Disclaimer: While MS-13 is a real gang, the characters and actions depicted here are fictional. As to our boys: if we owned them, there would be hella more shirtless crime solving.
SPOILERS/Timeline: Takes place during season 6 between 'A Bullet Runs Through It' and 'Daddy's Little Girl'
UNDYING GRATITUDE: To Cristina who supplies all our Spanish translation with amazing insight and skill.
"Catherine, come join us."
She's almost past the door when Jim's voice stops her. She enters slowly, head cocking as if she can't believe what she's seeing.
"What are you guys doing?" Her voice rises as her eyes narrow.
"Eating sandwiches. C'mon, I thought your investigative skills were better than that."
She comes over to the table, places her hands on the back of an empty chair and scans the layout in front of her.
Styrofoam clam shells are open, showing thick drippy sandwiches. Shredded lettuce litters the table top like confetti, and two bags of chips bookend the spread. Catherine opens her mouth to say more when Sam breezes by her, taking a seat next to Jim and popping open another container from the pile.
Jim looks up to see Catherine has planted her hands on her hips and has whipped herself into full righteous indignation mode. He holds up a hand, the other wiping mustard from the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. "Cath, please. Sit. We're all on our third shift and I haven't eaten since…" He thinks back briefly, mulling as he chews. "Shit, I dunno. A long time. We can talk while we eat. Share what we've got?" She stares at him for the briefest of moments and Jim can tell she's wavering.
Her eyes are on the food, then they flick over to Gil, sitting at the head of the table, prepping his own sandwich with a squeezy packet of mayo.
Gil looks up and nods, juts his chin at the empty chair, then resumes working at the tinfoil package.
Jim waits until he sees Catherine's hands pulling out the chair before turning to Sam. "You think it'd be worth it if I took a poke at our rat? Run him on the wheel?"
Sam shakes his head and opens his bread to adjust a wayward chunk of avocado. He licks his fingers clean before closing it back up. "I threw everything I got at the guy. The best he can gimme is that he knows this Arrué guy is the Grand Poobah of the Sol Set."
"He knows, huh? And how exactly does he know this?"
Sam laughs and shakes his head. "This guy's not the sharpest tool in the shed, as evidenced by how we picked him up. But he tells me he hears things."
Jim lowers the sandwich poised at his lips. "So we're going by what this asshole hears?"
"I think the guy's on the up an' up. He seems perfectly willing to flap his gums about the Set, it's just that he doesn't really have anything we're interested in hearing. I don't think he was too far up the food chain, his Capitan title notwithstanding."
"So no matter what we throw at him…"
"He's got nothing more to trade with," Sam finishes for him with a confirming nod. "Soon as I finish up here I'm headed over to booking. We'll wrap him up and send him on over." He chuckles again and shakes his head. "You know, I don't now if this guy's got cajones the size of melons or if he's just plain loco. The Thirteen don't take kindly to snitches." A sigh and a shrug and Sam mutters almost to himself. "Gonna have to let the transfer guys from the pen know about this. Make sure they keep him on a block away from the Salvadorans."
Jim nods and takes another bite of his sandwich.
Catherine is seated but still looks huffy.
"Whatsamatter, Cath? I got you what you always order. Turkey, no cheese, no mayo, extra greenery."
Catherine ponders her dry, wimpy looking lunch. She stares at the other half of Jim's. "What did you get?"
"Reuben," he says with a swallow. He pulls his lunch a little closer at the predatory look she gives it.
She makes a little pout, pushing out her lips, then turns to where Gil has just finally finished the meticulous construction of his lunch.
Guy's anal about EVERYTHING, Jim thinks with a smile.
"What about you, Gil?"
"What about me, Catherine?" Gil asks with a cocked eyebrow.
"Your lunch," she says with a pointed look at the same.
"Turkey club," Gil answers cautiously, weighing the response it will get.
Jim laughs around a mouthful of Reuben as he sees Catherine honest to God BATTING HER EYELASHESat Gil.
