Hey! Thanks for all the reviews, you guys are kind as ever! Can´t say how much I love writing for you! (And I didn´t plan to get emotional here ... hmmm ... must be cause of Christmas or so.)
As always, thanks to Pinky-kid (Whose birthday was yesterday, by the way! Anybody who hasn´t sung, yet, line up, please ...) for ... uh ... being Pinky-kid. Obst vor! Remember: It´s not easy to be small, it´s not easy to be tall, tam, tam ...
And as for Regina, I´m so glad you´re still with us! Cute rules!
Disclaimers still the same. I own the title role and the bad guy, but I´d give them gladly for ... Okay, okay, I shut up. Hmpf!
Enjoy!
"Hey Mark," Jesse called after his mentor and approached him quickly as he turned around to greet the young man with a tired smile.
"Morning, Jesse."
"How´s Steve?" Jesse asked, though, of course, he knew the answer. He wondered why exactly people did that - asking question they already knew the answer to. Perhaps it was because of the guilt they felt. The guilt of not being in the other one´s position. Of having made it out lucky this time. It had happened to someone else, and they felt guilty about it.
"Ahm ... Okay, I guess," Mark replied, smiling kind of helplessly and running his thumb over his brow. "He went straight to bed last night, I didn´t get to talk to him much."
"Well," Jesse started unsurely, but in an attempt to give some comfort, "sleeping´s good. He was probably in shock, maybe I should have brought him here or stuff. Dunno."
"No," Mark objected softly and smiled again. It was almost a real Mark-smile, Jesse noticed with relief, and was surprised at this emotion right away. Why was he relieved? What had he expected Mark to be like this morning? His son´s girl-friend had been murdered the night before, so why would he not change his smiling-behaviour? What kind of person was he himself that he dared to feel relieved over anything?
"No," Mark, having no idea of his colleague´s inner monologue, repeated. "You can´t fix everything in a hospital. Some shocks are meant to be felt."
"Hm," Jesse made in the abscence of an idea what other noise to produce. He felt uncomfortable. He didn´t like wise sayings. He didn´t like the look in Mark´s eyes. "So," he finally started, when Mark thankfully had remembered that he had been on his way to somewhere and they both were walking down the hallway, "I take it Steve went to work this morning."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mark nodding at this, but nothing else that could have been seen on the older man´s face. Walking while talking was a much more preferable combination to him than standing and talking, he decided.
"Yes," the older doctor nodded, "but I doubt he´ll be on the case."
"Because she was his girl-friend."
"Right. But then, it might be the best after all, I don´t think ... Well," he chuckled after having made a slight pause, "you know Steve. He´ll probably investigate, anyway."
Jesse frowned. "Don´t you think that´s the best way for him to cope with it? I mean, that´s what Steve´s like, right? He´s ... acting."
Mark glanced at him and sighed finally. "I don´t know, Jesse," he said sadly, "I´ve never seen him like that. He´s so ..." Once again he stopped as if to think about what exactly he wanted to say, then gave up and smiled slightly at the younger man, before looking ahead again.
For the first time Jesse could see how much it hurt the older man to know his son in such pain. Mark Sloan would have given everything to just end Steve´s suffering, and he would gladly have accepted Steve´s fate if it had meant for his son to walk out of this situation unbroken and unharmed. But it wasn´t possible. As a family, they broke together, and Jesse couldn´t help but notice how he himself started to crumble away, too. Again, he felt guilt floating through him, for how did he dare feeling like that? How did he dare feeling guilty. Yet, how should he feel?
He was about to reply anything, though he didn´t have a clue, what, when Amanda Bentley´s voice called out from behind them.
"Mark! Jesse!"
Surprised at how alarmed she sounded, the men turned.
"Hey," Jesse began, when she came to a full stop next to them. "What..."
"Carlie," she cut him off. "Permission to do an autopsy on her was not granted. They won´t let me do it," she added seriously.
Both Jesse´s and Mark´s eyes widened in disbelief.
"You gotta be kidding," the younger man was the first to speak. "They have to, she was the victim of a crime! Whoever are "they", anyway?!"
"The Vitense-lawyer," the pathologist replied and produced a sheet of paper. "Here. Somehow he found a way to convince the judge, that an autopsy wouldn´t be necessary and that therefore the body shall be given to her relatives instantly. They´re coming to collect her body today."
"Wouldn´t be necessary?!" Jesse shouted, while Mark Sloan had took the paper from Amanda and read it silently. "She was shot! Isn´t it, like, a law that there has to be an autopsy in such cases?"
"Yes," Mark nodded.
"So?" Jesse looked at him agitatedly.
"So normally," the older man replied and handed the paper back to Amanda, "there is an autopsy, unless you have a very good lawyer."
"That sucks," Jesse stated frustradedly.
Mark nodded slowly, then glanced at Amanda. "Did you tell Steve?"
"No. He´s not on the case. I talked to a Detective Leer, he´s the officer responsible for ..." Suddenly feeling obviously uncomfortable, she bowed her head a little and even shifted her weight from one foot to the other. It was a completey untypical gesture for her, for the very last thing Amanda Benltley usually was, was unsure, and so she found herself being looked at puzzled by her friends as she continued:
"Ahm, he´s, like, in organized crime, as far as I got it."
"What d´you mean?" Mark asked, though he already sensed that he probably wouldn´t like the answer.
"It seems as if Mr. Vitense was in on some deals concerning ... inner organs," she finished and sighed deeply, watching in sympathy as the information started to sink in. She´d gone there herself less than an hour ago and could still feel the shock it had risen inside her.
"Y-you mean he belonged to the mop?" Jesse bursted out after a moment of silence. His eyes had reached the size of some not really small vegetables, and he looked utterly dismayed.
Mark remained silent, but rubbed a thumb over his brow. Jesse had seen this gesture on him often enough during the day by now, that he knew for sure things weren´t about to brighten up or become better. Actually, it felt as though something was just beginning, something none of them wanted to begin.
"Sort of," Amanda answered his question. "I don´t know if it´s actually the mop, y´know, but he was in on something, that´s for sure. Leer said he and his colleagues had been looking for a chance to frame him for months now." She paused. "He, uhm, he doubts that ... Carlie had something to do with it. Looks like she didn´t even know ..."
"Course not!" Jesse stated firmly, but calmed down immediately under his friends´ startled looks. "I-I mean, course she didn´t ... Hey, it´s Carlie, we´re talking about here, `kay? She´d never done anything like that."
They all knew what the sentence was really like: Steve would have never loved her like he had if ...
Mark sighed. You could practically see how he´d aged for the last few seconds. Frowning in deep sympathy, Amanda looked at him, when she replied: "Leer´s fairly sure she didn´t. He´s gonna prove it, too."
As silence once more settled over the small team, Mark all of a sudden glanced at his watch, mumbled something about rounds and coffee and turned to walk away.
The two remaining friends watched him silently.
"She wasn´t in on it," Jesse finally said as if to no one in particular. "We knew her. She wasn´t."
Amanda eyed him, frowning. His features were drawn with worry, an impression seldomly found there. To her surprise she found that it made him look even younger, like a little boy who´d just been said "Life´s not fair" for the very first time. Since that was definitely not the case, the pathologist wondered even more how her friend had managed to beware his air of pure innocence over the years.
"I know," she nodded. "I don´t believe it, too. She was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time."
He didn´t answer to that, but asked, without looking at her. "Does Steve know that, too?"
"I don´t know," she answered.
"Hm. Well. I, uh, I have a patient to see, Amanda," he announced, suddenly becoming very hectic. "Gotta go. See you."
"Yeah," Amanda murmured and watched him head off towards the lift.
