Disclaimer: Credit to Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and the POI writing team. Bolded sections are straight from the episodes.
QUEENSBRIDGE PARK
Chapter 39: mid Honor Among Thieves
Shaw gets into the passenger seat of Reese's car and takes a quick look at their surroundings.
"NYPD just found your getaway car by the East River," he informs her. "Hope they can't trace it back to you. Be a shame if I had to slap the cuffs on."
"Well, it'd be a shame for you if you tried," she corrects. "So who's our boy?"
Reese hands over the camera, and Shaw takes a look at their Number, snapping a few pics as he explains, "Tomas Koroa. Dual U.S./Spanish citizen, 31 years old, unmarried. Spends part of each year here on a B1 visa." He puts his hand out for the camera, but Shaw moves it out of his reach.
"Doing what?"
"International wine dealer. Divides his time between New York, London, Paris, and Dubai."
"A lot of travel, importing foreign goods. Maybe he's wrapped up in smuggling," Shaw theorizes.
"That's possible, but I didn't see anything fishy when I bluejacked his phone."
"Well, maybe business isn't his problem. A guy like that could have a girl in every port. Maybe infidelity is about to spank him on the ass," she muses with relish.
Reese slowly turns to stare at Shaw.
"I'm just trying to identify the threat, John. You just go play detective. I can keep an eye on Tomas."
"I noticed."
The next evening
After working most of the afternoon at the precinct, Reese happens to enter his apartment building at the same time as Elena.
"Long day?" he asks, taking in her stiff strides and slumped shoulders.
She looks up at him wearily. "Next time you see Sameen, tell her it wouldn't kill her to actually work her shift once in a while." She stretches and her back cracks loudly.
Reese grimaces as he calls the elevator for them. Usually, he takes the stairs, but it's clear Elena isn't going to take one more step than she absolutely has to.
"She's working overtime on a side job," Reese explains apologetically.
"I hope it doesn't involve digging bullets out of people I know."
"No." Reese considers. "Not yet, anyway."
Elena wants to ask, she really does, but she knows better than to push for more information.
"Well, she owes me two double shifts and drinks after work one of these days," she says instead.
An idea strikes Reese. A bad one or a brilliant one, he's not quite sure yet.
"She's actually getting drinks right now." He gives her a sidelong glance. "You wanna spy on her date?"
"Sameen's on a date?" Elena asks incredulously. "And here I thought she was going to ask me out," she adds, eyes sparkling as he gives her an unamused Look. "Let me just change my shoes."
"You might want to lose the nametag, too," he suggests, nodding down at her dress.
Elena sighs as she rips off the nametag. "I don't know if anyone could hate this job more than Sameen, but I'm getting pretty close."
Fifteen minutes later, Elena and Reese are seated in a booth at the bar where Shaw had arranged to meet their Number, the leader of a smash-and-grab crew.
There are certainly advantages to having Elena with him. No unwanted attention from flirtatious servers. No having to be extra careful so no one notices he's talking to Finch.
There are certainly disadvantages as well. Like the flirtatious bartender giving an oblivious Elena an appreciative once — and twice — over.
"That's her date?" Elena mutters, glancing at the man sitting at the bar before she turns her attention to the menu. "Well done, Sameen," she congratulates.
Reese frowns as he takes another look at their Number. He doesn't see what Shaw and now apparently Elena find so appealing in the man.
"Here's Shaw," Reese mutters as the other former international spy arrives.
"Sameen cleans up nicely when she wants to," Elena observes. "If she put in half as much effort when she shows up at the store, our manager wouldn't know what hit him."
Reese tenses as Tomas gets up to greet Shaw and smoothly relieves her of both the gun in her purse and the one strapped to her thigh. His hand drifts closer to his own concealed weapon.
Reese automatically grasps Elena's ankle when she nudges him under the table. "Calm down, John," she says with a roll of her eyes, as he releases her. "I think they're just flirting."
