AN: Hot and muggy today, hard to concentrate. Next door's cat dropped in to see me – he hasn't moved off the futon, all four legs in the air. Black & white bliss.
Nat, thanks again for the kind review!
Poisoned Poison
Chapter 10
"Tony, stop looking sideways at me," McGee grumbled quietly, as he threaded the agency sedan through the DC traffic towards 9th Street. "I'm not going to speed just cuz you feel antsy."
"Antsy, Probocop? You can drive by the book as long as you like. I wasn't looking sideways at you… just like you weren't looking sideways at me."
"Touche. But if you want me to stop, you'll have to stop furtively rubbing your chest."
"Yes, nurse. And you'll have to stop screwing your eyes up. Are you any more fit to drive than me?"
"The sun's bright. I left my shades in my car. But my arm works better than yours. Nyah nyah." He went on before Tony could start muttering. "So, the Senator… did you believe him, or was he trying to cover his ass before someone else told us the story from a different point of view?"
"Well, see, I've got an advantage over you, Probie… what did you think?"
"I believe him," Tim said defiantly, wondering why he could never get a straight answer out of the SFA. "And what advant – oh, you were there."
"Right. I believe the butler…" Tony laughed and shook his head in wonder. "He was as scared as the rest of us, and he dealt with it by doing his job, the best way he knew how. He heard my remark about being likely to throw up the brandy, and he brought arrowroot biscuits… 'to settle the digestion'…"
"And that was when you decided he was a good guy?" Tim was about to scoff, when he got his straight answer.
"Yeah, McGee, it was," Tony said thoughtfully. "And if I believe him, then I believe Senator Warner. Because that butler is not the kind of guy to work for anyone who isn't as upright as a Sequoia, and just as solid."
"He's heading for big trouble, though," Tim ventured, expecting to be shot down in flames as a matter of course. "The Senator, I mean."
"Go on," was all Tony said.
The younger agent thought for a moment. He understood now why he hadn't got straight answers; he was being drawn out to think – no, not to think for himself, he could do that, but to have the confidence to say what he was thinking.
"McGee? McMesmerised?"
"He's afraid for his son," Tim said sadly. "He thinks he's lost him to Oscar Sablea, and he's afraid of what he's going to find out."
Tony nodded his agreement. William Warner had only said one thing on the subject, that his son had been befriended by Oscar and seemed to look up to him; but the pain just below the surface was clear.
"He was virtually saying to us, 'Rescue my son, don't let anything bad happen to him'…" the young agent went on. "But he knows, really, that he has to let us do our job, whatever the consequences. And we've not even told him yet about Ben knowing John Fehr. Although maybe Gibbs has by now. Perhaps he wants to know more about how well they knew each other before he drops it on the Senator."
"Yeah…" Tony nodded again, his eyes far away. His hand went under his jacket to rub his chest once more, then curled up over his shoulder to rub his back, and he made no attempt to disguise it this time. He said nothing, but finally let out a sigh so deep that Tim was certain he didn't realise he'd done it. The Probie brought the car to a halt outside the 9th Street Clinic, and switched off.
"Tony?" He wished he could find a McMesmerised comment of his own. "Tony, what?"
The SFA pulled a wry face. "Always wanted a father who'd be solid for me," he said expressionlessly. "Nothing I did was ever good enough, and yes, I did try, goddam hard – never did have his approval. That stupid kid doesn't realise what he's throwing away for the sake of Oscar effing Sablea." He shook his head viciously enough to make Tim, whose own was still fragile, wince, and the DiNozzo megawatt grin appeared like a light switching on. "Come on, Probie, let's see what the ol' DiNozzo telephone charm's got us."
The receptionist's name was Beth, and having two good looking men hanging over her counter was very much to her liking. She'd already found the day and time in question, and showed them the sequence. They came round to her side of the counter and stood one on each side, looking over her shoulders.
"This is the incident… you can see, the man I thought fitted your description… that is him, isn't it? He gave his prescription in at the dispensary, so I didn't get his name at the time."
"Oh, yes, ma'am – " Tony threw the Probie an incredulous, eloquent look – "er, Beth. That's great. That's the man we're after. So this was two days ago?"
"Yes… Tim. Now, see, he sits down to wait…" she forwarded the picture by five minutes, "and then this other man comes in, and sits with his back to the camera, so you can't see his expression, and the picture's not brilliant…"
Tony decided to experiment, and leaned down closer to her, as if to peer at the screen. She gave him a little smile, as if she were enjoying it, but her eyes slid very quickly back to Tim. For the life of him, Tony didn't know why he stood up again, and didn't exert his dynamic personality a bit harder, blast her with the megawatts; afterwards he told himself that it was the pain that putting his weight on his right arm had set off in his chest. He left the way clear for McGee to lean down instead.
