Title: Gambling Freely
Author: Sasscat Bu-to-y
--PREVIEW--

Teaser: A backstory based on "Alternate Thinking" parts 7-9.

Disclaimers: Alliance owns all.

Warnings: This is set in a universe where laws, society, and our dear characters are very different. The preview is rated PG, and is pretty tame compared with what happens later on. The story will be NC-17 and not all sweetness and light. Proceed at your own risk.

 

Gambling Freely
          (c) Sasscat Bu-to-y 1999-2000

The perfume thing led them to Zoltan Motherwell, at the Evanston Institution for the Criminally Insane. The woman with the tape had been duly taken back to the station, and Ray had no doubt they let her go the minute Fraser left the building. Probably one or two people there wouldn't mind supporting that Resistance thing, either.

"So, how d'you wanna work this?" Ray asked, checking in his gun at the main desk. "You got those files I ordered?" he asked the guard; and in the same breath told Fraser, "I mean, you're the one who knows the guy."

The guard handed over a manila folder. "Yeah, here you go."

"You want me to question him?" Fraser asked.

Ray shrugged, thumbing through the folder. From his briefing, 'question' was probably a mild term for Fraser's methods - hello, Spanish Inquisition - but the guy did know Motherwell. "Go for it. You do the legwork, I'll hang in the background." He held the folder up and pointed out the phone log; one call this morning, direct to the 27th precinct. "Like a one-two punch; you set him up, I knock him down." Could work.

Could work, maybe not. Motherwell turned out not to be a big fan of giving straight answers. "What's that?" he said, nodding at Fraser's stetson hat.

Fraser kept going. You had to hand it to the guy, he was persistent. "It's sugar. Mister Motherwell, for an incarcerated man you make an inordinate number of phone calls."

"My friends worry about me. They don't understand the peace I've found here."

Fraser gave him a sceptical look. "Visitor logs. Girlfriend. Friend. Friend. No names. It would appear they are indeed concerned about you, Mister Motherwell. Is there something they need your help with, perhaps?"

"I am an *artist*, Constable. Of course there will be followers, disciples, possibly a school..."

"I see," Fraser said smoothly. "And does one of these disciples use the phone number 555-0188?" He waited for a response, then continued, "It's in the phone log, Mister Motherwell. You called that number earlier today. Concerning an arson, I believe. One instigated by the... 'followers and disciples' you seem so fond of."

Motherwell looked uncertain. "I don't recall..."

"Well, I recall," Ray retorted. It had taken him a while, but he *had* learned the phone number for his desk. "You know anyone with a blue van, Motherwell?"

"Who are you?"

"Hey, shut your trap!" Ray snapped, knowing it was these moments he had to nip in the bud for Vecchio's cover. He pulled out a cigarette lighter and flicked the flame right in front of Motherwell, getting way into the guy's face. "You look into my eyes, you look deep into my eyes! What do you see? You see the guy? Do you see the guy? The guy that put you in here?!" His words like bullets: wham, bam, you know who I am. "Right?!" Bam. "Right?!" Bam. "Right?!" Bam. "*Right*?!"

Motherwell nodded, looking pale. He glanced at the flame from the lighter. "Ah, would you mind...?"

Ray waved it a little and watched him blanch. "This bug you?"

The look on the guy's face was weird, somewhere between hunger and fear. "It's a little... disconcerting."

"Detective, may I?" Fraser interrupted. Ray handed him the lighter, the Mountie slipping his thumb on so smooth the flame didn't even go out. Fraser braced his hat between his arm and chest so he had a hand free to get a pinch of sugar and drop it in the flame.

Motherwell took a tiny gasp as the flame fizzed and sparked. Cool, Ray never knew sugar did that. He grinned at Fraser and swung back to Motherwell. Perfect one-two punch. "Let's talk about your visitors, Motherwell. One of them got a blue van?"

"I, I don't know--"

Another pinch of sugar. "Waste not, want not," Fraser commented under his breath.

"Blue van, Motherwell. It was at the scene of the crime - the one with *your* signature, which means *you* know the torch! Who's got a blue van?"

"How should I know? I'm *incarcerated*, Detective."

Fraser was sprinkling sugar at a steady rate now, and it was kinda beginning to smell. Motherwell cringed. "I want a name, scumbag," Ray snapped, "or it is all aboard for funtime and I will kick your teeth in! We got a hatful of sugar here and I bet it would burn *real* good in your lap."

"I-- I think I need to see my attorney..."

"You'll be free to make any phone calls you like as soon as we have concluded our interview," Fraser said firmly. "The name, Mister Motherwell."

"You're threatening me with physical violence!"

Ray cocked his head. "Ya think?" He jittered impatiently for a couple of seconds then flung his arms wide. "Gentlemen! Fraser, gimme the sugar."

"Careful of my hat," Fraser said, handing it over.

"You can't do this--"

"Five," Fraser said calmly.

"It's ridiculous!"

"Four."

"This is blackmail, it's threatening--"

"Three."

"You can't--"

"Two."

"You better cough up a name," Ray said. He was getting the hat ready to tip sugar all over the guy when Motherwell cracked.

"All right, all right!"

"One," Fraser said, a strange note in his voice. Almost... anticipatory, his whole body tense like a big cat ready to make the kill.

Now was not the time for one of his vendettas. Ray held out a cautioning hand at him and looked at Motherwell expectantly. "Yeah?"

--
Back to contents
Continue with Alternate Thinking