by P. S. Power
Then he hit the man under the jaw with the edge of his right hand, using a back fist motion. It was a complicated move that he'd learned from Hobbs, the Team Two guy. It worked wonderfully, causing the man to go down, falling back into his chair, shaking a bit.
"Brian..."
"Get the door. If anyone comes in, kill them. We need information and this man is going to give it to us. Then we kill him for obstruction. It's all perfectly legal, You heard him, he refused to hand over the guilty men. Plus he called me a liar. But that's not important." Moving around the desk he hit the man again, pulling gently and breaking his arms at the elbows before he could wake up.
Then he stuffed the man's official looking jacket, which had been hanging on a hook behind the door, into his mouth, that got the guy to wake up well enough. Mumbling a bit in pain.
"Hi. You seem to have forgotten the situation, shall we try again? Just nod if you want to get out of this alive. Right now it's not looking too good for you, but hey, I'm used to working with Infected people, the rule there is to try and just let the occasional bad behavior, or even assault, go. Maybe you weren't actually trying to obstruct justice and just had an emotional flare up? Is that the case do you think? If so nod. If not, let me know and we can work from there. I know that the police have caps on how intelligent a person can be, but you seem bright enough, just in case though, what I just said means either you cooperate and nod, really meaning it, or I'll torture the information from you and then kill you. Your pick."
Then he waited while the man went wild eyed. He said something, which was muffled and sounded like "fuff Youb" but Brian figured it out without too much trouble. He started to move back in when Lancaster spoke, his voice slightly harsh.
"OK... Did you not get the part where this Asian guy in front of you with the three distinctive scars is both Proxy and the guy your men tried to kill? If you don't start working with us, he really will kill you and that's probably going to end up with most of your people here dead. He offered you more of a bargain than you probably deserve, so take it and stop being a moron." He sounded serious enough, but also like he was annoyed.
Not with the Captain either.
Brian grinned and nodded helpfully though. So far being him had never helped anything, but there was always a first time. He waited for a second, but the man just looked angry, and a bit scared. Finally he moved in, wondering if the guy was just buying time for his goons to run away. That, the movement, got a reaction.
The word was muffled, but sounded enough like "I'll talk" for him to have the makeshift gag removed.
"Fine, I'll call them in. Don't kill me, I have a wife and kids... Ann, she's my wife, John and Sue are my children..." There was a pleading to the words, but Dharma came out, ghostly heels clicking loud for Brian and looked at the man's desk.
"No pictures of them, and no wedding ring. Plus, those names are horrible. I mean, nice names, but so bland no one would name their family that now. Clearly made up."
He stared at the man and smiled.
"No wedding band. No pictures from home. I'd say you were probably an in the closet homosexual, lying to me. I don't care what you do at home. The lying is a bit of a problem, but it's a stressful situation. I'll let it pass this time, but this is the last one. If you want to get back to..." Brian looked around the office for clues, wondering if there would be any at all. A man like this couldn't afford to be careless after all. He'd have something to show where his heart was though. A memento or something.
If it was in the room, it was hidden, perhaps in a desk drawer. Not wanting to take the time, Brian picked up the man's address book and thumbed through it, finding the most well worn page in the whole thing. The fifth entry had a finger oil smudge next to it. That was the one then.
"If you want to get back to Rick, I suggest you don't make us wait any longer."
That hit home and even Lancaster stared as the man looked like someone had slapped him in the head with a duct taped phone book.
"How did you do that? Powers?"
"No. You left signs all over the place. Now, do I get your help or do I send Rick a condolence card." He could do it. He'd memorized the address. The phone number too. When the man took too long he decided to say them both out loud, but he didn't have to as it turned out.
"Who do you need?" He sounded scared now, and defeated, but that was fine. Not something to trust in for long, since he'd eventually get his feet under him again not being a total wimp. He wouldn't have had his job if he was. Then they'd get to deal with it in a different way, still, if Brian acted fast enough, maybe it would be all right.
"Shaw, Remoss and Claring." Lancaster added the names helpfully enough.
Shaw and Remoss were the ones that had assaulted him first, but Shaw was the one that had really tried to kill him. There had been others in on it, but those were the only names on the warrant. Unless people got out of line. He was going to help make sure they did.
Claring was the dark skinned one that had beaten him while he was chained to a table. He wasn't actually a cop, just a jail guard. Still, he was in the paperwork, so it was fair game.
Of the three on the warrant he was also the only one available at the time, the others supposedly out on duty.
"Call them in. Have them drop what they're doing and get here now. If they don't come in, then we have to look for them, which will endanger their family's lives. I don't want to kill some fourteen year old just trying to protect his dad by lying for him. Do you want that? Is that the kind of person you really are? The kind that thinks it's all right to beat people for no reason, to try and kill them, just because you can? Because I have a paper that says I can now, do you think that means it's all OK?" His voice had gone steely and low, but tight, angry sounding, as if he were going to kill the man even after he said he'd let him live.
The man put the call in and managed to not sound totally freaked. He was, but that would just help him to not die, Brian hoped.
