![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
domarzioneLet's just call this another of my ill-conceived Five Things projects. Or 'the crossover from hell.' For my fandom of one, I think. :)
Five times (minus four) Raylan Givens Was Someone Else's Problem
One
Raylan's not sure what to expect as he gathers his belongings to get off of the plane. Experience has shown him that the nicer the destination, the nastier the business and Hawaii is a paradise.
There's a row of pretty girls holding leis waiting for them at the end of the tunnel; he dips his hat in greeting to the one who approaches him. She returns the smile but comes no closer, either put off by the realization that he's not de-hatting for the ritual or by the glimpse of sidearm visible through his open sport coat.
He had nothing to confess on his Plants and Animals Declaration Form, so he sails past the Agriculture Inspection Counter just as the annoying woman from three rows behind him on the plane is stripped of her carefully segmented and de-membraned orange-and-grapefruit mix. It's small reward for six hours of listening to her describe, in painful detail, her ritual of colonic cleanses and their effects.
The trip to Honolulu is for a pickup of a fugitive and so Raylan was told that a representative of the HPD would be waiting outside the terminal for him. He looks around for a squad car -- local LEOs not usually too invested in providing taxi service for visiting feds -- but his attention is instead drawn to a middle-aged man in an open-collared shirt leaning against a car right in front of the entrance.
"You're Givens?" the man asks, pushing off the late-model Dodge with a weary grace.
"I am," Raylan replies a little warily. He's carrying his bag in his left hand, the right free to draw if he has to. He's picked up more than commendations and the odd letter of reprimand in his time with the Marshal Service and some of those extras tend to shoot first and explain themselves afterward.
"Your office told me to look for the hat," the man says with a smile, holding out his hand to shake. "Detective John McGarrett, HPD. Welcome to Hawaii."
McGarrett doesn't offer to take the bag after they shake hands, instead gesturing for Raylan to get in to the Dodge and crossing around the front to get in on the driver's side, stopping near the left headlight to wave and call to someone he knows. It's enough time for Raylan to look around the inside of the car and identify the accouterments of law enforcement, making sure McGarrett's legit, which in turn lets him relax when McGarrett gets in and guns the engine.
"We picked Lopez up in a condo in Manoa," McGarrett explains as they pull into traffic. "It's just about the last place we would have thought to look."
"Last place you did look," Raylan points out.
McGarrett smiles. "That it was," he agrees. "Place looked nothing like a bolt-hole, let alone like Lopez was looking to start something here. No booze, no hookers, no drugs, no firearms bazaar. There was juice in the fridge and an orchid on the terrace and the Advertiser open to the sports page. SWAT team thought they broke down the wrong door at first."
Henry Lopez, near as anyone could figure, had never left Florida up until three months ago. His quietly sordid career had never expanded outside of greater Miami and all four of his prison stints had been up at Coleman, from which he'd escaped. Which was why it had taken almost a month before anyone had gotten really serious about the idea of looking for him anywhere else. At least that's the official version; Raylan's not the only one to suspect that the real story's a lot less about credible leads from the Miami police and a lot more about agency pissing matches and the fact that someone important from the state's attorney's office is sleeping with someone important at the FBI's Miami office.
But the real story doesn't actually matter and Raylan has never been one to get involved in office or agency politics. That way lies endless assignments to prisoner transport detail and other shitty jobs. Of which Raylan already gets more than his fair share because keeping out of office and agency politics is about the only way he doesn't piss off his bosses on a regular basis.
Which is how he ended up with the assignment that has him spending twenty-seven of forty-five hours in a cramped airline seat, with more than half of that to be spent babysitting an overweight career criminal who'd undoubtedly have bad breath and restless leg syndrome.
The drive is pleasant, apart from the frequent bursts of traffic, and McGarrett either isn't the chatty type or recognizes that Raylan isn't, so it passes in companionable silence. Hawaii, even downtown Honolulu, is a beautiful place. Miami has the sunshine and the palm trees and the endless expanses of beaches and the scantily-clad women to fill them, but it doesn't look like this. Maybe because Raylan doesn't see the tourist Miami anymore; he rates the glitzy waterfront hotels by how many criminals have suites inside, the fancy restaurants and night clubs for what sort of illegal transactions get made in its darker corners. He's sure if he were stationed in Honolulu, this pristine beauty, too, would fade.
