Disclaimer: I do not own Law and Order: SVU. It belongs to a genius named Dick Wolf. No profit is being made from this story.
Elliot lifted the ancient-looking nozzle and inserted it into the truck. Stepping back up to the pump, he found that he could barely see anything on it. Everything was covered in dried dirt and dust.
Wiping at the display screen with his hand produced nothing. Rolling his eyes, he pressed the button to start the pump and stepped back down next to the truck.
He filled the tank and returned the nozzle, twisting the gas cap back in place. Thunder rumbled in the distance, making him glance up as he was walking to the attached store. The clouds were promising more rain soon.
A small bell jingled as he pulled open the screen door. Music was playing from somewhere; the repeated scratching noises sounded like a record. The wooden deck creaked as he stepped into the store.
"Hello?" he called, looking around. There was no one in sight.
He began walking slowly through the store, his gaze diverted by the items he saw. There were jars of fruit preserves that were covered in dust sitting on a shelf in the corner. Bags of beef jerky lined another shelf along with cans of corn and green beans.
A rack next to one of the shelves caught his eye, and he saw what looked like strings of brown beads hanging from it. Reaching out, he fingered one curiously and immediately drew his hand back in surprise. The beads were scratchy and rough like burlap.
Blinking in disarray, he continued on to the end of the aisle and saw a freezer case. Coming up to it, he bent down and peered inside.
His face immediately screwed up with horror and he backed away reflexively. Instead of the soft drinks he had been expecting to see, there were platters of animal entrails sitting on the shelves. They weren't even covered; he could tell by the flies that were buzzing around inside.
Letting out a revolted breath, he quickly straightened. Enough dawdling; he seriously needed to get out of this town right now.
"Hello?" he called again, louder this time. He strode up to the front of the store again, looking around. "I-I need to pay for some gas…?"
A scratching sounded again, and this time it seemed closer. Turning his head toward the sound, he began making his way over.
More odd items were on this side as well. There was a large basket of gourds sitting against the wall. A small bucket was next to it, and he jumped as he was walking past it. Scores of worms were writhing around inside. He shuddered involuntarily. A sign on the wall said LIVE BAIT.
A slight swishing sound caught his attention and he whipped his head up toward it. There was another screen door leading to a different section of the store. A small sign hanging on the knob said EMPLOYEES ONLY.
"Hello?" he said softly, stepping close to the door.
He peered inside, hearing the music loudly once he got close enough. There was no one there. Biting his lip in frustration, he turned to look toward the other side of the store again.
A figure appeared in his side vision and he turned toward it. He gasped loudly and stumbled a step back upon seeing it.
He scoffed angrily, trying to slow his racing heart. "I'm sorry," he said awkwardly to the old woman standing by the door.
She stood staring at him with an eerily empty gaze, her eyes completely blue. It had taken only a second for him to realize that she was blind, but he had reacted instinctively upon first seeing her.
The old woman didn't say a word as she cradled a black baby in her arms. Her face was drawn up with an odd smirk. Elliot was surprised when he saw a younger black woman appear next to her.
"Oh," he stammered. "I…I need to-"
His words were ignored as the woman gripped the woman by the arm, gently pulling her away. Her brown eyes bored holes into him, but she didn't speak a word.
Forget about confused now; he was seriously starting to get creeped out. He decided that it wasn't worth the trouble anymore.
Turning back around, he almost plowed right into a large black man standing directly behind him. He gasped again and nearly fell in his haste to back away.
The man was cracking a peanut in his hand. He scooped the nuts into his mouth and chewed loudly as he stared coldly at Elliot.
"Oh-" he said quickly, stepping away from the man. "I'm sorry. I didn't see you…um, I…I need to pay-"
"Fifteen for gas," the man interrupted stonily, his accent telling of a native ancestry. His cold stare never left Elliot's.
Blinking in surprise, Elliot quickly fumbled into his pocket, his fingers shaking slightly. He pulled out a crumpled twenty and hastily shoved it into the man's hand.
"Keep the change," he said quickly, stepping around the man in a hurry. He strode briskly toward the door without looking back.
The man crumpled the money in his hand and cracked another peanut, his gaze following Elliot as he hurried outside.
Olivia unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside, dropping her umbrella on the floor. She shivered and immediately went over to the thermostat to turn up the heat, despite it being July.
Stepping out of her wet shoes, she tossed them into her bedroom and walked out into the kitchen. Hanging up her keys, she set her purse on the breakfast bar so that she could get access inside. She pulled out a white paper-covered sandwich and set it down.
