A/N1: Someone must own Chuck. Right? I mean, Chuck can't be homeless after all.
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Chuck and Sarah's apartment, Echo Park, Los Angeles
Over dinner, Ellie had finished explaining to Chuck, Sarah and Casey the results of her investigation into the death of Robert Bagg and proposed her next steps. Devon would have joined them, but he was having a "boys night" with some of the surgeons from the hospital.
"I don't like it, El," said Chuck. "It's a tough neighborhood."
"I'll be fine, Chuck. I've lived in LA my whole life. I can take care of myself."
"No one doubts that, Ellie," said Sarah. "But you have to admit Chuck is right that South LA is a tough area. Even if you take the homeless out of the equation, it's still a tough neighborhood."
"Well, I'm not going to get the LAPD interested in what's going on without at least getting some more evidence. All I'm going to do is talk to some people. Just show up and ask some questions. That's all."
"Ok, fine. Let's get someone to go with you, though," said Chuck. "Someone to watch your back, that's all."
"Ok," she said. "But not Case. He looks too much like a cop. No offense, Case."
"None taken," he said, taking a sip of his beer.
"Ok, I'll get Fitz to lend us one of his guys. Billy or Leo should fit the bill," said Chuck.
"Ok, that works. I love those guys," she said.
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Homeless encampment, South Los Angeles
Ellie and William Palmer, Fitz's team member Billy, found a parking space only a block away from the collection of tents and lean-to's and hanging tarps that constituted the small collection of homeless living at this particular spot on the Los Angeles streets.
Coming to the first person they found there, Ellie said, "Excuse me, I'm looking for John Prang."
The bearded disheveled man looked at them for a moment with dead eyes and then shrugged, going back to looking through the contents of his metal supermarket shopping cart.
They made their way down the street asking one person after another. Finally, someone said, with a jerk of his thumb, "Johnny's round the corner."
Turning the corner of the street, they saw dozens more homeless habitats spread most of the way down the block, all backed up to the chain-link fence separating the sidewalk from a vacant lot. Although it was still early, they could feel the heat of the day begin to radiate off the sidewalk. The smells of the unhoused men and women had begun to permeate the atmosphere. They walked down the block asking for Prang. This collection of the poorest of the poor was more than a little disconcerting to Ellie and Billy. Both of them felt a growing sympathy, even as it was mixed with more than a bit of personal discomfort. They knew they would be returning to their safe middle-class homes at the end of the day, and these people were living in a world they could barely imagine. What series of misfortunes could have cascaded upon these souls to bring them here? For both Ellie and Billy, the hurdle of putting themselves into the shoes of the people before them was too high to clear. And that made both of them ... uncomfortable. The difference between sympathizing and empathizing.
Eventually a relatively young man stuck his head out of a tent at the sound of their inquiries. The tent was old and faded from the sun, but looked as if it had been patched and repaired several times. Bundles of possessions inside were visible through the gap in the tent flaps.
"Yeah, I'm Prang," he said. "Who are you?" He looked tidy and clear-eyed.
"I'm Ellie and this is my friend Billy. Could we talk to you for a moment?"
"About what?" he asked.
"You were the man who flagged down a squad car when your friend Robert Bagg was taken ill. I wanted to ask you about that."
"You cops?"
"No. I'm a doctor. I'm trying to find out what happened to your friend."
"They killed him. That's what happened," said Prang, climbing out of the tent to stand on the sidewalk beside them. He was a skinny man with close cropped hair, dressed in cargo shorts and a faded blue tee shirt. Like his tent, his clothes were old and worn, but looked to have been patched.
"Who, Mr. Prang? Who killed him?" asked Billy.
"The spies, of course. The CIA. They killed him," said Prang calmly. "I thought you'd know that."
"Why would we know that?" asked Ellie.
"Everyone knows that," he said. "The spies are the ones you have to watch out for. They are the ones who are controlling things behind the scenes. Controlling everything. I've seen it for years now. You have to keep your eyes open. Be alert. They can sneak up on you. You never know who might be a CIA agent." He looked back and forth between Billy, who was a CIA agent, and Ellie, who was not.
