A trip to the station...
He takes off at DBY a couple of hours early. It's no problem with Johnny (it never is), though Bill does take the time to track him down and let him know, and remind him that he has dinner scheduled with one of the standard rags ("Yeah, oh, yeah," he'd said, face going bright and intent for a moment. "Hey, man, you think I should wear a tie?" On Bill's assertion that it couldn't hurt, he'd turned thoughtful for a moment, given a slow nod, and said: "Yeah, okay. Can I borrow that one?" Bill had given it to him, of course, though he suspects rather strongly that Johnny will forget all about putting it on when the time comes.) this evening.
He stows most of the crap from the Mustang under his desk at DBY. He just doesn't have anywhere else to bloody put it, and it's not that much anyhow. He keeps the laptop and both guns with him, though. They're the only things that would be likely to require explanations, if anyone stumbles across them.
He scoots into the station through the underground car park, because he's less likely to meet anyone from admin going that way than any other, and manages to get all the way to Susan's office without running into anyone that he might be tempted to shoot. She's on the phone when he steps into her office.
"I'll call you back, Rex," she says quickly, gesturing for him to shut the door. Then, softer, "Yeah, eight should be good. Bye."
Bill says nothing, but he can't quite keep from smirking.
"I thought you were coming in this morning," she says, ignoring the smirk. She shifts a thick file folder from in front of her to the far side of her desk, and gestures for him to sit in the chair across from her.
"I said I'd come in today, I didn't actually specify a time." He takes a seat and smirks a little more when she rolls her eyes at him.
"Have you been to see Redden?" she asks, but he can tell from her face that she knows he hasn't.
"That's my next stop," he lies.
"You need to see him, Bill. He's your boss now, he has the right to know what you're up to. And Homicide wants a statement."
"I figured," he says, and slides his hand into the outside pouch of his laptop case for his already-prepared written statement. "It should be in order."
"Don't give it to me," she says, when he moves to offer her the print out. "Give it to your boss, dammit. You don't work for me anymore, remember?"
He isn't sure if she's really as pissed off as she sounds, but he guesses that doesn't matter much. The black band around her badge means she can be as pissy as she wants to be, and he won't say a fucking word. She rubs at her temples with the fingertips and thumb of one hand, and Bill uses the time to get the Mustang keys (one for the ignition and another for the trunk and doors, as the 'stang is too old to be one-key-fits-all) off his keyring. He puts them on her desk next to the file folder -- Dominguez, it says on the flap -- and then sits back to wait. Eventually, she turns her attention back to him.
"What happened to your face," she asks, and arches a brow. She looks a little amused, but she's not smiling, and her eyes are tired.
"Tripped on my lower lip," he says, and she finally cracks a smile, albeit a small one.
"I assume you left that part out of your statement?" she asks, but doesn't give him time to answer. "I need to be somewhere." She stands and picks the keys up off the desk, sliding them into a drawer. She lays her hand on the file folder, and gives him a long look. "I've got a review board and three depositions I need to fit in before eight. I suggest you stop in and see Redden before you leave this building, Boyd." She removes her hand from the file, leaving it where it is, and grabs her jacket off the chair, sliding it on over her silk blouse and shoulder holster. The hem of the jacket falls past her badge, concealing it, along with it's black band. "He'll be gone by eight, too, God willing, so don't fuck around."
Bill doesn't stand up. It's clear that she doesn't mean for him to leave when she does, and the file folder on the edge of her desk is the reason. He can live with that. He does say, "There was a hit, Sue, but he's called it off." She pauses on her way to the door, and turns to look at him, her expression considering. "I don't know why."
She gives a nod. "You're a fucking idiot, you know," she says, but he can hear the relief in her voice, though it's not quite as strong as the anger. "And you know it's bound to be a temporary reprieve at best."
"Aye, I know that."
"You could have fucking been killed," she says flatly, and turns her back, her hand resting lightly on the door knob.
"It was the only way to find out anything," he says, but it sounds pretty fucking weak, even to him, at least in light of the slump of her shoulders and her weary eyes.
"This job," she says softly, without turning around, "will kill all of us in the end, Bill. One way or another. There isn't anything you need to know so much that it's worth your life."
"Knowing what's going on has saved my life more times than I can count, love," Bill says gently. "You know that. Finding out what's going on is what I do. It's why you wanted me here to begin with."