They arrive at police headquarters and go inside, the crowded hallways starting to give Raylan the answer to the question he didn't want to ask McGarrett earlier: why was a senior detective playing limo driver? Raylan's walked in and out of many cop shops over the years and they all have a similar feel to them -- when they're healthy. There's a whiff of disease in this one, a taint of something rotten. Rotting. A tension, buried under the surface but only to someone too blind to see.
McGarrett doesn't pretend that Raylan's that oblivious.
"IA's crawling around here like termites," he explains shortly after he closes the door to the small conference room where all of Lopez's files are spread neatly across the table. "They caught a guy from Vice with too much money in his bank account."
From that, all else follows and McGarrett need say no more. Everyone does all their own work during a corruption probe, no foisting off the shit duties -- like picking up visiting feds at the airport.
The files, most of which Raylan has looked at already, keep them both from any sort of awkward conversation until there's a brisk knock at the door and, once it opens, a head stuck through.
McGarrett waves the head in and the rest of the body follows. "Deputy Givens, meet Detective Chin-Ho Kelly, the man who found your fugitive for you," he says. There's just the slightest emphasis on Kelly's rank, which Raylan takes to mean either it's new or that McGarrett had something to do with it or both.
Kelly he may be, but he doesn't look anything like any Irishman Raylan's seen before. He keeps that to himself, however, and accepts a very firm handshake from the man.
"I appreciate you doing the legwork for me on this one," Raylan tells him, meaning it. "This fellow's been making a right fool of a lot of important people back in Florida."
"And we all know how unpleasant that can be," Kelly replies wryly. No, bitterly. Whatever's going on around here might not be touching McGarrett, but Kelly's up to his ankles in it, at least.
"It'll all go away once they get their pound of flesh," McGarrett assures Kelly with a sigh. "You're an honest cop, Chin, and you've got nothing to fear."
Kelly isn't quite convinced, but doesn't protest. Instead, he tells them that Central Booking has called and the transport for Lopez from lock-up to the airport has been arranged. They're booked on a flight back to Miami (via LAX) tomorrow evening -- it had taken all of Raylan's charm and much of his dignity to beg and plead not to be turned around and put on the flight home the same day once Logistics had realized it was possible. Raylan will have tonight and tomorrow morning to himself, a prospect that earned him some envy. But not enough for anyone to volunteer to take this job from him.
Raylan might not have to take custody of Lopez until tomorrow, but he's got a ream of paperwork to fill out today. It takes him the rest of the afternoon because there's two state agencies and more than two federal agencies involved and nobody's willing to take a photocopy of someone else's forms. Once it's a decent hour back East, he has to call Miami three separate times to get information and to find out when the hell Harriman is getting in because DHS wants a signature from the chief deputy marshal, not understanding that one of the perquisites of being chief deputy marshal is that you don't do prisoner transport.
Harriman is in a meeting with DHS; no, his secretary will not pass on a message for him to sign a piece of paper to give to them while he's there.
The sun is most of the way to setting by the time Raylan's done absolving every agency but the Marshal Service (and every deputy but himself) of responsibility for Lopez. The last bit's not yet signed -- it's a rookie mistake to autograph it all before the hand-off's complete and the prisoner's secure -- but it's as done as Raylan's going to get today and he flexes his cramped hand as he stands up and rolls his neck.
McGarrett drives him to his hotel and, en route, makes an offer to go to supper that's phrased so that there'll be no insult in the declining. But Raylan's all too familiar with eating alone in strange diners and so he accepts.
They wind up at a place called the Side Street Inn, which looks like a dive bar tucked in among the tacky tourist draws. McGarrett is apparently a regular since a waiter brings over two beers and a plate mounded with something Raylan can't identify without them saying a word.
"Ahi poke," McGarrett explains. "Local specialty."
