2020-06-22 - Over the River

As a general rule, Alexander enjoyed missing persons cases. Not more than murders, but he rarely was able to work alone and with his full concentration with murders. But he usually could with a missing person, because by the time someone got desperate enough to hire him, everyone else had stopped looking.

But that's what made them interesting puzzles. Reconstructing a victim's last days, figuring out the wheres and whys and hows of their disappearance. He found a surprising number of them, in the end. Sometimes their bodies. Sometimes they were in Portland or Seattle, or warmer climes, having run off with the babysitter and the family bank account. Sometimes, more often than he liked, they disappeared into thin air, and that was the end of their story. And it wasn't a proper ending at all.

This was more likely to have a proper ending, and the idea of it thrilled along his bones. Ruiz asked him to help. Ruiz had asked him to help. Even after he'd fucked up the thing with the gun. Even after everything.

More rationally, Alexander was well aware that he was probably asked because there was something Ruiz didn't want the other cops to know. He had a police radio, he listened to chatter, he eavesdropped on coffee conversations. No one on the force was looking for a man that matched the image Ruiz had shown him, even though every cop was loudly furious about the death of the Chief. Copkillers didn't always make it to trial.

The thought had occurred to him that he might be helping Ruiz assist with a quiet murder, although he didn't know why. The thought stirred some deep unease in him, but he pushed it aside. Because Ruiz was his friend, likely his best friend now that Isolde had left (and Isabella was more than a friend, even a best friend, but if she'd asked him to find a man, even if she'd been open about wanting to torture him to death, that man would be on his knees before her before nightfall, or Alexander would be dead from trying to make it happen) and Ruiz had asked him to help.

So he would. No matter what. He would trust Ruiz to do the right thing with the information.

Mindful of the desire not to stir up an awareness that someone was being hunted, Alexander started his investigation as subtly as he could. He knew most of the places that out of towners settled in, or just rested in while they decided to settle. He sat among the homeless, blending in with distressing ease, and gently questioned them while he watched the Boardwalk, the motels, the campgrounds. At home, at night, he reproduced the image of the tattoos as best he could, and searched the internet, narrowing down gangs, organizations, symbolic meanings. He wandered down to the trailer park and stared at his usual sources until they started babbling criminal gossip just to make him go the fuck away, without him having to ask any actual questions at all.

What he found was both...frustrating and a source of delight. Frustrating, because he didn't have an answer the first day. Or the second. Or the third. But delightful because it quickly became apparent that he wasn't a bloodhound tracking down a wayward rabbit. No, his prey was out there, but he was careful. A half dozen fake names, each as real as 'Lopez', a talent for blending in, so that Alexander almost missed half of the sightings because it wasn't a ganger in casual clothes, but a man in a suit with just a little too much concealer on his face, or a dockworker who kept his face down so that Alexander needed a half-dozen witnesses before he could match up the fragments in their minds to the image from Ruiz.

Because while Alexander was hunting 'Lopez', it was very apparent that Lopez, and his associates (of which he had a surprising number - they weren't all as good at fading in and out of the life of Gray Harbor as Lopez was) were doing some hunting of their own. Observations, yes, but also pinpoint strikes. Quick criminal attacks that weren't enough to get serious police attention; some as stupid and brief as a couple of 'teenagers' busting up a stall on the Boardwalk and running away laughing, others bog standard muggings and assaults in the bar district, where neither of those things was uncommon.

It was a pain in the ass to get enough confirmations to make a hypothesis, but once he did, he stood in his murder-room, eyes roving over a map of the city, and grinned. He was no closer to finding the man's identity, but what was in a name? He knew what he was doing.

Testing. Testing the reaction time of the city. Both above ground and below. Never staying long enough to get caught, only half-assed interested in the spoils from any crimes, but always watching how long it took cops to arrive, and in which neighborhoods. And more, how long it took for the not-cops to arrive, when the victim was one of the local fences or smugglers. Alexander licked his lips, certain in his heart that somewhere, this 'Lopez' had a map very much like his on the wall, and their notations might have been in different handwriting, but he was sure that the information was almost exactly the same.

He wanted to meet this guy. He wanted to listen to him think, and watch him plan.

And then he wanted to see him in handcuffs.

