breakfast counter. "I had a date with a corpse. And then MA. You been reading the news, Canto? Miller came back. Woman's like a bad fart in a closed room. --Go wash your face."
Leah marvels, "Is my /face/ purple?"
"Yes." The sink shuts off with a squeak. Rossi turns away to busy himself with the coffee maker. "Now go wake up."
"Shit," Leah mutters and goes into the bathrooom. Tap on (hiss). Tap off (shush). She reemerges with her face scrubbed and beads of water outlining her sleep-soft features like translucent bangles. Patting absently at cheeks and brow to mop them up, she leans over the counter and studies him from there. "You're mad. At me."
Hips settled against the back counter, already perfumed by the first seductive, draft-borne scents of brewing coffee, Chris folds his arms across his chest and cants his head at Leah. "Mad," he echoes, mellowly enough."Why should I be mad? Turns out you associate with the Friends of Humanity. You were a knowing participant in a kidnapping. You /interviewed/ -- shit, Canto. You /know/ Professor Grey."
Cautiously Leah allows, "I've met him before. Am I under arrest, Detective? Do I call my lawyer?"
"I'm thinking about it," Rossi bites back, the first hint of temper stabbing through his voice. "What the fuck, Leah? Are you completely nuts?"
"No," and Leah slouches lower over the counter, supported on pushed-apart elbows and pushed-back feet. She picks at a chip in the Formica with her thumbnail. "I'm not nuts," she says bitterly. "I'm just doing my job, and fuck you, Rossi. You wanna drag me in to talk to the Feds or whoever about Dr. Grey, you go ahead, but--" hot pale eyes snap up at him, and her mouth is an ugly, squashed pink worm "--you can get the fuck out of my apartment otherwise."
"I'm making you coffee," the man informs with wild, sweet menace. Kindness. Between friends. He unfolds, leaning to brace his own arms wide against the sink's edge, sympathy carved deep on the hard face. "Everyone needs coffee to start out a productive day of black, malevolent evil-doing. It's the American way. Coffee, morning paper, then chaos."
Leah jerks away from the counter. "Asshole," she snarls and stalks away, fists tight at her sides.
The kitchen breathes in. Exhales coffee. Wonders, nicely, "Want some toast?"
"I want," Leah grits through her teeth, "to kill you, as I said. Get out of here, Rossi. Go."
"I'll take that as a yes," decides Rossi, and in short order, the toaster's metallic chitter announces it has been set. A cupboard bangs; ceramic clinks against the counter. "So what's the story?" he wonders more lazily, baritone coaxed into conversational timbres. "Do the Friends have some sort of hold on you? Threaten you? Your family? What?"
Leah turns on a slow, dug-in heel. She informs him coldly, "I am not a member of the Friends of Humanity."
So. The smell of toast twines lovingly around coffee; the refrigerator bangs more sharply than its wont, rattling glass in its slam. "Okay," Rossi says agreeably, while metal crashes on the stove. More glass tinkles; a drawer's scrape exhumes a fork. Scrambled eggs. "They've got to be breaking some kind of truth in advertising law with that name. You think? 'Friends of Humanity' my ass. So you're not a member. But they bring you in to interview the people they've kidnapped. What is that, professional courtesy?"
Leah shakes with the intensity of her fist-clenching. It ripples her voice with a false waver, since her expression is perfectly set and her gaze perfectly steady. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm not going to talk about it without a lawyer present."
Eggs crack, and are beaten. With prejudice. "You've already forgotten?" marvels Chris from the kitchen, and tips to crane through the breakfast nook, eyes wide and mocking. "There was a newspaper article with your name on it just the other day. What, four days ago. 'Leah Canto,' it said. --Maybe the Times misunderstood."
A pause. "Rossi." Soft. "Chris." Softer. "Please leave me alone. Put the eggs down and leave. Please."
The rattle of egg-beating silences. "Leah." Soft. "Not going to happen." Softer. "Not until you tell me what's going on."
"I have nothing to say to you," Leah says stiffly and sits down on the couch. Her back thus to him, she puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
"That's okay," Rossi says -- threatens -- with a return to normalcy, such as it is. The toaster clanks in victory; the hiss of eggs meeting skittle dulls the baritone voiceover. "I can just talk and you can listen. You want butter on your toast?"
Leah rubs the heel of one hand across her eye, then repeats the process on the other side. "No. I'm not hungry. Not even for a last meal, thanks. Do I get a cigarette, too?"
In answer, plates clatter and the kitchen sizzles. A few moments of blessed muteness (opinions hoard themselves behind will, beating restless, anxious wings against gritted teeth) and then Rossi is back in the living room at last, bearing bounty: plates of toast and eggs; mugs of hot, black coffee. "Here," he says, neutral. "Get some caffeine in you."
Leah jags a laugh. "Before you drag me downtown?"
"You said you weren't one of the Friends," reminds Chris, depositing his burden on the coffee table before claiming a mug for himself. He stands over her, considering. "You lying to me?"
Leah shakes her head, looking at plate and mug. "I don't want to go downtown," she tells him with the frayed edge of humor. "Lying to the police is bad. Even if everyone does it."
Bad, mouths Rossi, an unseen glitter of matching humor dawning, however grudgingly. "So," he says. And again: "How'd you get mixed up in the Friends?"
"I'm /not,/ dammit. I just write ... articles. Advocating freedom of expression -- you hear of that?" Sullenly Leah transfers her plate from coffee table to knees and stabs at inoffensive eggs. "Two sides to every story. I'm doing the other side, to balance all this shiny-happy 'we love mutants!' crap."