Jesse had always like the precinct. Not only because he had watched every single episode of "Hill Street Blues", but also because it was the one place symbolizing the specialty of his life in LA. The precinct was where the team met if their other places weren´t sufficient anymore. Here Jesse had always felt just how much he was involved in solving a case, in the actual police work, and, of course, it had always been exciting.
Right now, the actual police work seemed pointless to him. If it meant chasing after criminals you couldn´t nail down, couldn´t arrest, like Mr. Vitense, it had to be frustrating. Innocent people died, and maybe you were the one who was to break the news to their relatives. Sometimes Jesse thought about just how much his and Steve´s jobs resembled each other. They both should have known better by now, about death.
Entering the lieutenant´s working area, he stopped and sighed. What did they know? he wondered.
Steve was sitting at his desk, writing something down in a file, which lay upfolded in front of him. The way in which his shoulders were slumped forward, how his head was bowed just a tiny bit more than necessary, were the first signs of his state.
When he noticed Jesse aproaching him, he lifted his upper body and smiled, but it never reached his eyes.
Tired, he looked, Jesse found. Tired of many things.
"Jess," Steve greeted his friend friendly, though even his voice betrayed his seemingly casual behaviour. Jesse wondered if he just imagined it or if Steve actually talked slower. But then, did it matter? What needed to be said didn´t fit in words.
"Hey Steve, how´s it going?" the young doctor asked, smiling, and winced inwardly at this clever opening. How could it possibly be going?! "I hear you´re not on Carlie´s case," he added quickly, for now the topic had been brought up, anyway.
"That´s right," Steve nodded and frowned. "That´s why you came here?"
"No. I ..." Actually, he didn´t have a clue about why exactly he´d gone there. Smiling wryly, he shrugged. "I, uh, just wanted to ask if you want me to close up "Bob´s" tonight."
The lieutenant frowned. "Hm. Well, since it´s your turn, anyway, I´d say that´d be great."
Oups. "My turn," Jesse stuttered. "Ah - right. My turn. Right."
"Right," Steve repeated mockingly. Even a small grin could be seen hushing over his features. "Anything else I can do for you?"
"No. Yes. I mean ..." Noticing his nervous gestures, Jesse shoved his hands into his pockets fiercefully. "I just wondered if perhaps you want me to ... dunno, take over your shifts at "Bob´s" this week, y´know, so that you can ... " He trickled off, not knowing what he expected Steve to do in his spare time, anyway. What did he do when he was alone with his grief?
" ... stare at my ceiling?" the older man finished Jesse´s sentence helpfully. One couldn´t tell from the look of his eyes if he was touched or amused in a bitter way.
"Yeah," the young doctor said lamely, realizing how great an offer this had been. The least a person like Steve needed in times like these was too much time for himself. "Something like that. `kay, then I guess the answer´s no. That´s ... fine. I don´t think I could´ve managed it, anyway."
Since the doctor didn´t attempted to turn and leave now, or move at all, that is, Steve sighed slightly and stood up. "Jess, why´re you really here?"
"Ahm ..."
"See, I´m appreciating this, but I don´t need to be checked out, `kay? I´m fine." Fine as a snowman in the springtime, he thought, but repeated: "I am."
"I wasn´t checking on you," Jesse hurried to say. "I was ..." Worried, would have been the correct answer. He couldn´t remember the last time he´d been so worried about someone, and he didn´t like the feeling. Especially not when Steve was concerned. You normally didn´t need to worry about Steve. He´d always been coping okay with everything. He probably even believed himself that he was coping okay with this, too.
Jesse found that he was really bad at being worried, though he´d never thought that.
"Hey Sloan," a deep male voice fortunately saved the young man from finishing the unfinishingable sentence, and when Jesse turned, he saw a tall, dark-haired man approach Steve´s desk, smiling at both the lieutenant and the doctor.
"Grady," Steve said friendly and pointed at Jesse. "Meet my business-partner Dr. Jesse Travis. Jesse, this is Grady Leer, he´s on the Vitense-case."
Jesse frowned at Steve´s titling of the case, but didn´t have enough time to shoot him a glance, for Grady Leer enthusiasticly accepted the doctor´s unconsciously outstretched hand and presented him with a bright smile.
"Dr. Travis," he said. "Pleasure to meet you. I´ve heard a lot about you. Not from him," he laughed, when Jesse´s questioning gaze flew to Steve, "my sister was brought to CG last summer, she´d broken her arm doing ... I don´t remember what crazy sort of sport, and then I had to listen to all these hospital stories of hers."
"Ah ..." Jesse made uncertainly. "Leer? I don´t think I ..."
"Well, she certainly still remembers you," Grady Leer stated, grinning.
"Yes, few people forget our Jesse," Steve said dryly, ignored the look-to-kill which was placed on him and asked: "So what did they say? About Liotta?"
Leer´s smile faded instantly. "I´m sorry, Steve, they settled for undercover. But," he added quickly when the lieutenant´s frustration was beginning to become obvious, "we´ll get him. I promise. And he might even go down for more than murder then, don´t forget that."
"I don´t care about for what else he´s going to get toasted!" Steve shot back furiously."Murder is enough."
"Murder would be enough," Leer corrected calmly, "if we could prove it. But we can´t."
"So what, we just let it go, let him get away with it?!"
"No," Leer objected firmly. "We´ll frame him, and then we´ll get him. If I arrested him now, he´d be out again just like that." He snipped his fingers loudly. "Is that what you want?"
Staring at his colleague, Steve finally drew in a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry, Grady. I know you´re right."
"We´ll get him," Leer said after a short pause and watched as Steve sat down behind his desk again.
"Yeah," the lieutenant nodded.
"`kay," Leer said. Eventually he turned. "See you, Sloan. Dr. Travis." With that he left.
Jesse waited a few seconds, before he sat down at Steve´s desk, too, and asked: "What was that all about?"
"Raymond Liotta," Steve answered without looking at his friend. "He´s ... was a business-partner of Vitense´s. Grady thinks he killed them."
"Why?"
"Dunno. I´m not on the case. Money," the lieutenant added tiredly after a moment´s thought. "I guess. Or maybe something completely different. I don´t know."
"But they can´t arrest him," Jesse said, though it sounded more like a question.
"As you heard. They wanna sent someone in there. The company or whatever you´d call it. Undercover. They planed to do that for quite some time now, but they never got permission or money and stuff. Till now," he added with a bitter smile.
"`cause now it´s double-murder."
"Right. Now he´s done something stupid. I bet Organized Crime´s throwing a party right now." Chuckling unhumorously, he swept a hand over his face. "At least they get him," he then said ernestly.
"Yes," Jesse agreed, and shuddered at his own completely toneless voice.
Silence threatened to settle upon them once more, till the young doctor rose to his feet."I better go now, you´ve to work, right?"
"Yeahp. See you. - And, uhm, Jesse," he called after his friend. "Thanks for the offer, y´know, "Bob´s", but I can do it, really."
"Sure."
With that, Jesse left. He didn´t notice Grady Leer´s gaze that followed him from Steve´s desk to the door.But then he probably wouldn´t have made anything out of it, anyway.
"BBQ Bob´s" was closed. And as on most evenings, when he´d been the one to close up, Jesse Travis sat alone in his bar and played chess against his computer, losing. It had become a habit of his quite some time ago, though he couldn´t exactly say why. He liked chess, but a blindfolded dove could have beaten him. Still, he liked thinking and planning, which his computer would declare to nonsense the second he would tipe in his solution.
Most of all, though, he liked the quietness of the closed bar, and since he only played chess at these occasions, it by now belonged to the satisfying feeling of a long day fading out. Jesse played chess out of traditional reasons, a very Jess-like thing to do, as his friends would have pointed out if they´d known about it.
