(no subject)
From: Jamie Stedtman (jstedtman@nyc.gov)
To: Mark Aurels (maurels@usdoj.gov)
Date: Thur, Mar 9, 2006 21:31:05
Subject: Re: Lead on the Quakers
Mark, I just got a phone call from Det. Chris Rossi in MA. It's possible he's got a lead for us in the Quaker issue. If you've got some time in your schedule, we'd like to drop by and have a chat about it. We'll need a little gift exchange. This might be what you were looking for. He's a motivated individual.
Jamie
---
Ring, ring. It's a bit late in the day for business, but it's just now that 'Dr. Black' has managed to get her little clinic tucked into bed and the people gone from it. Ring, ring. Rossi's on auto-dial, and Jean's got a call to make. Riiiiiiiing.
The arm that reaches for the phone is bare and groping, tangled with the thin linen of a sheet. An early night, for an early morning; the phone is flipped open by a thumb, its electronic glare brilliant in the darkened room. "Rossi," baritone greets, husky with sleep. Chris rolls in his bed, forearm shielding closed eyes. "What?"
"It's Jean," the self-exile states without preamble. "Come by the clinic at midnight on Friday. I've got a present for you set to come in from the cold at one."
Silence stretches across the line, while Chris smothers a yawn -- and wakes, slowly, inevitably, scarred skin bared to the cool touch of air. Eyes open behind the arm, black dilated to engulf the green. "Jean," he identifies, accent still blurred by drowsiness. And then, rousing: "Friday? Someone coming -- you got one?"
"One came to me." Jean confirms. "A Sara Evans. Joined the Friends because a mutant apparently caused a car accident that killed some of her friends and left her scarred. She came to bitch at me months ago because I'd come across the case as a probable wrongful conviction and the ACLU were poking at it. We talked. She remembered. She wants out and wants to talk."
"How high up?" the baritone asks, harsh with urgency and desperate, ill-tuned eagerness. Rossi rolls up in the bed, raking tousled hair away from eyes; the news drives him to his feet on a surge of restless energy. Trailing the sheet, a wrapped concession to nudity, he measures the width of his room in pacing: head bowed, gaze splintered, all senses fixed on a single name.
"High up enough to know that 'Tom', Prime's second in command, isn't really dead." Jean supplies, regretting the cell phone's lack of a coiled cord to twist and fret between her fingers. Hours since her last cigarette, second of the day and no more allowed herself 'til tomorrow, she plucks at a pen and twiddles it through her fingers as she rests her head against a dusty upstairs wall. "Gave me names for faces in that video."
Breath catches at the other end of the line, rasped across a throat already raw. Chris pauses in his caged prowl; the black head jerks up. "Names," he echoes, numbly. A car passes nearby, its light splashing through the window to paint the lean figure and its scarred, taut skin. "/Names/. Did you get them? Do you have them?"
"The silent one behind her on the video. Jake Harrison, AKA 'Garath'." Jean provides. "It was a fifteen minute talk disguised as a medical consult, I did't have time to debrief her, but she says the only one she can't give me is Tom. Take that as you will. Wants to disappear -- really disappear -- in exchange for everything she knows. Figures Tom will kill her if he ever figures out." There's a pause, and Curie pads over to hop onto Jean's stomach and prod at it with kneading paws as her mistress waits.
In the privacy of his apartment, Chris flares his eyes wide and hot, a fist folding white-knuckled into the frame of his window. "Witness protection," he says curtly. "I'll see what I can do. She wants to turn herself in. She willing to testify? You sure she's not playing some sort of -- never mind. You'd know. What else did she give you?"
"Fifteen minutes, Rossi," Jean reminds, rolling her eyes and absently rubbing at her cat's back. Curie arches agreeably, untroubled by the larger concerns of the human world. Of either genetic constellation. "And this was her talking, not me tweaking. Most of it was spent coordinating a meeting and feeling out the other side. She wants to leave. Still doesn't like mutants, but the Friends are apparently starting to eat their own. Guy named 'Nathan' is dead. There's some link to Leah in her mind."
The cop makes a sound, meaningless -- thwarted rage, frustration vented -- before falling silent again. Eyes stare blank and blind into the window, sightless against their own reflection.
"Friday night." Jean repeats. "Be there for midnight. Lose your Federal puppydogs or bring them along if you think they can handle it, but keep it quiet. Hell's Kitchen is Friends territory and she's the mistress of one of their fight clubs."
"I'll be there," Chris says, savage and bright. His doppelganger in the window cuts a hard, harsh smile. "You'd have to fucking kill me to keep me from being there. --Thanks, Jean. I owe you."
"I keep my promises." With that, and a brief "Good night, Chris," she signs off. Cell phone slipped back into its charger, she scoops up Curie and wanders over to that small corner of the bare loft tentatively made into a home.