"Except the Friends aren't the /other side/, Canto," says Rossi with heavy-voiced reason, planting a hand on the sofa's back to lean. "That's like saying al-Qaeda's the other side of democracy. So tell me, how'd you get involved with the /Friends/?"
Leah mutters, "The hell I will," and shovels breakfast into her mouth.
Wonders Chris, grim, "Why not? They got something on you, don't they? Who'd they target? Your family?"
Leah chews and swallows. She picks up her coffee and has a swallow. She puts the mug back on the table. She carves off another bite of eggs and downs it. She does not, under any circumstance, look at her interrogator.
"That's it, isn't it?" The coffee, forgotten entirely, lowers. Rossi's shadow pitches, creeping across Leah's back. "They're threatening your family."
"Don't be ridiculous," Leah says in a low voice as she stares at the coffee mug on the coffee table and eats her eggs. "You've seen too many movies."
The baritone says over a current of cynicism, "You mean the kind where there are superheroes and supervillains and people have magic powers?" Arms fold; Rossi stoops to lean over them, head dropping black and intimate over Leah's shoulder. His voice softens, quiet. "Welcome to New York City, 2005. We can get them into protection, Canto."
Leah's body shakes. Grimly she keeps eating. "Back off, Rossi."
"All of them," says Rossi, cajoling, coaxing, the serpent at Eve's breast. His breath tickles her ear, stirring the sensitive hairs at her nape. Memories of tenderness, subverted to purpose. "Your mother, your sister -- you know they killed one of the cops at the Purity rally."
"One of my Uncle Jerry's boys. I know." Leah slides down the couch away from him. Her shoulders are still trembling, but she's still chewing eggs. "I went to the memorial service. It was nice."
"I was there." Treacherous Chris, voice nudging against her awareness, stroking lightly at the threads of conscience and morality. Coffee-warmed fingers touch that line of throat, brushing into the pulse beneath the skin. "Lots of dead. I probably would've been one of them, you think? Friends' bullet, Brotherhood bullet -- what's the difference?"
Leah says flatly, "No difference. Dead is dead. Isn't that what you always say? I'll go to your funeral, too. Dance at your wake."
A pause. Unseen, a muscle jerks in Chris's jaw. "You really believe the shit the Friends believe in?"
Eggs are done. Plate's on the table. Leah picks up her coffee and walks away from him, to the windows, and stands and sips and looks out. "Someone has to speak for them," she says, still without inflection. "Are you really surprised?"
"Yeah," says Rossi, frankly. "I am. I have a hard time believing you're that stupid."
Leah snorts into her mug. "No, you're not. You've never thought that much of me. I was Gabe's girlfriend, remember?"
"That was then. This is now. /Dammit/, Leah--" Frustration roils, slipping its leash for a moment. Is bitten back. Reason is the way to go. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
With a calm look back at him, composed and wan, Leah sips coffee. "Maybe. Why do you care? Do your job or leave me alone. I told you already."
Teeth show white. "Convenient peace and quiet," says Rossi, straightening to skirt around the sofa's edge and sink a hip on its arm. "Prefer not to have people pointing out that what you're doing is insane?"
Leah shrugs and returns to watching the day outside her apartment. "I don't care what they say. I'm doing my job, and I'm doing a good job of it. What else matters?"
"They're /terrorists/, Canto," bites Rossi, temper flaring again to skew patience. "Fucking /terrorists/. They kidnapped the guy. --You could get thrown in jail for being an accessory to a crime, goddammit."
Leah swallows, but keeps her voice steady. "Well, then I will. Journalists have done time before, and maybe I'll get a great expose out of it. You never know! Gotta look on the bright side, Rossi."
Anger, rarely distant, fans itself hot in the green eyes. Deliberate, careful, Rossi plants his mug on the coffee table, out of reach. Out of use. "You're pissing me off," he informs, Brooklyn-harsh. "What is this bullshit? You're not this stupid. You're not this ... goddammit, you're not this /stupid/. Don't tell me you're just doing it for the money, because I've seen you turn shit away for fucking /principles/."
"It's damned good money," muses Leah as she breathes across the top of her gently steaming mug. "And I got to be on Larry King Live. Me. All by myself. Never had /that/ happen before. He's a nice guy, you know? Even if the suspenders are now and always have been and always will be entirely too much. Silly old man."
"Is it the fucking /fame/?" rasps Rossi, incredulous for a split second before belief, more terrible, sweeps it away. "That's what they got you with? Putting you in the spotlight, getting the offers, having the exclusive?"
Leah angles a beatific smile over her shoulder. "It's just delightful to hear how well you think of me, Chris. Maybe you should just leave me as your whore and have done with it."
Again the muscle jumps, sharp-etched against the skin. "Nice try, Canto, but I've been related to Gabe longer than you've dated him. You're out of your league, if you're thinking of pushing me off. Tell me /why/."
Grimacing, Leah turns to sit on the sill. She daintily fluffs her robe across her legs and then sets the mug alongside her seat. "Or else?" she says, and some black memory whispers in her voice and peers out of her bleak eyes.
Or /else/. Rossi straightens on a hasty jerk, and strides at Leah to slam his arm into the wall beside her. Temper roils, barbed; hurt crouches behind its shield, bleeding. "I don't want to end up taking you downtown, Canto. --Dammit, Leah. Tell me you're the victim here." Almost a plea.