"That's true," she says. "And you're good at it. More than three-quarters of what we've got on Dominguez, we got from you, Bill. You're a good cop, and you're effecient and ruthless and persistent, but you said it yourself." She turns the knob and opens the door slightly, but she still doesn't look back. "You don't work for me any more."
He lets the sound of her shoes clicking away down the tiled hallway fade before he picks up the folder. He glances inside, just to double check that it's what he thinks it is before he takes it, and sees page after page of photocopied reports, observation lists, surveillance information, all dated and timestamped, all unremarkable and unofficial. He unzips his laptop case enough to slide the file inside.
He grabs a pad of post-its from her desk and scrawls ten words on it, tears the top sheet off and sticks it to her computer screen. She'll see it when she comes in, though Bill isn't sure if it'll make her feel any better or not. It's the truth, though, and that's the best he can really do.
Redden is in the pit when Bill walks in, and for several long moments, Bill is aware of being the center of attention in a group of people he doesn't really know that well.
The Vice pit isn't like the Narc pit had been. It's a lot more orderly, for one thing, and it's smaller. The only real similarity is that it's occupied by men and women that go out of their way not to look much like cops in order to blend in with a group of miscreants that they loathe. He sees Paulson, third desk from the east wall, all the way in the back, and it occurs to him that it's been a long fucking time since he really sat down with Paulson and talked about what Bill has found out, and what he's still trying to find out.
He should do that.
"Boyd," Redden says, and steps away from the cubicle of the woman he'd been talking to. "I'll get back with you on that, Anita, but back-burner it for now," he says, and she nods. He turns to Bill. "Lets go to my office." His voice is casually friendly, but his body language shows six different points of tension that indicate intent to attack, according to the rules of engagement in ten of the standard forms of tournament martial arts.
Brilliant.
Bill follows him without a word, memorizing faces (and names, when the desks have nameplates) as quickly as he can without making eye contact, just for future reference.
He doesn't spend as much time on the streets doing his actual job as he should, he's fully aware of that, but when he does go out, it's good to recognize your coworkers.
Redden steps into his office and stands beside the door until Bill is inside, then closes it behind Bill.
Bill waits for Where the hell have you been? or What exactly are you doing during the time the department is paying you for? What he actually gets, though, is: "You have a statement for me?"
Susan, Bill thinks, and dips into the outside pouch for the statement.
Redden tucks it into a folder without even glancing at it first. The folder is labeled with nothing but a number, which Bill memorizes. It'll make life easier later, when he hacks into the central database to look at the case file for the incident at his apartment.
Redden doesn't sit down, and he doesn't invite Bill to sit either. He takes a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and hands them to Bill. "It's parked in Delta-four in the garage," he says. "Not as high-profile as what you're used to, but it's appropriate, and it'll do."
Bill nods and tucks the keys into his own jacket pocket. Redden's six points of tension have eased back to four, but Bill doesn't particularly like the way Redden is looking at him, considering and assessing. It's only with real effort that he's able to keep his own body loose and non-threatening as he stands there and waits for Redden to either say something or dismiss him.
"She says you know what you're doing," Redden says eventually, thoughtfully. "Your case files show steady progress, better than some and not as good as others, which is just as it should be. She says I should let you do your thing, Bill Boyd, and that you do it best without someone looking over your shoulder, that you can be depended on not to fuck me over." Redden shifts, and Bill shifts, too, automatic, to compensate for the change in posture, and the intent it displays. A smile flickers over Redden's lips briefly, but there's no sign of amusement in his voice when he continues. "I don't trust you like she does, but I trust her, so I'm going to do as she asks. You," and he pauses, for emphasis, "are going to do what it takes to cover my ass. You are going to log into the station twice a week, and you're going to make sure your name goes on the books and people see your face. You are going to be seen on the streets by marked units at least twice a week, so that they can testify in court that they saw you doing your job. And you are never, ever going to do anything to make me regret this, Boyd, and that includes getting yourself killed."
"I hear you," Bill says, and nothing else because he can't quite work out what he's being given permission to do here, so the less he says the better.
"Don't give me that bullshit, Susan's warned me about that crap. I want a yes, sir, Detective Boyd."