He was losing the game tonight. That was hardly surprising (To be honest, Jesse would have probably dropped dead out of shock if he ever won against anyone.), but this night it frustrated him. He was starting to get angry at the ever-winning machine and made mistakes even he normally wouldn´t have managed to do. Since he never exactly concentraded on the games, his worries were no reason for his disastrous playing. Something different was nagging him, and actually it was the fact that he couldn´t find out what, that made him so angry.
"Mated. Play again?" the screen showed him in friendly orange letters.
Groaning, Jesse placed his chin on his palm. "One day they gonna invent computers which will laugh at me and wise-crack," he mumbled to the machine. "Then I´ll probably love you, but as for tonight ..."
Further statements, which might have ended up in serious insults, were cut off by a loud knock on the door.
"We´re closed," Jesse announced, but stood up, anyway. Experience had taught him that people seldomly left after having been told the bar was closed. They´d probably known that when they´d knocked, for the sign on the door was turned to "Closed", and therefore whatever they wanted was equally probably important.
Or they were drunk.
"Dr. Travis," a deep, male voice called out from outside, "it´s Grady Leer. I gotta talk to you. Please."
Frowning, Jesse crossed over to the door and opened it.
"Thanks. Hi," smiled Grady Leer and entered.
Jesse watched him confusedly. He was still holding the door, when Leer had already sat down on the bar and taken off his coat. "Ah ... hi," the young doctor finally managed and closed the door. "What can I do for you?"
"A lot," Leer answered. "And not only for me. But we shall come to that later. Ahm - how `bout coffee?" he grinned.
"Detective Leer ..." Jesse began from where he stood, but was interrupted by the detective´s friendly: "Grady, just Grady. Jesse," he added with a "right, pal?"-look.
Jesse nodded irritatedly, then said: "Grady, what do you want?"
"Don´t you wanna sit down?"
"I wanna know what you want. It´s late, I´m not in a particular good mood today, and ..."
"I ... we need you," Grady Leer, once more, interrupted him.
Jesse fell silent, surprised. "Huh?" was all he managed after a short pause.
"I think you really should sit down," Grady repeated, and this time Jesse obeyed and sat down next to him at the bar. "You heard what I told Sloan today, right? About Liotta and the undercover assignment?"
"Yeahp."
"Okay. Do you know what sort of business Vitense and Liotta had? What they sold?"
"Organs," the doctor replied. "I understood it that Liotta sells organs."
"Right," Grady Leer nodded, looking as if proud of the best pupil in class. "They´re dealing with organs. Now, where do they get the "goods" from? From desperate people, people who sell a kidney or a lung or whatever because they are in depts. They might fear for their family or - whatever. You probably know as much about these things as I do."
He made a short pause as if he wanted to give Jesse a chance to answer, but the doctor remained silent.
"They have several people woking for them. People who do the actual operations, people who examine the organs, people like that. The whole stuff, `cept for the bosses - and lawyers," he added with a chuckle, "consists of doctors. Usually residents who want to earn a few dollars or drug addicts who are paid in whatever. Doctors are the only people those guys have working for them. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," Jesse replied slowly, a dreadful look had formed in his eyes, "but I don´t like where you´re heading."
Leer looked at him closely, then turned slightly, so that he was facing the doctor now. "Listen, Jesse, I don´t know any lawyers. Okay? And time´s running out. I´ve waited so long for this permission, I won´t screw it now. I can´t sent any of my men in there, they´re no doctors. You can´t learn the things you´d need to know in such a short amount of time. I need a doctor to do this."
"You better go now," Jesse said cooly.
"Please," Grady Leer hastened to say, "at least think about it."
He was about to add something, but was cut off by the doctor´s firm objection. "What do you want from me?!" he snapped and stood as if to defend himself. "That I join the club and mutilate healthy people?! Have you lost your mind? I swore an oath to ..."
"You wouldn´t have to do that," Leer tried to calm him down. "You could just, like, examine the goods. There´re a lot of other things you could do, like ... ahm ..." He was gesturing with his hands as if looking for words. "Dunno. Examine the goods," he finally repeated.
"Examine the ... No!" Jesse replied firmly. "I won´t do it!"
"And what about Liotta?" Leer asked."He killed your friend´s girl. And he´ll get away with it. Unless we," he added and pointed first and himself then at the miserable looking doctor, "prevent it."
"There has to be another way," Jesse said, though he could hear his own voice sounding a little weaker than before, less confident, less convincing.
"It´s up to you, Jesse," the detective said casually and lifted his head to one side slightly. He looked about as "Got you!" as one man could look.
Casting him a "not fair!"-look in response, Jesse slowly moved back to the bar. "Steve was Carlie´s boy-friend, and I´m his business-partner. Liotta will easily find out and get suspicious."
"He´s been in Europe for the last thirteen month and just returned two days ago. Besides, Carlie didn´t tell her family about Steve."
"How can you be so sure `bout this?"
"That´s my job," the man smiled. "Trust me, Liotta doesn´t have a clue."
"I don´t know if I´m ready to trust you with my life, yet," the doctor replied dryly, but asked after a short pause: "How do ... would I get in, if I decided to do it? Place an advertisement in the newspaper? "Young, good-looking doctor looks for illegale side income"?"
"I´d place that ad for you," Grady said with a confident smile. "Don´t worry, I know how to get people into business. It´s ..."
" ... your job, right," Jesse finished with a humorless smile. He could feel himself giving in a little more with every second, though he the knot in his stomach advised him not to. "What d´you want me to do once in? Apart from breaking my oath, that is."
"The same you want," Grady answered innocently. "Proof."
"Proof," the young man repeated, glancing into the other one´s eyes. Something in there bothered him, though he couldn´t say what it was. Somehow their emerald green color sent a slight shudder along his spine. Yet, the man was right about one thing.
"What about Steve?"
Leer frowned. Before he could verbalize his question, Jesse continued: "He´ll never let me to it. He´ll probably lock me up and throw away the key."
"Oh, no," Grady said as if explaining the simpliest thing in the world to the dumpest man walking on it´s surface. "You mustn´t tell anyone. Not Steve, not your boss, not your parents or friends or whoever. No one. It´s important that you don´t tell anyone, Jesse. Your life my depend on it. - That is," the detective added with a wicked grin, "if you do it."
Ignoring Leer´s wise-crack, the doctor frowned. "How am I supposed to keep this a secret? I´ve to work, I ..."
"Right, and that is good. You´ve to continue your work at CG and here in order to not rise suspicion. The doctors working for those people are all having regular jobs. With you having your shifts at CG and still work for them in addition to those, they´ll think you´re one desperate kid. It´ll make it easier for you to convince them. It´ll be much safer than the alternative."
Since Jesse wasn´t interested in any alternative not being safe, he didn´t bother to ask. There was another thing on his mind, anyway. "Desperate indeed." he nodded wryly. "I´m very likely going to become pretty desperate when working 30 hours a day 9 days a week. How you think I´ll be able to manage that? In case you haven´t noticed, yet, I´m a sort of busy "kid". I already have two full-time jobs."
"And yet you´re sitting here playing chess with your laptop," Grady said casually.
Jesse closed his mouth, but scowled at him.
After a short pause, Grady rose his voice again without looking at the young doctor. "So, when would you like to have your interview at the firm?"
"My shift ends at eight."
"Eight it is then," Leer nodded, smiled and stood to leave the bar. Before he opened the door, he turned once more. "And, Jesse - don´t worry, they´ll take you."
With that he left, closing the door behind him.
The doctor said in the quietness of his bar and stared ahead. "Side income," he mumbled to himself. "Great. Just great."
The interview was held in Mr. Liotta´s office and consisted of a few questions concerning the young man´s motives and experiences. It was, Jesse thought surprisedly, a typical interview as you would have expected it to be like in a serious firm. Nothing that was asked or answered would have suggested it to be illegal.