It's fancy sushi, something Raylan's not too partial to but learned to eat because of Winona. It's better than what he's had in the Japanese restaurants, though, savory and substantial and almost like it's pretending to be meat. Nonetheless, Raylan's relieved when McGarrett tells him that the fried pork chops are a specialty here.
They make conversation while they eat, but not much. They're both not given to chattiness and have been at their respective jobs too long to confuse temporary acquaintances with the beginnings of friendship. Of course, that doesn't mean that they can't recognize something similar in the other, not when their limited divulging puts up a matched set of histories of loved ones lost to death and their own inabilities to put the job away at night. McGarrett is a widower with a son in the Navy ("a SEAL," he says with a father's pride) and a daughter at loose ends ("she'll be good at whatever she finally decides to do"). They're both living in California, but McGarrett doesn't see them much and Raylan suspects that to be their choice as much as his. For his part, Raylan confesses to being divorced, leaving out the part where he's a cuckold. His anger at Winona is genuine and, at times, as unremitting as his love for her. But it's a private anger and there's no need for the public shame that goes with it.
They split the bill because Raylan insists; with the IA probe, there's no way McGarrett submits a receipt and no way he'd accept Raylan putting it on his own per diem. They drive back to Raylan's hotel and McGarrett tells him what time he needs to be at Headquarters and that if he chooses to go out this evening to stay away from the place on the corner with the purple umbrellas because Vice raids it weekly.
The next morning is bright and sunny and, buoyed by fresh strong coffee and a plate of fresh fruit he'd only been partially able to identify, Raylan is almost able to sucker himself into believing that the next twenty-four hours won't suck as badly as they undoubtedly will.
Things start going downhill when they find out that the transport from the prison's delayed because the morning head-count was off. Lopez is accounted for, but someone else is not and they're not going to release the wagon until they sort out who and how.
The slope gets steeper when DHS decides that they really need that signature now, not when Raylan gets back to Miami. It's just dawn in Miami and Raylan won't be able to do more than leave an aggrieved voice mail with Harriman until it's almost time to leave for the airport. If DHS lets them -- and if Lopez is released from lock-up in time for them to go through the airport and then the airline's nervous security.
Lopez is released at 2:30, which is a relief right up until it isn't. Because the driver of the van isn't a guard; it's a prisoner wearing the uniform and HPD's now got three fugitives on the loose where they once had one behind bars.
Finding the van isn't hard, but it's not done fast enough to find it with the occupants still inside. Instead, they're inside a plate lunch storefront with four hostages.
Harriman, who never returns Raylan's calls when he needs it, does so while Raylan's got his gun drawn and pointed at a part of Rico Samonora's substantial girth that's not covered by the slender girl he's got in a neck-lock.
"I'm pointing my sidearm at a very fat man hiding behind a very skinny girl," he tells Harriman when he's asked why he can't fax the DHS form over right this moment. "I'll get to it within the hour, sir."
It takes longer than an hour, by which point Raylan's got entirely different paperwork to fax to Miami because Lopez is dead, shot by Kelly after Lopez picked up a fallen Glock dropped by Charles Hisagi, the escapee in the hack's uniform, whom Raylan killed.
Raylan doesn't make his flight, which pisses off the ladies back in Miami because not only do they have to pay to change his tickets, but they also have to cancel Lopez's and the airline's not giving them a full refund. Raylan bites his tongue during that chewing-out, to no great advantage because when he finally does get to leave Hawaii, it's on a flight that changes planes twice.
Two
The case is bad news all around, the kidnapping of a federal judge's daughter by the mother of a career criminal being tried by said judge. The media's all over it: cameras everywhere, enough video and still footage to ensure that nobody assigned to this case will ever be able to work undercover ever again. The politicians are all over it: the sheriff and the governor are both up for election this year and the local DA is aiming for the latter's job. The brass is all over it: Raylan is expected to update his boss, his boss's boss, and the regional head of the Service hourly, an order he ignores from the get-go because by the time he got through to any of them, he'd have precious little time to engage in the cross-agency pissing match that's requiring him to drink steadily just to keep up.
But all of this, all of this endless posturing and politicking and self-regard at the probable expense of a little girl's life, would be almost bearable if Raylan were just allowed to shoot the damned psychic.
