(Untitled)

[latino_menace]

Ramon comes out of the elevator looking like he's stoned or something. Which is, as it goes, exactly what he is. It occured to him at some point this morning that after his accident the other day, his horse is still on the loose and he should probably do something about that. It took a while to psych himself up to it though and now he's meandering

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[ostro_goth]

"Greetings, Ramon Salazar," Teja says, quite pleasantly.

Something is off with the man today.

[ostro_goth]

"You are as placid now as I have ever seen you," Teja says, leaning back and looking at his erstwhile enemy with something approaching -- pity?

[latino_menace]

He'll remember that look. Definitely definitely remember that look. If there's one thing that really makes him mad, it's pity.

But right now? Nothing.

'No pleasing some people. Cops normally like placid.'

[ostro_goth]

"Oh, make no mistake," Teja says, "I like you this way, also. You would be less likely to once more pay Urquhart thirty thousand dollars for the attempt to kill me, if you no longer feel thirty thousand dollars' worth of hatred."

He cannot prove a thing of that. Nothing.

But he is quite sure now, piecing it all together, after the vampire who drank of Urquhart told him the one who paid the crazed killer was one Teja suspected already.

It is truly irksome. But now Ramon is under some strange influence, he can just try it again.

[latino_menace]

Ramon blinks, still slow. Slow, but not stupid. Heroin might make him lethargic and indifferent to the world but it doesn't turn him into a moron.

'Keep telling you, I didn't pay him anything.'

He feels a hell of a lot more than thirty thousand dollars worth of hatred for this man.

[ostro_goth]

"Of course you did," Teja says. "He would not kill without payment. He keeps telling so to all and sundry, thinking that it will make them less afraid of him."

He leans back and looks at Ramon, attentively and with almost innocent curiosity.

[latino_menace]

'Then find whoever did pay for it.'

He sounds almost mechanical as he speaks. Bored, or uncaring.

'You're not worth dropping thirty K on.'

[ostro_goth]

"Should I be glad, then, that you seem to hate me for less than what Urquhart is asking?" Teja says.

He is not at all convinced by that which Ramon claims.

But, alas, he has no proof.

[latino_menace]

'I don't care what you think.'

He was going to pay Urquhart three hundred thousand if the job had worked, and was willing to pay more. But obviously he's not going to point that out.

'You're not very good at your job, are you?'

He'd add more but his eyes are drooping a little more and he's run out of the steam to finish his point.

[ostro_goth]

"It is different here," Teja says. "Among my people, what I have would have been more than enough to challenge you to Holmgang and kill you, and be done with things. Here, one needs a chain of evidence, and forensic examinations, and suchlike."

[latino_menace]

'Mmm,' he says, in response.

And that's it, for a moment. And then,

'My point was, surely you should be looking for who actually did it? Instead of wasting all this time accusing me.'

[ostro_goth]

"Oh, but I know it was you," Teja says. "I am not merely accusing you. I have found a way to worm inside Urquhart's weak point."

With no conclusive evidence that would stand up to a cat's sneeze. But he doesn't say that.

[latino_menace]

Once again, nothing from Ramon.

'Then he's lying.'

Though later, he'll be plenty angry at the notion that Urquhart might have talked.

[ostro_goth]

He hasn't, exactly -- Teja has sent a sweet female vampire to feed off Urquhart, and worm things out of him in the throes of pleasure, or pluck them straight from his mind as some vampires may.

And all she delivered was 'one the Goth suspected before'.

But Teja isn't going to tell Ramon that. He knows that his only chance is making Ramon give himself away.

"Why should he be lying, after languishing in a cell for over a month now, devoid of all the female company that he usually takes such pleasure in. Do you not think he would give you away, just to be touched by a woman again?"

At the moment, though, Urquhart is free, thanks to the mayhem of April first -- but Teja does not tell Ramon so, either.

[latino_menace]

'If you think he's so desperate to get laid and he hasn't named any names, what does that tell you?'

He closes his eyes for a few seconds, then opens them to stare blearily at Teja.

'He's probably just taking care of himself until you let him go. I wouldn't hold your breath that waiting for a woman to break him is going to get you anywhere.'

[ostro_goth]

"But I am telling you, Ramon: - it already did!" Teja says, shaking his head.

He looks at the man with an almost gentle reproach.