Leah looks up at him. A smile teases at her mouth. "You want to save me?" She runs a hand down his front, pensively watching fingers' glide, and looks up again. No smile now. "Knight in shining armor?"
"Fuck you," snaps Chris, bending into his arm -- into that hand's caress -- before catching her fingers in his. Squeezes. Gentles, with a forced press of will. "Tell me why you're helping them."
"I think," Leah says quietly but clearly, "that I should have an attorney present. I really do." She worms her hand free and presents both of them to him, wrists pressed together, waiting only for the cuffs. Her eyes are simmering, shimmering pools of old-leaf brown.
Chris stills. Regards her with shadowed, hungry eyes. "Don't do this."
Leah bites her lip. "I have to," she whispers. "Enough people have died, haven't they?" Her arms stay out, but they shake. They shake.
"They're threatening you," Chris murmurs back. Catches up one of those hands again -- binds its wrist with his strong, strong hand -- to press a desperate kiss against its fingers.
Blood trickles down Leah's chin. "I can't -- I can't talk -- Christ, Chris, you /know/ -- if I /say/ anything--"
"I'll help you," Rossi promises, reckless knight. Matching hurt catches at his breath; he drops to his haunches, a thumb warm and rough against the ribbon of red. "Don't do that. /Leah/. We'll put your family in protection--"
"No." Leah wrenches her head away from his touch, collects her hand again, hugs herself. "Chris, I can't say anything to you," she says to the dining table across the apartment, where she's looking and looking /hard./ "I can't, and I won't. Stop pushing me. Stop /pushing/ me!" Hysteria wends urgent through her voice, like the dribble of lip-bitten blood.
The green eyes chill behind the sweep of lashes, speculation (suspicion) sweeping across the apartment and its innocence. "It's okay, Canto," Rossi says in an abrupt about-face, dropping next to the woman to wind his arm around her shoulder. Reels in, determined. "I won't push. Look. I'm not pushing. Calm down."
Leah balls up her fist and pounds his shoulder. Just once, and softly. "Dammit," she despairs. "Why does everyone have to push? And push and push and-- I'm just doing my job! I'm doing my job! I'm reporting, and I'm getting paid for it, and I have new agents and a bodyguard and--" And hiccup. And tremors.
"Just following orders," says Chris in grave, biting mockery -- and then remembers a second later and atones, apologetic. "I didn't mean that. Shh. Leah." Grudging compassion wraps its sheath around his voice, dulling its edge; the arm tightens, contracting into Rossi comfort, Rossi security. Quiet, subdued, he says, "I'm sorry. You know what you're doing, I guess."
Leah hits harder. "This isn't fucking Nuremberg," she snarls.
"You're with a group that's talking genocide," Chris snaps back, unable, unwilling to hold his tongue. "Thin end of the wedge, Canto. You think-- never mind." And so much for comfort.
Leah shoves her head into his shoulder now. Canto stubbornness, Canto pigheadedness. "I'm not talking genocide. I'm not /with/ them. I'm /not./"
"You're preaching their word," Rossi says grimly, (and so much for silence and understanding.) "You're /spreading/ it. Helping them look like reasonable people so they can shove the shit they do under the carpet. Kidnapping. Murder. A dead /cop/."
"I didn't kill a cop!" Leah wails softly.
"You're an accessory to /kidnapping/," Chris reminds, bruising. "It's only a matter of /time/."
Leah breathes, "No," fervently, hotly, and whips her head through a negatory shake. "I had no idea what was going on with Dr. Grey. Before, during, after -- /nothing./ Any defense lawyer would have it thrown out of court for lack of a prima facie case. I'm doing my /job./" She clings to that, even as she clings to him.
Chris squeezes, a little harder, a little fiercer: angrily, (protectively, possessively) -- "A /crime/," he says with bitter emphasis. "A harmless old guy who gets traumatized, whose family gets to be terrorized, just because -- what, exactly? You /knew/ the guy'd been kidnapped, you knew who had them. Why the fuck didn't you say something, Canto?"
Leah lifts her head and asks bitterly, "Who was I going to tell? You? Lazzaro? And watch you happy bastards plunge in where you shouldn't and get shot down for your noble pains."
"God/da/-- Christ, Canto. What do you think this is, some kind of movie?" Exasperation hinges Chris's sweep up, the jerk of head that breezes black hair and flames the green eyes. "Believe it or not, the NYPD's got /people/ for this kind of shit. Give us a little credit for being professionals."
She cringes, but doesn't back down. "I'm not talking about it anymore." Leah stonewalls instead. Again; some more. "Give /me/ the same credit. It's my profession. It's my life. Things are quiet now, aren't they? So."
"It never stays quiet," says Chris, prophetic and far-eyed Cassandra. "So the rally's over. What's the next thing? Who's the next person they decide to shut up?"
Leah looks at him. "Me, probably."
Rossi bruises in earnest, one hand convulsing around a wrist. "/Leah/."
A sob, twisted out of her like the last spoonful of water from a worn, dirty dishrag. "/Stop/ it. Stop it! Let me go, Rossi!"
Belatedly realizing, muscles relax, manacles loosening and falling away: from wrist, from shoulders. "Do you have some kind of death wish?" Rossi demands, baritone cresting towards anger again, breaking past unease. "What the fuck is /wrong/ with you?"
Leah cradles her wrist and glares at him with rheumy eyes. "What, before or after a member of the New York Police Department assaulted me?"