Unfortunately, the first part to both of those plans involved getting a real name, and then a location for him and his crew. And no one seemed to know. He faded in when he wanted to. He faded out when he decided to. And nobody, fucking nobody had an idea of where he went. So the fourth day looked to pass in just as much frustration as the first three. Alexander was down by the docks, stalking around abandoned warehouses. Since the timber crash, the Harbor had a distressing amount of industrial landscape that was just left to rot, too cumbersome to bother protecting by more than rusted chainlink fences and the occasional faded sign. It wasn't a bad place to hide a burgeoning criminal enterprise. It wasn't cozy, but if this 'Lopez' was smart, he was going to leave cozy for after he'd dealt with the Monaghan problem.

So he stayed out until the late spring day turned into a dark night, and that? That wasn't the smartest thing Alexander ever did.

Alexander rolls Alertness (8 8 7 3 3 3 3 1) vs Dark Alley (a NPC)'s 5 (8 8 8 6 6 5 1)
Victory for Dark Alley. (Rolled by: Alexander)

He was lost inside his own head, a world of calculations and hypothesis, tinged with the joy of mystery, and so he didn't notice that he was cut off in a narrow alleyway between two warehouses until one of the four men surrounding him stepped out to block the flickering light of a streetlamp, throwing a long shadow over Alexander. "Hey, man, gotta light?" the stranger asked, waving an unlit cigarette around.

"No," Alexander said, coming to a halt, his senses (real and unreal) alive with the knowledge of the other man with the one in front, and the two in back. "I don't smoke," he explained, even though he knew the query was rhetorical. It still paid to answer questions truthfully. It made the world more real. Even when he wasn't quite sure he wanted this part of the world to be...quite as real as it was apparently going to be.

The spokesthug stepped up close, and Alexander stepped back, trying to keep him just out of arm's reach. Neither of the two in front of him had a gun, but the quiet one had a knife. No idea what the two behind were carrying. Not for the first time, Alexander wished desperately that he had the feel for the physical realm that Isabella did, or Itzhak did, or...Easton (once) did. The spokesthug gave him an easy grin, but Alexander didn't need his abilities to see the emptiness behind the expression. "That's a shame," he said, and the accent was definitely not local. More North, Alexander thought, although he didn't meet enough people to pinpoint it better than that. "You shouldn't be in the dark without a light. Especially wandering like you're looking for something. You don't know what you might find."

Alexander was afraid. But being afraid was pretty much Alexander's every day, so he said, "Thank you for the advice," in as polite a tone as he could muster and started to try and sidle around. It was a doomed effort, but he felt he had to try.

He went rigid when the spokesthug lunged forward and grabbed his arm.

It wasn't a conscious thought. In fact, Alexander's mind, to the extent that his mind was able to function with a hostile stranger touching him, recognized that escalating this was a very, very bad idea and he really shouldn't.

Which did not stop him from screaming in sudden rage and fear as the man's hand clamped down on his arm, pivoting, and doing his absolute best to put his fist through the guy's face. It was instinct, not training, and it worked as well as he should have expected. Which is to say - not at all. The thug spun gracefully with him, robbing the punch of momentum, then countered with a fist that drove all of the breath from Alexander's lungs in one vicious blow. Alexander tried to curl defensively, but couldn't with the hand holding him in place. The other thugs came in like sharks, and in a few seconds, they had all buried fists of their own in his back, his kidneys, his chest, his stomach.

The thug dropped him and he couldn't even make a pretense of strength, collapsing where he fell as he wheezed for air and tried to figure out if any of his ribs were broken. "See?" he heard from above. "You townies never got fucking taught to fear the dark. But we like to teach, so that works out." His voice was light and cold, like the wind off the sea. "Stay out of our business, or next time, it's your skull." They started to walk away.

You should really just stay the hell down, the voice of Alexander's common sense - quiet and not heeded as often as it should be - spoke out. You have something to give Ruiz. You do not want to push these guys without backup, and already beaten half to shit.

All of these things were true, and the idea of just staying in this fetal position and relearning how to breathe while they walked away was a really, really tempting one.

Alexander got up anyway, because he was a stupid son of a bitch. And because Ruiz had asked him for help. "What's his name?" he croaked at their backs.