Billy, speaking with a soft voice and with gentle eyes, said, "Present company excluded, I hope." He smiled at Prang. Unlike some of the other men on Fitz's team, Billy didn't look particularly intimidating.
"Yeah. Not you two. You're just civilians. But you should be careful yourselves," he said looking around the mostly empty street. "The spies might be after you too."
"Is there a specific reason you think it was the CIA that killed your friend? I mean, as opposed to him just getting sick maybe?" asked Ellie.
"The black van. Dropped him off at like three in the morning."
"What did the van look like?" asked Billy.
"It looked like a CIA van. All black. No markings. No plates. Tinted windows. Only one man."
"How do you know that if the windows were tinted? That it was only one man?" asked Ellie.
"Because he stopped the van to get Bobby out. Then got back in to drive away. If there were two guys, one would have dumped poor Bobby and the other would have kept the engine running, ready to drive away quickly."
Ellie and Billy glanced at each other. Prang made some sense there.
"Why did you get the police?" asked Ellie.
"Well, I was awake and I saw the guy drop him. He didn't move after that, so I went to check on him," said Prang.
"What did you find?" asked Ellie.
"He was having trouble breathing. His eyes were open and not blinking. Just staring straight ahead. He didn't even seem to be seeing me. His hands seemed to be twitching a bit. He couldn't talk or nothing. Really messed up. Don't know what they did to him."
'I do,' thought Ellie grimly.
"So, I went and got the next cops I could find. They got the EMTs and they took him away. I only found out later that he didn't make it. That he died," said Prang, looking sad at the memory.
"I'm sorry you lost your friend," said Ellie. Prang grunted quietly and shrugged an acknowledgement of the condolence wish.
"Had you seen the van before … or since?" asked Billy.
"Not this particular one," replied the man. "But CIA vans are all over the city. All over the country even. They disguise them, you see? Moving vans. Dry cleaners. You never know when they are watching you. And, believe me, they are watching you. Better to stay inside where they can't see you."
"You saw Mr. Bagg dropped off by the van. Did you see him leave with them earlier?" asked Ellie.
"Naw. I don't keep track of him like that. Didn't. Didn't keep track of him like that, I mean. Sometimes he was here and sometimes he wasn't," said Prang.
"Where did he go? When he wasn't here, I mean?" asked Ellie.
"Sometimes downtown. The suits down there can be a good spot to collect some bucks sometimes. Hang around with a cup or something. You can collect a couple of hundred on a good day. Sometimes he'd go with the guys who try to help us out around here. The bunch of charities and missions and stuff. They pick us up sometimes bring us in to their places. Get a warm meal. Maybe a shower. St. Joes has the best food but you gotta listen to them preach sometimes." He shrugged. "Mostly worth it though."
"Do you know if Mr. Bagg went off with one of them before the CIA got him?" asked Ellie.
"Dunno. Might have, I guess," said Prang.
"Any outfit he liked more than others?" asked Billy.
Prang thought about it. "He used to talk about Peoples Care over on Alameda. There was a woman there was really nice to him. Dunno if he was with them the day he died though."
Ellie said, "Is his stuff still here?"
"Naw. After he died most of it was scavenged by the other guys. The rest was just taken by the garbage men," said Prang.
Billy and Ellie looked at each other, but neither had any questions left to ask Prang. Ellie took out a card and wrote her cell number on the back.
"Mr. Prang, here's my number, okay? Please call me if anything else comes to you about what happened to Mr. Bagg. Or if you see the black van again. Okay?"
As she was doing that, Billy took $40 from his pocket and said, handing the money to the man, "And thanks for talking to us today."
Prang took the money and said, "Sure. God bless." As they watched him crawl back into the tent they heard him murmur, "Don't have a phone, of course."
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Moving car, South Los Angeles
"No, no, no. Shit. Shit. Keep going," said Sylvia frantically, twisting her face away from whatever it was she had seen.
