CHAPTER 6 - Alteración
The pepper-heat on Nick's tongue spreads from his mouth, up his cheeks, down his back.
What? WHAT? "What?"
And then, like an echo of matched outrage and disbelief, Warrick speaks beside him. "What?"
Conejo is laughing uncontrollably now; high pitched 'uks' like a parrot that leave tears running down his face and his breath, catching.
Nick looks at Warrick, mouth opening and closing like a docked fish. He looks back to Rabbit, who's still laughing and rubbing at his gut. That can't…I didn't even taste…He swallows twice and does the only thing he can think to do: jams his fingers down his throat.
The retching and heaving snaps Rabbit from his chucklefest. He stares at Nick for a second, not quite sure what the CSI is doing, and then it clicks. "Hey, you stupid fucking cop!" he yells. He dives across the table, jarring it, sliding it against Nick's and Rick's chests.
Nick's hand pops out of his mouth along with an 'oof' - but nothing else. His attempt to abort the tainted pupusas stopped before it's successful.
Rabbit grabs Nick's free hand, tumbling over the table and onto the floor, yanking Nick's arm violently behind him.
"Nick, man! Calm down," says Warrick. It's all happening so fast and he's fighting just to catch his breath from the table's intrusion.
The laughter's completely left the wiry banger and he bounds up from the floor, throwing a glancing blow to the side of Nick's head. "¡Hijo de puta!"
Nick lets out a yelp, and Warrick pushes himself back from the table, feet planted on either side of the chair. There's not much he can do, still bound as he is, but he reaches with his free hand and grabs the back of Rabbit's over-sized t-shirt, pulling with all his strength. "Get off him, you son of a bitch!"
His effort wins him an elbow to the jaw, and it's all he can do to keep all four chair legs on the floor.
"Jeff!" Rabbit bellows.
There's the soft sick smack of flesh on flesh and an answering grunt from Nick. Warrick's still clearing the stars from his own vision when they hear the sound of feet pounding across the room at a run.
"¡Por la puta, Conejo, agárrale las manos!" Jeff booms on his arrival. He grabs up the bandanna gags Alex had dropped on the floor and frantically works at the twisted knots.
Rabbit has Nick's free hand hoisted across and halfway up his back.
Nick's head shakes back and forth and Warrick catches flashes of the grimace of pain on his partner's face and the fresh flow of blood down his cheek; the banger's last punch has split the mouse under Nick's left eye. "Come on, man!" Warrick yells in frustration. "Ease up!"
Jeff gets Nick's wrist secured to the chair again, no gentleness about it, then clamps a tattooed hand on the scruff of the CSI's neck. "You better chill the fuck out, weto."
"You fuckin' drugged me, man!" Nick howls.
Rabbit chuckles behind Warrick while he savages up his free hand. "I told him about the weed, pelon, and the cerdo just freaks."
Jeff smiles and pets the struggling Nick like a dog, and Nick whips away his head. "What's the matter, cop? You afraid you gonna get busted by a bad drug test or something?"
Rabbit gives a last tightening yank to Warrick's bindings and sniggers through his nose.
"How were you sure?" Nick grinds out.
"How was I sure about what?" asks Jeff.
"The plates. We switched the plates..."
Jeff laughs and shakes his head. "Shit, cop. I told you before; we're all eating the same shit. Me and Conejo? A little bit of cheeba? Just helps us operate better." He grabs Nick's face in his hand once more. "And helps you cooperate better."
"Fuck you," Nick mutters, pulling away from the banger.
"Nick," Warrick cautions, and Nick sees the tiny rivulet of blood making its way down his partner's chin.
Across the room, a door bangs open.
"Jeff! What the hell's going on?" Alex shouts. His arms are crossed, and smirking New Guy flanks his side.
Jeff smiles, patting Nick's cheek, then calls to Alex. "'S under control, pelon. No need to worry. Yo puedo con este par."
Alex stands for a moment and is about to turn and leave when the trilling chirp of first one cell phone, and then another, breaks the silence of the warehouse. Nick and Warrick cast looks at each other and then down to their respective phone holsters.
"La puta," Jeff utters, red blush rising to contrast the black tats on his cheeks. Alex is at his side by the time Jeff's pulling the ringing cell from Nick's hip.