There's no 'think' about it as their conversation devolves into sultry glances, seductive caresses, and suggestive comments.
"So," Shaw says. "Are you ready for another score?"
Reese snorts. Elena kicks him again.
"Maybe," Tomas answers. "But I'm not the kind of man who likes to rush. A perfectly planned job is ... a kind of seduction. Hours looking, wanting, turning a target around in your mind. And then, you move closer, brushing past, making contact," he puts a hand on Sameen's knee. "Just to see what will happen. And when everything's ready and when everything's right, all of that preparation pays off in one sudden, intense, crashing moment."
"Is this working on her?" Reese mutters in disbelief.
"It's working on me," Elena says rather breathlessly, earning her a Look.
"Do you wanna get out of here?" Shaw whispers to Tomas.
Leaving behind their untouched glasses of champagne, Tomas and Shaw exit the bar together.
Elena fans herself with the menu. "Is it just me or did it get hot in here?" Reese gives her another unamused Look. "Don't we need to follow them?" she asks practically.
"Shaw can take care of herself," Reese says, opening his own menu. It's true, but there's also an irrational desire to keep Elena as far away from Tomas as possible. "Hungry?"
Elena hums in the affirmative, looking down at her menu once more and actually reading it this time. "But I think Sameen ordered the dish I wanted and took it to go."
It's not quite true, since she'd prefer the tall drink of water sitting across from her any day. But she's having too much fun teasing John.
She feels a frission of uncertainty at the menacing look that grows on John's face when the bartender comes out from behind the bar to personally take their drink orders.
"Whiskey," Reese grits out.
"And for you, miss?" the bartender asks Elena, standing just a little too close over her.
Feeling a little reckless — after all, it isn't fair for Sameen to have all the fun tonight — Elena leans forward, putting her figure to the best advantage.
"Got any specials tonight?" she asks, smiling up at him.
"I think I'm looking at one right now," the bartender flirts back. "Let me whip you up something extra special, on the house," he adds with a wink.
Elena quickly stretches her legs out, blocking Reese from following the bartender as he walks back to the bar.
"Lighten up, John," she says. "It's just a bit of fun."
He glares. "If he looks down your dress again, I'm going to take this fork and —"
"At least someone's looking," Elena mutters.
Reese doesn't know how to respond to that.
The bartender comes back with their drinks. And looks down Elena's dress again.
Elena quickly puts her feet up on the seat next to Reese, effectively barricading him inside the booth.
"A little flirting never hurt anyone, so let's not start now," she advises. "Look, it got us free drinks."
"I understand the benefits of strategic flirtation, Elena," Reese says. He leans towards her. "I was an international spy, remember?"
"So you keep saying," she says, mirroring his move.
His eyes remain stubbornly fixed on her face as he refuses to give in to the temptation to look downward. There is a very determined set to his jaw, and Elena decides to go for broke.
"John." She drops her voice an octave, trying to mimic Shaw's sultry tone from earlier. "Don't you know that it's better to show than tell?"
"Ladies first," he challenges.
"Oh, I thought I was showing."
She shrugs her shoulders to great effect, but his eyes remain locked onto hers, and go no lower.
They stare across the table at each other, trying to see who will back down first.
Well, it's not going to be Elena. This is either going to work, or it's going to make him laugh, and honestly, she's fine with either result.
"So, Detective," her voice lingers over the syllables of his title as she presses her leg against his and toys with the rim of her glass. "Tell me, is that a gun in your pocket or — oh! That is a gun in your pocket, isn't it?"
A/N:
The nametag - from Panopticon (s4e01)
[Reese takes a seat next to an unsuspecting Shaw at a self-help seminar]
Reese: Is that your perfume? I could smell you down the hall.
Shaw: [snifs] Ugh. Stupid day job.
Reese: Nametag's a nice touch
Shaw: [rips off nametag] What the hell are you doing here?