(tbc)
Five times (minus four) Raylan Givens Was Someone Else's Problem
One
Raylan's not sure what to expect as he gathers his belongings to get off of the plane. Experience has shown him that the nicer the destination, the nastier the business and Hawaii is a paradise.
There's a row of pretty girls holding leis waiting for them at the end of the tunnel; he dips his hat in greeting to the one who approaches him. She returns the smile but comes no closer, either put off by the realization that he's not de-hatting for the ritual or by the glimpse of sidearm visible through his open sport coat.
He had nothing to confess on his Plants and Animals Declaration Form, so he sails past the Agriculture Inspection Counter just as the annoying woman from three rows behind him on the plane is stripped of her carefully segmented and de-membraned orange-and-grapefruit mix. It's small reward for six hours of listening to her describe, in painful detail, her ritual of colonic cleanses and their effects.
The trip to Honolulu is for a pickup of a fugitive and so Raylan was told that a representative of the HPD would be waiting outside the terminal for him. He looks around for a squad car -- local LEOs not usually too invested in providing taxi service for visiting feds -- but his attention is instead drawn to a middle-aged man in an open-collared shirt leaning against a car right in front of the entrance.
"You're Givens?" the man asks, pushing off the late-model Dodge with a weary grace.
"I am," Raylan replies a little warily. He's carrying his bag in his left hand, the right free to draw if he has to. He's picked up more than commendations and the odd letter of reprimand in his time with the Marshal Service and some of those extras tend to shoot first and explain themselves afterward.
"Your office told me to look for the hat," the man says with a smile, holding out his hand to shake. "Detective John McGarrett, HPD. Welcome to Hawaii."
McGarrett doesn't offer to take the bag after they shake hands, instead gesturing for Raylan to get in to the Dodge and crossing around the front to get in on the driver's side, stopping near the left headlight to wave and call to someone he knows. It's enough time for Raylan to look around the inside of the car and identify the accouterments of law enforcement, making sure McGarrett's legit, which in turn lets him relax when McGarrett gets in and guns the engine.
"We picked Lopez up in a condo in Manoa," McGarrett explains as they pull into traffic. "It's just about the last place we would have thought to look."
"Last place you did look," Raylan points out.
McGarrett smiles. "That it was," he agrees. "Place looked nothing like a bolt-hole, let alone like Lopez was looking to start something here. No booze, no hookers, no drugs, no firearms bazaar. There was juice in the fridge and an orchid on the terrace and the Advertiser open to the sports page. SWAT team thought they broke down the wrong door at first."
Henry Lopez, near as anyone could figure, had never left Florida up until three months ago. His quietly sordid career had never expanded outside of greater Miami and all four of his prison stints had been up at Coleman, from which he'd escaped. Which was why it had taken almost a month before anyone had gotten really serious about the idea of looking for him anywhere else. At least that's the official version; Raylan's not the only one to suspect that the real story's a lot less about credible leads from the Miami police and a lot more about agency pissing matches and the fact that someone important from the state's attorney's office is sleeping with someone important at the FBI's Miami office.
But the real story doesn't actually matter and Raylan has never been one to get involved in office or agency politics. That way lies endless assignments to prisoner transport detail and other shitty jobs. Of which Raylan already gets more than his fair share because keeping out of office and agency politics is about the only way he doesn't piss off his bosses on a regular basis.
Which is how he ended up with the assignment that has him spending twenty-seven of forty-five hours in a cramped airline seat, with more than half of that to be spent babysitting an overweight career criminal who'd undoubtedly have bad breath and restless leg syndrome.
The drive is pleasant, apart from the frequent bursts of traffic, and McGarrett either isn't the chatty type or recognizes that Raylan isn't, so it passes in companionable silence. Hawaii, even downtown Honolulu, is a beautiful place. Miami has the sunshine and the palm trees and the endless expanses of beaches and the scantily-clad women to fill them, but it doesn't look like this. Maybe because Raylan doesn't see the tourist Miami anymore; he rates the glitzy waterfront hotels by how many criminals have suites inside, the fancy restaurants and night clubs for what sort of illegal transactions get made in its darker corners. He's sure if he were stationed in Honolulu, this pristine beauty, too, would fade.
