11/27/07 - Jubilee
---
The dregs of a riot still remains in the Homicide squad room. Tables are pushed out of their orderly islands; chairs, overturned, are flung like corpses across the peeling linoleum floor. More than one man has a flushed face and irritation sparking in his eyes.
Chris Rossi, lounged behind his desk with his feet propped on its edge, is laughing.
"Goddamn," he tells Sal Tucci, who is busy inspecting his face in the warped reflection of the coffee pot. A fledgling black eye is already swelling his eye shut. "I wish I had that on /tape/."
"Yo, Rossi. Visitoooooor," bellows an underpaid officer who is being overpaid to act as a guide through the interior of the NYPD's 19th precinct. He warbles the word, stuffing it with implications that really /don't/ match the shiny-haired girl (/woman/, thank you very much) who bounces along behind him, eyeing everything with a look that wavers between intimidated and blustery. Jubilee slides out from behind and almost appears to teleport to the side of Rossi's desk. "Hi!"
"Jesus," says Rossi.
"Oh, crap," says Tucci, ghosting away with a coward's haste.
Chris is more temperate in his second reaction; he eyes Jubilee with a friendly nonchalance that (mostly) covers the snipe of alarm in the pale, smiling eyes. "It's the Keebler Elf. What's up, kid? Don't tell me you're--" In view of past relations, it is perhaps not /entirely/ unexpected that his gaze should automatically check her wrists for cuffs.
"Don't tell you I'm what?" she asks, eyes glinting with mischief that is only tempered by her reason for being here. She's dressed for the cooler weather in a dark green, long sleeved t-shirt contrasting against the canary yellow sleeveless vest worn over it. Rainbow colored scarf, hat, and gloves make the entire outfit far too bright for the interior of the department.
"--/not/ under arrest," Chris says, but there's a question in it, for all it's phrased as a statement. His eyebrow arches past her towards the guiding uniform -- but he's gone, his charge dismissed -- and so it's back to her again, with a faint wrinkle between his brows. "Not that it's not a pleasure to see you and all that, but what gives? Everything okay?"
Jubilee tilts her head, then looks around for a place to sit. She drags a chair over from a nearby empty desk and plops herself into it before asking, "Am I supposed to tell you I /am/ under arrest, or I'm /not/? Anyways, I'm not." She attempts to get herself more comfortable by pulling her feet up under her in a cross-legged position, but the boots don't stay very well. Then she utters the phrase he has been dreading every since he met her. "I need a favor."
Chris's expression shifts. It is a tiny thing, almost imperceptible: a small door closing behind the crooked twist of mouth and the humor in his eyes. "If you're thinking about pulling a heist on a candy store, count me out," he says, folding his hands across his stomach. His shirt is dark blue and open at the collar; his tie is pale grey and loosened at the throat. Both wrinkle under that weight of fingers. "I got enough trouble without letting you lose on the city."
Jubilee snorts and crinkles her nose, oblivious to any doors opening or closing. "Puhleeze. As if /I'd/ need your help ta do that," she scoffs, then leans forward and puts her elbows on her knees. "I was hopin' you might see if there were any kinda... you know. Records or somethin' on someone." She blinks up at him in all seriousness now, eyes dark and guiless. "It might be important. It might not be, but if it is, it's /real/ important."
Chris's feet, housed in scuffed broghans, slide off the desk to clump onto the ground. "Records," he says, dragging himself up to slouch over his desk instead. Elbows settle on the file-covered blotter; he fists his cheek to regard Jubilee, eyes hooded and sleepy. "What kinda records? You talking a yellow sheet? Who's this person, and why?"
"Yellow sheet?" The term doesn't register at all. "I mean like... any criminal history. Allegations? Suspicious stuff?" Jubilee's forehead wrinkles and she lowers her voice, dropping her eyes to where she's picking at a hole frayed into her jeans just above the knee. "There's this guy at this church out in Westchestire. Faith and Family or something like that. One of my friends is worried about one o' /his/ friends that goes there. Thinks somethin's... just off. About this preacher and his friend. She's like... a kid." Implication lays heavy in her voice and uncomfortable movements.
The cop's mouth flattens. Another expression shift; this one, more obvious, redraws his face into hard, harsh lines. "How old's the girl, and what's making him think that it's off? --Faith and Family?" His pen is already in motion, scratching out the name on a long, wide notepad.
"Um." Jubilee straightens and twists her face up. "16ish, maybe? She was one of the girls trapped in that basement with us a few weeks ago. Remember that? I mean, one of the girls not... you know. /Us/. From school." She drops her feet to the floor and scoots to the edge of the chair. "She's just really, /really/ dependent on this preacher dude. Always at the church, always happy, always... I dunno. Just off. And her friend's run away from the church and no one can find /her/. /I/ don't know her that well, but /my/ friend is worried. He doesn't really have anything more than that, but I told him I'd help him kind of look into it, and I thought that maybe if he'd been creepy somewhere else..." She hitches a shoulder up into a half shrug, looking at him beseechingly.
