Title: Culebras
Disclaimer: Story contains original dialog from episode 5x12 Snakes
Summary: An accordionist, a murderer, an angry mob, and a gun-totin' CSI. My answer to Kristen999's June challenge.
His boots crunch on the gravel covered asphalt of the parking lot outside of the club where Veronica Juarez spent the final hours of her young life, music trickling out on the night air to join the chorus of crickets. A dozen pairs of cops' eyes scrutinize the tires of the hundred or so vehicles that crowd the lot.
The lot isn't well lit; the sole illumination is coming from his small Maglite, the neon of the club and the flashing red/blue of the marked cars' flashers. Nick squints as he studies the tires on the truck in front of him. Is that --? It is. A seam runs the circumference of the rubber. A retread. Latex covered fingers lightly caress the divot left by the merging of two older tires.
"Vega!"
Sam hurries over to the truck, a huge Ford pickup, black, emblazoned with stylized flames. Breathing a bit heavily in the warm night air Vega nods. "What do you think?" he asks, gesturing towards the tire.
"Run the plates," is Nick's terse reply. He had the guy. He felt it in his marrow. And he couldn't wait to see the expression on Rafael Salinas' face when they took him down.
Only the response they get from the DMV search comes back to the last person Nick would have suspected.
"Juanito the bar back? Are they sure, Sam? Dude doesn't look like he could hurt a fly."
"Doesn't take physical prowess to mow someone down with a vehicle, Nick. Just intent and a foot on the gas pedal."
"Yeah, but I really thought it was gonna come back to that Sinaloan sleaze ball."
"We may still find out he had a hand in it. C'mon. Let's go talk to our harmless little friend. I'll call in some uniforms just in case."
The object of their interest stands enraptured by the band, a man with an accordion on stage crooning out what could only be described as sounding like a Mexican polka.
...Que sin duda yo fui el dueño de tus sueños gracias, corazón ...
Instead of the dirty sweat-stained shirt the bar back had been wearing the last time they met, he was now dressed to impress. Tan alligator skin coat, sharp black cowboy hat, and tooled leather short cowboy boots with a low heel. And a fancy braided leather belt around his dark jeans.
They make their way through the crowd of listeners and dancers, Nick fitting in well with his black denim jacket and dark buzzed hair until those he passed by see his decidedly guero features and the white LVPD lettering on the mesh vest he wears. Sam, despite sharing ethnic heritage with the club's patrons, is dressed in the typical cop suit of rumpled shirt and barely loosened tie. The brown tweed suit jacket and terracotta shirt actually make him look like a college professor who had wandered off the UNLV campus.
The throng parts reluctantly to let them pass, throwing the two men looks of disgust, anger, disdain. Juanito is so caught up in the music he fails to notice the two LVPD men approaching until they are right in front of him.
He offers them an uneasy smile, greasy to match his pomade-coated hair. "Hey," he attempts feebly.
"Hey, Juanito," Nick says, acid tingeing the amiable-sounding greeting. "Not bar backing tonight?"
"No, I got the night off. I'm gonna go party today. So, you guys, uh, still looking for Carla?"
"No."
"No?" the Mexican asks, consternation already knitting his brow.
"No, we're looking for you, Juanito."
The bar back glances distractedly behind him as two uniformed officers grab up his hands to place his wrists in handcuffs, and his smile falls a bit.
"Do you own a Ford F150? Black, with painting on it?"
"Yeah," Juanito drawls slowly, the sickly smile back on his face. "That's the full-blown cochina mobile."
Nick feels a chill of revulsion pass over him as he mentally translates, Sam's words verifying their callousness.
"Your pig mobile. Nice," Sam utters disgustedly.
The Texan casts an appraising eye over the smaller man. Seems impossible that a harmless looking guy like this could be so cold-blooded. Everything about the man is soft; his body, the fuzzy attempt at a mustache on his upper lip, his eyes. His eyes are dull and keep shifting away and down at the floor.
Nick begins to turn away, ready to have the officers take the murderer back to the station so he can head home and wash away the smoke and sweat from his body. His experienced investigator's eyes catch a glimpse of something hanging from the bar back's belt.
"That's a cool belt, Juanito. What's it made out of?" His fingers reach out to feel the cool silk of brunette hair. Veronica Juarez's hair. "Human hair?"