They arrive at police headquarters and go inside, the crowded hallways starting to give Raylan the answer to the question he didn't want to ask McGarrett earlier: why was a senior detective playing limo driver? Raylan's walked in and out of many cop shops over the years and they all have a similar feel to them -- when they're healthy. There's a whiff of disease in this one, a taint of something rotten. Rotting. A tension, buried under the surface but only to someone too blind to see.
McGarrett doesn't pretend that Raylan's that oblivious.
"IA's crawling around here like termites," he explains shortly after he closes the door to the small conference room where all of Lopez's files are spread neatly across the table. "They caught a guy from Vice with too much money in his bank account."
From that, all else follows and McGarrett need say no more. Everyone does all their own work during a corruption probe, no foisting off the shit duties -- like picking up visiting feds at the airport.
The files, most of which Raylan has looked at already, keep them both from any sort of awkward conversation until there's a brisk knock at the door and, once it opens, a head stuck through.
McGarrett waves the head in and the rest of the body follows. "Deputy Givens, meet Detective Chin-Ho Kelly, the man who found your fugitive for you," he says. There's just the slightest emphasis on Kelly's rank, which Raylan takes to mean either it's new or that McGarrett had something to do with it or both.
Kelly he may be, but he doesn't look anything like any Irishman Raylan's seen before. He keeps that to himself, however, and accepts a very firm handshake from the man.
"I appreciate you doing the legwork for me on this one," Raylan tells him, meaning it. "This fellow's been making a right fool of a lot of important people back in Florida."
"And we all know how unpleasant that can be," Kelly replies wryly. No, bitterly. Whatever's going on around here might not be touching McGarrett, but Kelly's up to his ankles in it, at least.
"It'll all go away once they get their pound of flesh," McGarrett assures Kelly with a sigh. "You're an honest cop, Chin, and you've got nothing to fear."
Kelly isn't quite convinced, but doesn't protest. Instead, he tells them that Central Booking has called and the transport for Lopez from lock-up to the airport has been arranged. They're booked on a flight back to Miami (via LAX) tomorrow evening -- it had taken all of Raylan's charm and much of his dignity to beg and plead not to be turned around and put on the flight home the same day once Logistics had realized it was possible. Raylan will have tonight and tomorrow morning to himself, a prospect that earned him some envy. But not enough for anyone to volunteer to take this job from him.
Raylan might not have to take custody of Lopez until tomorrow, but he's got a ream of paperwork to fill out today. It takes him the rest of the afternoon because there's two state agencies and more than two federal agencies involved and nobody's willing to take a photocopy of someone else's forms. Once it's a decent hour back East, he has to call Miami three separate times to get information and to find out when the hell Harriman is getting in because DHS wants a signature from the chief deputy marshal, not understanding that one of the perquisites of being chief deputy marshal is that you don't do prisoner transport.
Harriman is in a meeting with DHS; no, his secretary will not pass on a message for him to sign a piece of paper to give to them while he's there.
The sun is most of the way to setting by the time Raylan's done absolving every agency but the Marshal Service (and every deputy but himself) of responsibility for Lopez. The last bit's not yet signed -- it's a rookie mistake to autograph it all before the hand-off's complete and the prisoner's secure -- but it's as done as Raylan's going to get today and he flexes his cramped hand as he stands up and rolls his neck.
McGarrett drives him to his hotel and, en route, makes an offer to go to supper that's phrased so that there'll be no insult in the declining. But Raylan's all too familiar with eating alone in strange diners and so he accepts.
They wind up at a place called the Side Street Inn, which looks like a dive bar tucked in among the tacky tourist draws. McGarrett is apparently a regular since a waiter brings over two beers and a plate mounded with something Raylan can't identify without them saying a word.
"Ahi poke," McGarrett explains. "Local specialty."
It's fancy sushi, something Raylan's not too partial to but learned to eat because of Winona. It's better than what he's had in the Japanese restaurants, though, savory and substantial and almost like it's pretending to be meat. Nonetheless, Raylan's relieved when McGarrett tells him that the fried pork chops are a specialty here.
