An hour later, Alita was still staring at the board in her office. Her phone rang. "Sobiat," she answered.
"Captain Sobiat," it was the lieutenant in charge of narcotics "Can you come to interrogation for a bit, we need your expertise."
"On my way. What's going on?" Alita asked, already half way down her hall.
"Patrol signaled for a car with a broken taillight to pull over, and he led the LEP into a chase," the lieutenant explained.
"Just for a broken taillight?"
"He thought he was being pulled over for having cocaine in his car."
"Did he have cocaine in his car?"
"Couple kilos of it."
"Sounds like you case is pretty airtight. What's your problem?"
"He won't give us a name."
"You try prints?"
"Burned 'em off."
"DNA?"
"Waiting to see what you could do, before we try."
Alita Sobiat pushed open the door, slamming her phone shut. She gave a quick nod to the lieutenant. She turned and looked through the one-way window. "Well, this is certainly interesting," Alita muttered, "I know who this guy is. Commander Kelp's gonna want to know."
"Who is he?" the lieutenant asked.
"Dagger," she tried, with little success, to hide the contempt in her voice as she spat out the name, "One of Oyo's right hands, though it's gonna be hard to pin anything that that entails on him."
"You try, I'll get Commander Kelp over here."
Alita pushed open the door and walked into the interrogation room. "I hear you won't give us your name," she said, "No matter, I know it all the same. So Dagger, what've you got to say?"
Alita got no reply from him.
"Well that's fine. I have my ways of making you talk."
This time Alita did in an answer, of sorts. "I'm no snitch," Dagger said.
"Of course not, dangerous thing to be where you come from. What does Oyo do to informants? Can't imagine it to be fun," A smile spread across Alita's face, "Now there's an idea," Alita pulled out her cell phone, "Couple calls and the entire East Side thinks you're a snitch. How long do you think you'll last, two maybe three days?"
"No one trusts the word of a traitor Alita."
Alita banged her hands on the table in front of her. "Traitor?" she yelled, but when she continued she had collected herself, the Commander was probably watching by now. There was no need for anyone to get hurt, yet, "You don't know what loyalty is, much less a traitor. You pretend that you're loyal to your neighborhood, to your friends, your People, but when someone is killed no one will talk, loyalty to the killer trumps loyalty to the victim. When someone decides to run with a different gang you never speak again…" Alita trailed off. She knew how to get Ida and most everyone under her. The East Side's mixed-up sense of loyalty had suddenly become her best friend, "Well, I can see you're not gonna talk, but if you change your mind feel free to call. You'll get a phone call, maybe. We're very bad about remembering those things."
Alita walked out of the room and turned to Trouble. "I know how to do it," she said.
"You do?" Trouble asked. He knew exactly what she meant.
"Yeah, I've gotta talk to Usiku. He'll know what Oyo's been up to."
"Now, I don't know much about the East Side," Trouble started, "But wouldn't Oyo know more about what he himself is doing than Usiku."
"Yes, but if I start climbin' that ladder without any prep from my contacts I'm likely to get killed before I get anywhere near Oyo, and if I manage to, Oyo's likely to stab me before I can say anything."
"Stab?"
"Yes, Oyo isn't very fond of guns."
"Strange trait in an arms dealer. However I was referring slightly more too why does he want to kill you?"
"Why wouldn't he want to kill me? I'm LEP and before I was I worked for his rival."
There was a specific reason, but Trouble respected that Alita wasn't going to tell him, "Take some backup, can't have you getting killed."
"If I'm gonna get killed, backup will do nothin' but get killed too. No back up. Oh, and make sure we hold him," Alita said pointing to Dagger, "I'm gonna need him."
"We can't hold a man on the name Dagger," Trouble replied.
"His real name's Deon Butler, and if he makes bail on his possession charge search him for a weapon. I'm sure he's got a knife somewhere."
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A/N: this is more like it. About 750 words. I'm getting pretty close to the end, no more than three chapters, not counting a possible epilogue. Merry very late Christmas a New Year.
