Witness Protection Part 5
The Chase
Chang and I beat feet over to The Sanc Palace, hoping to catch Maxwell at work, since we'd been unable to get any other address on him. If worst came to worst, we could stake the place out. And it might not even tip our hand to Khushrenada.
I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
We made our way into a club that was a little less dank and smoky than The Jungle had been, once again gaining entrance by showing our badges to the man at the door. But this time the doorman spoke to an attendant, and we were escorted directly to the manager's office.
The guy introduced himself as Dermail, and offered us seats, which Chang and I both declined.
"This should only take a minute of your time," I told Mister Dermail. "We're detectives, investigating the death of Zechs Merquise. And we need to speak with an employee of yours. Is Duo Maxwell in tonight?"
"You just missed him," the man replied regretfully. "He picked up his paycheck about five minutes ago and gave his notice, effective immediately."
"He quit?" Chang asked, frustration obvious in the dark eyes. I knew I'd get an earful about not having grilled Barton harder about his former lover's address.
Dermail nodded. "A damn shame, too. He was very good at his job."
"Five minutes?" I mused. "Any chance he might've gone to say goodbye to anyone before leaving?"
"Well, now that you mention it, he might've gone backstage to say so long to the girls. They were all real fond of him...especially Hilde."
"Which way?" I asked quickly, hoping we might yet have a chance at the braided man.
"Out my door and to the left. Go to the end of the hall and you'll be in the staging area. Just be careful--the bouncers get kinda jumpy when men try to get near the dressing rooms, y'know. Gotta look out for the dancers."
I barely listened, already yanking the door open and heading down the hallway he'd indicated.
Chang was at my heels. "Do you honestly think he stopped to visit?" he demanded irritably. "For Christ's sake, Yuy, he's obviously running. Now would you consider him a suspect instead of a witness?"
"Not yet!" I asserted, picking up the pace. "He could be running from Khushrenada's people."
We turned the corner and I immediately glimpsed a cluster of skimpily-clad women by the curtain at the edge of the stage. Standing with them, and with his back to us was our quarry, his braid trailing over the shoulder of the black leather jacket he wore. A motorcycle helmet dangled from one of his hands, and with his free arm, he was hugging a short, dark-haired girl.
Before I could stop my partner, he called out. "Duo Maxwell?"
He turned and saw the badge that Chang had stupidly started to take out, and in a flash, he'd darted behind a feather-clad female and disappeared behind the stage.
"Fuck!" I only hesitated long enough to cast a scathing glare at my idiot of a partner. "Get the car, Chang!" Then I sprinted after our quarry.
Maxwell was one fast sonofabitch. When I slammed out the back exit of the club, he was halfway down the alley, his boots thudding lightly on the concrete. He ran like he knew what he was doing--light on his feet, and with an almost effortless grace.
But I hadn't lettered in track in high school for nothing; I was on his trail in a flash, and gaining rapidly.
He turned the corner, his long braid flicking out behind him, and I briefly thought that if I could just get within range of that tail, I might be able to grab it and stop him. However, as I whipped around the corner, I had to hastily adjust my stride and leap over a garbage can he'd knocked down in my path.
So he wanted to play hard to get, eh?
I redoubled my efforts, seeing the slim figure turning into the next alley over. He was nearing the end of it when I came around the building, and I felt a surge of triumph. There was a tall chain link fence there, and it was guaranteed to slow him down.
My jaw dropped in amazement as he tossed his helmet aside and leapt like a hurdler, catching onto the fence halfway up, and scrambling to climb it.
"Stop! Police!" I shouted redundantly. He'd seen Chang's badge; he knew damned well who we were.
He rolled headfirst over the top of the fence, dropping to a crouch on the other side with a slight grunt of pain, and I mumbled a fervent prayer that he might've broken an ankle. I was scrambling up my side of the fence when he straightened and dashed off again, yanking trash cans into my path as he went.
I was over the fence in record time, and pounding along after him, leaping and sidestepping the obstacles he left behind.
As I came out of that alley, I saw Wufei's car turning a corner as he tried to follow our cat and mouse chase. I gestured in the direction Maxwell had gone, and resumed my pursuit, seeing that goddamned braid whip around yet another corner and out of sight.
When I rounded that bend, I was nearly hit in the face with a trash can lid he'd flung like a frisbee from halfway down the sidewalk. My frantic block made it bounce relatively harmlessly off my forearm, and I growled in anger as I redoubled my speed, my arm throbbing faintly from the blow. I swore when I caught the little bastard, I'd happily shove him face first into the nearest sidewalk!
But he was still moving like lightning, and I was beginning to feel the air burning in my lungs. Damn him anyway! Where did a stripper get that kind of stamina?
