2020-07-17 - A Friendly Encounter

Ruiz gave him a gun, and he is wearing it. It's the reason for him dragging out all those ridiculous Hawaiian shirts he owns - he doesn't have a lot of summer-suitable outer layers he can wear loose enough to conceal the Glock holstered at the back of his hip. This one is subdued, at least: a pattern of bamboo leaves and stems in navy, on a background a shade darker. It's worn open over a pale gray t-shirt, as well as his usual faded jeans and boots.

He's heading towards the drugstore at an easy pace, enjoying the summer afternoon. No phone in hand: it's clipped at his belt. Decently alert, not entirely unsuspecting, but....let's face it, he doesn't have a fighter's reflexes.

At some point down the line, someone should probably get Byron to check his security cam footage. Because it might just reveal the fellow who sits far too long under a shade tree, watching the apartment complex. And the way he casually picks up his phone when Joseph comes out, and walks towards the drugstore.

And that might dovetail nicely with the way a utility van pulls out, its cheerful Hoaquim Electric sign the first thing Joseph sees as he approaches an intersection. The street is clear, but instead of making a left turn, the van's side door opens and two men with masks jump out. Another man crouches in the van, his gun already drawn and pointed at the ex-sailor. They approach him with clear intent; one of them has plastered a smiley face sticker in green and black on the forehead of his mask. It's the only smile to be seen.

His first response isn't fear or surrender - it's anger. The pilot bares his teeth as the goons show up. "Aw, fuck no," he says, like they just made him an indecent proposal, rather than began a kidnapping attempt. Then that ugly little Glock is in his hand, swift as a magician's trick, and he's firing at the man in the van. Hopefully, it's enough of a surprise to buy him some time. Maybe they didn't expect him to be armed, let alone willing to start a firefight in a nice neighborhood.

But that's exactly what he's done....and now he's backpedalling, rather than turning and bolting. Still trying to draw down on the man with the gun - better to be shot in the street than die slow in their hands, goes his reasoning, inasmuch as the roil of fury and cold calculation currently in control of his brain qualifies as 'reasoning'.

Not enough distance, not fast enough. They've got him surrounded, like a pack of wolves, and the Glock clatters to the pavement. Joe's yelling for help as he struggles, screaming hoarsely, kicking and thrashing and trying to make himself as hard of a capture as he possibly can.

Then he's slung into the van, trying to go for the knife in his boot even as he impacts the opposite wall. Cursing them, yelling....well, trying to yell. That last blow's driven the wind half from him.

How many indeed? Enough, not enough, for here he is. A few moments' struggle, and he's taken that fist to the mouth. It's enough to stop physical speech, that's for certain. Then that blade is buried in his calf and he snarls, a muffled, thick sound.

But it's not enough to stop him from trying to reach out to the strongest power he knows. August's said that there's no range limit on the transmission of thoughts, and now's the time to test the theory. A shout, mind to mind, before the pain hits him in earnest.

That power, at first, is dormant. Like an inhibited magnetic field devoid of charge; and then the shout that cracks against those buttressed defenses like a rock hurled at an electric fence. A spark of charge that arcs and sputters and flares, and wherever he is, whatever he's doing - which happens to be business at the Casino, currently, with Byron Thorne - he stops moving and furrows his brows slightly. The fuck was that. Paranoia, and the weight of these past few weeks has him shutting down his defenses like Fort fucking Knox, and whatever chink Joe nearly found in his armour, whatever way he nearly found in is smoothed over and simply gone.

Hesitation for a moment, like something's occurred to him. He digs out his phone, checks his messages. Nothing. So he puts it out of his mind, and keeps moving.

That shout goes out into the void. And the two goons who shine to Joe's eyes visibly recoil for a moment. The guy who's being left out looks at them oddly, but the gunman just hisses, "For Chrissake, don't let him do that again."

"Do what?" asks poor left out goon. He's ignored. Instead the mask with the smiley face sticker leans over Joe so closely that the sailor can smell the sour scent of his breath, and murmurs, "You fucking do that again, and I will cut out your tongue and feed it to you. Yeah?" He reaches out and slaps Joe's face. The other guy, his question ignored, is zip-tying Joe's legs, then rolling him over to his stomach to wrench his arms behind him secure his arms with another tie.

There's not a lot of point left in defiance. They've got him outnumbered and wounded, already. This does not, however, keep Joe from trying to spit in the Comedian's mask. He glares at him until he's rolled over, trying to breathe past the pain in his face, in his leg. Trying to hold onto anger as long as he can, to keep fear at bay.