"…But I remember it. They were looking at each other; and your guy looked very tense. I could see even by his back view that the other man was as well, and then this happened."
The man with his back to the camera began to get up, but before he could move very far at all, Chaz Tressel leapt up and ran for the door. The other man took a few paces after him, then gave up. As he came back towards the seats, they could all read the disgusted expletive on his lips. They watched him pull out a cell phone, but they doubted that even Abby could have told what he was saying into it.
"That's fantastic, Beth," Tim said, and the receptionist blushed. "I'll transfer it to my lap top, and we can find him." He plugged a USB in and set up. "We have a facial recognition programme –"
"You don't have to," Beth said proudly. "I think he'd only sat down so he could look at the other man. After he'd gone, he came over to the counter and told me he was here for an appointment. Here we are…" She brought up the appointments diary on the screen, and darkened everything but the one entry. "Mr. Mel Heysham. Who he'd come to see and why, you'll have to ask him, of course, but here's his address." She wrote it fast, in a neat feminine script, turned the paper over and wrote something else on the back, and handed it to Tim with a brilliant smile. Not to be unkind, she favoured Tony with another, but he didn't feel that the wattage was the same.
"You're amazing, Beth," Tim told the young woman earnestly, retrieving the stick. "I can't thank you enough."
"My pleasure…Tim."
As they left, the young agent was reading the address and putting it into his map facility, then he put the paper in his pocket. Tony spluttered, the incredulity back on his face. McGee stopped with his hand on the car door. "What?"
"Oh, but you've led a sheltered life, Probie. You need to spend some more time around the Tonester. Are you telling me you didn't notice she wrote on the back as well?"
Tim lowered himself into the car, fishing for the paper. "But what would she –Oh!"
"There, see? You'll be able to find some way to thank her enough… just don't lose that number!"
NCISNCISNCISNCIS
After Tony and Tim, sympathetically quiet, left for the clinic, and Gibbs and Ziva left to find out if Sablea's two goons knew anything useful, William Warner leaned forward, put his elbows on the Director's conference table, and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "What do I do?" he asked despairingly. "What do I do now?"
Jenny poured him another cup of coffee; the telling of his and Robert's story had taken a while. She could see that the butler was uneasy about being waited on as she brought him a cup as well, but she smiled at him, and he relaxed a little. It was Kent Fuller who broke the silence.
"Senator, we have to acquire more information before any of us know what to do. There's a lot I can't tell you about the case; it began several months ago, and it's morphed through two new existences since then. It's caused many deaths already, and some very serious injuries, but we're closing in on the truth. It gives me no pleasure at all to agree with you that you were wrong about your friend Oscar… I'll tell you this, though: we will get him, and we will make an end of all this."
"I don't doubt you at all," the Senator said. "I'd like you to tell me as much as you're able to about the case; I feel involved."
Kent frowned. "There is something I need to tell you," he said regretfully. "It may be nothing, simply a coincidence." As he told the Senator about his son's friendship with the murdered student, John Fehr, Warner put his head back in his hands.
"I met the young man," he said painfully. "I met his parents. Good people… Look, it doesn't mean Ben had anything to do with those young mens' deaths!"
"No, of course not…" the DEA chief said reassuringly, and at the same time made a note to show a picture of Ben Warner to the Stork. What a horribly screwed up business this was; the decent, good man who had chosen to come to see them, had brought with him, quite unknowingly, a strong suggestion that his own child was implicated in murder.
Jenny Shephard sat down at the Senator's other side. "William," she said gently, "I don't know if the fact that you've come to us will place you and Robert in any sort of danger, but it's my feeling that you should not go back to Hillerburg just yet. Is it possible for you both to stay in Washington until we're happy that it's safe for you to return home?"
"We… we planned to stay at my club tonight anyway. The Capitol Hill Club."
"I'll arrange for a discreet guard."
"Thank you, Jenny."
"Senator… one thing; if your son should contact you, are you going to be able to carry on as normal?" Kent hated to ask.
"I… I won't know what to say," the poor man sounded heartbroken. "What if he's been in touch with Oscar? What can I tell him?" By the time they'd discussed ways of making the Senator unavailable without arousing suspicion, he felt shell-shocked. It was fortunate that he and Robert left for the club a few minutes later, and weren't around to hear Tony's phone call.
NCISNCISNCISNCIS
"I've got some Tylenol if you need them," Tim offered as they pulled up around the corner from Mel Heysham's address.