He led me a merry chase for another three blocks, and then a stockade fence brought him to a skidding halt less than fifty yards ahead of me.
"Maxwell! Give it up!" I called. Okay, I gasped. And the odds were he couldn't hear my ragged breath of a voice from where he was.
Whether he did or not, he took a running start and leapt up to catch a fire escape ladder, scaling it in record time, and then clambering over the railing and throwing himself over the fence. I heard a crash on the far side as I was climbing the ladder myself, and when I'd reached the top, the barking of a dog. So I paused a second to look ahead and see that my quarry had landed on the top of a dumpster and nearly on top of a chained dog, who was straining to follow, as he sprinted away.
Not to be deterred, I threw myself after him, landing on the dumpster feet first and running across it to leap over the dog. I landed hard, but unscathed, and pelted off in pursuit.
I thought Maxwell might be slowing a bit, and I know I was gaining--but it all became a moot point as we burst out of the alley.
My partner had made a calculated guess, and with screeching tires, slid his car sideways into a row of trash cans, sending them scattering, and coming to a halt mere inches in front of the braided man I was chasing. Unable to adjust quickly enough, my quarry ended up slamming into the side of the car just in front of the driver's door, and coming to an abrupt, stunned halt on the hood.
I had time to control my deceleration, and simultaneously whip out the handcuffs, before slapping a firm hand down on the middle of the braided man's back, holding him still.
With Maxwell half-sprawled across the hood of Wufei's car, gasping to regain the wind that had been knocked out of him, it was a simple matter to grab his wrists and cuff his hands behind his back.
"You have the right to remain silent," I told him between panting breaths, sliding my hands down his arms and deftly removing the knives concealed up his sleeves. "If you give up that right anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..." I pulled yet another knife from the top of a boot and then continued with the frisking. "You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you." I was running my hands down the inside of his thighs when I felt the outline of a knife that must have been taped to his leg. "Jesus Christ--how many weapons are you carrying?"
"Enough," he gasped out in an irritated voice. As my hand slid down the front of his abdomen, I felt him tense. "Easy, Dick Tracy...you don't have to go that far South!"
"Right." I very deliberately ran my hand all the way to his groin, just in case the guy was psycho enough to have stuffed a weapon in his shorts.
"Fuck!" he hissed, squirming uneasily.
I was pretty sure the hardness I felt down there wasn't a concealed weapon.
When I turned him around, there was an angry flush to his face. "You're an asshole!" he snarled.
"Sorry," I replied unrepentantly. "Who knew you were into handcuffs and leather?"
Indigo eyes narrowed as he glared at my face. "Apparently you are, too--took your fuckin' time!"
"If you didn't have so many goddamned knives, I could have been done in half the time," I retorted, irked that he thought I'd enjoyed feeling him up.
"I need 'em for work," he growled.
"What's a stripper need concealed weapons for?"
"I'm not a stripper!" he spat coldly. "I'm their fucking bodyguard, shithead!"
Chang had left the car and gathered up the knives littering the street. "Moving up in the world, eh?" he said snidely. Then he shook his head. "Throw him in the back, Yuy, and let's get him downtown."
"Yeah--he'll need a strip-search when we get there," I snapped out irritably, shoving my captive into the back seat. "He's got a knife taped to the inside of his left thigh." I raised an accusing glare to my indignant prisoner. "How the hell do you reach a weapon under skin-tight leather?"
"It's for emergencies," he retorted.
Wufei gave a derisive snort. "Emergencies? Where? In a restroom?"
The indigo eyes flashed irritation. "There's other places to drop your pants, you uptight asshole."
We got in the car, and Chang headed for the station, while I kept a close eye on Maxwell. After chasing him for six blocks, I wasn't going to take any chances on losing him now.
He slumped against the back of the seat, and then turned his gaze back to me. "What am I being arrested for, anyway?"
I raised an eyebrow, and held up the evidence bag full of knives.
"I told you--they're for work," snarled Maxwell.
"Then I take it you have a permit?"
"You can't be fuckin' serious!" He turned an indignant glare my way. "Where was your 'probable cause'?"
Ah--this guy knew the system very well. I figured he had a rap sheet as long as my arm. "You ran."
"Fuck."
He knew I had him. The minute he'd bolted, I had plenty of reason to pursue, and then to search him.
We reached the station without further incident. Maxwell had fallen silent, stewing over his predicament, and I didn't want to tip our hand to him by discussing the case in his presence.
"Take him through booking, would you?" I asked my partner as we pulled up. "I want to go run his rap sheet." I glanced over my shoulder to see Maxwell's lips compress into a tight line; yeah, I knew there'd be some interesting reading in his file.