Eyelids slide half-closed over the glitter of green, the color almost lost in the splice of black. "Got a name for this preacher?" Chris asks. His pen nib taps small black freckles across the Westchester church. "Out of my jurisdiction, but I can pull the yell-- the rap sheet -- if I got a name. Who're the girls? Has someone reported the one who ran away as missing?"
Jubilee's answer is prompt, if less than informative. "Jack. I don't think I've heard his last name." She shakes her head and answers, "I don't think so. She was kinda... not from around here and stayin' at the church or somethin'. Not sure."
"So for all you know, she's a vagrant anyway. I mean, she could've started out a runaway instead of ending up one." Tap-tap-tap goes the pen, before scribbling the preacher's name: Jack. "You met this guy?"
Jubilee shakes her head. "I could if you want? I could be all undercover for you." This offer is oddly bright and eager. Idiot child.
"/No/." The pen drops with a thud. Chris straightens. "Jesus-- absolutely /not/. Are you crazy?" Stupid question.
"Why not? I'm not gonna get all zombified!" She sits upright, indignant for all the wrong reasons. "I could do it. I'm not a /total/ ditz."
"That's not the point. You're saying there's a potentially dangerous situation. How do you know you're not going to-- wait, zombified?" With mutants, one can /never be entirely sure/. Chris's brow knits. "When you say 'zombified,' you're not talking about ... actually dead, right? Or eating brains?"
"I dunno! Autumn and Amp were like all--" Jubilee holds her arms out in front of her, hands dangling down, and assumes a blank-eyed, slack jawed expression. And then she corrects herself by turning her lips up into an imitation of a smile.
"Drugs in the communion wine?" Chris is quizzical. Mutants. You /never know/. "Is it like -- a cult or something?"
Jubilee drops her arms and life returns to her face. She shrugs. "I dunno. I haven't been. Jeremy thinks maybe so. But a lot of people go to it. Another one of our kids does too, but he's not--" She wiggles her fingers near her temple and warbles, "do de do de doo."
Chris stares blankly at Jubilee for a second, then scrubs his face with a tired hand. "This is my life," he says, and writes down, 'Amp' and 'Autumn.' "I'll look into it. It'll take me a while. I got other cases, and just /Jack/ doesn't really take me very far. I'll talk to the Westchester guys and ask around. That work for you?"
Jubilee nods and grins. "That's fine. Appreciate it. I'll let Jeremy know someone's lookin' into it. It'll be a relief, I think." She hops up and bends to impulse to lean over and give him an awkward, spontaneous hug. "Thanks, Leather."
Irritation and amusement speckles the surprised blink that accepts that quick caress. Unthinking physical response wraps an arm around Jubilee's shoulders and squeezes gently before letting her go. "Stop calling me Leather." Chris scuffs that glossy black head before it can escape. "Show a little respect for my age, squirt."
"That's why I'm not callin' ya cow hide," Jubilee chirps, letting her head roll in the direction of the scuff before bringing it up to flash a wide grin at him. She detangles and turns to look back in the direction she came from, trying to identify the door that deposited her in here. "If I take a wrong turn in here, am I gonna end up with all the dead bodies?"
"Serve you right," is Chris's verdict, though he flaps a hand to dismiss her a half-second later with the added instruction, "Turn right after you hit the hall. Go straight. You'll end up in the lobby, eventually. --Stay out of trouble. And /no undercover/." The pen points at Jubilee, a severe line down which he squints. "I'm not kidding."
Jubilee crinkles her nose at him and snaps off a smart ass salute before scampering for the door.
[Log ends]
NO. Jubilee comes to sic Rossi on the trail of a BAD MAN. HI, PASTOR JACK!
"Jack? That's all you got? Way to narrow it down, genius."
"I got a church name in Westchester. The guy's a pastor there. How hard could it be?"
John squints at him, then plants his elbow in the middle of his report, and points at Chris. "You got that look," he accuses.
"What look?"
"Don't even try that crap on me. This is going to turn into one of your witch hunts, isn't it? Minister, kids, suspicious behavior--" he ticks off the tally on his fingers, "--four days later the Cap's got you on the carpet and is ripping your balls off."
"I'm making a phone call. That's all I'm doing."
"You and priests, man. What the hell is it with you and priests?" A rhetorical question.
Chris jabs at the numbers on his desk phone, pausing to flip through his notes for a contact in the Westchester PD. He has more than a few, after all this time. "Sparky was thinking about going undercover."
That, finally, gets a sympathetic response. John drops his head in his hand. "Jesus. --Dial, already."