They make conversation while they eat, but not much. They're both not given to chattiness and have been at their respective jobs too long to confuse temporary acquaintances with the beginnings of friendship. Of course, that doesn't mean that they can't recognize something similar in the other, not when their limited divulging puts up a matched set of histories of loved ones lost to death and their own inabilities to put the job away at night. McGarrett is a widower with a son in the Navy ("a SEAL," he says with a father's pride) and a daughter at loose ends ("she'll be good at whatever she finally decides to do"). They're both living in California, but McGarrett doesn't see them much and Raylan suspects that to be their choice as much as his. For his part, Raylan confesses to being divorced, leaving out the part where he's a cuckold. His anger at Winona is genuine and, at times, as unremitting as his love for her. But it's a private anger and there's no need for the public shame that goes with it.
They split the bill because Raylan insists; with the IA probe, there's no way McGarrett submits a receipt and no way he'd accept Raylan putting it on his own per diem. They drive back to Raylan's hotel and McGarrett tells him what time he needs to be at Headquarters and that if he chooses to go out this evening to stay away from the place on the corner with the purple umbrellas because Vice raids it weekly.
The next morning is bright and sunny and, buoyed by fresh strong coffee and a plate of fresh fruit he'd only been partially able to identify, Raylan is almost able to sucker himself into believing that the next twenty-four hours won't suck as badly as they undoubtedly will.
Things start going downhill when they find out that the transport from the prison's delayed because the morning head-count was off. Lopez is accounted for, but someone else is not and they're not going to release the wagon until they sort out who and how.
The slope gets steeper when DHS decides that they really need that signature now, not when Raylan gets back to Miami. It's just dawn in Miami and Raylan won't be able to do more than leave an aggrieved voice mail with Harriman until it's almost time to leave for the airport. If DHS lets them -- and if Lopez is released from lock-up in time for them to go through the airport and then the airline's nervous security.
Lopez is released at 2:30, which is a relief right up until it isn't. Because the driver of the van isn't a guard; it's a prisoner wearing the uniform and HPD's now got three fugitives on the loose where they once had one behind bars.
Finding the van isn't hard, but it's not done fast enough to find it with the occupants still inside. Instead, they're inside a plate lunch storefront with four hostages.
Harriman, who never returns Raylan's calls when he needs it, does so while Raylan's got his gun drawn and pointed at a part of Rico Samonora's substantial girth that's not covered by the slender girl he's got in a neck-lock.
"I'm pointing my sidearm at a very fat man hiding behind a very skinny girl," he tells Harriman when he's asked why he can't fax the DHS form over right this moment. "I'll get to it within the hour, sir."
It takes longer than an hour, by which point Raylan's got entirely different paperwork to fax to Miami because Lopez is dead, shot by Kelly after Lopez picked up a fallen Glock dropped by Charles Hisagi, the escapee in the hack's uniform, whom Raylan killed.
Raylan doesn't make his flight, which pisses off the ladies back in Miami because not only do they have to pay to change his tickets, but they also have to cancel Lopez's and the airline's not giving them a full refund. Raylan bites his tongue during that chewing-out, to no great advantage because when he finally does get to leave Hawaii, it's on a flight that changes planes twice.
Two
The case is bad news all around, the kidnapping of a federal judge's daughter by the mother of a career criminal being tried by said judge. The media's all over it: cameras everywhere, enough video and still footage to ensure that nobody assigned to this case will ever be able to work undercover ever again. The politicians are all over it: the sheriff and the governor are both up for election this year and the local DA is aiming for the latter's job. The brass is all over it: Raylan is expected to update his boss, his boss's boss, and the regional head of the Service hourly, an order he ignores from the get-go because by the time he got through to any of them, he'd have precious little time to engage in the cross-agency pissing match that's requiring him to drink steadily just to keep up.
But all of this, all of this endless posturing and politicking and self-regard at the probable expense of a little girl's life, would be almost bearable if Raylan were just allowed to shoot the damned psychic.
(tbc)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 01:40 (UTC)