The green-eyed gaze settles like moth wings on Leah's wrist, fleeting and light, before swinging back to the woman's face. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Chris breathes, making the names a curse -- and jerks upright to stalk away, punishing the floor for its mistress's failings.
Gingerly Leah resettles on the windowsill. She even picks up her coffee for a swallow (and a grimace: it's cooled by now). "Blasphemy suits you," she sends after him sarcastically.
The man's very body is an oath, carved out of obscenity and borne in profanity; he excoriates as he moves, snatching the discarded plate and fork from the coffee table to bear it into the kitchen. Things crash, slapping their sharp voiced protest into the sink. "You want a refill?"
"No." Leah rubs her forehead. Sounds tired. "I want to go back to bed and pretend this never happened."
"Bad dream?" asks the kitchen, falsely consoling. "The conversation? Or the Sinn Fein life? --You're not getting rid of me, Canto. I'm not Alyssa, or Melcross."
Leah says sweetly, "Or Gabe."
Something cracks in the kitchen. Water hisses. "Broke a plate," Chris reports, utterly without remorse. "Sorry about the fork. I'll bring some pliers by and fix it later."
"No need. I have pliers. I even know how to use them. Failing that--" Leah shrugs and folds her arms over soft, terryclothed belly "--I have other forks. You wanna ruin more of my stuff, or maybe beat me up some more, go ahead. Do what you have to do, Rossi. It's all any of us can do."
Hidden in the kitchen, Rossi braces his arms wide and slouches between them, head hanging, eyes closed, temper mangled by anxiety. Water whines between them, counterpoint to his silence. "You're making me crazy," he says at last, bland and conversational again. "I can't figure out whether to beat some sense into you, or lock you in a closet to keep you safe."
Leah croons, "You love me."
No answer. Another crack. "Broke your other plate," says Rossi, almost cheerfully. "I feel better."
"My poor plates. Don't make me come over there, asshole."
"They were ugly plates." Heartless Chris. He eyes them thoughtfully; slaps a large fragment against the counter to splinter it in half again. Crash. Tinkle. "You sure you don't want more coffee?"
Leah growls a curse. "Will it make you stop breaking my shit?"
"It's already broken. Do you want more coffee?"
"Breaking more of my shit, then," Leah clarifies angrily. She huffs a breath. "God. Fine. Coffee, yespleasethankyoumisterdetective."
Detective Rossi stalks out of the kitchen like a rumpled heron, bright-eyed and beady-, coffee carafe in hand. Pours. Glowers at Leah. Stalks back. Announces from that increasingly fractured nest, "Beston's primary on the John Grey kidnapping."
Leah sips. "So he'll be throwing me into the box today. D'you think I have time to get dressed first? I don't want to force you guys to give up a great psychological advantage, but the weather does leave me a little cold these days. Hate to get sick."
"Get dressed," Rossi suggests, over the thunk of plate portions being tossed in the garbage. "We're off until this afternoon."
"Thanks," Leah says and pushes off from the sill. Coffee mug goes on coffee table. Robe goes on couch. Naked woman goes in bedroom. And door? Door slams shut.
The sink hisses a few moments longer, exploited for the cleaning of utensils. Chris emerges into the empty living room, leans into the door, and inspects the apartment again: in silence, in deep and hostile suspicion. Straightens. Glances towards the bedroom -- and then stalks out, sweeping the robe with him. Trade for the old newspaper, left glaring on the coffee table: Friends of Humanity Suspected in Cop Death. The door closes, leaving the apartment in relative peace. Quiet guilt. The echoes of argument.
[Log ends.]
Then his fucking partner drags me in for actual, honest-to-God po-leece interrogation, and I start thinking that maybe criminals and thugs and Friends of Humanity have a point about our society's chosen authority figures.
Fuck. Then he looks at me. Just looks at me, with such sorrow and disappointment, and it's like Dad all over again. Detective John Beston is mourning for me, sitting across from me at that cheap-ass table, and I'm not even dead. But might as well be, right?
Rossi got kicked out of the room. Antagonistic. And sleeping with the witness. I'm sure he'll yell at his captain, and she'll take care of him, of course . . . and he'll still want to take care of me. Or is he mourning me, too? For a second, there by the windows, when he held my hand, rubbed the blood off my face, I thought that - the look in his eyes-
No. Doesn't matter. I didn't say anything of substance to them, either of them, and they can fucking well arrest me to get answers out of me if they really want.
And he can return my goddamned robe!
11/20/2005
Logfile from Leah of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Brownstone Apartments #300 - Leah
Plentiful light and air combine to make this tall and narrow apartment seem larger than its floor plan suggests. Directly opposite the entry's little foyer, a trio of high, leaded-glass windows dominates the main area: the central living room, the kitchen next to the entry, and the eating nook in the corner between kitchen and window. On the other side of the apartment lies private space: a tiny office next to the entry, the bedroom on the other side of a short hallway, and the bathroom between.
The decor is simple but pleasant with many touches of nature, from the polished woods of floor and furniture to the scattered arrangements of seashells, dried flowers, and framed landscapes that complete the essence of a peaceful haven.
--
Sunday: God's day. In Chris Rossi parlance, a different matter altogether, fallen hard and fast from the Church's grace and bidding fair to plummet farther. Temper in abeyance, a newspaper's front page rolled for smiting purpose in a hand, he ambles up the hallway to Leah Canto's apartment, girded in righteous judgment and -- for modesty's sake -- jeans and a T-shirt. A fist knocks doom upon the door. Thump. Thump. "Police. Open up." Thump.