Walking to the cabinets, she retrieved a plate and a glass and came back. Setting the plate down, she filled the glass with ice from the freezer door and opened the refrigerator. Moving aside bottles, she pulled out the last can of Pepsi that she had hidden back there and closed the door again.
The ice crackled when she poured the soda into the glass. She slurped down the fizz a little at a time until she had emptied the entire can and tossed it into the garbage.
She hastily unwrapped the sandwich and set it on the plate, her stomach immediately perking up at the sight of the lovely pastrami on a hard roll. It was truly a New York sandwich, one of her favorite things about living in the city. There was a deli on every block and all of them knew how to make a killer pastrami sandwich.
Grinning in anticipation, she took one of the halves into her hands and lifted it to her mouth.
Her lips had just grazed the bread when the phone rang. She groaned loudly and slowly lowered it back to the plate.
"Fucking…" she swore under breath.
She scooted back and hopped out of the chair, walking to the phone base.
It had started pouring while Elliot was in the store. He jogged to his truck and reached for the door handle, anxious to get inside where it was dry and get the hell away from Chesterfield.
His hand snapped back roughly, pain shooting through his fingers.
"Fuck!" he swore painfully, his fingers throbbing.
Disbelief surged through him as he lifted the door handle again. It was locked. He hurried to the rear door and tugged on the handle. It too was locked.
He ran around and tried each of the other doors, ending up back at the driver's side. He smacked the window with his fist.
"Fuck!" he shouted angrily, tugging rapidly on the handle.
Peering through the glass, he saw his keys dangling from the ignition. He dropped his head down against the window, groaning in despair and anger. He was soaked to the bone and now he was locked out of his god damned truck.
Cursing, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and opened it. He dialed Kathy's number, hoping she hadn't gotten too far down the interstate yet.
There was nothing from the other end; no dial tone or even crackle of static. Pulling the phone back from his ear, he saw that a message was flashing:
Battery low
"God damn it!" he shouted.
This was un-fucking-believable. Why the hell did he have such bad luck all the time? Thunder crackled above him and he flinched, realizing only then just how freezing he was because of being soaked.
Angrily shoving the phone back into his pocket, he turned and ran back toward the store.
Olivia had been counting on having the rest of the night to herself, so it had been an unwelcome surprise when the captain had called and told her she needed to get back down to the station.
The man that Munch and Fin had just arrested who they thought was Andrew Willis turned out to be an imposter. Upon searching for the man's ID among the personal items they had taken off of him during the arrest, they discovered a photo badge revealing that his name was Samuel Slater.
Slater claimed that he was a low-end city maintenance worker and had been approached by the real Andrew Willis about twenty minutes before the police had arrived.
Olivia walked into the captain's office and saw him watching through the two-way mirror. A slight Hispanic man sat at the table, his eyes darting around anxiously as John questioned him. Fin was standing to the side with a menacing look on his face, his arms folded.
"He say, 'Hold ID and I pay you $1000'!" Slater said in rapid nervousness. "I swear, I swear…I no want trouble!"
"Then why did you go along with it?" Fin burst out angrily, striding up to the table. He leaned down on his elbows in the man's personal space. "Someone comes up to me asking me to hold something of his, I want to know what he's up to. Especially if he offers a lot of money!"
His Hispanic accent became more prominent the more nervous he became. "I…I just want to feed family!" he said. "$1000 go a long way… my paychecks don't got a lot to go around...I just want my girls to have good life… "
Cragen scoffed in disgust and flipped the sound off in the middle of the man's ramblings. He shook his head and sighed heavily.
"What the hell is all this about?" Olivia asked. "What happened to the real Andrew Willis?"
"No one seems to have any idea," Don said tiredly. "Apparently he keeps to himself, so nobody even knows who he is at the place where he works." He jerked a thumb toward the window. "And this guy can't seem to remember anything about him-what he was wearing, what he was doing…nothing. Just says that he handed him the ID and took off."
Sighing angrily again, he tapped the glass with his knuckle. Fin looked up and nodded to Munch, who got up. They filed out of the small room, leaving the man alone.
"No one at the place knew that this guy wasn't Andrew Willis?" she continued, eyebrows raised incredulously. "How did you arrest him, then? Wasn't the foreman there or something?"
"The foreman speaks about as much English as this guy does," Munch said dryly, as he and his partner came into the office. "We come in and he just starts shouting at everyone in Spanish. They all started holding up ID cards…what else could we do?"
"Too bad we're not Immigration," Fin muttered. "I'll bet that more than half of those workers are illegal."