"Yes, sir," Bill agrees immediately, because he's not equipped to fuck with Redden, and because in this particular instance, there's no point. He's pretty sure he's being handed what he really wants on a silver platter, and you don't look a gift horse, etcetera, etcetera. And Redden isn't asking for much, in exchange for basically letting Bill loose without a specific course and without supervision. And they're sensible precautions, for both of them.
And he wonders who Dominguez's fuckwits had killed last night. He hasn't asked. Asking Susan would've been too cruel, and he's not sure Redden would even know. But he thinks it must have really fucking hit Susan hard, hit her where it fucking counts, if she's willing to go to bat for him like this, because there isn't really any way to read this except for the way it is.
Redden gives a curt nod accompanied by a gesture that is clearly a dismissal.
Bill doesn't wait for him to ask anything else.
Delta-four contains a Mini. Barely.
It's not like a Mini takes up that much space.
It is metallic purple.
Bill just looks at it for a while, pondering this turn of events, which makes even a slick top Crown Vic with forty antennae seem cool.
He sighs, and fishes the keys out of his jacket pocket. They've got a little remote thing, and when he pushes the door unlock button, the car chirps cheerfully at him.
Like a bloody happy bird or some shite.
He's depressed to find that he has plenty of leg and head room.
To distract himself (Keira, he's sure, will love it; Nic, he's sure, will mock him mercilessly), he gets the file labeled Dominguez out of his case and flips it open, thumbing idly through the pages.
It's everything they've got, including things that aren't admissable in court, for whatever reason. Years of surveillance and intelligence.
The last page in the folder isn't a photocopied report, phone log, or surveillance sheet, however.
It's a sheet of printer paper, blank except for ten words scrawled in red ink, Susan's back-slanting, spiky handwriting. It makes him smile slightly before he even reads it, because he can guess what it says.
Do what you have to do. Don't get yourself killed, asshole.
It makes the note he'd left on her computer monitor (I'll be as careful as he lets me be, Sue.) that much more appropriate.
The Mini is so quiet (he's used to the roar of the Mustang's engine) that when he starts it he isn't sure it's caught. He turns the key again, and it makes a grinding screech of protest that echoes hugely in the enclosed car park.
"Bugger!" he mutters under his breath, and backs out of the parking spot with far more care than he usually exhibits.
In a Mini, if he's in an accident, chances are he isn't making it out alive, after all.
It's a sad, sad world when one's car seems more threating to one's immediate well-being than the powerful drug lord one has managed to piss off, he decides.
He stows most of the crap from the Mustang under his desk at DBY. He just doesn't have anywhere else to bloody put it, and it's not that much anyhow. He keeps the laptop and both guns with him, though. They're the only things that would be likely to require explanations, if anyone stumbles across them.
He scoots into the station through the underground car park, because he's less likely to meet anyone from admin going that way than any other, and manages to get all the way to Susan's office without running into anyone that he might be tempted to shoot. She's on the phone when he steps into her office.
"I'll call you back, Rex," she says quickly, gesturing for him to shut the door. Then, softer, "Yeah, eight should be good. Bye."
Bill says nothing, but he can't quite keep from smirking.
"I thought you were coming in this morning," she says, ignoring the smirk. She shifts a thick file folder from in front of her to the far side of her desk, and gestures for him to sit in the chair across from her.
"I said I'd come in today, I didn't actually specify a time." He takes a seat and smirks a little more when she rolls her eyes at him.
"Have you been to see Redden?" she asks, but he can tell from her face that she knows he hasn't.
"That's my next stop," he lies.
"You need to see him, Bill. He's your boss now, he has the right to know what you're up to. And Homicide wants a statement."
"I figured," he says, and slides his hand into the outside pouch of his laptop case for his already-prepared written statement. "It should be in order."
"Don't give it to me," she says, when he moves to offer her the print out. "Give it to your boss, dammit. You don't work for me anymore, remember?"
He isn't sure if she's really as pissed off as she sounds, but he guesses that doesn't matter much. The black band around her badge means she can be as pissy as she wants to be, and he won't say a fucking word. She rubs at her temples with the fingertips and thumb of one hand, and Bill uses the time to get the Mustang keys (one for the ignition and another for the trunk and doors, as the 'stang is too old to be one-key-fits-all) off his keyring. He puts them on her desk next to the file folder -- Dominguez, it says on the flap -- and then sits back to wait. Eventually, she turns her attention back to him.