...Thump. A softer one: a pillow, pushed off Leah's bed with her convulsive reentry into consciousness. Blearily she blinks towards the door, then at the clock, and then at the pillow (why not). "I'll kill him," she mumbles and drags herself out of bed and into a fuzzy, ratty blue terrycloth robe. Goes to the door. Opens it. Announces, "I'll kill you."
"Threatening bodily harm to a cop," mocks Rossi, pushing his way past Leah with peremptory assurance. "That'll look good on your record. We do a mug shot, you should wear that outfit. The blue sets off your teeth. --What the fuck, Canto. The /Friends/?"
Leah peers into the empty hallway for a suspended moment. Thought finally kicks in, kicks /her,/ and she shuts the door and turns around. "Huh?"
The newspaper slaps to the coffee table, showing an irrelevant byline; a frown skips across to Leah, measures her, then moves on to the kitchen. "You got coffee? Let me make you some coffee. Then we can have a little talk about you and some of your new associates. How's that?"
Leah blinks. "I don't have a record."
"You will if you keep this shit up," pitches the drawl of baritone from the kitchen. Cabinets slam; water sluices into the coffeemaker's carafe. "Go wash your face. Get find wherever it is you've been keeping your brain and stick it back in your head. Kidnapping, Canto. Not to mention association with a terrorist organization. What do you think you are, Barney? Think you'll squirm out of it with great big purple charm?"
"I'm not purple!" protests Leah on her wander back into the living room. Her hands hang loose and heavy in the robe's pockets, and she stares at him. "Barney? I just wrote a thing. Got me a lot of money. And press. Did you see me on TV?"
A green eye caps itself with black, and squints at Leah across the breakfast counter. "I had a date with a corpse. And then MA. You been reading the news, Canto? Miller came back. Woman's like a bad fart in a closed room. --Go wash your face."
Leah marvels, "Is my /face/ purple?"
"Yes." The sink shuts off with a squeak. Rossi turns away to busy himself with the coffee maker. "Now go wake up."
"Shit," Leah mutters and goes into the bathrooom. Tap on (hiss). Tap off (shush). She reemerges with her face scrubbed and beads of water outlining her sleep-soft features like translucent bangles. Patting absently at cheeks and brow to mop them up, she leans over the counter and studies him from there. "You're mad. At me."
Hips settled against the back counter, already perfumed by the first seductive, draft-borne scents of brewing coffee, Chris folds his arms across his chest and cants his head at Leah. "Mad," he echoes, mellowly enough."Why should I be mad? Turns out you associate with the Friends of Humanity. You were a knowing participant in a kidnapping. You /interviewed/ -- shit, Canto. You /know/ Professor Grey."
Cautiously Leah allows, "I've met him before. Am I under arrest, Detective? Do I call my lawyer?"
"I'm thinking about it," Rossi bites back, the first hint of temper stabbing through his voice. "What the fuck, Leah? Are you completely nuts?"
"No," and Leah slouches lower over the counter, supported on pushed-apart elbows and pushed-back feet. She picks at a chip in the Formica with her thumbnail. "I'm not nuts," she says bitterly. "I'm just doing my job, and fuck you, Rossi. You wanna drag me in to talk to the Feds or whoever about Dr. Grey, you go ahead, but--" hot pale eyes snap up at him, and her mouth is an ugly, squashed pink worm "--you can get the fuck out of my apartment otherwise."
"I'm making you coffee," the man informs with wild, sweet menace. Kindness. Between friends. He unfolds, leaning to brace his own arms wide against the sink's edge, sympathy carved deep on the hard face. "Everyone needs coffee to start out a productive day of black, malevolent evil-doing. It's the American way. Coffee, morning paper, then chaos."
Leah jerks away from the counter. "Asshole," she snarls and stalks away, fists tight at her sides.
The kitchen breathes in. Exhales coffee. Wonders, nicely, "Want some toast?"
"I want," Leah grits through her teeth, "to kill you, as I said. Get out of here, Rossi. Go."
"I'll take that as a yes," decides Rossi, and in short order, the toaster's metallic chitter announces it has been set. A cupboard bangs; ceramic clinks against the counter. "So what's the story?" he wonders more lazily, baritone coaxed into conversational timbres. "Do the Friends have some sort of hold on you? Threaten you? Your family? What?"
Leah turns on a slow, dug-in heel. She informs him coldly, "I am not a member of the Friends of Humanity."
So. The smell of toast twines lovingly around coffee; the refrigerator bangs more sharply than its wont, rattling glass in its slam. "Okay," Rossi says agreeably, while metal crashes on the stove. More glass tinkles; a drawer's scrape exhumes a fork. Scrambled eggs. "They've got to be breaking some kind of truth in advertising law with that name. You think? 'Friends of Humanity' my ass. So you're not a member. But they bring you in to interview the people they've kidnapped. What is that, professional courtesy?"
Leah shakes with the intensity of her fist-clenching. It ripples her voice with a false waver, since her expression is perfectly set and her gaze perfectly steady. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm not going to talk about it without a lawyer present."
Eggs crack, and are beaten. With prejudice. "You've already forgotten?" marvels Chris from the kitchen, and tips to crane through the breakfast nook, eyes wide and mocking. "There was a newspaper article with your name on it just the other day. What, four days ago. 'Leah Canto,' it said. --Maybe the Times misunderstood."