As a criminalist Nick had touched just about every disgusting substance imaginable. Do the job long enough and just about everything becomes tolerable; the smell of decomp, the walk through shit-filled sewers, viscera and blood and urine, all the detritus of death and the evils that men commit against each other. But this single braid of soft clean human hair repulses him. To know that it was cruelly ripped from the head of young woman, vibrant with life and ambition and the urge to help her people.
Juanito's eyes narrow and he turns his head as if looking for a nonexistent friend to bail him out.
"Oooh..." Lips purse out, the expression on his face almost comical in its clarity - this is a man who has no idea what the hell to say.
Small soft man, not too quick on his mental feet, and already trussed up from behind in cuffs. But Nick knows first hand that a meek appearance doesn't necessarily mean you have no reason to fear them. And little "Johnny" the bar back had run a woman down in cold blood and carried her scalp like a trophy on his belt.
So when the suspect suddenly wrests himself free from the uniform and with a few mumbled words launches himself between the detective and the CSI, Vega half-spun in his tracks as Juanito hits his shoulder at full speed, Nick is already primed and ready to pursue.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no …" He hears the words pouring out of him as his feet pound the club floor and he dashes after the bar back. He's surprised to hear himself vocalizing the single thought in his head.
And he finds that even as one hand lands on the alligator skin patched coat and the other pulls his 9mm from his hip that he is still shouting, "No!"
The crowd begins to close in around them; hands dropping to hips, reaching inside coats, and pulling up pant legs. Hell, even the accordionist up on stage stops playing to free a shiny silver gun from its holster.
Murmuring grows to shouts in Spanish and Nick starts looking around wildly. A sea of hats and bushy mustaches and threatening glares surrounds him.
His finger brushes lightly over the trigger of his service piece, pulling back, returning, the safety already long thumbed off. The feel of the cool metal under his finger, the knowledge of the power he wields in his hand and yeah, admit it, the thought that he might need to use it and the little thrill of desire he has to get a chance to be the man, the man with the gun, the man taking down the piece of shit who had murdered an innocent woman in the prime of her life. These all battle inside him as his finger worries at the trigger.
His head is still wheeling about on his neck, trying to crane his vision around 360 degrees like an owl or that chick from The Exorcist, the desire to keep an eye on a hundred things at once keeping him constantly moving, constantly on brittle edge.
Sam rushes past him, his own Glock drawn, waving the automatic pistol in a slow steady circle, members of the crowd backing up reluctantly as the barrel comes to draw on them.
But they aren't backing up fast enough and, as the barrel moves on, some of the men move in to close the spaces.
One hand twists firmly in the stiff leather of Juanito's leather coat collar, the other hand grips tightly, sweatily around his Glock. One eye on Sam, the other on the increasingly unhappy crowd and Nick's now beginning to feel spread too thin.
It's like the crowd is a junkyard dog, able to smell the fear radiating off of him, taking in his saucered eyes, jaw dropped wide open so he can take in desperate gasps of air, the sweat coursing down the sides of his head. The heavy black denim that had felt so comfortable outside in the cooler night air was now too coarse, too stiff, trapping the heat in its tightly woven fibers.
Adrenaline has his heart slamming in its bony cage, so hard he would swear his whole body was actually vibrating in tandem with the pounding.
The band has long stopped playing, the only sound now the continuous murmuring of the crowd, shouts from Vega. The air is heavy with smoke and a hundred different colognes, hints of flowery perfume from the few women present, and the sour tang of sweat and spilled beer.
Sam is yelling at the crowd as he continues to try keeping them at bay with his gun. "Muevanse, muevanse por atras!" Move away! His cop-strong voice never quivers. He is all business and authority. He moves the barrel of his Glock to point at the ceiling of the club, the message clear; no one needs to get shot, just move on. "Calmense, todos. Dejanos hacer nuestro trabajo y no les vamos a molestar." Just take a chill everyone. Don't fuck with us and we won't fuck with you.
If it comes down to a gun battle, the four LVPD men versus the hundred or so armed patrons, it is clear who the victors would be. Nick knows there is no way Sam will allow it to get that bad, that in all probability they will be forced to let Juanito go, disappear into the throng, slip out a back way and make his way back to Mexico. Hell, the East Side is just as good a place as any to hide in, its residents mostly tight-lipped and mute, if not downright hostile when visited by the policia.
The fear of this man getting away with the gruesome and utterly senseless murder of Veronica Juarez lends an edge of desperation to Nick's voice as it joins Sam's. He needs to convince the crowd of Juanito's guilt, that the piece of shit doesn't deserve their help- he had destroyed the best of them.