~*~
It took longer than I thought to get access to Maxwell's complete criminal history; apparently most of his arrests had been when he was a juvenile. But when I explained to the clerk that he was now a murder suspect, which was only a partial stretching of the truth, I got what I needed.
After I'd pulled his records, I ran down to booking to find Chang, and caught the tail end of Maxwell's processing. He'd taken off the snug jacket he'd been wearing earlier, and was wearing a tight black tank top underneath. But what drew my gaze wasn't the slim line of his waist or the way the material hugged well-sculpted abs; it was the tattoo on his left arm.
It was a stylized Grim Reaper, complete with a wicked-looking scythe and black wings that swept up and back from the hooded figure and wrapped around Maxwell's bicep, encircling the entire arm. The eyes stood out as brilliant violet splashes in the shadowed face, and under his feet the word "Shinigami" was emblazoned in a matching color.
And suddenly I knew why I had that vague feeling of familiarity with the braided man. I'd been on duty in vice the day he was brought in nearly three years earlier. He'd been caught breaking and entering a grocery store.
I rubbed my eyes for a moment, watching as they put the cuffs back on him and one of the officers tossed the plain black leather jacket across his shoulders.
But my mind was drawn back to the memory of him in that brown Reapers jacket, probably the same one we'd found in Merquise's bedroom, being dragged kicking and screaming through the squad room.
At first, I'd thought he was a girl--or to be more specific, a hooker. I mean, shit; two officers had the perp by the arms, hands cuffed behind, and all I could see was the back of that jacket and a braid that hung down almost to mid-thigh. I'd made a comment to my uniformed colleagues about the hookers getting more ornery lately, only to have a pair of furious indigo eyes and a decidedly male face turned my way in fury.
"I ain't a hooker!" he'd snarled nastily, glaring and jerking against the arms holding him, until the jacket was half-off his shoulders, revealing a tattoo on his left bicep. It was that same stylized figure I was seeing again in the booking room on a much more muscular and mature-looking arm.
"I stand corrected," I had sneered. "But junkies don't rank any higher in my book, asshole."
At that point, he'd deliberately spit in my face, and across the paperwork on my desk. It didn't take me more than a split-second to vault the desk and make a grab for him. And by the time the two officers finished pulling us apart, the punk was sporting a black eye, and I was on suspension. Yeah, I remembered him all too well.
In fact, I was a little surprised he didn't recognize me. I had, after all, belted him a good one. But apparently the three-year lapse in time had allowed him to forget that incident. Now that I thought about it, the timing couldn't have been much before the Reapers were all killed off. I could see where that might have obliterated most of his recollection of a simple arrest. He'd had bigger things to worry about shortly thereafter.
How the hell had he survived the warehouse fire?
That was a question for another time, and I pushed it to the back of my mind. I needed to focus on the Merquise case, and Maxwell's potential as a witness, or even a suspect. I'd take what I could get.
~*~
Chang and I let Maxwell stew for a full hour, while we had coffee, scarfed down a quick meal, and started the paperwork for charging him--just in case. I also read through his rap sheet, which was--interesting--to say the least. He'd been arrested for everything from drug possession and picking pockets, to assault and breaking and entering. There were a few stolen cars thrown into the mix, some incidents of gang-related street fights, and one charge of public indecency and lewd conduct. You wouldn't believe where he'd been caught having sex..I know I didn't.
When I walked into the interview room, carrying my half-finished coffee, I swear Maxwell looked ready to kill someone.
"About fuckin' time!" he blurted angrily. "I want a lawyer."
Shit--he knew the drill way too well.
"It'll go easier for you if you just talk to us," I cautioned.
He eyed me up and down. "Gimme one good reason."
"I'll forget the concealed weapons, failure to obey an officer, and resisting arrest if you cooperate."
"That's mighty generous of you," he drawled snidely. "Is Quatre Winner still the public defender around here?"
"Sometimes."
"I want him."
"Literally or figuratively?" I asked, running my gaze down the lean body draped in the uncomfortable chair.
He flashed a wolfish smile. "Hmm--both, I suppose. He's a very pretty kid."
"You like blondes."
He shrugged a lean shoulder, half-closing his eyes and looking up at me from under the lashes. "Why d'you say that?"
"Winner's a blonde...so was Merquise."
That drew the barest twitch of a response, and he looked away. "Who's Merquise?"
"The owner of the strip joint where you work," I reminded him. "The murdered owner. Don't even try telling me you don't know who was signing your paychecks." I leaned forward, glaring balefully at him. "--and sharing your bed."
He kept his gaze fixed on the door. "A lotta guys share my bed," he said flippantly. "Girls, too. 'S hard to keep track of names, y'know?" Then he looked straight at me, a hard, predatory look in the deep eyes. "How 'bout you? Y'want some?"