"What happened to your face," she asks, and arches a brow. She looks a little amused, but she's not smiling, and her eyes are tired.
"Tripped on my lower lip," he says, and she finally cracks a smile, albeit a small one.
"I assume you left that part out of your statement?" she asks, but doesn't give him time to answer. "I need to be somewhere." She stands and picks the keys up off the desk, sliding them into a drawer. She lays her hand on the file folder, and gives him a long look. "I've got a review board and three depositions I need to fit in before eight. I suggest you stop in and see Redden before you leave this building, Boyd." She removes her hand from the file, leaving it where it is, and grabs her jacket off the chair, sliding it on over her silk blouse and shoulder holster. The hem of the jacket falls past her badge, concealing it, along with it's black band. "He'll be gone by eight, too, God willing, so don't fuck around."
Bill doesn't stand up. It's clear that she doesn't mean for him to leave when she does, and the file folder on the edge of her desk is the reason. He can live with that. He does say, "There was a hit, Sue, but he's called it off." She pauses on her way to the door, and turns to look at him, her expression considering. "I don't know why."
She gives a nod. "You're a fucking idiot, you know," she says, but he can hear the relief in her voice, though it's not quite as strong as the anger. "And you know it's bound to be a temporary reprieve at best."
"Aye, I know that."
"You could have fucking been killed," she says flatly, and turns her back, her hand resting lightly on the door knob.
"It was the only way to find out anything," he says, but it sounds pretty fucking weak, even to him, at least in light of the slump of her shoulders and her weary eyes.
"This job," she says softly, without turning around, "will kill all of us in the end, Bill. One way or another. There isn't anything you need to know so much that it's worth your life."
"Knowing what's going on has saved my life more times than I can count, love," Bill says gently. "You know that. Finding out what's going on is what I do. It's why you wanted me here to begin with."
"That's true," she says. "And you're good at it. More than three-quarters of what we've got on Dominguez, we got from you, Bill. You're a good cop, and you're effecient and ruthless and persistent, but you said it yourself." She turns the knob and opens the door slightly, but she still doesn't look back. "You don't work for me any more."
He lets the sound of her shoes clicking away down the tiled hallway fade before he picks up the folder. He glances inside, just to double check that it's what he thinks it is before he takes it, and sees page after page of photocopied reports, observation lists, surveillance information, all dated and timestamped, all unremarkable and unofficial. He unzips his laptop case enough to slide the file inside.
He grabs a pad of post-its from her desk and scrawls ten words on it, tears the top sheet off and sticks it to her computer screen. She'll see it when she comes in, though Bill isn't sure if it'll make her feel any better or not. It's the truth, though, and that's the best he can really do.
Redden is in the pit when Bill walks in, and for several long moments, Bill is aware of being the center of attention in a group of people he doesn't really know that well.
The Vice pit isn't like the Narc pit had been. It's a lot more orderly, for one thing, and it's smaller. The only real similarity is that it's occupied by men and women that go out of their way not to look much like cops in order to blend in with a group of miscreants that they loathe. He sees Paulson, third desk from the east wall, all the way in the back, and it occurs to him that it's been a long fucking time since he really sat down with Paulson and talked about what Bill has found out, and what he's still trying to find out.
He should do that.
"Boyd," Redden says, and steps away from the cubicle of the woman he'd been talking to. "I'll get back with you on that, Anita, but back-burner it for now," he says, and she nods. He turns to Bill. "Lets go to my office." His voice is casually friendly, but his body language shows six different points of tension that indicate intent to attack, according to the rules of engagement in ten of the standard forms of tournament martial arts.
Brilliant.
Bill follows him without a word, memorizing faces (and names, when the desks have nameplates) as quickly as he can without making eye contact, just for future reference.
He doesn't spend as much time on the streets doing his actual job as he should, he's fully aware of that, but when he does go out, it's good to recognize your coworkers.
Redden steps into his office and stands beside the door until Bill is inside, then closes it behind Bill.
Bill waits for Where the hell have you been? or What exactly are you doing during the time the department is paying you for? What he actually gets, though, is: "You have a statement for me?"
Susan, Bill thinks, and dips into the outside pouch for the statement.