Chris dials.
The dregs of a riot still remains in the Homicide squad room. Tables are pushed out of their orderly islands; chairs, overturned, are flung like corpses across the peeling linoleum floor. More than one man has a flushed face and irritation sparking in his eyes.
Chris Rossi, lounged behind his desk with his feet propped on its edge, is laughing.
"Goddamn," he tells Sal Tucci, who is busy inspecting his face in the warped reflection of the coffee pot. A fledgling black eye is already swelling his eye shut. "I wish I had that on /tape/."
"Yo, Rossi. Visitoooooor," bellows an underpaid officer who is being overpaid to act as a guide through the interior of the NYPD's 19th precinct. He warbles the word, stuffing it with implications that really /don't/ match the shiny-haired girl (/woman/, thank you very much) who bounces along behind him, eyeing everything with a look that wavers between intimidated and blustery. Jubilee slides out from behind and almost appears to teleport to the side of Rossi's desk. "Hi!"
"Jesus," says Rossi.
"Oh, crap," says Tucci, ghosting away with a coward's haste.
Chris is more temperate in his second reaction; he eyes Jubilee with a friendly nonchalance that (mostly) covers the snipe of alarm in the pale, smiling eyes. "It's the Keebler Elf. What's up, kid? Don't tell me you're--" In view of past relations, it is perhaps not /entirely/ unexpected that his gaze should automatically check her wrists for cuffs.
"Don't tell you I'm what?" she asks, eyes glinting with mischief that is only tempered by her reason for being here. She's dressed for the cooler weather in a dark green, long sleeved t-shirt contrasting against the canary yellow sleeveless vest worn over it. Rainbow colored scarf, hat, and gloves make the entire outfit far too bright for the interior of the department.
"--/not/ under arrest," Chris says, but there's a question in it, for all it's phrased as a statement. His eyebrow arches past her towards the guiding uniform -- but he's gone, his charge dismissed -- and so it's back to her again, with a faint wrinkle between his brows. "Not that it's not a pleasure to see you and all that, but what gives? Everything okay?"
Jubilee tilts her head, then looks around for a place to sit. She drags a chair over from a nearby empty desk and plops herself into it before asking, "Am I supposed to tell you I /am/ under arrest, or I'm /not/? Anyways, I'm not." She attempts to get herself more comfortable by pulling her feet up under her in a cross-legged position, but the boots don't stay very well. Then she utters the phrase he has been dreading every since he met her. "I need a favor."
Chris's expression shifts. It is a tiny thing, almost imperceptible: a small door closing behind the crooked twist of mouth and the humor in his eyes. "If you're thinking about pulling a heist on a candy store, count me out," he says, folding his hands across his stomach. His shirt is dark blue and open at the collar; his tie is pale grey and loosened at the throat. Both wrinkle under that weight of fingers. "I got enough trouble without letting you lose on the city."
Jubilee snorts and crinkles her nose, oblivious to any doors opening or closing. "Puhleeze. As if /I'd/ need your help ta do that," she scoffs, then leans forward and puts her elbows on her knees. "I was hopin' you might see if there were any kinda... you know. Records or somethin' on someone." She blinks up at him in all seriousness now, eyes dark and guiless. "It might be important. It might not be, but if it is, it's /real/ important."
Chris's feet, housed in scuffed broghans, slide off the desk to clump onto the ground. "Records," he says, dragging himself up to slouch over his desk instead. Elbows settle on the file-covered blotter; he fists his cheek to regard Jubilee, eyes hooded and sleepy. "What kinda records? You talking a yellow sheet? Who's this person, and why?"
"Yellow sheet?" The term doesn't register at all. "I mean like... any criminal history. Allegations? Suspicious stuff?" Jubilee's forehead wrinkles and she lowers her voice, dropping her eyes to where she's picking at a hole frayed into her jeans just above the knee. "There's this guy at this church out in Westchestire. Faith and Family or something like that. One of my friends is worried about one o' /his/ friends that goes there. Thinks somethin's... just off. About this preacher and his friend. She's like... a kid." Implication lays heavy in her voice and uncomfortable movements.
The cop's mouth flattens. Another expression shift; this one, more obvious, redraws his face into hard, harsh lines. "How old's the girl, and what's making him think that it's off? --Faith and Family?" His pen is already in motion, scratching out the name on a long, wide notepad.
"Um." Jubilee straightens and twists her face up. "16ish, maybe? She was one of the girls trapped in that basement with us a few weeks ago. Remember that? I mean, one of the girls not... you know. /Us/. From school." She drops her feet to the floor and scoots to the edge of the chair. "She's just really, /really/ dependent on this preacher dude. Always at the church, always happy, always... I dunno. Just off. And her friend's run away from the church and no one can find /her/. /I/ don't know her that well, but /my/ friend is worried. He doesn't really have anything more than that, but I told him I'd help him kind of look into it, and I thought that maybe if he'd been creepy somewhere else..." She hitches a shoulder up into a half shrug, looking at him beseechingly.