"Don't answer it," says Alex, arms still crossed over his narrow chest.
"I'm not a fucking tarugo, hermano," snaps Jeff.
"Stupid enough not to have taken the phones in the first place, hermano," says Alex.
Nick's head is spinning, but he manages to kick himself mentally, and sees Warrick doing the same; with everything else going on, with as careful as he'd been to leave clues for the team, they'd both forgotten they had their cells. Not that they'd had an opportunity to use them, but still.
And least now they know the hunt is on.
Rabbit follows Jeff's lead and grabs Warrick's cell from its holster. He passes it to Alex's opened waiting hand. Jeff and Alex check the displays, look to the other's, and read the names to compare. When both phones fall quiet, Alex silently demands the other from Jeff.
Without a second's hesitation, Alex opens the backs of both phones and rips out the batteries. He removes the memory cards and drops them to the concrete floor, grinding them to a mess of nothingness with a stomp and twist of his Romeo-heeled boot.
Jeff watches, silent and dumb, and flinches only slightly when Alex spins on him, anger apparent.
"¡Maje de porquería!" You don't think a couple of cops are going to have GPS tracking in their phones?" He points violently at Nick, incredulity flush across his face. "Especially when this one has a habit of disappearing?"
Nick laughs. Can't even help it. Yeah. GPS. Talk to Ecklie. Maybe if we'da been kidnapped NEXT year…
Jeff's mouth opens and he makes the smartest move he's made so far; he shuts it without saying a thing. Instead, he concentrates his embarrassed rage on Nick's quiet laughter.
"Who's Grissom?" Alex asks the CSIs.
Nick looks away. Pain and panic, or just embarrassment and anger; he's done with words.
"Our supervisor," says Warrick thickly.
"And Willows?" asks Alex, shifting his questioning toward Warrick.
"Same thing, pretty much."
Alex nods in understanding, maybe in thanks; it's hard to read the firm set of his face.
"Two bosses," sighs New Guy on Alex's left. "That's got to make things difficult."
The red in Jeff's cheeks changes to fire in his eyes. Laser-fine points aimed at New Guy. Alex plays above-it-all, but the sudden tension is palpable.
Alex - the TRUE man in charge, el jefe castizo - turns on Jeff. "Move them to the back, secure them, search them, and then get me the information I asked for. While you've been playing your little 420 games, I've already discovered the murdered girl was Graciela Flores."
Jeff's jaw muscles twitch and the blush rises again.
"¿Supongo que no sabes nada de eso, Jeff?" Alex asks, cold as ice.
New Guy titters next to Alex.
"Why would I know anything about the murder of some whore drug mule?"
Alex's lip rises in a snarl - a split second - and then his face is stone and unreadable again. "Get done what I asked. I'm going to El Beso to meet Eduardo Flores. Evidently, he thinks I know something about his dead little sister." With that he turns and leaves.
When el jefe and his tag-along have passed into the other room, door closed behind them,
Rabbit lets out a long breath. "Shit, Jeff. What the fuck we gonna do?"
Jeff turns on the other banger, fists clenched, teeth clenched. "We're gonna keep our mouths shut, you stupid jumpy fuck." He grabs Nick by the chin. "And these cerdos are gonna give us the information to be sure Alex never knows we slit that little bitch's throat."
"Captain, a moment of your time?"
Jim curses. He's only stopped off in his office long enough to pick up a new magazine for his Sig and any messages from his desk. Two pink paper squares sat in the middle of his blotter, a quick dash at the callers causing him to ball one of them up in his paw. His hand is poised for the three-point shot in the trash can when he looks up at the voice.
With a sigh he half-heartedly tosses the message towards the can, missing it by inches. Ain't that always how it is?
The caller he was trying to dodge fills his office door frame. And he's brought with him a more expensively dressed shadow.
"Sheriff. Conrad. I'm kinda busy, guys. What can I do for you?"
"Don't play dumb, Jim. It doesn't suit you," Burdick bites out, now fully entering the small, utilitarian office. Ecklie slinks in after him, pulling off to the side with an unreadable expression on his face.