At first, anyway.
"So," Mr. Liotta asked after he´d received obviously satisfying information about Jesse´s job and qualities, "how did you come to hear about us, Dr. Travis?"
Jesse swallowed dryly and smiled slightly. Now they were beginning the part of the interview that would consist of lies. He went over the profile Leer had made up for him, relieved to find that he hadn´t forgotten anything. As Leer´s whole plan, this profile was perfect. "That´s my job," the detective had recited his favourite line, when he´d filled the young doctor in on his fake personality earlier that afternoon.
It was that of a young resident, who´d turned to drugs out of exhaustion and depressions due to him being constantly over-worked. A very realistic profile Jesse had thought, and quite easy to play, too, for he´d seen a lot of promising young doctors who´d end up like that during his career. He knew the symptoms, and he didn´t have to play his nervousness when sitting in front of Leer, anyway. Actually, he was down right scared of the man.
At 35, Raymond Liotta had built up a business his former friends and partners could only have dreamed of. He was respected as well as feared among the gross of the people working in his area, and the death of his Californian business-partner had made him even more powerfull.
Power suited him. It belonged into the dark brown eyes of his, which lay deep in his smooth, attractive face. Boyish looks mixed with obvious cruelity gave an image even more frightening than a scarred, drawn set of features would have been. He had a friendly smile, that never reached his eyes, and the way he watched the younger man in front of him showed his carefulness, his knowledge about everything and everyone.
For a short moment, Jesse feared the man might have found out about his lie, before he´d even had the chance to tell it, but remembering his task, he regained his courage and answered: "A friend of mine told me about you and your ... firm. He said if I´d ever be in the need of money ..." He left the sentence unfinished and lookd down as if nervous. Again, he didn´t have to play it.
"A friend," Liotta repeated friendly. "Care to give me a name?"
Jesse was prepared. "Simon. Tim Simon" he answered, looking up again. It was a name Leer had told him to use. He didn´t know anything about this guy, if there was one of this name, anyway, but fortunately Liotta seemed to recognize it and smiled even brighter.
"Good old Timmy," he announced with a soft laugh. "Haven´t seen the kid in years! What´s he doing now?"
"He´s in San Fran," Jesse answered, and again received a believing gaze from his to-be-employer. "Works for a place called ... uh ... something," he finished with a nervous laugh. "Forgot the name. Sometimes I phone him, but, you know how that is, right?" he added with a wry grin, that faded away instantly. He felt it to be oddly dangerous to grin at the man.
Liotta nodded. "Right." He made a short pause, before continuing: "And are you in the need of money know, Dr. Travis?"
"Ahm," Jesse made and looked away, then back, then down. "Ah ... uh, sort of, yeah."
"Hm. Or maybe," Liotta said after a moment and leaned back in his big leather chair, "maybe good old Timmy told you that we pay some of our doctors with something different than money. Something," he added, looking directly at the fidgeting young man, "a man in your position may have more use for."
Jesse waited a second, before he lifted his gaze to return the look with faked determination. "Maybe," was all he said.
Seconds passed, in which Liotta continued to simply look at the doctor. Then, all of a sudden, he leaned forward again, opened a drawer in his desk and produced a smal, white pill, which he placed on the table in front of Jesse.
Carefully, as if he wasn´t sure if it was allowed, Jesse´s gaze wandered down to the pill. He couldn´t see what sort of drug it was. It could be everything.
Liotta leaned back again, waiting.
Time slowed down, it seemed, while Jesse was staring at the pill. Somewhere deep inside him, he´d feared it woul come to this, but then - could he let it be now?
Slowly, reluctantly, he reached out to take the pill and held it in front of his face. Suppressing a smile, he placed it in his mouth and swallowed.
More seconds passed, Liotta continued to look at him. Nothing happened. Jesse wondered what he had expected? That pink elephants would start to fly up and down behind the window instantly? He knew he couldn´t let it on that this was the very first time in his life he´d taken drugs, and so he himself continued to avoid Liotta´s gaze, as if ashamed of his weakness. He figured such behaviour would fit to his profile.
"Please leave your number when you go," Liotta finally said and turned with his chair, facing the window now. "We will call you every time we have a job for you."
Jesse waited for another thing to be said and, when it was sure there wasn´t more to come, stood up and approached the door.
"Welcome to the team, Dr. Travis," Liotta called after him, without turning around.
Jesse left without another word. As soon as he´d dictated his number to the secretary in the office, he ran outside and to his car. He couldn´t risk throwing up anywhere near the building, but knew he had to some time soon if he wanted to avoid the effects whatever he´d just swallowed might have on him.
Driving as fast as he could without actually killing someone, he reached CG, sprinted inside and into the men´s room where he desperately tried to fullfill his task.
But no matter how painfully violently he retched, he couldn´t manage to get rid off the drug. Swearing at himself for not having eaten since breakfast, he slumped back against the wall exhaustedly. He was sweating by now and could feel his heart run a marathon without his feet joining in.
His hands started trembling, yet, he didn´t feel weak. Actually, his whole body felt like joining in this sprint of his heart by now, and, wiping the sweat off his forehead, he stood shakily, leaning against the wall for support.
Now fairly sure that it had been a stimulant, he´d taken, he rolled his eyes at the sudden urge to do something. Work. He felt as if he could have worked for a week without sleep. Slowly, though he tried his best to avoid it, the effects widened to his mind to, telling him that he really could do anything he wanted at the moment, that he shouldn´t waste the energy, since he hadit now, anyway.
Drawing in a deep, calming breath, Jesse opened the door and stepped over to the sink. He splashed a few handfull of water in his face and looked at his image in the mirror. Okay, he wasn´t used to drugs. his paleness and rapidly widening eyes showed that, but he didn´t inted to take another one, anyway. It had just been this one, and it had been necessary in order to convince Liotta of his story. He wouldn´t be forced to do ever do it again, he assured himself.
And he would definitely kill Leer when he next saw him, he decided.
Feeling better by this thought already, Jesse dried his face with his sleeve, drove a still trembling hand through his hair, as if the gesture would sweep away the obvious signs of his condition, and left the room.
It was a quiet night, and since there weren´t any patients to treat, Jesse decided to have a coffee in the Doctor´s Lounge. Or maybe a glass of water, he rethought his plan when he found his hands still shaking badly as he opened the door.
A surprised look was placed on him. "Jesse," Mark Sloan said, "I thought your shift was over. What´re you still doing here?"
Cursing him for having forgotten about that, Jesse smiled sheepishly and made his way to the coffee machine. "Ah ... I changed with ... ahm, I checked on a patient in recovery. I´ll be leaving in a second."
It hadn´t sounded very convincing, and he winced as he felt Mark´s frown behind his back.
"Are you all right?" came in unevitable question. "You look pale."
"Sure," he hastened to say and turned to present his mentor with a bright grin. "Sure, I´m fine, just fine. Tired, though. Yeah, tired. You know what, I think I really should go home and get some rest. Yeah, I think, uhm ..." he continued babbling and placed the cup he´d grabbed back on the shelf. Practically running out of the room, he called "Bye Mark!" over his shoulder and fled.
Staring behind his young colleague in startled surprise, Mark could feel a knot of dread built up inside him. He shortly thought about following Jesse, but decided against it. The young doctor was, after all, a grown up man. Besides, he admitted to himself, he wasn´t feeling up to handling anything else these days, anyway. All he wished was to go home after his shift and find Steve grouse at the case he was working on or the fact that his dad had missed an important game on TV again.
But that wasn´t going to happen. Things had changed. They had changed.
