The Untouchable Ch. 02

"No" I replied. I never had much use for the prissy types, my preference was for more earthly girls, soft and curvy, that had some cushion to them. I started thinking back on Brenda, who I had met on my last assignment, Rachel's roommate. Now there was a girl that looked like she had some cushion to her and had just the right sized curves to press up against a man. Maybe I could lay over a day on my way back north when I was done here. I noticed miss priss was still yammering something, but I had tuned her out for a minute. Damn, I must be getting hungrier than I thought.

"and I am the deputy US attorney for this district and blah blah blah." Seemed like a good time to interrupt her.

"Miss Jones, was it?"

"Ms. Jones, yes" she replied.

"OK, Ms. Jones, if you were the deputy attorney general it would still be above your pay grade. Now I know you do not like being an errand girl, but I believe they gave you a message to impart. So just call them in, deliver your message, and we can all go on our merry way. You do not want to be here anymore than I do and you sure as hell do not want to know what really is happening. I have seen more careers derailed by people sticking their pretty little noses in places where they do not belong, and I would prefer not to see that happen to you."

She did not like it but everyone in government service is prone to getting these type of orders once in a while where the only thing to do is salute and obey or end up in Alaska for a few years. She looked to skinny for the cold and too ambitious to derail her career over something so trivial. But still she had to give it the old college try to show no one could intimidate her. "If you think I am just going to forget this..."

I interrupted her again, right there. "Yes, you are. You are going to go home and take a long bath and have a drink and forget you ever met me. And when tomorrow comes have a quick chat with your boss and I am sure he will tell you the same thing. Now I know you missed court, but I missed my lunch and I would like to get a move on here so can we just wrap this up?"

She had them all troop back in and soon we had a room full. There was miss priss herself, the toady who probably drove her, my two detectives, a man I assumed was their boss, and a new player who, judging by the suit, was probably with the local D.A.'s office. It seems the two of them had a passing acquaintance as a look of recognition passed between them.

"OK, Jim, what are the charges?"

"We were just bringing him for questioning in an attempted homicide but now it seems he put two of his cellmates in the hospital, one will possibly be crippled for life, and the other won't be off crutches for months."

She looked at me and I held my hands halfway up, palms facing her, grinning just a little. "The two of them fought each other, I was just an innocent bystander."

"Are they pressing charges?"

"Neither of them have regained consciousness yet so we are still investigating. We want to hold him until they wake up."

"What do the camera's show?"

He looked uncomfortable at that one. "It seems the cameras are disabled in that block, so we don't have an official record."

She just looked at him. She was smart enough not to buy it and was embarrassed to be selling it. "Let him go" she said.

"What?"

"Let him go. Dismiss all the bogus charges and let him walk. Forget questioning him. Mr. Smith, and I have this from the highest levels of the Federal government, is untouchable. This isn't something you want to fight, argue, discuss, or even remember. Leave him alone."

"Look Deborah" the suit started to say but she cut him off quick. She wasn't happy with me and now she could take it out on the rest of them.

"What part of untouchable don't you understand? Mr. Smith is exempt, immune, not liable, or any other way you want to put it. You try pulling any of this disabled camera crap on me and I will have fifty FBI agents in here tomorrow checking for civil rights violations. Are we clear? Do you want to face the type of anal exam I will inflict on you?" She looked around the room. No one said anything, or met her eyes, until she looked at me. I looked right back at her and grinned.

"Good. I'm leaving now. Mr. Smith, nothing personal, but I hope not to meet you again." She was up and out in a second, her lackey trailing in her wake.

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After I got out I called the boss. As usual he was straight to the point. "So, is your bull in a china shop act working, Eric? You seemed to have caused enough of a ruckus down there and ruffled a few feathers."

I gave him the whole story leaving nothing out. He caught the same things I did. "So, it seems Drucker was unusually diligent in setting you up so you would talk. You think he acts the same way for every case or is there something special about this one?"

"No sir I think he's pushing it. I just do not know why."

"So, it would be in our interest to find out why. I think you should pay a private visit to the detective later tonight."

"Yes sir. How far should I push it?"

"One of my people is in a coma, Eric. Push him right off the cliff if need be but don't leave without knowing everything he knows. We will send you the details we have on him."

Finally, I was able to go over to Subway and get some lunch. I also called for an uber to take me back to the hospital and retrieved my car. I went back to the hotel to wait for evening to come. I knew it would be a long night, so I used the afternoon to sleep.