Jim closes his eyes and smiles. Draws in a breath for strength and the smile leaves his face as his eyes rise to meet his boss. "You think I'm happy about what happened? You think I have any desire to do anything but find our guys and the humps that took 'em?"
Burdick glowers. "What were lab personnel doing in the middle of a goddamn gunfight in the first place? Thought you'd have learned that your co-workers tend to get dead when you shoot your gun off."
Before Jim even has time to form a response Ecklie clears his throat and smoothes his tie. "Grissom tells me forensics are pretty limited. What have you gotten from the witnesses?"
It's the closest Jim has ever been to wanting to kiss another man. Ecklie seems to have succeeded in bringing Burdick's attentions away. The sheriff's ugly words still linger in the air like a bad smell but he's sitting down now, arms folded, waiting for Jim's response. In Jim's chair.
"I have Abramowitz waiting for the mother at Desert Palms. We may not get a chance at her today; docs are saying she needed surgery for the shoulder wound and will be snowed under until "some time" later today."
Burdick snorts and Jim shrugs and makes 'What can you do?' hands. "I've got Cavaliere in with the old guy. I was just going to check in with Chris before heading over for my own fun."
"The banger you have in the cage?" Burdick prompts.
"Yeah. I was waiting on INS to see if they had anything I could use against him, prints to see if he's in the system. And Sam's checking with the gang unit to see if they have any paper on him." Jim sighs and raises his eyebrows. "Right now we're holding him on creating a disturbance and a really crappy, trumped up assault charge. Seems a little old lady at the hospital got so scared when he dashed by, she fell over. Who knows? Maybe he really knocked her over, right?"
Burdick humphs audibly but it's almost like he's impressed, a small smile curling his thin lips in his skeletal face. Jim doesn't doubt that Burdick's done worse to get where he is today.
"We got GSR on his hands," Jim continues. "Can't do much with that so far. I'd love to get a look under his clothes, but I'm having trouble with the warrant. Seems the judge I picked is concerned I may have 'profiled' this fine, upstanding young man. Because tats of guns, knives, and thirteens covering every inch of his flesh could just mean he's a member of a social club."
Burdick chokes out a dry, half-cough/half-laugh but his eyes remain steel drill bits. "I'll take care of the warrant," he says smugly. "I'm tired of these pieces of shit in my city. Jesus, they need to build a goddamn wall between us and Mexico."
Jim wants to point out that these particular pieces of shit are from further south than that, but keeps his trap shut, happy enough not to be the current target of the sheriff's venom. The fact that Burdick's purported mistress is the family au pair from Honduras will not escape his lips, no matter how badly he wants to jab.
Ecklie seems to sense Jim's internal struggle, and once again surprises the captain with his timing.
"Grissom and Willows are still running the forensics. I'll make sure they know to update you as soon as information becomes available, Sheriff."
Burdick shifts his eyes from Jim to dart them at the Lab Director. Nods once and wipes his hands down his suit pants. Gets up from the chair and begins to leave.
As he reaches the doorway he pauses and turns as if just remembering a bit of good news. "You know you'll have to deal with IAB on this, Brass. HQ doesn't like it any more than I do when we look like assholes. There'll be an inquiry."
Jim just nods. Same shit, different day. He'd like to say that IAB will find out about the 'delay' in support arriving, but he's sure by the time it all falls out, they'll have figured out a way it was his fault. Best case scenario, some poor dispatcher will get a pink slip. The blue wall is formidable, and Jim shakes his head, wondering why he always seems trapped on the other side of it.
Burdick is smiling as he leaves Jim's office.
Conrad is still standing off to the side, watching as Jim walks over and picks up the crumpled pink message slip and plays with it, squeezing it in his fist.
Jim scratches his head and finally finds some words. "Thanks, Conrad."
"For what, Jim?"
"You know." Jim begins to pull apart the ball of paper, then smashes it back into a tighter ball. "For trying to provide cover fire."
Ecklie tilts his head. Examines Jim for a brief, disconcerting moment. "You were MY supervisor for six years, Jim. I know what kind of man you are. And I know how you feel about this lab, my people."
Jim feels his chest tighten and he can only nod.