Tony guiltily pulled his hand away from his aching chest. "I'm fine, McMedic… maybe later, huh?" Truth was, that it was hurting more as the day went on. Just as yesterday, if he'd left the sling on, the damaged muscle bearing the weight of his arm would have been hurting less; and of course, yesterday he'd also manhandled two guys in a hurry to cuff them so he could help Ziva. He hadn't much cared what he did to himself then, and now he was paying just a bit. But by the time they reached Heysham's second storey apartment, he was grimacing.
They drew their guns and knocked at the door, announcing themselves, but no sound came from within. They heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and a moment later, their quarry appeared with a paper sack full of provisions. He saw them, dropped it, and fled back down the stairs. DiNozzo swore, and McGee went from nought to sixty in two seconds, leaping over rolling bean cans. Tony followed him feeling like a donkey.
Tim caught his man in the long hallway before he reached the front door, bringing him down with a long, lunging tackle, wrapping his arms round Heysham's legs. He grabbed one arm, to bring it behind him for the cuffs, and then saw, to his horror, that something flashed in the hand he hadn't subdued. He didn't have time to wonder if he should drop the arm he'd got, and concentrate on the one with the knife, before his opponent yelled obscenely in pain and outrage. The knife skittered away on the earthenware tiles, and Tony handed his partner the other wrist, that he'd just rudely bent back, for the cuffs. "Nice one, McGreyhound."
Tim shook his head. "I should have waited a couple more steps," he said. "Got closer, so I could grab both arms."
"By which time he could have been out in the street… sticking that thing in an innocent bystander." He was patting the prisoner down as he spoke. "Oh, look…" he extracted a cheap looking revolver. "Or shooting them. Don't second guess yourself. You'd have got the other arm. You did good, Probie."
They hauled Heysham to his feet; a spasm of pain flicked across Tony's face. Tim looked him in the eye and said nothing.
"So, Melvin… want to tell us why you ran?"
Heysham muttered something unprintable about a broken wrist, and Tony tutted. "Let's get him in the car, McGee, before he disturbs the neighbourhood." They marched him round to the agency vehicle, and stuffed him in the back. DiNozzo got in alongside him. "OK, forget why you ran. Try telling me who you called. Ghostbusters?"
"You're crazy, man! You broke my damn wrist! Called who?"
"That's what I'm asking you, friend. At the clinic… on Tuesday. After you'd frightened Chaz away. Who did you call?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Oh… but you do. See my friend there – who you just tried to stab, by the way – he's got a recording from the cameras at the clinic. And he'll be able to tell from the pattern your hand makes when you're dialling, what number it was."
"You're lying!"
Tony was, but he didn't let a little thing like that stop him. "You think so? McGee can make a computer stand to attention, sing three rousing choruses of La Marseillaise, and accompany itself on the trombone. Little thing like a phone number on a film… oh, please."
"You haven't got my phone!" Heysham was bewildered into losing any logic he might have ever had.
"Like that'd matter… but as it happens, I have."
The prisoner blinked stupidly at the sight of his battered Nokia in his tormentor's hand. He'd never noticed his pocket being expertly picked, which, as Tim remarked later, was the whole point. Tony went through the speed-dial, and the phone book. "Wow, McGee… there are some very interesting names here… DEA's going to have a lovely time with this… little co-operation wouldn't come amiss here while you've got the chance, Melvin. Who did you call?"
He was met by mutinous silence, and laughed. "You got that memory stick safe, McGee?"
Tim simply waved it at him, very suggestively for a well brought up probie. "Three choruses of La Marseillaise coming up. Or I could do you the Russian one if you like, that's a good tune even if it goes on a bit…" Heysham looked from one agent to the other, waiting for the extra heads and antennae to grow.
"OK," Tony said dismissively, "so it takes us a bit longer, but fine. You've had your chance. Tim, you'll never guess who I found among the Ws…"
Tim's heart lurched, and the slight swerve the car made wasn't entirely faked. "No kidding? This guy's in touch with –"
"Williamson! I called Williamson, OK? Now take me wherever the hell we're going and let me out of this car! I'm shut in with a couple of crazies!"
"Williamson…" Tim went on as if he hadn't spoken. "Wouldn't have thought you were high enough up the ladder to know him… the Boss'll be pleased."
"Oh, yeah," Tony said contentedly. "The mysterious, shadowy Williamson… who appeared from nowhere. You know what I think, Mel? Someone in the happy world of drug dealing does that, he has to have backing. Someone even bigger behind him… man can't just pop up like a gopher… he needs…"
He tailed off into silence, and Tim, glancing behind, saw the SFA had gone even whiter than when Senator Warner had walked into the bullpen. "Williamson," he said softly. "Oh, shit, Williamson… William's Son… I gotta call Gibbs. The bastard's rubbing his father's face in it."
AN: Commiserations, USA, I've a feeling we'll be following you tomorrow…