With the practiced response of a long married, put-upon husband, Gil sighs and shoves his sandwich over on its paper wrapper.
Catherine smiles brightly, then considers for a moment before pushing half of it back. "Thanks, Gil."
"Now that we got the sandwich sitch sorted out, you guys got anything else to add to the investigation?"
Catherine scowls and finishes chewing. "I pulled a print off the throwaway phone. At first, I didn't bother checking the battery case since…well, it's a throwaway. But someone, at some time, opened it up, and I got a partial thumb off the inside. That was hours ago. Ecklie swore his Days guy would make it his number one priority. Damn, I wish Mandy had stayed on."
"She was on her third shift, Catherine," Gil reminds her quietly.
"We all are, Gil!" she snaps back at him. She drops her sandwich half to the paper in disgust and rises from her char.
"I'm gonna go light a fire under that asshole's chair, I swear to God--"
"Speak of the Devil," Jim mutters under his breath as Conrad rounds the corner, out of breath and clutching a sheaf of paperwork.
"Conrad, you promised--"
"I did, Catherine, I know," Conrad says with a solemn nod of his head. "I just came from the print lab. The Days guy I thought would be in wasn't, and the message didn't make it over to him."
"What the --? Damn it, Conrad! You should have had Mandy and the rest of Grave stay on. We don't mess up. We're better than this. We have to be. My God, don't you--?"
"I couldn't keep them on, Catherine. I can't have lab personnel running into quadruple shifts. They'll make errors."
"Errors? Like not knowing that the prints we need to find Nick and Warrick take priority?"
Conrad flinches but then straightens. "It's still a lab, Catherine. And we can't jeopardize all the other cases that are being processed."
He slumps then, plays with his tie and Jim takes in Conrad's decidedly rumpled appearance. Jim's only a few years older than the Director, but Conrad's looking grey and old, dark bags the only color in his pale, pasty face.
"If it's any consolation, I'm starting shift number four," Conrad mutters.
Catherine's expression barely softens and she's revving up for more. Jim figures he owes the guy. "Hey, Conrad. What's the word on the prints?"
"I ran them myself," the Director says, holding out the paperwork. "Name came back to a Jeff Antonio Carbonell."
There's an odd choking sound from next to Jim and he turns to see Sam swallowing down a mouthful and sipping hurriedly at his can of soda.
"What? You know this hump?" Jim asks.
Sam wipes his mouth and tosses the crumpled napkin on the table. "Jesus, yeah," he breathes. "I heard he was running with the Sol Set. Couldn't ever pin anything on him, but I've run across his purported victims a few times…" Sam shakes his head solemnly and leans back from the table. "He likes his knives. Word on the street is the guy's a real psycho."
The pronouncement casts a damper over their attempt at a meal. Catherine goes quiet and even Gil seems distracted, off someplace inside his own head.
Conrad moves to leave when Catherine turns in her chair and places a hand on his arm.
The Director stiffens as if awaiting a blow, looks down at her hand, then up at her face. "I'm not a bad man, Catherine. It's just--"
"Have a seat and a sandwich, Conrad," Catherine says. "You look like hell."
He nods and pulls out a chair at the table.
Catherine smiles and pushes over the turkey, no cheese, no mayo, extra greenery sandwich she'd rejected earlier. Gives him a brisk smile.
Gil's pager goes off and he eyes the readout. "Archie got something off the phone."
The group rises as one, save Ecklie. Chair legs squawking on the tile floor as they're shoved back. Jim tosses a look behind him as they hurry to the AV lab.
Conrad sits at the table, staring at the empty room, then picks up the sandwich and begins to chew.
The four of them crowd into the small lab where Archie sits in front of a computer screen, a giddy smile on his face.
"I finally got a response to the warrant issued to the Tracfone people to release the voicemails stored on their server for the phone Catherine found in the truck. There were three stored messages, and one new one. The first three were pretty simple. 'My name is Maria. Call me' kindsa stuff that even I can figure out with my high school Spanish. But the newer one is from last night."