Sighing, Mark sipped at his coffee and continued to read the article that was laying in front of him.When he finally left the room, he couldn´t remember a word of what he´d just read.
To to be continued ...
As always, thanks to Pinky-kid (Whose birthday was yesterday, by the way! Anybody who hasn´t sung, yet, line up, please ...) for ... uh ... being Pinky-kid. Obst vor! Remember: It´s not easy to be small, it´s not easy to be tall, tam, tam ...
And as for Regina, I´m so glad you´re still with us! Cute rules!
Disclaimers still the same. I own the title role and the bad guy, but I´d give them gladly for ... Okay, okay, I shut up. Hmpf!
Enjoy!
"Hey Mark," Jesse called after his mentor and approached him quickly as he turned around to greet the young man with a tired smile.
"Morning, Jesse."
"How´s Steve?" Jesse asked, though, of course, he knew the answer. He wondered why exactly people did that - asking question they already knew the answer to. Perhaps it was because of the guilt they felt. The guilt of not being in the other one´s position. Of having made it out lucky this time. It had happened to someone else, and they felt guilty about it.
"Ahm ... Okay, I guess," Mark replied, smiling kind of helplessly and running his thumb over his brow. "He went straight to bed last night, I didn´t get to talk to him much."
"Well," Jesse started unsurely, but in an attempt to give some comfort, "sleeping´s good. He was probably in shock, maybe I should have brought him here or stuff. Dunno."
"No," Mark objected softly and smiled again. It was almost a real Mark-smile, Jesse noticed with relief, and was surprised at this emotion right away. Why was he relieved? What had he expected Mark to be like this morning? His son´s girl-friend had been murdered the night before, so why would he not change his smiling-behaviour? What kind of person was he himself that he dared to feel relieved over anything?
"No," Mark, having no idea of his colleague´s inner monologue, repeated. "You can´t fix everything in a hospital. Some shocks are meant to be felt."
"Hm," Jesse made in the abscence of an idea what other noise to produce. He felt uncomfortable. He didn´t like wise sayings. He didn´t like the look in Mark´s eyes. "So," he finally started, when Mark thankfully had remembered that he had been on his way to somewhere and they both were walking down the hallway, "I take it Steve went to work this morning."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mark nodding at this, but nothing else that could have been seen on the older man´s face. Walking while talking was a much more preferable combination to him than standing and talking, he decided.
"Yes," the older doctor nodded, "but I doubt he´ll be on the case."
"Because she was his girl-friend."
"Right. But then, it might be the best after all, I don´t think ... Well," he chuckled after having made a slight pause, "you know Steve. He´ll probably investigate, anyway."
Jesse frowned. "Don´t you think that´s the best way for him to cope with it? I mean, that´s what Steve´s like, right? He´s ... acting."
Mark glanced at him and sighed finally. "I don´t know, Jesse," he said sadly, "I´ve never seen him like that. He´s so ..." Once again he stopped as if to think about what exactly he wanted to say, then gave up and smiled slightly at the younger man, before looking ahead again.
For the first time Jesse could see how much it hurt the older man to know his son in such pain. Mark Sloan would have given everything to just end Steve´s suffering, and he would gladly have accepted Steve´s fate if it had meant for his son to walk out of this situation unbroken and unharmed. But it wasn´t possible. As a family, they broke together, and Jesse couldn´t help but notice how he himself started to crumble away, too. Again, he felt guilt floating through him, for how did he dare feeling like that? How did he dare feeling guilty. Yet, how should he feel?
He was about to reply anything, though he didn´t have a clue, what, when Amanda Bentley´s voice called out from behind them.
"Mark! Jesse!"
Surprised at how alarmed she sounded, the men turned.
"Hey," Jesse began, when she came to a full stop next to them. "What..."
"Carlie," she cut him off. "Permission to do an autopsy on her was not granted. They won´t let me do it," she added seriously.
Both Jesse´s and Mark´s eyes widened in disbelief.
"You gotta be kidding," the younger man was the first to speak. "They have to, she was the victim of a crime! Whoever are "they", anyway?!"
"The Vitense-lawyer," the pathologist replied and produced a sheet of paper. "Here. Somehow he found a way to convince the judge, that an autopsy wouldn´t be necessary and that therefore the body shall be given to her relatives instantly. They´re coming to collect her body today."
"Wouldn´t be necessary?!" Jesse shouted, while Mark Sloan had took the paper from Amanda and read it silently. "She was shot! Isn´t it, like, a law that there has to be an autopsy in such cases?"
"Yes," Mark nodded.
"So?" Jesse looked at him agitatedly.
"So normally," the older man replied and handed the paper back to Amanda, "there is an autopsy, unless you have a very good lawyer."
"That sucks," Jesse stated frustradedly.
Mark nodded slowly, then glanced at Amanda. "Did you tell Steve?"
"No. He´s not on the case. I talked to a Detective Leer, he´s the officer responsible for ..." Suddenly feeling obviously uncomfortable, she bowed her head a little and even shifted her weight from one foot to the other. It was a completey untypical gesture for her, for the very last thing Amanda Benltley usually was, was unsure, and so she found herself being looked at puzzled by her friends as she continued:
"Ahm, he´s, like, in organized crime, as far as I got it."
"What d´you mean?" Mark asked, though he already sensed that he probably wouldn´t like the answer.
"It seems as if Mr. Vitense was in on some deals concerning ... inner organs," she finished and sighed deeply, watching in sympathy as the information started to sink in. She´d gone there herself less than an hour ago and could still feel the shock it had risen inside her.
"Y-you mean he belonged to the mop?" Jesse bursted out after a moment of silence. His eyes had reached the size of some not really small vegetables, and he looked utterly dismayed.
Mark remained silent, but rubbed a thumb over his brow. Jesse had seen this gesture on him often enough during the day by now, that he knew for sure things weren´t about to brighten up or become better. Actually, it felt as though something was just beginning, something none of them wanted to begin.
"Sort of," Amanda answered his question. "I don´t know if it´s actually the mop, y´know, but he was in on something, that´s for sure. Leer said he and his colleagues had been looking for a chance to frame him for months now." She paused. "He, uhm, he doubts that ... Carlie had something to do with it. Looks like she didn´t even know ..."
"Course not!" Jesse stated firmly, but calmed down immediately under his friends´ startled looks. "I-I mean, course she didn´t ... Hey, it´s Carlie, we´re talking about here, `kay? She´d never done anything like that."
They all knew what the sentence was really like: Steve would have never loved her like he had if ...
Mark sighed. You could practically see how he´d aged for the last few seconds. Frowning in deep sympathy, Amanda looked at him, when she replied: "Leer´s fairly sure she didn´t. He´s gonna prove it, too."
As silence once more settled over the small team, Mark all of a sudden glanced at his watch, mumbled something about rounds and coffee and turned to walk away.
The two remaining friends watched him silently.
"She wasn´t in on it," Jesse finally said as if to no one in particular. "We knew her. She wasn´t."
Amanda eyed him, frowning. His features were drawn with worry, an impression seldomly found there. To her surprise she found that it made him look even younger, like a little boy who´d just been said "Life´s not fair" for the very first time. Since that was definitely not the case, the pathologist wondered even more how her friend had managed to beware his air of pure innocence over the years.
"I know," she nodded. "I don´t believe it, too. She was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time."
He didn´t answer to that, but asked, without looking at her. "Does Steve know that, too?"
"I don´t know," she answered.
"Hm. Well. I, uh, I have a patient to see, Amanda," he announced, suddenly becoming very hectic. "Gotta go. See you."
"Yeah," Amanda murmured and watched him head off towards the lift.
Jesse had always like the precinct. Not only because he had watched every single episode of "Hill Street Blues", but also because it was the one place symbolizing the specialty of his life in LA. The precinct was where the team met if their other places weren´t sufficient anymore. Here Jesse had always felt just how much he was involved in solving a case, in the actual police work, and, of course, it had always been exciting.