Ecklie returns the gesture, turns and head for the door. He stops, hand on the jamb, and turns. A thin smile cracks across the veneer of his face; it's familiar if not vaguely creepy. "Besides. It's kinda nice not being the most hated around here for a change." He leaves without another word.
Jim stares at the empty doorway. "Thanks, Conrad…" He tosses what is now a compressed pink paper pill at the garbage can. No satisfaction as it rebounds off the lip and falls in; he's mere inches away. "…I think."
It takes the better part of half an hour to move them to a small back storage area, strip them of their vests, belt buckles, watches, rings – anything with an edge, anything with an advantage – and get them trussed up again. They're seated on the dusty concrete floor, backs to the wall, hands cuffed with plastic zip-ties, ankles shackled up in same.
Jeff and Rabbit are both moving a little slower, glitches of reflective thought before every decision is made. They pass a cheroot back and forth, and Nick knows from the tell-tale smell it's a blunt; a thick joint wrapped in tobacco leaf, like a cigar. Maybe the two gang members are used to operating under the influence, but if they're feeling anything like he is, he can't imagine why they'd want to enhance it.
Three or four minutes ago, the high hit him like a ton of bricks. Like someone'd flipped the surreal switch. He's tingly all over, head floating six inches above his body, Technicolor saturation set at maximum. Every part of him – tongue, ears, arms, legs, each individual CELL – feels wrapped in downy cotton gauze, and he's fighting the paranoid panic threatening to rise in his chest.
Jeff hunkers on his haunches in front of Nick, takes a deep long drag off the blunt. He passes it to Rabbit who stands behind him, lobbing soft, low, sporadic passels of laughter. Jeff exhales a thick plume of blue-grey through his smile, directly into Nick's face asking, bleary-eyed, "How you feelin', cop?"
Nick turns his head, closes his eyes, holds his breath, and waits for Jeff and the smoke to go away.
Jeff yanks roughly on Nick's booted-feet. "Oye. I'm talking to you, cop. Not feeling friendly yet?"
"Hey, man. Why don't you leave him alone," says Warrick.
Nick's terrified by, and grateful for, his partner's gesture, by Rick's attempt for reprieve, because he's not entirely sure he can make his mouth work to try and save himself right now. Please, just…I can't…oh, God… Eyes squeezed shut, he doesn't see Jeff move away, but actually FEELS the change in the air around him. And that freaks him out even more. Aw, fuck.
"You know what I like about you, man?" Nick hears Jeff say, and knows it's not him he's talking to. "You understand me, hermano. Tú comprendes."
"How's that?" Warrick asks, and his voice sounds muzzy and far off.
"Es una cuestión de piel," says Jeff with a chuff of laughter.
It's a skin thing? What? Nick thinks maybe the marijuana has short-circuited the translator part of his brain. A skin thing?
"I don't think I comprendo as much as you think," purrs Warrick, low like an angry puma, and Nick wants to open his eyes and make sure his partner hasn't turned into a giant cat.
"See, man? It doesn't matter how brown your skin is, just that it's not white. Café con leche to chocolate; if it ain't white as snow, you got to deal with the man. Opresión. You know what I'm talking about."
"Nah, man. You got it wrong," Warrick says. "It's not the color of your skin, but the content of your character. And I'm guessin' there's a bigger gap than the Rio Grande on that level."
Nick's having trouble following the conversation, thinks maybe it's because his eyes are closed. But he's not ready to open them yet because he feels a hand fall on his thigh, pat twice. Jeff's voice crawls up his chest from his leg and worms into his ear.
"I like the look of blood on white skin better than brown, anyway. Stands out. Has impact."
"Listen, man. There's a way to handle this. A way for this to still be okay," says Warrick.
"You're right. We're gonna handle it," Nick hears Jeff say, and then there's another pat to his thigh. "Me and Conejo are gonna go get some… juguetes. Something to help make conversation. You and your partner can talk out all the details and figure out how cooperative you want to be."
Nicks feels Jeff rise, step over his out-stretched legs, and cross to the door on the other side of the room. Rabbit's low laugh is cut off with the click of a lock.
A/N: Kim found a great reggaeton song that goes along with this chapter. You can find the link at the everymonkey bio page.