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Drucker lived in a small apartment downtown. Divorced, two kids, as far as we could tell he lived alone. I have spoken before about the psychological effect of being there when a person awakes. There is just some primal fear of being watched when you are most vulnerable, asleep, and unable to defend yourself, that affects a person. I can move like a ghost when needed so about 3:00 AM I entered his apartment and found the bedroom. I was able to locate and remove his gun from under the pillow without waking him. I have found it is not so much the movement that wakes people, that can be minimized, but a sort of sixth sense that recognizes the presence of another living breathing soul in the room. For some reason I do not seem to project that. Cats recognize other cats, dogs other dogs. Humans, no matter the race or creed, seem to instinctively recognize each other but for some reason, while they visually recognize me for what I am, that instinctive recognition is missing. It really must be experienced to be understood or explained.

I moved a chair into the corner, placed my NSA ID on the nightstand, and turned the light on next to his bed and went and sat in the chair. It shined directly in his face and I knew it would wake him before long while I was in the semi darkness of the corner, both his and my guns cradled in my lap.

There are two ways to have these types of conversations, friendly, and unfriendly. I had decided to start with friendly but then again, friendly was a matter of perspective. Drucker might think being woken by an armed man in his apartment, in the middle of the night, was unfriendly, and take offense, but to me unfriendly involved things like pliers, fingernails, fingers and toes, and kneecaps. I usually carried a Leatherman tool for when my quiet demeanor and friendly smile were not getting results.

It did not take long for him to wake up, what with the light shining in his face like that. His first instinct, before even looking around, was to reach for his gun. He did not find it and then started looking around the room. It was only a few seconds before he saw me.

"What the fuck" he said, "do you realize the load of shit you are in"?

I gestured with my gun to the table next to the bed "my credentials are there why not look them over first".

He grabbed the leather case from the nightstand and opened it. he looked at it, rubbed his eyes, looked at it again, then looked at me. "NSA" he said, "what's the NSA's interest here".

I thought about his question a minute. I was usually given a lot of leeway on how I accomplished my mission and sometimes just being honest helps. Not always, but often enough.

"Ruby, Rachel Jackson, was one of ours. She was not here on assignment, just passing through, and someone put three bullets in her. My boss wants to know who, and why. So, I want to know everything you know, everything you suspect you know, and everything you think you know. I want to know why you were so intent on questioning me you sent those two thugs to rough me up."

"And then what? You going to arrest everyone involved? The Feds coming in to take over?"

"How about we start with what you know and go from there?"

He rubbed his face again, trying to wake up. "I don't know anything" he said, "at least nothing either of us could take to court. What I suspect and what I can prove are two completely different things".

"So, start with what you suspect. My boss is not looking for evidence, or court cases, he is looking for answers".

"Your girl, Ruby you called her, was found near the Starlight lounge. I have an informer that places her in there earlier in the evening. The Starlight is the base of a local drug dealer named Tony Jackson. Although he has a hand in a lot of different things, drugs, guns, hookers, protection. I don't know if he had her shot or shot her himself. I don't know why he would, maybe he tried to recruit her, and she said no, maybe she saw something she shouldn't have, said something to insult someone, or maybe it was just a mistake. But I do know if she was there, and she was, he was involved. Nothing happens in Tony's house he doesn't approve of".

"Who would know?"

"I was hoping you did. I thought you were someone Tony had hired to finish off the girl. We have someone watching the room but with your legal papers you were able to bypass that. It's the type of trick he would pull. He is a thug but a smart one. We have been trying to catch him for years and never seem to pin him down. And he gets some political cover as well."

"So, you figured you would soften me up a little and get me to spill on Tony".

He had the decency to look ashamed although I do not know why. I would have done the same, just more successfully. "I thought you were there to kill the girl" he said.

"Anything else you can tell me?"

"No, not really. I don't have any proof of anything, just suspicions. Unless the girl wakes up and can talk, if we can keep her alive to talk, there isn't much we can do. And they tell me there isn't much hope she will wake up".

"OK, then we are done" I said, "I understand why you did what you did. Naturally, this all falls under national security and the national secrets act so do not tell anyone I was here, about this conversation, or that I work for the NSA. Keep an eye on the girl for us and I will take it from here".

He looked annoyed "so you just take over the investigation? The big Feds step in..."

I raised my hand, with the gun in it, and cut him off there.

"I do not investigate, Detective. I am not that part of the NSA. We do not work with the attorneys, except in situations like today. This time, my boss wants answers, so I ask questions. He wants to know who did this, and why. You say Tony knows the answers so I will ask him."

"You're just going to walk in and ask him?"

"Yes"

"And you think he will tell you anything?"

I looked at him. I looked at him like I had looked at him in the jail cell. I let the monster show. Someone once told me, looking in my eyes, they knew why they were scared of the dark, when there were monsters like me in it.

"Tony will tell me everything, everybody always does. The only open issue is if he will survive the questioning".

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Give a man a fish and it will feed him for a day

Teach him how to fish and it will feed him for life

Slap it across his face and he will leave you the fuck alone