Right now, the actual police work seemed pointless to him. If it meant chasing after criminals you couldn´t nail down, couldn´t arrest, like Mr. Vitense, it had to be frustrating. Innocent people died, and maybe you were the one who was to break the news to their relatives. Sometimes Jesse thought about just how much his and Steve´s jobs resembled each other. They both should have known better by now, about death.
Entering the lieutenant´s working area, he stopped and sighed. What did they know? he wondered.
Steve was sitting at his desk, writing something down in a file, which lay upfolded in front of him. The way in which his shoulders were slumped forward, how his head was bowed just a tiny bit more than necessary, were the first signs of his state.
When he noticed Jesse aproaching him, he lifted his upper body and smiled, but it never reached his eyes.
Tired, he looked, Jesse found. Tired of many things.
"Jess," Steve greeted his friend friendly, though even his voice betrayed his seemingly casual behaviour. Jesse wondered if he just imagined it or if Steve actually talked slower. But then, did it matter? What needed to be said didn´t fit in words.
"Hey Steve, how´s it going?" the young doctor asked, smiling, and winced inwardly at this clever opening. How could it possibly be going?! "I hear you´re not on Carlie´s case," he added quickly, for now the topic had been brought up, anyway.
"That´s right," Steve nodded and frowned. "That´s why you came here?"
"No. I ..." Actually, he didn´t have a clue about why exactly he´d gone there. Smiling wryly, he shrugged. "I, uh, just wanted to ask if you want me to close up "Bob´s" tonight."
The lieutenant frowned. "Hm. Well, since it´s your turn, anyway, I´d say that´d be great."
Oups. "My turn," Jesse stuttered. "Ah - right. My turn. Right."
"Right," Steve repeated mockingly. Even a small grin could be seen hushing over his features. "Anything else I can do for you?"
"No. Yes. I mean ..." Noticing his nervous gestures, Jesse shoved his hands into his pockets fiercefully. "I just wondered if perhaps you want me to ... dunno, take over your shifts at "Bob´s" this week, y´know, so that you can ... " He trickled off, not knowing what he expected Steve to do in his spare time, anyway. What did he do when he was alone with his grief?
" ... stare at my ceiling?" the older man finished Jesse´s sentence helpfully. One couldn´t tell from the look of his eyes if he was touched or amused in a bitter way.
"Yeah," the young doctor said lamely, realizing how great an offer this had been. The least a person like Steve needed in times like these was too much time for himself. "Something like that. `kay, then I guess the answer´s no. That´s ... fine. I don´t think I could´ve managed it, anyway."
Since the doctor didn´t attempted to turn and leave now, or move at all, that is, Steve sighed slightly and stood up. "Jess, why´re you really here?"
"Ahm ..."
"See, I´m appreciating this, but I don´t need to be checked out, `kay? I´m fine." Fine as a snowman in the springtime, he thought, but repeated: "I am."
"I wasn´t checking on you," Jesse hurried to say. "I was ..." Worried, would have been the correct answer. He couldn´t remember the last time he´d been so worried about someone, and he didn´t like the feeling. Especially not when Steve was concerned. You normally didn´t need to worry about Steve. He´d always been coping okay with everything. He probably even believed himself that he was coping okay with this, too.
Jesse found that he was really bad at being worried, though he´d never thought that.
"Hey Sloan," a deep male voice fortunately saved the young man from finishing the unfinishingable sentence, and when Jesse turned, he saw a tall, dark-haired man approach Steve´s desk, smiling at both the lieutenant and the doctor.
"Grady," Steve said friendly and pointed at Jesse. "Meet my business-partner Dr. Jesse Travis. Jesse, this is Grady Leer, he´s on the Vitense-case."
Jesse frowned at Steve´s titling of the case, but didn´t have enough time to shoot him a glance, for Grady Leer enthusiasticly accepted the doctor´s unconsciously outstretched hand and presented him with a bright smile.
"Dr. Travis," he said. "Pleasure to meet you. I´ve heard a lot about you. Not from him," he laughed, when Jesse´s questioning gaze flew to Steve, "my sister was brought to CG last summer, she´d broken her arm doing ... I don´t remember what crazy sort of sport, and then I had to listen to all these hospital stories of hers."
"Ah ..." Jesse made uncertainly. "Leer? I don´t think I ..."
"Well, she certainly still remembers you," Grady Leer stated, grinning.
"Yes, few people forget our Jesse," Steve said dryly, ignored the look-to-kill which was placed on him and asked: "So what did they say? About Liotta?"
Leer´s smile faded instantly. "I´m sorry, Steve, they settled for undercover. But," he added quickly when the lieutenant´s frustration was beginning to become obvious, "we´ll get him. I promise. And he might even go down for more than murder then, don´t forget that."
"I don´t care about for what else he´s going to get toasted!" Steve shot back furiously."Murder is enough."
"Murder would be enough," Leer corrected calmly, "if we could prove it. But we can´t."
"So what, we just let it go, let him get away with it?!"
"No," Leer objected firmly. "We´ll frame him, and then we´ll get him. If I arrested him now, he´d be out again just like that." He snipped his fingers loudly. "Is that what you want?"
Staring at his colleague, Steve finally drew in a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry, Grady. I know you´re right."
"We´ll get him," Leer said after a short pause and watched as Steve sat down behind his desk again.
"Yeah," the lieutenant nodded.
"`kay," Leer said. Eventually he turned. "See you, Sloan. Dr. Travis." With that he left.
Jesse waited a few seconds, before he sat down at Steve´s desk, too, and asked: "What was that all about?"
"Raymond Liotta," Steve answered without looking at his friend. "He´s ... was a business-partner of Vitense´s. Grady thinks he killed them."
"Why?"
"Dunno. I´m not on the case. Money," the lieutenant added tiredly after a moment´s thought. "I guess. Or maybe something completely different. I don´t know."
"But they can´t arrest him," Jesse said, though it sounded more like a question.
"As you heard. They wanna sent someone in there. The company or whatever you´d call it. Undercover. They planed to do that for quite some time now, but they never got permission or money and stuff. Till now," he added with a bitter smile.
"`cause now it´s double-murder."
"Right. Now he´s done something stupid. I bet Organized Crime´s throwing a party right now." Chuckling unhumorously, he swept a hand over his face. "At least they get him," he then said ernestly.
"Yes," Jesse agreed, and shuddered at his own completely toneless voice.
Silence threatened to settle upon them once more, till the young doctor rose to his feet."I better go now, you´ve to work, right?"
"Yeahp. See you. - And, uhm, Jesse," he called after his friend. "Thanks for the offer, y´know, "Bob´s", but I can do it, really."
"Sure."
With that, Jesse left. He didn´t notice Grady Leer´s gaze that followed him from Steve´s desk to the door.But then he probably wouldn´t have made anything out of it, anyway.
"BBQ Bob´s" was closed. And as on most evenings, when he´d been the one to close up, Jesse Travis sat alone in his bar and played chess against his computer, losing. It had become a habit of his quite some time ago, though he couldn´t exactly say why. He liked chess, but a blindfolded dove could have beaten him. Still, he liked thinking and planning, which his computer would declare to nonsense the second he would tipe in his solution.
Most of all, though, he liked the quietness of the closed bar, and since he only played chess at these occasions, it by now belonged to the satisfying feeling of a long day fading out. Jesse played chess out of traditional reasons, a very Jess-like thing to do, as his friends would have pointed out if they´d known about it.