Her partner, Brad, stepped on the accelerator and immediately faced front, hoping whoever or whatever his partner had seen wasn't looking his way. The nondescript sedan pulled away down the street.
"What?"
"Shit. I recognize her from the files. She's a scientist from the Intersect program. Bartowski. She lives in LA and she's talking to the homeless. She's got a black guy with her. Probably a bodyguard or something."
"Aw shit. They found the body of a homeless guy and linked it to our Intersect tests. Shit," said Brad.
"Yeah. That's got to be it. No other reason for her to be down here in this shitty neighborhood," said Sylvia. "Godammit."
"So, what do we do about it?" asked Brad.
"Well, first, we tell the others. And we find out if she's alerted the LAPD. The way I figure it, if she hasn't gotten the cops involved, there's no reason to call off the next pick up. With the changes to the Intersect program, they are confident they've worked out the kinks. We need to run the next tests as soon as possible."
"That's pretty dangerous if they are on the trail. Safer to lay low," said Brad.
"Oh, man up, partner. We don't have to come back to the same neighborhoods we've been working. We can find these losers everywhere. Just pick up a few nice and easy."
"Come on, Sylvia, we've put in a lot of work in those areas establishing a cover already. Anything else is likely to just turn into a flat out kidnapping from the streets. A taser shot to the back of the neck and bundled into the van. Much, much messier. That's just the way to raise our profile and get the authorities looking at us."
"We could always grab Bartowski and her man. Run the next tests on them. Actually, I think I'd like to grab her man, now that I think about it," she said, laughing a little.
"Is that all you ever think about? Getting laid?" he said. "And you just saw that guy on the street for a moment. You already want to get him in the sack?"
"I like chocolate sometimes too, you know," she said with a grin.
"Oh, fine. Whatever," he grumbled.
"Now don't get all pissy with me. You didn't seem to mind too much in the back of the van yesterday," she said with a smirk, remembering the romp with pleasure.
"True enough," said Brad. He wondered if there was actually something wrong with her. Nymphomania or something. 'But on the other hand,' he castigated himself, 'maybe she just had a healthy sexual drive and he was being an asshole with a double standard. Hyper-critical of women, maybe.' Would he think there was anything wrong with a guy who thought about sex all the time? After a moment's consideration, he decided that he would.
His thoughts about his partner were interrupted when she said, "We can't go grabbing Bartowski anyway. So long as they are making progress on the intersect back east and we have our people inside the project, the Sachem wants us to stay away and let them work. If they find something we don't, we just take it."
"Yeah, that's right. So, we circle back to the decision about the next pick up," he said. "Whether to cancel or postpone?"
"We do. I'm in favor of going forward," she said.
"I'm not surprised. You're a bold one. I'm in favor of putting it off until Bartowski loses the scent."
"I'm not surprised," she said.
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Peoples Care Facility, Alameda Street W, Los Angeles
Ellie and Billy parked in front of the plain building with the worn metal sign declaring the name of the organization occupying it. The paint was spotty and the pavement of the parking lot was cracked. Parked in front was a small van with the name Peoples Care painted on both sides. The van showed signs of rust on the bottom edges of the frame. Two pallets of boxes were sitting in the sun near an open bay door, showing a large open area inside the building.
They entered and looked around. There were a few men sitting at a table some distance away. If their clothes were any indication, they were some of the homeless this organization had been established to help. There didn't seem to be anyone else around.
"HELLO," called Billy.
A gravelly voice called out, "Morning." A white haired man with a short sleeved white shirt and a bow tie came around a corner from behind some boxes. He looked to be in his late sixties, straight and fit. His smile was friendly and his eyes clear and intelligent.
"Morning, Sir," said Ellie. "Sorry to bother you."
With a smile he said, "No bother at all. What can I do for you?"
"We'd like to talk to you about one of the homeless men you …" She wasn't sure what word to use. 'serve?' 'help?' 'feed?' 'care for?'
"One of our clients, you mean," he finished her sentence for her to take her off the hook.
"Yes, exactly" she said.
"You police?"
"No, Sir," she said. "My name is Ellie and this is my friend Billy. I'm a doctor looking into what happened to him."