Redden tucks it into a folder without even glancing at it first. The folder is labeled with nothing but a number, which Bill memorizes. It'll make life easier later, when he hacks into the central database to look at the case file for the incident at his apartment.
Redden doesn't sit down, and he doesn't invite Bill to sit either. He takes a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and hands them to Bill. "It's parked in Delta-four in the garage," he says. "Not as high-profile as what you're used to, but it's appropriate, and it'll do."
Bill nods and tucks the keys into his own jacket pocket. Redden's six points of tension have eased back to four, but Bill doesn't particularly like the way Redden is looking at him, considering and assessing. It's only with real effort that he's able to keep his own body loose and non-threatening as he stands there and waits for Redden to either say something or dismiss him.
"She says you know what you're doing," Redden says eventually, thoughtfully. "Your case files show steady progress, better than some and not as good as others, which is just as it should be. She says I should let you do your thing, Bill Boyd, and that you do it best without someone looking over your shoulder, that you can be depended on not to fuck me over." Redden shifts, and Bill shifts, too, automatic, to compensate for the change in posture, and the intent it displays. A smile flickers over Redden's lips briefly, but there's no sign of amusement in his voice when he continues. "I don't trust you like she does, but I trust her, so I'm going to do as she asks. You," and he pauses, for emphasis, "are going to do what it takes to cover my ass. You are going to log into the station twice a week, and you're going to make sure your name goes on the books and people see your face. You are going to be seen on the streets by marked units at least twice a week, so that they can testify in court that they saw you doing your job. And you are never, ever going to do anything to make me regret this, Boyd, and that includes getting yourself killed."
"I hear you," Bill says, and nothing else because he can't quite work out what he's being given permission to do here, so the less he says the better.
"Don't give me that bullshit, Susan's warned me about that crap. I want a yes, sir, Detective Boyd."
"Yes, sir," Bill agrees immediately, because he's not equipped to fuck with Redden, and because in this particular instance, there's no point. He's pretty sure he's being handed what he really wants on a silver platter, and you don't look a gift horse, etcetera, etcetera. And Redden isn't asking for much, in exchange for basically letting Bill loose without a specific course and without supervision. And they're sensible precautions, for both of them.
And he wonders who Dominguez's fuckwits had killed last night. He hasn't asked. Asking Susan would've been too cruel, and he's not sure Redden would even know. But he thinks it must have really fucking hit Susan hard, hit her where it fucking counts, if she's willing to go to bat for him like this, because there isn't really any way to read this except for the way it is.
Redden gives a curt nod accompanied by a gesture that is clearly a dismissal.
Bill doesn't wait for him to ask anything else.
Delta-four contains a Mini. Barely.
It's not like a Mini takes up that much space.
It is metallic purple.
Bill just looks at it for a while, pondering this turn of events, which makes even a slick top Crown Vic with forty antennae seem cool.
He sighs, and fishes the keys out of his jacket pocket. They've got a little remote thing, and when he pushes the door unlock button, the car chirps cheerfully at him.
Like a bloody happy bird or some shite.
He's depressed to find that he has plenty of leg and head room.
To distract himself (Keira, he's sure, will love it; Nic, he's sure, will mock him mercilessly), he gets the file labeled Dominguez out of his case and flips it open, thumbing idly through the pages.
It's everything they've got, including things that aren't admissable in court, for whatever reason. Years of surveillance and intelligence.
The last page in the folder isn't a photocopied report, phone log, or surveillance sheet, however.
It's a sheet of printer paper, blank except for ten words scrawled in red ink, Susan's back-slanting, spiky handwriting. It makes him smile slightly before he even reads it, because he can guess what it says.
Do what you have to do. Don't get yourself killed, asshole.
It makes the note he'd left on her computer monitor (I'll be as careful as he lets me be, Sue.) that much more appropriate.
The Mini is so quiet (he's used to the roar of the Mustang's engine) that when he starts it he isn't sure it's caught. He turns the key again, and it makes a grinding screech of protest that echoes hugely in the enclosed car park.
"Bugger!" he mutters under his breath, and backs out of the parking spot with far more care than he usually exhibits.
In a Mini, if he's in an accident, chances are he isn't making it out alive, after all.
It's a sad, sad world when one's car seems more threating to one's immediate well-being than the powerful drug lord one has managed to piss off, he decides.