A pause. "Rossi." Soft. "Chris." Softer. "Please leave me alone. Put the eggs down and leave. Please."
The rattle of egg-beating silences. "Leah." Soft. "Not going to happen." Softer. "Not until you tell me what's going on."
"I have nothing to say to you," Leah says stiffly and sits down on the couch. Her back thus to him, she puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
"That's okay," Rossi says -- threatens -- with a return to normalcy, such as it is. The toaster clanks in victory; the hiss of eggs meeting skittle dulls the baritone voiceover. "I can just talk and you can listen. You want butter on your toast?"
Leah rubs the heel of one hand across her eye, then repeats the process on the other side. "No. I'm not hungry. Not even for a last meal, thanks. Do I get a cigarette, too?"
In answer, plates clatter and the kitchen sizzles. A few moments of blessed muteness (opinions hoard themselves behind will, beating restless, anxious wings against gritted teeth) and then Rossi is back in the living room at last, bearing bounty: plates of toast and eggs; mugs of hot, black coffee. "Here," he says, neutral. "Get some caffeine in you."
Leah jags a laugh. "Before you drag me downtown?"
"You said you weren't one of the Friends," reminds Chris, depositing his burden on the coffee table before claiming a mug for himself. He stands over her, considering. "You lying to me?"
Leah shakes her head, looking at plate and mug. "I don't want to go downtown," she tells him with the frayed edge of humor. "Lying to the police is bad. Even if everyone does it."
Bad, mouths Rossi, an unseen glitter of matching humor dawning, however grudgingly. "So," he says. And again: "How'd you get mixed up in the Friends?"
"I'm /not,/ dammit. I just write ... articles. Advocating freedom of expression -- you hear of that?" Sullenly Leah transfers her plate from coffee table to knees and stabs at inoffensive eggs. "Two sides to every story. I'm doing the other side, to balance all this shiny-happy 'we love mutants!' crap."
"Except the Friends aren't the /other side/, Canto," says Rossi with heavy-voiced reason, planting a hand on the sofa's back to lean. "That's like saying al-Qaeda's the other side of democracy. So tell me, how'd you get involved with the /Friends/?"
Leah mutters, "The hell I will," and shovels breakfast into her mouth.
Wonders Chris, grim, "Why not? They got something on you, don't they? Who'd they target? Your family?"
Leah chews and swallows. She picks up her coffee and has a swallow. She puts the mug back on the table. She carves off another bite of eggs and downs it. She does not, under any circumstance, look at her interrogator.
"That's it, isn't it?" The coffee, forgotten entirely, lowers. Rossi's shadow pitches, creeping across Leah's back. "They're threatening your family."
"Don't be ridiculous," Leah says in a low voice as she stares at the coffee mug on the coffee table and eats her eggs. "You've seen too many movies."
The baritone says over a current of cynicism, "You mean the kind where there are superheroes and supervillains and people have magic powers?" Arms fold; Rossi stoops to lean over them, head dropping black and intimate over Leah's shoulder. His voice softens, quiet. "Welcome to New York City, 2005. We can get them into protection, Canto."
Leah's body shakes. Grimly she keeps eating. "Back off, Rossi."
"All of them," says Rossi, cajoling, coaxing, the serpent at Eve's breast. His breath tickles her ear, stirring the sensitive hairs at her nape. Memories of tenderness, subverted to purpose. "Your mother, your sister -- you know they killed one of the cops at the Purity rally."
"One of my Uncle Jerry's boys. I know." Leah slides down the couch away from him. Her shoulders are still trembling, but she's still chewing eggs. "I went to the memorial service. It was nice."
"I was there." Treacherous Chris, voice nudging against her awareness, stroking lightly at the threads of conscience and morality. Coffee-warmed fingers touch that line of throat, brushing into the pulse beneath the skin. "Lots of dead. I probably would've been one of them, you think? Friends' bullet, Brotherhood bullet -- what's the difference?"
Leah says flatly, "No difference. Dead is dead. Isn't that what you always say? I'll go to your funeral, too. Dance at your wake."
A pause. Unseen, a muscle jerks in Chris's jaw. "You really believe the shit the Friends believe in?"
Eggs are done. Plate's on the table. Leah picks up her coffee and walks away from him, to the windows, and stands and sips and looks out. "Someone has to speak for them," she says, still without inflection. "Are you really surprised?"
"Yeah," says Rossi, frankly. "I am. I have a hard time believing you're that stupid."
Leah snorts into her mug. "No, you're not. You've never thought that much of me. I was Gabe's girlfriend, remember?"
"That was then. This is now. /Dammit/, Leah--" Frustration roils, slipping its leash for a moment. Is bitten back. Reason is the way to go. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
With a calm look back at him, composed and wan, Leah sips coffee. "Maybe. Why do you care? Do your job or leave me alone. I told you already."
Teeth show white. "Convenient peace and quiet," says Rossi, straightening to skirt around the sofa's edge and sink a hip on its arm. "Prefer not to have people pointing out that what you're doing is insane?"
Leah shrugs and returns to watching the day outside her apartment. "I don't care what they say. I'm doing my job, and I'm doing a good job of it. What else matters?"
"They're /terrorists/, Canto," bites Rossi, temper flaring again to skew patience. "Fucking /terrorists/. They kidnapped the guy. --You could get thrown in jail for being an accessory to a crime, goddammit."