The older man stuck out his hand and said, "I'm Sam. Good to meet you both. We do try to keep our clients' privacy, though. Don't want to get a reputation as a tattle-tale." He gave a small gruff laugh.
"I understand. But the man we want to ask you about, Robert Bagg, has died," explained Ellie.
"Oh. Not another one. Jeez," he shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, I don't recognize the name."
"Robert Bagg. His friends called him Bobby," said Billy.
Sam shook his head, shrugged and said, "Sorry."
"We were told there was a woman here who he liked. Who he thought was nice," said Ellie.
"Oh. That would be Beth," he said. "BETH," he called out.
A woman who was now near the men at the table turned and headed over to them after a few words to the men.
"Hi," she said as she approached. She was short and quite slender with short straight brown hair. Maybe thirty years old, or so. Dressed in jeans and a tee shirt.
Sam said, "Beth, you know a client named Bobby Bagg? Robert Bagg?"
"Yeah. Bobby. Haven't seen him in a week or so. Maybe more. What's up?" she said.
Ellie said, "I'm afraid he's died."
"Aw, shit," she said. She looked away from them out the open bay door. She put a hand to her face, covering her eyes, embarrassed by her reaction to the news. "Sorry," she said without looking at them. "Sorry."
Sam said, "It's ok. It's ok." He put a gentle hand on her arm.
"Sorry," she said, turning back to them. "How did he die?"
"That's what we're looking into," said Ellie. "Can you tell us anything about him? Anything that might point us in a direction. Anyone he hang around with? Friends? Any other organizations like this one that he might have been a client of?"
"Well, he wasn't a junkie, if that's one of the things you were looking at. Booze sure. I wouldn't be shocked if he smoked some weed sometime. But nothing heavier. He was always so sad for guys on that stuff. Spoke about the slow poison of it. So, it wasn't that. What do you think it was?"
"I'm sorry. We don't know," said Ellie.
"Humm. Well, he used to come here, I know. I don't know about anywhere else. Hang on, let me ask some of the guys." She jogged away toward the table with the men. A few moments later, she was back. "They say Bobby went a couple of times with the Greene Center. Some of those folks helped him."
"Who're they?" asked Sam.
"New outfit," said Beth. "Using a new vacant shopping center as a pop-up center before the mall really opens. They just started over the summer. Must be looking for long-term digs, I guess."
"Never heard of them," said Sam, with a shake of his head.
"Where are they?" asked Billy.
"Over on Van Nuys, I think," said Beth.
"Thank you," said Billy.
"Sam, when we came up and told you that Bagg had died, you said 'not another one.' Have you had a lot of deaths. Deaths of your clients?"
Sam gave a long sigh. "Well, one is too many of course. But it just seems to be getting worse out there. I'm empathizing with Sisyphus. And with the economy crashing, you can bet it's going to go from bad to horrific. There are already almost 60,000 people in the city alone – not counting surrounding counties – on the streets. We can't keep enough fingers in the dike to help it."
"We do what we can," said Beth.
"Yeah, we do. But you asked about the deaths. Seems to me that the last month or two has been particularly bad. Not statistics, mind you. Just my impression and the impression of some of my colleagues in this space. Anecdotal. Just worse than average," he said.
"About how many more than average would you say?" asked Ellie.
"Well, we always lose a few, but I'd say we've lost an extra thirty or forty men and women — mostly men - in the last couple of months. I mean it's just a guestimate, but in that zip code anyway."
"Damn," murmured Billy.
"Yeah," said Beth. "It sucks. A really bad string of luck, I guess."
"I guess," said Billy, looking at Ellie.
"Bad luck," Ellie repeated, looking at Billy.
Neither Sam nor Beth noticed the look that passed between their two visitors. A very hard look.
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A/N2: It was my friend Creekfell who pointed out that I had messed up the anatomy of the brain. Upon being set straight, I went back and fixed it. Sorry, guys. I do try to get the non-fiction stuff right. I'll keep trying.
A/N3: You guys know the drill. Love to hear from you.