"He killed an innocent girl!" Sam's voice backs him up, translating rapidly. The crowd continues to circle, sizing up their chances. The sound of hammers being cocked has his heart in his mouth, his head still trying to watch his back as he wheels his prisoner around, still clutched in his now paralyzed fingers.
The crowd listens to Sam, and Nick realizes that Sam is one of them. He might be a cop in a cheap suit, but their blood runs through his veins and he speaks their language. And Nick is the guero; vest with bright white LVPD lettering and his hand on their "friend".
No, he's the one that has to get through to them the need to take this murderer in, to make him pay for the crime. It's up to him to persuade them and having Sam translating for him just keeps him separate from them.
"Este muchacho mato a una señorita inocente. Inocente!"
Sam is still backing him up, confirming what the crowd is hearing - This man killed an innocent woman! - and they are starting to dart uneasy glances at each other.
His fingers are cramping horribly in the stiff leather collar, Juanito eerily calm and compliant. Perhaps waiting to be judged by the crowd whether he is worth defending.
"Y tiene que pagar. Y tiene que pagar!" He killed an innocent woman and he must pay for it.
Back-up reinforcements have finally responded, tan uniforms forming a clear path to the front doors. Seizing on the opportunity Nick yells, "Get him out of here!" wheeling Juanito around and pushing him forcefully towards two more waiting cops.
Hands still bound behind his back, Juanito falters and begins to pitch towards the floor. Nick lunges to grab the man's arms and keep him from face planting, only to realize that he has lowered his gun and Sam is the only officer left nearby.
The crowd, stirred up by drugs and alcohol and machismo, becomes a pack of lions and, sensing the weak one in the herd has faltered, they rush in for the kill. Hands dig into the sleeves of his jacket as Nick is overwhelmed by bodies swarming in for the attack.
He can barely breathe over the smell of leather and aftershave and tequila and beer, a dozen or more hot and sweaty bodies crushing him in their embrace. The first fist lashes out, whiffing across his shoulder, not really hurting but definitely a wakeup call.
He can't get his hands up to defend himself as the crowd continues to push and shove. He can hear Vega's now- panicked voice shouting over the white noise of the mob; mixed Spanish in the attempt to catch the patrons' attentions and English- instructions to the uniformed officers.
The no's are back, his brain short-circuiting with fear and adrenaline and he can't remember how to ask them to stop in Spanish. So he lets loose a string of no, no, no's and wrestles with a man whose hands lunge for his neck. Too close for throwing punches, the crowd contents itself using its combined weight to push him about but strangling doesn't take much space. One hand is still wrapped tightly around the grip of his Glock and there is no way in hell he is gonna lose his weapon and there is certainly no way in hell he is gonna shoot his own damn foot off so while half his concentration is on keeping his finger away from the trigger and trying for the safety with his thumb, it's just his other hand peeling at the fingers choking the life out of him.
An elbow (or knee) in his side and he bends over at the pain, ultimately saving his life as the mob is too densely packed for his would-be strangler to follow him down. Fingers relent and give up on his neck but now another knee (elbow?) hits him in the same spot as before and who the hell is doing that? because he's gonna make damn sure they get extra special treatment from their arresting officer.
Third time's the charm as the elbow (knee?) catches his ribs one last time and Nick is finally able to bring his available arm down to wrap around his sternum for the briefest of seconds, not enough to relieve any pain, just a quick hug and then his elbow is rearing back, seeking the origins of the last hit and it catches the chin of someone with an amazingly hard jaw.
The sounds of an oof and teeth knocking together make a sweet song, but another falls in to take the place of his fallen comrade, and Nick's elbow is already sore, the impact jarring his shoulder painfully in its socket.
Cisco had always told him he had a hard head, and while his father was probably speaking metaphorically, arms essentially useless, Nick squats down like a pro linebacker and launches himself at the nearest man, the man's soft gut folding around his head. One down and still a dozen or more left but they are backing off a bit and the room gives him the chance to shove a shoulder into another and finally free his left hand, his weaker hand, but practice and years in the lab needing four hands to complete some of their jobs has given him almost as much dexterity with it. His left swings in an uppercut at the next nearest jaw, landing with a knuckle-popping jolt of pain.
A hand grabs his shoulder and he wheels to address his next attacker, his gun hand rising, the safety never thumbed back on, his finger caressing the trigger once more and fear and anger and oh, yeah, that desire to use the damn thing is back in spades as he brings the barrel to bear on the man's face.