His comment took me by surprise, and I felt a hint of a blush on my face. But I kept my expression carefully neutral, and even managed to raise an eyebrow wryly. "No thanks, Maxwell. I don't need other people's leftovers."
His expression went from sly to stung to angry so fast I wasn't even sure I'd seen what I thought I saw. "Fuck you, cop," he sneered. "This interview's over 'til the hot blonde lawyer gets here."
"I'm afraid he's all booked up, Maxwell," I replied a bit smugly. "I might be able to round up Dorothy Catalonia, though. You don't mind a female p.d., do you?"
"Not if she's got blue eyes," he leered. "I got a thing for blue eyes, officer, not blonde hair."
I blinked, realizing he was staring into my blue eyes as he said that. "Detective," I corrected meticulously.
Ignoring the rectification, he turned slightly on the seat, moving his cuffed hands restlessly. "Y'mind maybe taking the cuffs off if we're gonna be here awhile?"
Ah--progress.
"You give me something and I'll give you something," I shrugged. "Did you know Zechs Merquise?"
He scowled deeply. "Obviously, asshole, since I worked for him."
"And were you sleeping with him?"
"That's kind of personal."
"Yeah--especially considering it could place you at the crime scene," I pointed out. "So, when were you at his place last?"
"Whoa!" he blurted, looking genuinely worried. "You're not pinning a murder on me! I didn't kill Zechs!"
"Where were you on the tenth--around midnight?"
"In bed."
"With who?"
"Myself--all right?" he growled. "I do sometimes sleep alone."
"Ever been to Merquise's penthouse?"
Maxwell opened his mouth to answer and then shut it.
"Before you deny it," I added, "you might want to know we found this at his place." I pulled the leather jacket from the evidence bag and tossed it onto the table. The scythe across the back was done in a style identical to the one on Maxwell's tattoo. I wanted to hear what lame-assed explanation he might have for that.
"Lotta people have that jacket," he said, looking away.
"You mean had," I pointed out. "The Reapers have all been dead for years."
"Not all," he muttered, keeping his gaze studiously averted.
I slapped his rap sheet down on the table. "How right you are. It says here you were suspected of an affiliation with the Reapers. And with a tattoo on your arm that matches this jacket, I'd say the suspicions were right on target. But you must've missed out on the massacre, eh? Looks like you're the last of their kind."
He shrugged elaborately, and the jacket on his shoulders slipped slightly, uncovering the tattoo again. "You going somewhere with this--detective? Or are you finally gonna get off your donut-padded ass and investigate the warehouse fire and who set it?"
Yeah--that was apparently as sore a point with him as it was with me. I hadn't liked not solving that case. The shift of power among the gangs had caused all sorts of upheaval, and it would have been nice to even the score by rounding up the perps and taking them out of the equation.
"We're not here for that," I said flatly. "We're here to discuss this jacket--and how it was found in Merquise's bedroom, along with enough bodily fluids to provide the lab boys with all kinds of nice DNA samples." I let my gaze travel the length of his chestnut hair. "All kinds," I repeated firmly.
"So I was in Merquise's apartment now an' then," he admitted. "That ain't a crime."
"Murder is."
"I told you--I didn't kill him--I don't even own a gun!"
Oh, busted! We hadn't told the press how Merquise died.
And as soon as the words had left his mouth and he saw the expression on my face, Maxwell knew he'd slipped up.
Almost.
"Anything I say is fuckin' inadmissible!" he shouted, standing and leaning threateningly towards me. "I asked you for a goddamned lawyer hours ago! You can't even ask me questions!" He tugged futilely against the handcuffs, his chest heaving with frustration. "And what the fuck happened to 'I give you something and you give me something'?"
I let him finish the outburst, smiling faintly. Then I looked up into the angry indigo eyes. "You saw the killer."
His eyes widened in alarm. "I got nothin' to say to you!"
"You've already said plenty." I steepled my fingers under my chin. "You must've been in the bedroom when Merquise's killer showed up. There was no sign of forced entry, so he knew the person and let them in." I studied his slightly pale face. "Did you know them, too?"
He didn't reply, sinking back into the chair and shifting restlessly.
"We know Merquise worked for Treize Khushrenada," I added, watching for a reaction. "Did he piss off his boss enough for him to send someone to take him out?"
"Go fuck yourself," came the listless reply. "I asked for a fuckin' lawyer, and this little chat session is over until one shows up."
"You bring a lawyer into this, and you can expect to be charged with first degree murder, Maxwell," I bluffed.
"Then charge me. Fuckin' charge me and get me my lawyer, or cut me loose!"
Stifling my frustration, I glanced up at the one-way glass I knew Chang was standing behind, and nodded for him to go call the public defender's office.
TBC...
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