He glances up at Sam, and shrugs. "Care to translate for us?"
Sam just waves his hands at the tech to hurry it up and Archie plays the keys on his computer, pulling up a sound file and hitting play.
"Estoy en la tienda. Dónde diablos te metiste? Se suponía que ibas a aparecer hace dos horas. Vente para acá ahora. No trates de culear conmigo, Jeff."
Sam hunches over and puts his ear closer to the speaker. "Can you play it for me again?"
Archie maneuvers the mouse and restarts the recording.
The message replays, and Sam nods and stands straighter. "Says, 'I'm at the shop. You were supposed to be here two hours ago. Don't, uh….'" He glances at Catherine "'…don't fuck with me, Jeff.'"
That lisp… Jim is already nodding his head, confirming for himself the frisson of recognition he'd gotten from the first play through. "That's Alex Arrué."
"You can tell from that?" Catherine asks doubtfully.
"Hell, yeah. That hissy goddamned 's'?. Spent half an hour goin' toe to toe with this asshole in my office not more than an hour ago. We danced, took turns leading… I got nothin' but a headache outta it, so, yeah, I know that voice, and it's Alex Arrué."
"The shop he mentions," Gil prods. "Do we have any idea what that might be?"
Jim rubs hand over his tired eyes. The day's events are already starting to blur, even overlapping with that day in October. Gunfire and chaos and guilt and worry and fear. All only seen, only recognized in flashes of memory, like individual frames lifted from a movie.
"Captain, I'm a business man. I run a successful club, an upholstery shop…"
Jim snaps his fingers. "Damn! He DID mention a shop. An upholstery shop."
"So that's a connection between Arrué and this psycho, Jeff Carbonell? Are we thinking Jeff is the one who has the boys?" Catherine asks. "Or Arrué?"
"Doesn't matter," Jim cuts in. "They're connected. If Arrué has Carbonell on the payroll, as his first mate, number one, whatever the hell they call him…"
"We won't get a warrant based on a phone call and the names. We need more," Gil reasons in a calm voice that sets Jim's teeth on edge.
Another step closer, and another wall thrown up in their faces. He balls his fist at his side, releasing his hand only to work at the knots in the back of his neck. He lets out an explosive breath. "Oookay. So. Archie, we got anything else?"
But the tech isn't listening. He has headphones on and is a study in concentration. Eyes squeezed shut, his fingers blindly working the mouse in well practiced motion.
His eyes pop open suddenly and he pulls the headphones off, dropping them onto the lab table and spinning around on his chair with a look of pure eureka!
"Jets."
"Come again," Jim asks.
"Jets. There are jets on the voicemail." He turns back to the computer and hits play. This time the voice track has been removed and the only noise is background. As they hold their breath and wait, the whooshing sound of a jet engine taking off fills the room, quickly followed by a second.
"Is that from McCarran?" Gil asks.
Archie shakes his head. "Not a commercial jet. No, this is smaller. Faster." He closes his eyes again for a second, then smiles. "Sounds like a Raptor."
Jim shakes his head. "Those the things in Jurassic Park?"
"F-22s. Nellis Air Force Base has a whole squadron of these babies. Stealth fighters. And that's the type of engine we're hearing."
Catherine trades incredulous looks with Gil, then plants her hands on her hips. "We need an upholstery shop near Nellis Air Force Base. Archie can you do your thing?"
The AV tech ducks his head down and starts to work, pecking away at his keyboard.
"I have to be the voice of reason," Gil says with a sad sigh.
"Yes, Gil, we know. Still not enough for a warrant."
Jim just shrugs and turns to Sam. "Warrant? We don't need no stinkin' warrant. Nothing says a man can't treat his Taurus to some new seat covers."
The knife shakes and then stills in Jeff's grip as Alex steps into the storeroom. Rabbit curls around the two adversaries and out the door, escaping like a scared…rabbit. Nick almost laughs.
Peter Cottontail wriggling under Mr. MacGregor's fence.