It's Sam.
Bleeding from the corner of his mouth, holding his side in a manner Nick really recognizes, tie askew and flung over his shoulder. But it's Sam. Breathing heavily, hand dropping from Nick's shoulder to his bicep, giving it a calm down now, reassuring squeeze.
The barrel of the gun twitches and dips then, is dropped with an explosive sigh, as Nick turns his head slowly to take in his surroundings.
Half a dozen more uniforms have shown up, several men are being cuffed and pushed to the entrance. He catches sight of one with blood trickling from his mouth and sincerely fucking hopes it's the one he elbowed.
A shaking hand returns his piece to its holster on his hip.
He reaches Sam with his eyes, the question in them silent but clear.
"We got him. Juanito's already on his way to the station house."
Nick nods, takes several halting steps over to a chair leaning on two legs against a small bar table. He rights the chair, then falls heavily into it, hands covering his face as he takes in several shuddering breaths.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. You're bleedin', though."
Sam raises a hand to his mouth, fingers coming away stained with blood. "Yeah, vato got me with a haymaker. C'mon. Let's go pay a quick visit to the ER, get you checked out."
"Told ya, I'm fine." Okay, so saying that with your hand wrapped around yourself like you're about to fly apart might not be very convincing.
"So keep me company then, huh? I think he loosened a tooth." Vega's tongue probes gently at a molar, eliciting a wince. "We'll go in the back way. Desert Pines is good with us; gets cops in and out. Treat 'em and street 'em."
So much for in and out. Sure, Sam gets an ice pack and an appointment with his dentist. Nick gets x-rays; two sets of them, one for his ribs, the other for his hand, which has started to swell up like a puffer fish.
The verdict is negative on the hand, just some dislocated knuckles; take some Advil, here's your RICE instructions on a goldenrod colored ditto. The ribs are another story, two cracked and not much to be done but, you guessed it; more Advil does this doc own stock in Wyeth Labs? and a chest so tightly wrapped in Ace bandages he can hardly expand his chest to breathe. Which is sorta the point.
Sam is leaning against the nurse's station chatting up a curvaceous Latina in pink scrubs. He stands up as Nick exits the treatment room, turns back to the woman and is fishing a card out of his wallet. She looks at it with a broad smile, pats him lightly on his non-sore cheek and turns to go back into the maze of the ER.
"You get her digits?" Nick asks with a grin.
"Nah. She knows I know where to find her. What's the story?"
"I'm gonna hurt. For a long time. Same ol', same ol'. C'mon. I wanna go talk to Juanito. I still say Rafael had a hand in this."
"Only one way to find out, amigo. Vayamos."
But Rafael didn't have a hand in it.
It was all Juanito's perverse belief his actions would render him immortal in the words of a song.
Nick sits stiffly on the seat by the door. His role here is witness, listener, spectator. A role he sometimes finds more comfortable; reading people, picking up vibes, empathizing. All the things he rarely gets to do as a scientist, his only job then to gather cold hard facts, empirical evidence. No chance to be subjective, as forensics is all about the how and never about the why.
Unfortunately, this time, hearing the why is even harder to take than seeing the evidence. A decapitated head, scalped of its hair, a baby rattler shoved in the mouth, and the first time Nick feels that frisson of revulsion and the bile rising in his throat is upon hearing Juanito's cracked and warbly voice as he mumbles out the words, off key and almost monotone. The words that describe, in great detail, exactly what he and the Santero, Zapato, had done to Veronica Juarez.
Nick stands, his only thought at that moment to flee, to stop hearing that voice singing lovingly about the depravities inflicted on the woman.
"Que me diere guiansa para quemar mis pecados …"
Juanito finishes the song with a weakly smug smile. "Immortal."
Sam hisses in disgust and pushes shut the folder in front of him.
Nick can only stand and stare. The sole thought in his head, running like a subterranean river beneath the cold horror, is how much he knows it's going to hurt when he gets home and pukes until he can no longer breathe, and the pain it will leave behind is something no amount of Advil or beer or tequila will ever make go away.
My challenge was from Kim (kimonkey7) and she wanted my take on the events that occurred between the arrest at the club and the interrogation room. She also wanted him whumped. How could I deny her?
Some of the dialogue is right from S5x12 eppy Snakes, thank you And, of course, hats off to the writers of this brilliant episode; no harm, no foul, no animals harmed during the writing of this fic, and if you sue me, you can have my car. An '85 Chevy Celebrity. Suh-Weet!