It was an interesting thing, because he felt conflicted there. He didn't want this man to not get home to his honey, Rick, but on the other hand he was a cop. A crooked one that had helped other bad cops get away with crimes. That was nearly as bad as doing it himself.
People that defended this type of person were scum. Bigots and brainwashed morons, mainly. The idea made him mad for a minute, but he held it in, waiting. The Captain was still useful and Brian knew that his real anger wasn't towards this man at all, but the broken system that had produced him. He couldn't fix that though. Just a few people that made everything worse by their being around.
They all walked to the interrogation rooms, of which there were six. Brian found the correct one, number four, which had the same table and chair set up and waited for Claring to get there. It didn't take long, the man looking slightly baffled, but smiling when he saw the Captain and looked politely at Lancaster and even Brian, as if he didn't recognize him. That was possible, he'd been nearly sixty pounds heavier back then and really out of shape.
This man wasn't at all, being nearly as big as Lancaster, with arms that looked even more muscular.
"I was told to report here, sir?" He even sounded polite.
The Captain didn't speak and Lancaster half froze as if expecting Brian to just shoot the man without waiting. That wasn't what the plan was at all though.
"Hi, I'm Brian Yi, from the IPB. Here, have a seat, we need to just ask you a few questions." He waited for the man to try and fight, or maybe run, which wouldn't help him at all, but instead he just sat, looking happy with himself, as if nothing at all was wrong with the nice IPB men coming by. It didn't seem like what a violent and guilty animal would be doing. The main thing was that the large man wasn't scared. Not at all. He didn't exude insane confidence either. He was just... nice.
"Sure. Hey do you want a coffee, soda or anything?" He pointed towards the door, but Brian shook his head.
"Maybe later? First, do you know why you're here?"
Claring shook he
ad, face relaxed.
"For the IPB? Not really. I just handle intake here at the jail. Some kind of Infected thing? Really... we don't get a lot of that type through here. For every ten that we get a 'possible' warning on maybe one of them actually is. As long as they aren't tearing the place apart, or have powers that can be used as weapons, we normally don't worry about it. I mean, we treat them the same as anyone else. If they get out of hand, we deal, but otherwise we just lock them up. Seems to work pretty well." He stared at each of them in turn, but didn't linger on Brian overly.
He nodded to the man, forcing himself to relax too. True, he could just take the man down, he knew for a fact he was guilty, but something didn't jibe here. The guy seemed genuinely... kind. Maybe too much so for someone with his job, but his size probably stopped a lot of problems before they started.
"OK. That sounds like a pretty good plan. Things get too out of hand and you just back off and call us in?"
"That's right. We've only done that twice in the last fifteen years though. Once we had a class four in on parking tickets, but he couldn't handle the isolation and ended up literally taking a few walls down. He agreed to sit in the parking lot after a few guys came and helped him get out. The other one... Man, he was bad news. He could turn into a giant snake thing. We lost a man to that guy. Some woman from your team came in and took him out. I mean, killed him. Cold too, she just walked up to him as he spat venom and threw things at her and hit him once. Um, Cast Iron?" He said it as if he really knew the name pretty well, but didn't want to seem like a fan.
That kind of feeling was at odds with what had happened. The man seemed to be a lot less than a bigot or a bully.
Lancaster tilted his head towards Brian.
"You have something here?"
"Maybe. Claring... what's your first name?" He tried to sound genial about it, even if he didn't feel that way.
"Bob. Robert, but only my mother calls me that."
"Bob then, do you remember ever beating a man in this room, while he was chained to the floor here, bent over? Maybe disabling the camera over there first?" He waited, a flashback of the scene hitting him hard enough that he could feel the blows again. Not intensely, but it was enough to make him shake a little.
"He was kind of heavy, Chinese, you said something like, 'so you like to fight with the cops' does any of that ring a bell?"
The man looked baffled instead of scared or angry.
"No. I mean I was asked about that before, but it didn't happen. It was a regular night. I don't even remember the man I was supposed to have done that to. I don't beat the prisoners. This is a city jail, not Sing Sing. If we have someone that needs that kind of handling we transfer them to County. I won't lie to you there, we do it sometimes. You get guys in occasionally that just want to kill you, sometimes over silly things too. They get so mad over facing sixty days that they want to fight everyone. But we don't rough people up here much. When we do it's usually some kid that we're trying to scare into not throwing his life away. I know it sounds mean, but slapping someone like that in the head a few times while suggesting that they're a little too small and cute for real prison has been known to work. We didn't have anything like that though, and I certainly wouldn't disable a camera in here. I don't even know how. It would look really suspicious too. If I were going to do it, I'd use the use the blind spot down the hall, next to the men's room." He looked slightly bashful then.
"Um, not that I do any of that, I mean. Not even to try and help dumb kids not to mess up too much."
Right. The thing there was that he seemed to be telling the truth. At least until the disclaimer at the end which was so obvious it hardly counted as a lie at all. More like the man had sat there and said 'wink-wink' after the words.
"OK Bob. I believe you. Would you be willing to talk to some of our people though? From the IPB? Just to make certain no one has been messing with your mind. We know for a fact that you did exactly what you were accused of, but if someone else controlled you, took you over or made themselves look like you, then there's no reason for you to be in trouble." Brian smiled, trying not to go into another episode, the man's face just about setting one off anyway.