He spits! They're almost kissing close, so the bloody spit spatters over the cloth mask, and the goon recoils. He growls, and then slams his fist in Joe's mouth again with a snarl. He's lifting his fist for a second hit when the driver cuts in, his pale green eyes reflected in the rearview mirror, "Not the fucking head. If you make it so the fucker can't be recognized, it's on you."

Sticker-goon grunts, and his fist shifts before coming down on Joseph's solar plexus, instead. "Better, asshole?" he asks the driver.

"Yep," is the laconic response. They're driving quickly, but even through the haze of pain and anger, he recognizes this route - they're going down to the harbor. It's not far from where Joseph was picked up, and he can faintly smell the brackish scent of the air. The van slows, and the gunman scoots up and puts the cold barrel of the gun to Joseph's temple. "One fucking noise, man, and I will blow your brains out right here and now. Give me a reason." His grin to Joe is pained, but absolutely sincere: he's maybe not forgiven him for the gunshot.

They'll be able to identify the body by the tattoos and the dental work, assuming it's whole enough when it's found. But he's reeling with pain - those blows to the head have only called up the effects of older injuries. Then that fist drives out the last of his air, and he's wheezing, trying to breathe.

No sound out of him, though, beyond those ragged attempts at breath. Tempted to try a little shock, but...with a gun to his head, that'd be an awful idea. One twitch of a finger, and he's gone.

The van comes to a stop, and Joe can hear the driver say, "Hey, Dan." He holds out some sort of object, and there's the sound of an electric gate. The van drives smoothly through, and one of the goons reaches out and gives Joe an almost affectionate pat on his aching stomach. "Good decision."

They drive for another minute or so, and then the van's backed up to something. "Up and at 'em," the driver says at the back doors open and Joe is dragged out the back. With the knife still stuck in his calf. "Did you fucking have to stab him in the leg?"

"What, were you gonna let him walk?" He reaches for the blade, but his buddy smacks him on the back of the head. "What if he bleeds out?" They carry the man between them and he gets a brief glimpse of sky, before being dragged into what looks like a shipping container of some sort. The ceiling is rusted steel, as are the walls (where they're not covered with old mattresses as bargain basement soundproofing) and the floor that the goons walk on. The driver and the gun man follow, closing up the van, and then closing the doors to the container. The only light is a bare bulb strung up to the ceiling, the cord retreating somewhere out of sight as Joe's strapped into a chair. A man waits for them to finish, before stepping forward. He's Latino, tall and rangy, with dark hair and eyes. And a friendly smile that does nothing to warm his face. "Joseph Cavanaugh, right?" His voice is pleasant. He /shines/. "You know why you're here?" He glances down at the knife, raises an eyebrow.

"He shot Tony," one of the goons mutters. "And it's his knife. Fucker was loaded."

The pain of the knife shifting is amazing, and despite his attempts to make no sound, to obey those orders....there're little choked cries from him, as he's dragged. It's enough to make his vision start to tunnel, to make all those hostile faces something seen from the wrong end of a telescope. Tied to the chair, he's sagging drunkenly against his bonds.

The knife's in the wound, still, but it's dragged enough that it's not a perfect seal. There's blood darkening the old denim of his jeans, trickling down into his boots. There's no good way to reply, with his mouth battered and his head pounding. Only an "mmhm" for the first question and a "nnnn" for the second.

The man, who is clearly the leader, gives the others an exasperated look as Joseph tries to respond. "I wanted to talk to him. This isn't nearly as effective if he doesn't understand what's going on." He turns back to Joseph, and reaches out to give his hair a fond little ruffle. "Well, we'll make do. You're here, Joe - I can call you Joe, right - because Javier de la Vega doesn't know when to roll over, and when to beg, like a good little doggy. So. I need you to take a message from me, to him." His hand tightens in Joe's hair, pulling his head up and back so that their eyes can meet. "You can do that for me, right?"

That was the wrong thing to say. Profoundly the wrong fucking thing. This asshole just dared say Javier's name, and that name filters through the fog of pain, the darkness of encroaching fear, and breathes on those dimming embers of rage.

His head is heavy in Reyes's grip, like that of someone deeply asleep, but he's conscious. And then the sailor's eyes narrow, and there's a blue-white arc of electricity over the fingers knotted in his hair. Take that.