The spokesthug stopped first, and turned. The other three followed suit with an eerie precision. Alexander's eyes flickered between each face, although the tears of pain and the dark made it hard to note more than the generalities: a mix of races, mostly early to mid twenties, all male. He estimated the tallest to be about six feet, and the others only an inch or two under that. Solid built, with a hungry sort of strength. Know how to throw a punch. If there were tattoos, he couldn't see them in the dark. "Don't know what you're talking about," the spokesthug said, pleasantly.

"Lie," Alexander grated out, not that he needed the mental web he was stretching out to the group to know that much.

"You calling us liars, man?" The spokesthug said, but it was bored. What wasn't bored were his eyes as he began to approach. "Should have stayed down," he said, mock gentle, but the cold satisfaction that he hadn't pulsed in Alexander's brain. Underneath the professionalism, in so far as 'professional thug' was a thing, they all had that same cold delight in breaking people. And he'd just stepped out of line. He had to be corrected, and they would enjoy it.

Alexander understood what that felt like. It resonated with him. But it didn't stop him. Four to one was lousy odds, even if Alexander had been a physical powerhouse, and not a forty year old man in decent shape with a lot of desperate fighting experience behind him. And what experience told him is that in a real fight, there were no rules. So he reached out, spun his worst nightmares across the bridge he'd formed between himself and his enemies, and plunged three of thugs into terror. Enjoy brain worms, fuckers.

The three stopped, then howled, clawing their faces and noses in sudden horror. Curses and screams bounced off the steel walls as they cut themselves with their nails trying to get imaginary worms out of their ears, their mouths, their noses, their eyes, their brains.

It took only a fraction of his attention to keep the three in nightmare-land as he moved in on the Spokesthug. Who had tensed up at the sudden commotion, but didn't lose his cool; that, and the way that he - more than any of his crew - stood out told Alexander that he, at least, had an idea of what Gray Harbor's true face was. It heightened Alexander's burning need to unravel the mystery, to find out who and why.

The thug went for a knife, and Alexander closed in, bodychecking him with no subtlety to interrupt the motion. It became a grapple without grace or subtlety - just desperate strength and the earnest attempt to beat the everliving hell out of the other guy. They crashed to the asphalt, and the thug was on top. Which meant Alexander's head was getting slammed into the pavement with enough force to make stars explode in front of his eyes. He punched desperately at the body above him, and although there were pained grunts, it just made him lift him up higher, and then drop his head with brutal force against the ground.

Alexander tasted his own blood in his mouth, and his hands came up to flatten themselves against his opponent. Much like that first punch, there was no thought in his action, it was all instinct and a single atavistic imperative: I do not die today. Electricity flashed between them, and the body above his jerked and spasmed. He watched the man's eyes roll back into his head until all that could be seen was the white, and Alexander shoved him off while he was still spasming frantically. The other three...gone. They'd run, fleeing the monsters he'd put inside their brains, and not even severing the illusion would bring them back to their senses for a while.

He reached for the spokesthug. Still alive. Out cold. "Fuck," Alexander muttered, and spit blood. His head was splitting, he'd bitten his tongue, and he would really have liked to have one of the assholes still conscious to answer a simple fucking question. He asked it anyway. "Who the fuck is Lopez?" No answer.

Rude.

Alexander crawled over to search the still twitching body. No ID, a pack of cigarettes, a knife that was definitely not street legal (but Alexander couldn't exactly cast stones on that one), and...a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it, and saw himself looking at a candid shot of his own face, taken from what he'd bet was a telescopic lens. The digital printout took up half the page, and under it was scribbled a brief note: "Nosy townie fucker. Reyes says discourage."

"Thank you for your cooperation, sir," Alexander slurred, as he staggered drunkenly to his feet. His head still rang in time with the beating of his heart, which was way too fast for that shit to be happening. He folded the paper clumsily and stuck it in his pocket. In the distance, he could hear sirens. At his feet, the spokesthug was stirring, and he could feel the other three starting to bring themselves under control. None of this ended well for Alexander Clayton, and he wouldn't be helping Ruiz if Ruiz had to get him out of jail.

So he wove his way down the alley as the spokesthug rolled, groaned, and tried to remember how muscles worked, and hurried away into the night.