He was losing the game tonight. That was hardly surprising (To be honest, Jesse would have probably dropped dead out of shock if he ever won against anyone.), but this night it frustrated him. He was starting to get angry at the ever-winning machine and made mistakes even he normally wouldn´t have managed to do. Since he never exactly concentraded on the games, his worries were no reason for his disastrous playing. Something different was nagging him, and actually it was the fact that he couldn´t find out what, that made him so angry.
"Mated. Play again?" the screen showed him in friendly orange letters.
Groaning, Jesse placed his chin on his palm. "One day they gonna invent computers which will laugh at me and wise-crack," he mumbled to the machine. "Then I´ll probably love you, but as for tonight ..."
Further statements, which might have ended up in serious insults, were cut off by a loud knock on the door.
"We´re closed," Jesse announced, but stood up, anyway. Experience had taught him that people seldomly left after having been told the bar was closed. They´d probably known that when they´d knocked, for the sign on the door was turned to "Closed", and therefore whatever they wanted was equally probably important.
Or they were drunk.
"Dr. Travis," a deep, male voice called out from outside, "it´s Grady Leer. I gotta talk to you. Please."
Frowning, Jesse crossed over to the door and opened it.
"Thanks. Hi," smiled Grady Leer and entered.
Jesse watched him confusedly. He was still holding the door, when Leer had already sat down on the bar and taken off his coat. "Ah ... hi," the young doctor finally managed and closed the door. "What can I do for you?"
"A lot," Leer answered. "And not only for me. But we shall come to that later. Ahm - how `bout coffee?" he grinned.
"Detective Leer ..." Jesse began from where he stood, but was interrupted by the detective´s friendly: "Grady, just Grady. Jesse," he added with a "right, pal?"-look.
Jesse nodded irritatedly, then said: "Grady, what do you want?"
"Don´t you wanna sit down?"
"I wanna know what you want. It´s late, I´m not in a particular good mood today, and ..."
"I ... we need you," Grady Leer, once more, interrupted him.
Jesse fell silent, surprised. "Huh?" was all he managed after a short pause.
"I think you really should sit down," Grady repeated, and this time Jesse obeyed and sat down next to him at the bar. "You heard what I told Sloan today, right? About Liotta and the undercover assignment?"
"Yeahp."
"Okay. Do you know what sort of business Vitense and Liotta had? What they sold?"
"Organs," the doctor replied. "I understood it that Liotta sells organs."
"Right," Grady Leer nodded, looking as if proud of the best pupil in class. "They´re dealing with organs. Now, where do they get the "goods" from? From desperate people, people who sell a kidney or a lung or whatever because they are in depts. They might fear for their family or - whatever. You probably know as much about these things as I do."
He made a short pause as if he wanted to give Jesse a chance to answer, but the doctor remained silent.
"They have several people woking for them. People who do the actual operations, people who examine the organs, people like that. The whole stuff, `cept for the bosses - and lawyers," he added with a chuckle, "consists of doctors. Usually residents who want to earn a few dollars or drug addicts who are paid in whatever. Doctors are the only people those guys have working for them. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," Jesse replied slowly, a dreadful look had formed in his eyes, "but I don´t like where you´re heading."
Leer looked at him closely, then turned slightly, so that he was facing the doctor now. "Listen, Jesse, I don´t know any lawyers. Okay? And time´s running out. I´ve waited so long for this permission, I won´t screw it now. I can´t sent any of my men in there, they´re no doctors. You can´t learn the things you´d need to know in such a short amount of time. I need a doctor to do this."
"You better go now," Jesse said cooly.
"Please," Grady Leer hastened to say, "at least think about it."
He was about to add something, but was cut off by the doctor´s firm objection. "What do you want from me?!" he snapped and stood as if to defend himself. "That I join the club and mutilate healthy people?! Have you lost your mind? I swore an oath to ..."
"You wouldn´t have to do that," Leer tried to calm him down. "You could just, like, examine the goods. There´re a lot of other things you could do, like ... ahm ..." He was gesturing with his hands as if looking for words. "Dunno. Examine the goods," he finally repeated.
"Examine the ... No!" Jesse replied firmly. "I won´t do it!"
"And what about Liotta?" Leer asked."He killed your friend´s girl. And he´ll get away with it. Unless we," he added and pointed first and himself then at the miserable looking doctor, "prevent it."
"There has to be another way," Jesse said, though he could hear his own voice sounding a little weaker than before, less confident, less convincing.
"It´s up to you, Jesse," the detective said casually and lifted his head to one side slightly. He looked about as "Got you!" as one man could look.
Casting him a "not fair!"-look in response, Jesse slowly moved back to the bar. "Steve was Carlie´s boy-friend, and I´m his business-partner. Liotta will easily find out and get suspicious."
"He´s been in Europe for the last thirteen month and just returned two days ago. Besides, Carlie didn´t tell her family about Steve."
"How can you be so sure `bout this?"
"That´s my job," the man smiled. "Trust me, Liotta doesn´t have a clue."
"I don´t know if I´m ready to trust you with my life, yet," the doctor replied dryly, but asked after a short pause: "How do ... would I get in, if I decided to do it? Place an advertisement in the newspaper? "Young, good-looking doctor looks for illegale side income"?"
"I´d place that ad for you," Grady said with a confident smile. "Don´t worry, I know how to get people into business. It´s ..."
" ... your job, right," Jesse finished with a humorless smile. He could feel himself giving in a little more with every second, though he the knot in his stomach advised him not to. "What d´you want me to do once in? Apart from breaking my oath, that is."
"The same you want," Grady answered innocently. "Proof."
"Proof," the young man repeated, glancing into the other one´s eyes. Something in there bothered him, though he couldn´t say what it was. Somehow their emerald green color sent a slight shudder along his spine. Yet, the man was right about one thing.
"What about Steve?"
Leer frowned. Before he could verbalize his question, Jesse continued: "He´ll never let me to it. He´ll probably lock me up and throw away the key."
"Oh, no," Grady said as if explaining the simpliest thing in the world to the dumpest man walking on it´s surface. "You mustn´t tell anyone. Not Steve, not your boss, not your parents or friends or whoever. No one. It´s important that you don´t tell anyone, Jesse. Your life my depend on it. - That is," the detective added with a wicked grin, "if you do it."
Ignoring Leer´s wise-crack, the doctor frowned. "How am I supposed to keep this a secret? I´ve to work, I ..."
"Right, and that is good. You´ve to continue your work at CG and here in order to not rise suspicion. The doctors working for those people are all having regular jobs. With you having your shifts at CG and still work for them in addition to those, they´ll think you´re one desperate kid. It´ll make it easier for you to convince them. It´ll be much safer than the alternative."
Since Jesse wasn´t interested in any alternative not being safe, he didn´t bother to ask. There was another thing on his mind, anyway. "Desperate indeed." he nodded wryly. "I´m very likely going to become pretty desperate when working 30 hours a day 9 days a week. How you think I´ll be able to manage that? In case you haven´t noticed, yet, I´m a sort of busy "kid". I already have two full-time jobs."
"And yet you´re sitting here playing chess with your laptop," Grady said casually.
Jesse closed his mouth, but scowled at him.
After a short pause, Grady rose his voice again without looking at the young doctor. "So, when would you like to have your interview at the firm?"
"My shift ends at eight."
"Eight it is then," Leer nodded, smiled and stood to leave the bar. Before he opened the door, he turned once more. "And, Jesse - don´t worry, they´ll take you."
With that he left, closing the door behind him.
The doctor said in the quietness of his bar and stared ahead. "Side income," he mumbled to himself. "Great. Just great."
The interview was held in Mr. Liotta´s office and consisted of a few questions concerning the young man´s motives and experiences. It was, Jesse thought surprisedly, a typical interview as you would have expected it to be like in a serious firm. Nothing that was asked or answered would have suggested it to be illegal.
