Hookup
Ring ring, it's Jean's lunch break, and a review of old messages on her cell phone prior to deletion has turned up a nugget of information missed on the first pass. "It's Jean," she states without preamble, once the other end is picked up, "Did you say that the al-Razi boys knew a Sabitha Melcross?"
The greeting on the other side is curt, and overridden even before the first syllable is finished. "--Doc." The noise of traffic greets her, harsh behind the shift of baritone: casual to professional. "Yeah. Sabby. Sabitha. Lives a few floors down from you in your old apartment building. Why?"
"Do you think either of them was walking through her memories?" Answering the question with another question, Jean's tone is calm on the surface, but with a driven intensity behind it. What's occuring in front of it, beside it and beneath it, we don't have metaphors for.
"I'll be damned if I know," admits the man on the other end, baritone hardening with transfered belligerence. "Wouldn't be surprised, somehow. /Fuck./ I haven't had a chance to talk with her since -- she left a message on my machine last night, but it was about Canto. She sounded like herself, but ... shit. Can you check? See if they did any tweaking?"
"I can if she consents to it," replies the Ethical Doctor Grey, lips pursing and a rattling transferring across the cellular line as she rummages amongst her pencils and pens for one designed for optimal twirling-between-fingers. "I doubt she will. On a good day, she can just about stand the sight of me in the same room, and I doubt she's been having good days lately." She does not explain how she knows. "D'you think you could offer some encouragement? I read the riot act to Bahir and he's now settled in under my wing, but God knows what those boys got up to before that."
A horn blares in the background, subsuming much of a succinct opinion about /Bahir's/ kinship to the angels. "--on your leash," the Brooklyn-scarred voice growls. "Can't force her, but I can call ahead, tell her what's up. Let her make the choice, I guess."
"That'd be nice. I think... it's important that I look," Jean admits. "But if she won't go for it, I can probably keep it from getting out that she ever might've had anyone peeking from those who'd be concerned about it. Although really, outside of you and me, and the twin terrors, does anyone know?"
"Talhurst," the deep voice supposes, dragging the syllables out in a loose, speculative blanket across street noises. "You know him. Other than that, I don't know. In case you haven't noticed," he adds, dry, "I'm more the blue-collar type. We got different kinds of circles. --I'll give her a ring now and call you back. That okay?"
Jean's laugh is short and appreciative on a level likely over Rossi's head at the mention of circles. The appreciation in her tone as she states a simple "That would be great, Chris," in reply is far easier to place.
"I'll call you back as soon as I get in touch with her," promises Det. Rossi. "Thanks, Doc." And the line cuts dead.
---
On the stairs below the precinct, a hot dog in one hand and a cell phone in the other, Det. Chris Rossi leans his hip against a railing and taps a symphony across the numberpad. "Just need to make a call, John," he tells his partner, and sets his ear to the ring. Ring. Ring. "Go on ahead. I'll be there in a few."
Sabitha is peering intently at email that flickers across her computer screen when her phone rings. She reaches for it sideways, sliding it from a drawer and glancing down at the lit display. A half smile appears as she flicks it open. "Hey, Chris. Talk fast, I'm at work."
"Don't get upset," says Chris. "Listen. I need you to do me a favor. Go see Jean Grey." How's that for fast?
Sabitha leans back sharply and drops her hand into her lap. She blinks once. "That's never the way to start a good sentence. What..." She pauses, hesitant worry creeping into her voice. "Did something happen?"
Rossi pauses. Voices shout in the background: colleagues, greeting him on their way up and down the stairs. The hot dog waves a desultory, rude acknowledgment. "You know a guy named al-Razi. He's a telepath. He's got for shit ethics. Caught him wandering around my mind the other day. Not to freak you out, Melcross, but I'd rather put a bullet through my head than let someone mess with my head, and the only way we know for sure he didn't work a number on /you/--"
"/Fuck/." It's a softly-spoken expletive with her coworkers in mind. Sabby leans forward and plants her elbows on the desk in front of her. "Adel?" she questions in the same soft tones. "Or Bahir?" There's a flicker of guilt, shoved firmly down into the depths of her stomach where it curls into a heavy ball, and Rossi's own aversion to telepaths.
"Bahir I know for sure," says Rossi, brief and grim. He eyes his hot dog wistfully. The ketchup is leaking. "I don't know about his brother, but they're identical, right? I don't know squat about his ethics, but I know about /Bahir's/. I got no way of knowing just how 'identical' they are. I don't know what your deal is with Doc Grey, but -- pay her a visit, will you?" The baritone drops, gentling into entreaty. "Please?"
"My..." Sabby frowns fiercely and straightens again in her chair. A pause, a decision to leave that sentence hanging, and she confirms for him. "Yeah. Don't worry about it. I'll... stop by. Don't worry about it, Chris."
The cop contorts in time to catch dripping tomato sauce with his tongue. Sweet, savory relief replies. "Thanks. Do it soon, Sabby. I'll call you later to see how it went." Click.
A half-second later, the detective is speaking to Dr. Grey's machine. "Doc? Rossi. She'll come in. Take care of her for me. Thanks." And then it's up the stairs and back to work.
[Log ends]
Chris hooks Sabitha up with Jean to have her head checked in the aftermath of al-Razi snooping.