"Well?" Bates asked, an amused expression on his face.

Jorsten glared at him as he approached his desk with a stack of papers.

"Seriously?" the Detective demanded.

"You know that we have to take all reports from the public seriously," Bates said mildly.

At the very least they had to give the appearance of doing something with each nonsensical request. Jorsten gave him a dirty look, complete with stink eye.

"I should at least be able to cut them short to stop the rambling," Jorsten stated, dumping the report he'd filled out onto Bates' desk.

Normally, they had the witness fill these out but by the looks of it Jorsten did not want to put himself through that. Bates didn't blame him; they'd probably get enough to fill a short book if the woman wrote the way she talked. He idly checked the pages, Jorsten was known for cutting corners.

"What was it all about anyway?"

This was LA, after all, there was a reasonably good chance she had seen an actual crime go down. Most of the times the public didn't (Bates would never get over how unobservant the average person was) and they just got basic complaints that they did nothing about. Sometimes they got a hilarious story though and his day had been kind of slow.

Jorsten made a dismissive gesture. "She was just going on about this shaggy-haired kid where we'vebeen picking up a lot of drug dealing activity. The low level stuff. Apparently, he's been there every day for weeks and he didn't show up today. Nothing overly exciting. She doesn't even talk to him."

Bates shook his head and chuckled as he gave the report back to Jorsten. At least that would be easy to file away.

Then a thought struck him.

"Wait, where did you say she was talking about?" Bates asked.

There was something familiar about that location, he just didn't know why. Maybe they had done a raid down there or something?

Jorsten repeated the address and Bates' stomach sank. He swore, making Jorsten jump. No, no, no, this could not be happening. Scrabbling around his desk for his badge and gun, Bates ran through all possible situations in his mind. If the kid was just messing around, he swore he'd go through him.

"Want to explain what's going on?" Jorsten asked snidely.

Bates was tempted to ignore him but realised that the guy could actually be of some help.

"Deeks is undercover in that area," he replied, walking towards the door.

Jorsten gave him a dumbfounded look and shook his head.

"So that shaggy-haired guy that woman was talking about-?"

"Is Deeks," finished Bates. "Probably."

Deeks would really like to have a partner right about now. Or a whole hoard of back up. Or just to not be here. At all.

The gun was still pointed in his face. Or, more correctly, it was pointed straight at his forehead.

"Who are you?" the 'boss man's who still didn't have a name demanded.

"Look man, I'm nobody," he said quickly, stuttering over his words.

That was in no way put on, being one gunshot away from your death tended to make you lose control over your language capabilities.

"Nobody at all," Deeks repeated when the man's eyes squinted suspiciously and the gun was not removed from his head. "Tell him, Wilkes."

Thankfully, that got the attention off of him. Not the gun but at least he was no longer being glared at.

"Wilkes. Really, Bordesley?" the boss man said with a snort which made his two goons laugh sycophantically.

Honestly, his life had turned into one of those old crime shows and it was really wearing thin. He didn't even have a cool hat. Or a cigar. Though he didn't want one of those. Nasty things. A hat would do.

Yes, he was babbling. In his head. Because he really needed to as doing so out loud was sure to have that gun lodge a bullet in his skull. And he really wanted to avoid that. He rather liked living.

Wilkes was looking very uncomfortable but shrugged. "Was for security."

"You got nothing to need to be secure about," boss man sneered.

Bordesley/Wilkes looked like he wanted to complain but thankfully used the two brain cells he did have and didn't say anything. He did have a sullen look on his face. Hopefully that was less likely to get him shot. The second last thing Deeks wanted was blood splatter and brain matter all over him. Not being killed himself being the first thing of course.

"It's a stupid name" the boss man needled a bit more and then brought his attention back to Deeks. Fantastic. "Why did you bring him."

"I told you, man," Bordesley all but whined.

Deeks could almost imagine him stomping his feet. But seriously? Whining? At a guy who very obviously had no compunction against killing both of them? It was official. Clams were smarter than the guy.

"Want to try that again?" came the growl.

Yes. Yes, he would like to try that again. Or, even better, Deeks would very much like him to not talk.

Bordesley finally seemed to understand that he was in deep shit. An actual look of revelation actually appeared on his face.

"Look, man... sir," at least he was trying to show respect. "I was telling you the truth. I thought my guy here could he useful. He was showing some promise, you know? I was trying to show some initiative."

Deeks felt oddly flattered that he was held in such high regard by this crook who seemed to only thing of himself. He quickly stomped that feeling down, realising that Bordesley was probably just trying to save his own skin.

"You don't show no initiative, Bordesley," boss man said in a dangerous tone. "You follow orders."

That got both Deeks and Bordesley gulping. This was not looking good for either of them now. Well, it hadn't been in the first place but now it was quite obvious that this man would definitely not listen to reason.

There was a scuffling noise from outside and the sound of rushing feet. Shouts were heard through the door, drawing everyone's attention to it. Deeks felt like he couldn't breath as he fought to keep all emotions off his face. Could it be?

"LAPD, freeze!"

"Don't move!"