Leah swallows, but keeps her voice steady. "Well, then I will. Journalists have done time before, and maybe I'll get a great expose out of it. You never know! Gotta look on the bright side, Rossi."
Anger, rarely distant, fans itself hot in the green eyes. Deliberate, careful, Rossi plants his mug on the coffee table, out of reach. Out of use. "You're pissing me off," he informs, Brooklyn-harsh. "What is this bullshit? You're not this stupid. You're not this ... goddammit, you're not this /stupid/. Don't tell me you're just doing it for the money, because I've seen you turn shit away for fucking /principles/."
"It's damned good money," muses Leah as she breathes across the top of her gently steaming mug. "And I got to be on Larry King Live. Me. All by myself. Never had /that/ happen before. He's a nice guy, you know? Even if the suspenders are now and always have been and always will be entirely too much. Silly old man."
"Is it the fucking /fame/?" rasps Rossi, incredulous for a split second before belief, more terrible, sweeps it away. "That's what they got you with? Putting you in the spotlight, getting the offers, having the exclusive?"
Leah angles a beatific smile over her shoulder. "It's just delightful to hear how well you think of me, Chris. Maybe you should just leave me as your whore and have done with it."
Again the muscle jumps, sharp-etched against the skin. "Nice try, Canto, but I've been related to Gabe longer than you've dated him. You're out of your league, if you're thinking of pushing me off. Tell me /why/."
Grimacing, Leah turns to sit on the sill. She daintily fluffs her robe across her legs and then sets the mug alongside her seat. "Or else?" she says, and some black memory whispers in her voice and peers out of her bleak eyes.
Or /else/. Rossi straightens on a hasty jerk, and strides at Leah to slam his arm into the wall beside her. Temper roils, barbed; hurt crouches behind its shield, bleeding. "I don't want to end up taking you downtown, Canto. --Dammit, Leah. Tell me you're the victim here." Almost a plea.
Leah looks up at him. A smile teases at her mouth. "You want to save me?" She runs a hand down his front, pensively watching fingers' glide, and looks up again. No smile now. "Knight in shining armor?"
"Fuck you," snaps Chris, bending into his arm -- into that hand's caress -- before catching her fingers in his. Squeezes. Gentles, with a forced press of will. "Tell me why you're helping them."
"I think," Leah says quietly but clearly, "that I should have an attorney present. I really do." She worms her hand free and presents both of them to him, wrists pressed together, waiting only for the cuffs. Her eyes are simmering, shimmering pools of old-leaf brown.
Chris stills. Regards her with shadowed, hungry eyes. "Don't do this."
Leah bites her lip. "I have to," she whispers. "Enough people have died, haven't they?" Her arms stay out, but they shake. They shake.
"They're threatening you," Chris murmurs back. Catches up one of those hands again -- binds its wrist with his strong, strong hand -- to press a desperate kiss against its fingers.
Blood trickles down Leah's chin. "I can't -- I can't talk -- Christ, Chris, you /know/ -- if I /say/ anything--"
"I'll help you," Rossi promises, reckless knight. Matching hurt catches at his breath; he drops to his haunches, a thumb warm and rough against the ribbon of red. "Don't do that. /Leah/. We'll put your family in protection--"
"No." Leah wrenches her head away from his touch, collects her hand again, hugs herself. "Chris, I can't say anything to you," she says to the dining table across the apartment, where she's looking and looking /hard./ "I can't, and I won't. Stop pushing me. Stop /pushing/ me!" Hysteria wends urgent through her voice, like the dribble of lip-bitten blood.
The green eyes chill behind the sweep of lashes, speculation (suspicion) sweeping across the apartment and its innocence. "It's okay, Canto," Rossi says in an abrupt about-face, dropping next to the woman to wind his arm around her shoulder. Reels in, determined. "I won't push. Look. I'm not pushing. Calm down."
Leah balls up her fist and pounds his shoulder. Just once, and softly. "Dammit," she despairs. "Why does everyone have to push? And push and push and-- I'm just doing my job! I'm doing my job! I'm reporting, and I'm getting paid for it, and I have new agents and a bodyguard and--" And hiccup. And tremors.
"Just following orders," says Chris in grave, biting mockery -- and then remembers a second later and atones, apologetic. "I didn't mean that. Shh. Leah." Grudging compassion wraps its sheath around his voice, dulling its edge; the arm tightens, contracting into Rossi comfort, Rossi security. Quiet, subdued, he says, "I'm sorry. You know what you're doing, I guess."
Leah hits harder. "This isn't fucking Nuremberg," she snarls.
"You're with a group that's talking genocide," Chris snaps back, unable, unwilling to hold his tongue. "Thin end of the wedge, Canto. You think-- never mind." And so much for comfort.
Leah shoves her head into his shoulder now. Canto stubbornness, Canto pigheadedness. "I'm not talking genocide. I'm not /with/ them. I'm /not./"
"You're preaching their word," Rossi says grimly, (and so much for silence and understanding.) "You're /spreading/ it. Helping them look like reasonable people so they can shove the shit they do under the carpet. Kidnapping. Murder. A dead /cop/."
"I didn't kill a cop!" Leah wails softly.
"You're an accessory to /kidnapping/," Chris reminds, bruising. "It's only a matter of /time/."
Leah breathes, "No," fervently, hotly, and whips her head through a negatory shake. "I had no idea what was going on with Dr. Grey. Before, during, after -- /nothing./ Any defense lawyer would have it thrown out of court for lack of a prima facie case. I'm doing my /job./" She clings to that, even as she clings to him.