Cragen looked at him in exasperation, but didn't comment. "Look, we took the arrest off of the guy's record when we found out who he was," he said in a no-nonsense tone. "It's not like he's missing anything anyways…guy's probably safer here than if he was back out there working for $5 a day."
Olivia was still aiming at John, her arms gesturing in disbelief. "But I still don't see how you can-?"
"That's enough, Olivia!" The captain's bark startled her, making her whip toward him in shock. "We'll go through the legal tangle later and get everything sorted out, alright?" He looked pissed. "All I'm concerned about right now is where the hell Andrew Willis is!"
She sighed and shook her head, but didn't bait him further. Cragen glanced at her warningly before turning to the other two again.
"Do we have his home address?" he asked.
"It's not on file," Fin answered. "But I'm sure we can look it up through DMV."
"Do that," Don said quickly. "Meanwhile… John, I want you and Olivia to go back down to the construction site and talk to the foreman. Make sure you get a look at his credentials."
He looked at them meaningfully. "If this guy is running an illegal shop, we're obligated to let Immigration know about it. But first see if he or anyone else can tell you anything about Willis- friends, where he hangs out…anything you can get."
She looked at John. He raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded.
"Excuse me!" Elliot called as he approached the door. "Could you-"
He stopped mid-sentence as he tugged on the screen door handle. It was locked.
What? He tugged on it again, hard. Nothing. What the fuck was going on around here?
"Look, I need to get inside!" he called, louder this time. He craned his head to see inside. "My keys are locked in my truck and I need to get to a phone."
The rain was effectively soaking him. "Oh, fuck this," he breathed, irritated beyond reason when there was still no response. He was sick of standing here getting wet.
He reached into his wallet and pulled out a credit card. Coming up to the door, he got on one knee and carefully searched for a snag in the screen. After a second, he found one.
Taking the sharp edge of the plastic card, he carefully widened the snag so that the plastic slipped through and began gently dragging it upward. The screen gave instantly. He slit the screen as carefully as he could until he had gone all the way to the where the latch was. Slipping his finger inside, he flipped it up and opened the door.
"Hello?" he called out as he stepped inside. He shut the door quietly. "Listen, I'm sorry about the screen, but I really need to get to a phone. My keys are locked-"
"No phones here."
The unexpected voice made him jump in surprise and choke on the rest of his sentence. Whirling around, he encountered the black man again.
The man stood still, his arms folded across his chest. He eyed Elliot squarely, his gaze narrowed.
"Ex-excuse me?" Elliot said.
The man spoke slowly, his heavy accent dragging through the words. "No phones," he repeated.
Elliot blinked stupidly. "Oh…um, ok," he stammered finally. "Well, could you maybe help me unlock my truck? I really need to get back to Manhattan."
He was startled when the man began walking past him before he finished speaking. "I-hey!" he said in surprise. The man paid him no attention.
The rain was pounding on the tin roof and Elliot glanced up at the sudden loud noise. He sighed in annoyance, altogether sick of this crap. He was leaving now.
"Sir, I'm a police officer," he said, pulling his badge from his pocket. "So if you could give me a hand, I'd really appreciate it."
The black man finally stopped walking but remained with his back turned to Elliot. There was a moment of silence.
"No," the man said finally. He paused a minute. "You will not need to go anywhere."
It took a minute for Elliot to understand the man's sentence through his accent. When it finally registered, he blinked in surprise.
"What?" he said. A note of nervousness laced his voice.
The man turned around slowly. A sinister smile crossed his face that made the hairs on Elliot's neck stand up.
"You will like it here," he said. His voice was lower now, almost a throaty sound. "Everyone likes it here."
A surge of panic shot through Elliot's veins. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to get out of this insane store. His breathing quickened as he took a quick step backwards.
He looked at the man warily. "I don't know what you're doing," he said, continuing to slowly advance back toward the door. "Listen, forget it. I'm just going to go-"
A sudden noise from right behind him startled him, making him whip around fast. A dull thump sounded next to his left ear and echoed like a bull horn.
He stood still in confusion, his breath coming in frantic gasps as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. A slicing pain began to shoot through the side of his head and the shelves around him began fading to white.
His heart seemed to shoot right through his chest as he struggled to keep himself upright, grabbing frantically for a shelf next to him.
The black man watched with a smile as he fell forward onto his knees and hit the ground face-first. He lifted his gaze and smiled.
The hatchet dripped with blood as the other man hoisted it back upright. He met the eyes of the black man and nodded slowly.