"I... don't know. I could take a lie detector test or something, but the idea of someone in my head is kind of... not something I'd want, if there's a choice. How do you know it was me? I didn't do it, so that seems a bit unlikely." It was an intelligent question. Insightful even.
"Oh. Because it was me that you nearly killed. Kind of memorable." He didn't growl the words though, just watching the man, who clearly didn't believe him.
Not at first.
It wasn't until Lancaster just stood there nodding at him that the guy got it wasn't just a joke.
"I... Look, I don't remember it, but I'm sorry man. That isn't... I don't do that to people. I know, big black guy, works as a jail guard so I must be a jerk, right? But I'm not. Most of the guys that work here are cool that way. A few might get heavy handed, but it's never like that. No one is beaten like that. I..." The man was about to deny it all, but he didn't bother. Probably because it wouldn't make a difference if he did.
"I guess you can have those people look at me then. Shit. This is going to trash my record isn't it? I have nearly twenty years in here too." Then he froze and looked at Brian hard, his brown eyes locked with the other man's for about ten seconds before looking away.
"Sorry, if it's true then I guess I have to take whatever comes. Not trying to say... I don't know what I'm supposed to say or do at all here."
After a few seconds Brian nodded, making himself relax.
"Nothing to worry over, Bob. Well get this checked out and then you go back to your normal life. It might take a day or two, but you can keep working and everything. Just, if you don't have to, try not to leave town. If you do, let us know first? If someone is using you, you might feel a need to run, but if what you said is true, even if it's shown you're guilty, you won't be in any trouble over it." Even if it was just amnesia. Punishing a person that honestly didn't remember doing something was wrong and served no purpose.
Brian stood and reached out to shake the fellow's hand, surprised when the man actually smiled at a him, still sitting.
"Agent Lancaster and I will be in touch to set that up. Like I said though, this seems to be a formality right now. Let us know if you remember anything?"
Bob rose too, standing at least six-four, towering over Brian who was only about five-ten or so.
"Sure. Thanks man. I... If I did that to you... I guess if you want to kick my ass I kind of have to let you now, huh?"
Lancaster gave him a funny look, but Brian just nodded.
"Heck yeah, you do. Luckily I'm all laid back with people if they weren't in control of themselves at the time. It comes up in my line of work. We'll talk later. Get a beer or something." He tried to sound friendly, but it didn't sound that way. Lancaster nodded anyway, as if it were perfectly natural.
"We need the Captain for a bit. Then we should pack him off to the hospital. Brian dislocated both his elbows an hour ago or so, which can't be comfortable. Of course he was in total control of himself when he was being a jerk, so you know, all's fair." It sounded funny when he said it though and everyone but the Captain, Monroe, chuckled and shook hands again.
It took a while for them to get the next portion of things done, Lancaster searching his face whenever he thought Brian wasn't looking. Finally they got to meet Remoss, who was the older guy that had beaten him with a stick, Brian thought. He couldn't really remember, because his eyes had been hit with pepper spray at the time, making it almost impossible to see. The man didn't react when he saw him, an Asian guy in a black t-shirt and blue jeans. He looked almost normal, except for the scars on his hands and face. Possibly a little military, because of his haircut, but not so much so that anyone seemed to care about it here. The man in front of him didn't pull his weapon immediately like he kind of suspected he would. So far none of them had recognized him at a
ll.
That probably meant he was less well known than he thought. That was a good thing though, so he didn't take it personally. Get out of his black military fatigues and he was just some guy? How cool was that? He could go to a mall or something, maybe.
This time Lancaster took the lead, just asking about the events of that night, making the man shake his head a little, then he looked embarrassed.
"Um, OK, I know that no one else saw what I did, but I swear I was sober and clear headed the whole time. We walked in, Officers Shaw, Duello and Fein, though I was first in. A woman... I'd have to look at my notes to find her name for certain..." He patted his pocket but didn't have anything like that on him, not having been warned about the situation at all.
Brian shrugged.
"Carla Morrison."
The man actually snapped his fingers and pointed at him.
"That's it, thanks. Anyway she started screaming that there was something there and then I saw it. There was this thing... I guess an Infected person, it was bleeding or covered with blood at least and huge, muscles like Mr. America or something. Giant white horns too. Not normal at all. We drew our weapons, because it was that or lose bowel control, and it came for us. For some reason Shaw jumped in and kicked it, which worked, so we used a swarm technique to take it down. Only, after we put the reports in, mine is the only one to describe what I saw. Everyone else saw some Asian man. I had to see the psychologist here for three months to prove I wasn't dropping acid before work. I don't suppose you have an explanation for me?" He sounded halfway hopeful. Not like a giant dickweed at all.
Brian stepped forward then.
"Possibly, or at least we might be able to help you find one. If so we can make sure that little incident gets taken off your record. Did you talk with any of the other Officers involved about it after that? I know you aren't supposed to, but it would be natural to try and find out what happened." He held up his right hand at about head height, as if trying to stop the man from speaking, though it wasn't really needed.