Chris squeezes, a little harder, a little fiercer: angrily, (protectively, possessively) -- "A /crime/," he says with bitter emphasis. "A harmless old guy who gets traumatized, whose family gets to be terrorized, just because -- what, exactly? You /knew/ the guy'd been kidnapped, you knew who had them. Why the fuck didn't you say something, Canto?"
Leah lifts her head and asks bitterly, "Who was I going to tell? You? Lazzaro? And watch you happy bastards plunge in where you shouldn't and get shot down for your noble pains."
"God/da/-- Christ, Canto. What do you think this is, some kind of movie?" Exasperation hinges Chris's sweep up, the jerk of head that breezes black hair and flames the green eyes. "Believe it or not, the NYPD's got /people/ for this kind of shit. Give us a little credit for being professionals."
She cringes, but doesn't back down. "I'm not talking about it anymore." Leah stonewalls instead. Again; some more. "Give /me/ the same credit. It's my profession. It's my life. Things are quiet now, aren't they? So."
"It never stays quiet," says Chris, prophetic and far-eyed Cassandra. "So the rally's over. What's the next thing? Who's the next person they decide to shut up?"
Leah looks at him. "Me, probably."
Rossi bruises in earnest, one hand convulsing around a wrist. "/Leah/."
A sob, twisted out of her like the last spoonful of water from a worn, dirty dishrag. "/Stop/ it. Stop it! Let me go, Rossi!"
Belatedly realizing, muscles relax, manacles loosening and falling away: from wrist, from shoulders. "Do you have some kind of death wish?" Rossi demands, baritone cresting towards anger again, breaking past unease. "What the fuck is /wrong/ with you?"
Leah cradles her wrist and glares at him with rheumy eyes. "What, before or after a member of the New York Police Department assaulted me?"
The green-eyed gaze settles like moth wings on Leah's wrist, fleeting and light, before swinging back to the woman's face. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Chris breathes, making the names a curse -- and jerks upright to stalk away, punishing the floor for its mistress's failings.
Gingerly Leah resettles on the windowsill. She even picks up her coffee for a swallow (and a grimace: it's cooled by now). "Blasphemy suits you," she sends after him sarcastically.
The man's very body is an oath, carved out of obscenity and borne in profanity; he excoriates as he moves, snatching the discarded plate and fork from the coffee table to bear it into the kitchen. Things crash, slapping their sharp voiced protest into the sink. "You want a refill?"
"No." Leah rubs her forehead. Sounds tired. "I want to go back to bed and pretend this never happened."
"Bad dream?" asks the kitchen, falsely consoling. "The conversation? Or the Sinn Fein life? --You're not getting rid of me, Canto. I'm not Alyssa, or Melcross."
Leah says sweetly, "Or Gabe."
Something cracks in the kitchen. Water hisses. "Broke a plate," Chris reports, utterly without remorse. "Sorry about the fork. I'll bring some pliers by and fix it later."
"No need. I have pliers. I even know how to use them. Failing that--" Leah shrugs and folds her arms over soft, terryclothed belly "--I have other forks. You wanna ruin more of my stuff, or maybe beat me up some more, go ahead. Do what you have to do, Rossi. It's all any of us can do."
Hidden in the kitchen, Rossi braces his arms wide and slouches between them, head hanging, eyes closed, temper mangled by anxiety. Water whines between them, counterpoint to his silence. "You're making me crazy," he says at last, bland and conversational again. "I can't figure out whether to beat some sense into you, or lock you in a closet to keep you safe."
Leah croons, "You love me."
No answer. Another crack. "Broke your other plate," says Rossi, almost cheerfully. "I feel better."
"My poor plates. Don't make me come over there, asshole."
"They were ugly plates." Heartless Chris. He eyes them thoughtfully; slaps a large fragment against the counter to splinter it in half again. Crash. Tinkle. "You sure you don't want more coffee?"
Leah growls a curse. "Will it make you stop breaking my shit?"
"It's already broken. Do you want more coffee?"
"Breaking more of my shit, then," Leah clarifies angrily. She huffs a breath. "God. Fine. Coffee, yespleasethankyoumisterdetective."
Detective Rossi stalks out of the kitchen like a rumpled heron, bright-eyed and beady-, coffee carafe in hand. Pours. Glowers at Leah. Stalks back. Announces from that increasingly fractured nest, "Beston's primary on the John Grey kidnapping."
Leah sips. "So he'll be throwing me into the box today. D'you think I have time to get dressed first? I don't want to force you guys to give up a great psychological advantage, but the weather does leave me a little cold these days. Hate to get sick."
"Get dressed," Rossi suggests, over the thunk of plate portions being tossed in the garbage. "We're off until this afternoon."
"Thanks," Leah says and pushes off from the sill. Coffee mug goes on coffee table. Robe goes on couch. Naked woman goes in bedroom. And door? Door slams shut.
The sink hisses a few moments longer, exploited for the cleaning of utensils. Chris emerges into the empty living room, leans into the door, and inspects the apartment again: in silence, in deep and hostile suspicion. Straightens. Glances towards the bedroom -- and then stalks out, sweeping the robe with him. Trade for the old newspaper, left glaring on the coffee table: Friends of Humanity Suspected in Cop Death. The door closes, leaving the apartment in relative peace. Quiet guilt. The echoes of argument.
[Log ends.]