Reyes snatches his hand back, taking a good hunk of Joseph's hair with it, and shakes his hand while hissing and cursing in Spanish under his breath. The goons move forward. At first, Reyes shakes his head, reassuring them. Then he turns a cold look on the bound man. "All right. Guess you do understand." To his goons, he says, "Take the knife out, and get his shoes and socks off." As they scramble to do that, yanking Joe's legs up and out so they can pull the knife cleanly out of his calf - it bleeds, but not heavily enough to suggest an artery has been opened - and then wrestle with his feet, Reyes grabs a stool, and Joe's feet are levered up there once they're bare.

Reyes disappears out of sight for a moment. When he returns, he has a wooden cane in his hands. It's plain, the wood stained slightly. "Loyalty. I can admire that, you know. It's useful." He smiles at Joseph. You could call it a smile. There's teeth showing. The thugs bracket Joseph's legs, keep them from moving, and Reyes swings the cane like he's trying to hit a home run. It lands on the soles of Joe's feet with a terrible, flat sound.

Another of those furious snarls from him, as his hair is torn....and it devolves into a whimper as the knife comes out. His socks are perfectly ridiculous, beneath the boots - blue with little white shuttles on them, one of the set now sodden with blood. They haven't taken his shirt off, so they won't get the jokes. Not yet.

Joe grins back at him. Well, it's more a ruined leer, with his mouth battered half-way to unrecognizability. But the bastinado's never been a form of torture he cares for, and there's a keening sound from him at the blow.

There's a snicker from the goons at the socks, and one of them nudges the other, "Look. Rockets," he hisses, and they laugh. And when Joseph keens, Tony, still bleeding from his shoulder, makes a sound of savage satisfaction. Reyes' face, on the other hand, is only mildly interested in the sound, his head cocking slightly to one side, before he pulls back and swings the cane again, striking high on Joe's feet.

Then again, right across the arches. And again, until there's nothing but agony. After a couple more swings, Reyes stops, his breath slightly faster from the effort. He uses the cane to poke Joe in the forehead. "Do you understand the message for de la Vega, now, friend?" Another hard poke right between the eyes.

Agony it is, and the sounds he makes are terrible - driven beyond the bounds of any attempt at stoicism. He's panting like an animal, trying to drag air in. Tears leak from beneath his lashes, and it takes him a moment to respond, to collect his thoughts, to try and assemble the words he needs. A grunt that might be assent, and then, as distinctly as he can, "Chinga tu puta madre." His accent isn't great at the best of times, and after that beating, worse than ever....but Joe's intelligible.

Reyes stops.

He looks at Joseph, in silence, for a long, long moment. His expression is solemn. After some thought, he says, "What is it with the people in this fucking town?" He looks over at the rest of his crew, and they all shrug, in unison. He turns back to Joseph. "Is it something in the water? Or are you all just that stupid?" He makes an exasperated noise, then steps back. He waves at the others. "Go ahead. Let's make sure the message speaks for itself. Just mind the face."

They close in, without another word. One pulls on brass knuckles, but the others seem content to use their fists, and their feet. The sounds of flesh and boots hitting flesh starts to rise in the room. It's methodical, almost without passion - except the part where Tony reaches down to the knife-wound in Joe's leg and just jams his fingers in there, grinning and hissing, "Shoot me, fucker? Next time I'm gonna blow your fucking brains out." The others just do the job.

And it doesn't stop until Joseph loses consciousness. Maybe it doesn't stop then, but well, he won't remember that.

It doesn't take long until the lights go out. He should've been smarter, but....adrenaline and anger are enough until almost the end. Then he's trying to curl up in earnest, trying to shield himself from those blows. Eventually every body gives in, no matter how tough.

Eventually, the beating stops, and Joseph is unstrapped from the chair. The doors to the container and the van are opened up again, and he's tossed unceremoniously inside. Reyes frowns at the battered, broken body, then reaches for something on a small table. He approaches, and tucks a white envelope down the front of Joe's pants. It immediately starts to stain red with blood. He steps back and waves for his goons to complete the job.

They climb inside, and soon Joe's on his way to be dumped like a bag of trash outside Ruiz and Itzhak's cabin. Eventually, someone will probably care about the envelope, and will open it to find a cheerful Hallmark card, blotted with dots of rust brown blood that's soaked through. It has two adorable children waving at the reader, and inside, it says, "Don't forget your friends!"

It's unsigned.