Eyelids slide half-closed over the glitter of green, the color almost lost in the splice of black. "Got a name for this preacher?" Chris asks. His pen nib taps small black freckles across the Westchester church. "Out of my jurisdiction, but I can pull the yell-- the rap sheet -- if I got a name. Who're the girls? Has someone reported the one who ran away as missing?"
Jubilee's answer is prompt, if less than informative. "Jack. I don't think I've heard his last name." She shakes her head and answers, "I don't think so. She was kinda... not from around here and stayin' at the church or somethin'. Not sure."
"So for all you know, she's a vagrant anyway. I mean, she could've started out a runaway instead of ending up one." Tap-tap-tap goes the pen, before scribbling the preacher's name: Jack. "You met this guy?"
Jubilee shakes her head. "I could if you want? I could be all undercover for you." This offer is oddly bright and eager. Idiot child.
"/No/." The pen drops with a thud. Chris straightens. "Jesus-- absolutely /not/. Are you crazy?" Stupid question.
"Why not? I'm not gonna get all zombified!" She sits upright, indignant for all the wrong reasons. "I could do it. I'm not a /total/ ditz."
"That's not the point. You're saying there's a potentially dangerous situation. How do you know you're not going to-- wait, zombified?" With mutants, one can /never be entirely sure/. Chris's brow knits. "When you say 'zombified,' you're not talking about ... actually dead, right? Or eating brains?"
"I dunno! Autumn and Amp were like all--" Jubilee holds her arms out in front of her, hands dangling down, and assumes a blank-eyed, slack jawed expression. And then she corrects herself by turning her lips up into an imitation of a smile.
"Drugs in the communion wine?" Chris is quizzical. Mutants. You /never know/. "Is it like -- a cult or something?"
Jubilee drops her arms and life returns to her face. She shrugs. "I dunno. I haven't been. Jeremy thinks maybe so. But a lot of people go to it. Another one of our kids does too, but he's not--" She wiggles her fingers near her temple and warbles, "do de do de doo."
Chris stares blankly at Jubilee for a second, then scrubs his face with a tired hand. "This is my life," he says, and writes down, 'Amp' and 'Autumn.' "I'll look into it. It'll take me a while. I got other cases, and just /Jack/ doesn't really take me very far. I'll talk to the Westchester guys and ask around. That work for you?"
Jubilee nods and grins. "That's fine. Appreciate it. I'll let Jeremy know someone's lookin' into it. It'll be a relief, I think." She hops up and bends to impulse to lean over and give him an awkward, spontaneous hug. "Thanks, Leather."
Irritation and amusement speckles the surprised blink that accepts that quick caress. Unthinking physical response wraps an arm around Jubilee's shoulders and squeezes gently before letting her go. "Stop calling me Leather." Chris scuffs that glossy black head before it can escape. "Show a little respect for my age, squirt."
"That's why I'm not callin' ya cow hide," Jubilee chirps, letting her head roll in the direction of the scuff before bringing it up to flash a wide grin at him. She detangles and turns to look back in the direction she came from, trying to identify the door that deposited her in here. "If I take a wrong turn in here, am I gonna end up with all the dead bodies?"
"Serve you right," is Chris's verdict, though he flaps a hand to dismiss her a half-second later with the added instruction, "Turn right after you hit the hall. Go straight. You'll end up in the lobby, eventually. --Stay out of trouble. And /no undercover/." The pen points at Jubilee, a severe line down which he squints. "I'm not kidding."
Jubilee crinkles her nose at him and snaps off a smart ass salute before scampering for the door.
[Log ends]
NO. Jubilee comes to sic Rossi on the trail of a BAD MAN. HI, PASTOR JACK!
"Jack? That's all you got? Way to narrow it down, genius."
"I got a church name in Westchester. The guy's a pastor there. How hard could it be?"
John squints at him, then plants his elbow in the middle of his report, and points at Chris. "You got that look," he accuses.
"What look?"
"Don't even try that crap on me. This is going to turn into one of your witch hunts, isn't it? Minister, kids, suspicious behavior--" he ticks off the tally on his fingers, "--four days later the Cap's got you on the carpet and is ripping your balls off."
"I'm making a phone call. That's all I'm doing."
"You and priests, man. What the hell is it with you and priests?" A rhetorical question.
Chris jabs at the numbers on his desk phone, pausing to flip through his notes for a contact in the Westchester PD. He has more than a few, after all this time. "Sparky was thinking about going undercover."
That, finally, gets a sympathetic response. John drops his head in his hand. "Jesus. --Dial, already."
Chris dials.