At first, anyway.
"So," Mr. Liotta asked after he´d received obviously satisfying information about Jesse´s job and qualities, "how did you come to hear about us, Dr. Travis?"
Jesse swallowed dryly and smiled slightly. Now they were beginning the part of the interview that would consist of lies. He went over the profile Leer had made up for him, relieved to find that he hadn´t forgotten anything. As Leer´s whole plan, this profile was perfect. "That´s my job," the detective had recited his favourite line, when he´d filled the young doctor in on his fake personality earlier that afternoon.
It was that of a young resident, who´d turned to drugs out of exhaustion and depressions due to him being constantly over-worked. A very realistic profile Jesse had thought, and quite easy to play, too, for he´d seen a lot of promising young doctors who´d end up like that during his career. He knew the symptoms, and he didn´t have to play his nervousness when sitting in front of Leer, anyway. Actually, he was down right scared of the man.
At 35, Raymond Liotta had built up a business his former friends and partners could only have dreamed of. He was respected as well as feared among the gross of the people working in his area, and the death of his Californian business-partner had made him even more powerfull.
Power suited him. It belonged into the dark brown eyes of his, which lay deep in his smooth, attractive face. Boyish looks mixed with obvious cruelity gave an image even more frightening than a scarred, drawn set of features would have been. He had a friendly smile, that never reached his eyes, and the way he watched the younger man in front of him showed his carefulness, his knowledge about everything and everyone.
For a short moment, Jesse feared the man might have found out about his lie, before he´d even had the chance to tell it, but remembering his task, he regained his courage and answered: "A friend of mine told me about you and your ... firm. He said if I´d ever be in the need of money ..." He left the sentence unfinished and lookd down as if nervous. Again, he didn´t have to play it.
"A friend," Liotta repeated friendly. "Care to give me a name?"
Jesse was prepared. "Simon. Tim Simon" he answered, looking up again. It was a name Leer had told him to use. He didn´t know anything about this guy, if there was one of this name, anyway, but fortunately Liotta seemed to recognize it and smiled even brighter.
"Good old Timmy," he announced with a soft laugh. "Haven´t seen the kid in years! What´s he doing now?"
"He´s in San Fran," Jesse answered, and again received a believing gaze from his to-be-employer. "Works for a place called ... uh ... something," he finished with a nervous laugh. "Forgot the name. Sometimes I phone him, but, you know how that is, right?" he added with a wry grin, that faded away instantly. He felt it to be oddly dangerous to grin at the man.
Liotta nodded. "Right." He made a short pause, before continuing: "And are you in the need of money know, Dr. Travis?"
"Ahm," Jesse made and looked away, then back, then down. "Ah ... uh, sort of, yeah."
"Hm. Or maybe," Liotta said after a moment and leaned back in his big leather chair, "maybe good old Timmy told you that we pay some of our doctors with something different than money. Something," he added, looking directly at the fidgeting young man, "a man in your position may have more use for."
Jesse waited a second, before he lifted his gaze to return the look with faked determination. "Maybe," was all he said.
Seconds passed, in which Liotta continued to simply look at the doctor. Then, all of a sudden, he leaned forward again, opened a drawer in his desk and produced a smal, white pill, which he placed on the table in front of Jesse.
Carefully, as if he wasn´t sure if it was allowed, Jesse´s gaze wandered down to the pill. He couldn´t see what sort of drug it was. It could be everything.
Liotta leaned back again, waiting.
Time slowed down, it seemed, while Jesse was staring at the pill. Somewhere deep inside him, he´d feared it woul come to this, but then - could he let it be now?
Slowly, reluctantly, he reached out to take the pill and held it in front of his face. Suppressing a smile, he placed it in his mouth and swallowed.
More seconds passed, Liotta continued to look at him. Nothing happened. Jesse wondered what he had expected? That pink elephants would start to fly up and down behind the window instantly? He knew he couldn´t let it on that this was the very first time in his life he´d taken drugs, and so he himself continued to avoid Liotta´s gaze, as if ashamed of his weakness. He figured such behaviour would fit to his profile.
"Please leave your number when you go," Liotta finally said and turned with his chair, facing the window now. "We will call you every time we have a job for you."
Jesse waited for another thing to be said and, when it was sure there wasn´t more to come, stood up and approached the door.
"Welcome to the team, Dr. Travis," Liotta called after him, without turning around.
Jesse left without another word. As soon as he´d dictated his number to the secretary in the office, he ran outside and to his car. He couldn´t risk throwing up anywhere near the building, but knew he had to some time soon if he wanted to avoid the effects whatever he´d just swallowed might have on him.
Driving as fast as he could without actually killing someone, he reached CG, sprinted inside and into the men´s room where he desperately tried to fullfill his task.
But no matter how painfully violently he retched, he couldn´t manage to get rid off the drug. Swearing at himself for not having eaten since breakfast, he slumped back against the wall exhaustedly. He was sweating by now and could feel his heart run a marathon without his feet joining in.
His hands started trembling, yet, he didn´t feel weak. Actually, his whole body felt like joining in this sprint of his heart by now, and, wiping the sweat off his forehead, he stood shakily, leaning against the wall for support.
Now fairly sure that it had been a stimulant, he´d taken, he rolled his eyes at the sudden urge to do something. Work. He felt as if he could have worked for a week without sleep. Slowly, though he tried his best to avoid it, the effects widened to his mind to, telling him that he really could do anything he wanted at the moment, that he shouldn´t waste the energy, since he hadit now, anyway.
Drawing in a deep, calming breath, Jesse opened the door and stepped over to the sink. He splashed a few handfull of water in his face and looked at his image in the mirror. Okay, he wasn´t used to drugs. his paleness and rapidly widening eyes showed that, but he didn´t inted to take another one, anyway. It had just been this one, and it had been necessary in order to convince Liotta of his story. He wouldn´t be forced to do ever do it again, he assured himself.
And he would definitely kill Leer when he next saw him, he decided.
Feeling better by this thought already, Jesse dried his face with his sleeve, drove a still trembling hand through his hair, as if the gesture would sweep away the obvious signs of his condition, and left the room.
It was a quiet night, and since there weren´t any patients to treat, Jesse decided to have a coffee in the Doctor´s Lounge. Or maybe a glass of water, he rethought his plan when he found his hands still shaking badly as he opened the door.
A surprised look was placed on him. "Jesse," Mark Sloan said, "I thought your shift was over. What´re you still doing here?"
Cursing him for having forgotten about that, Jesse smiled sheepishly and made his way to the coffee machine. "Ah ... I changed with ... ahm, I checked on a patient in recovery. I´ll be leaving in a second."
It hadn´t sounded very convincing, and he winced as he felt Mark´s frown behind his back.
"Are you all right?" came in unevitable question. "You look pale."
"Sure," he hastened to say and turned to present his mentor with a bright grin. "Sure, I´m fine, just fine. Tired, though. Yeah, tired. You know what, I think I really should go home and get some rest. Yeah, I think, uhm ..." he continued babbling and placed the cup he´d grabbed back on the shelf. Practically running out of the room, he called "Bye Mark!" over his shoulder and fled.
Staring behind his young colleague in startled surprise, Mark could feel a knot of dread built up inside him. He shortly thought about following Jesse, but decided against it. The young doctor was, after all, a grown up man. Besides, he admitted to himself, he wasn´t feeling up to handling anything else these days, anyway. All he wished was to go home after his shift and find Steve grouse at the case he was working on or the fact that his dad had missed an important game on TV again.
But that wasn´t going to happen. Things had changed. They had changed.
Sighing, Mark sipped at his coffee and continued to read the article that was laying in front of him.When he finally left the room, he couldn´t remember a word of what he´d just read.
To to be continued ...