[Log ends]
To: Mark Aurels (maurels@usdoj.gov)
Date: Thur, Mar 9, 2006 21:31:05
Subject: Re: Lead on the Quakers
Mark, I just got a phone call from Det. Chris Rossi in MA. It's possible he's got a lead for us in the Quaker issue. If you've got some time in your schedule, we'd like to drop by and have a chat about it. We'll need a little gift exchange. This might be what you were looking for. He's a motivated individual.
Jamie
---
Ring, ring. It's a bit late in the day for business, but it's just now that 'Dr. Black' has managed to get her little clinic tucked into bed and the people gone from it. Ring, ring. Rossi's on auto-dial, and Jean's got a call to make. Riiiiiiiing.
The arm that reaches for the phone is bare and groping, tangled with the thin linen of a sheet. An early night, for an early morning; the phone is flipped open by a thumb, its electronic glare brilliant in the darkened room. "Rossi," baritone greets, husky with sleep. Chris rolls in his bed, forearm shielding closed eyes. "What?"
"It's Jean," the self-exile states without preamble. "Come by the clinic at midnight on Friday. I've got a present for you set to come in from the cold at one."
Silence stretches across the line, while Chris smothers a yawn -- and wakes, slowly, inevitably, scarred skin bared to the cool touch of air. Eyes open behind the arm, black dilated to engulf the green. "Jean," he identifies, accent still blurred by drowsiness. And then, rousing: "Friday? Someone coming -- you got one?"
"One came to me." Jean confirms. "A Sara Evans. Joined the Friends because a mutant apparently caused a car accident that killed some of her friends and left her scarred. She came to bitch at me months ago because I'd come across the case as a probable wrongful conviction and the ACLU were poking at it. We talked. She remembered. She wants out and wants to talk."
"How high up?" the baritone asks, harsh with urgency and desperate, ill-tuned eagerness. Rossi rolls up in the bed, raking tousled hair away from eyes; the news drives him to his feet on a surge of restless energy. Trailing the sheet, a wrapped concession to nudity, he measures the width of his room in pacing: head bowed, gaze splintered, all senses fixed on a single name.
"High up enough to know that 'Tom', Prime's second in command, isn't really dead." Jean supplies, regretting the cell phone's lack of a coiled cord to twist and fret between her fingers. Hours since her last cigarette, second of the day and no more allowed herself 'til tomorrow, she plucks at a pen and twiddles it through her fingers as she rests her head against a dusty upstairs wall. "Gave me names for faces in that video."
Breath catches at the other end of the line, rasped across a throat already raw. Chris pauses in his caged prowl; the black head jerks up. "Names," he echoes, numbly. A car passes nearby, its light splashing through the window to paint the lean figure and its scarred, taut skin. "/Names/. Did you get them? Do you have them?"
"The silent one behind her on the video. Jake Harrison, AKA 'Garath'." Jean provides. "It was a fifteen minute talk disguised as a medical consult, I did't have time to debrief her, but she says the only one she can't give me is Tom. Take that as you will. Wants to disappear -- really disappear -- in exchange for everything she knows. Figures Tom will kill her if he ever figures out." There's a pause, and Curie pads over to hop onto Jean's stomach and prod at it with kneading paws as her mistress waits.
In the privacy of his apartment, Chris flares his eyes wide and hot, a fist folding white-knuckled into the frame of his window. "Witness protection," he says curtly. "I'll see what I can do. She wants to turn herself in. She willing to testify? You sure she's not playing some sort of -- never mind. You'd know. What else did she give you?"
"Fifteen minutes, Rossi," Jean reminds, rolling her eyes and absently rubbing at her cat's back. Curie arches agreeably, untroubled by the larger concerns of the human world. Of either genetic constellation. "And this was her talking, not me tweaking. Most of it was spent coordinating a meeting and feeling out the other side. She wants to leave. Still doesn't like mutants, but the Friends are apparently starting to eat their own. Guy named 'Nathan' is dead. There's some link to Leah in her mind."
The cop makes a sound, meaningless -- thwarted rage, frustration vented -- before falling silent again. Eyes stare blank and blind into the window, sightless against their own reflection.
"Friday night." Jean repeats. "Be there for midnight. Lose your Federal puppydogs or bring them along if you think they can handle it, but keep it quiet. Hell's Kitchen is Friends territory and she's the mistress of one of their fight clubs."
"I'll be there," Chris says, savage and bright. His doppelganger in the window cuts a hard, harsh smile. "You'd have to fucking kill me to keep me from being there. --Thanks, Jean. I owe you."
"I keep my promises." With that, and a brief "Good night, Chris," she signs off. Cell phone slipped back into its charger, she scoops up Curie and wanders over to that small corner of the bare loft tentatively made into a home.
[Log ends]