And then he's doing a mental facepalm, because he should be able to focus, right? This is intense, right? That's his blood he can taste in his mouth, isn't it? That's my blood on the tip of that knife…
"Hey, Alex. What's up?"
And then Nick's remembering another storybook from his childhood: Rikki Tikki Tavi.
Three days ago, he'd caught a nature documentary which included a showdown between a king cobra and a mongoose. It had been difficult to watch; brutal in a way that had reminded him too much of work and struggle and trying to survive. But he'd watched it. Couldn't not.
So he's COMPLETELY freaked out and ridiculously amused when he sees Alex and Jeff coiling and posturing around each other like a snake and a bottlebrush-tailed rat. Nick's just not sure who's Rikki Tikki and who's Nag.
Alex steps even closer to Jeff, and the knife glints like a flint spark.
"You know where I just came from, zaguate culeado? From the Las Vegas Police Department." Alex hisses.
Hope that feels like sunlight blooms in Nick's chest.
"From half an hour in the stuffy little office of Captain of detectives. Answering questions about this morning's incident in our neighborhood."
Oh, goddamnit Jim Brass, I love you. Nick feels the pressure of Warrick's shoulder against his own. Yeah, bro. I heard that.
"And do you know how I wound up there, pelon? Because two police detectives came to my club. Walked into El Beso and asked for me by name."
Jeff's head twitches, chin leading a little to the right and then back. It's a non-committal shrug.
Warrick presses into Nick's shoulder again, and when Nick cranes his neck to look at him, Warrick tilts his head toward the far end of the storeroom.
"And maybe the best part – lo máximo - guess who I saw at the police station, Jeff?" Alex doesn't give him time to answer. "My cousin. I walked past Cohete as they were leading him down the hallway in handcuffs."
Jeff titters. Shakes his head and blows out a breath. "Tu primo es un estúpido de mierda. Fools like him get caught."
At first Nick doesn't see what Warrick's trying to get him to see. But after a few seconds, he can make out the shape of a door behind a couple of stacks of boxes.
"Bichito's in the hospital, shot by a cop. My cousin is in police custody on charges I don't even know about. And I'm called in for questioning? And then, here you are, Jeff."
"How you gonna make this about me, huh?"
Alex leans around Jeff, takes in Nick and Warrick on the floor. One side of his mouth lifts in a snarl. "This is your work, isn't it?"
"My work. Your orders."
Alex glares back at Jeff. "My orders. You taking orders from me, now?"
"Right now?" Jeff challenges.
"Was it my order to slit Graciela Flores's throat?" Alex's words are sharp as a blade.
And Jeff answers in kind.
Nick's just looking back from a possible escape route when everything explodes in red. "Nooo!"
The knife in Jeff's hand flies forward, slashing across Alex's middle, left to right. It's horrible, terrifying, the most awfulbrutal thing Nick's seen this close up. He hears Warrick utter 'Oh, shit'.
Alex's mouth opens; wide and round and black as an eight ball.
The knife slices back the other way, and Nick feels a few drops of wetness smack against his face.
Alex drops to his knees, jaw working like an old pump arm. Eyes wide as moons, hands - painted crimson - pressed against his opened belly. Jeff leans in, looms over the other man, and grabs him by the hairs on the crown of his head.
Nick can't look away. Nothing. This is nothing to him…
Jeff pulls back Alex's head, knife drawn back across his chest. "Who's el jefe now, pelon?" he says, and runs the blade across Alex's neck, like reaping dead wheat.
Nick hears – oh, my God – Nick HEARS the arterial spray spatter against the cinderblock wall, splash against the cardboard boxes stacked there.
When Jeff lets go of Alex's hair, the gang leader falls to the side; head thunking hollowly against the concrete floor, eyes still open, mouth a breathless 'o'.
Nick's breathing in short little gasps. Warrick, too. Nick can hear it. When Jeff straightens and turns on them, there's a stutter in their intakes of oxygen. Nothing clean about Jeff's t-shirt anymore. It's stained and splattered; red with blood.