Like Pulling Teeth

Participants:

felix_icon.gif luke_icon.gif

Scene Title Like Pulling Teeth
Synopsis Felix chases Luke down to try and get information on Samson, but Luke isn't obliging.
Date April 10, 2010

Prospect Park

Prospect Park is a 585-acre public park sitting square in the heart of Brooklyn. While the borough around this verdant region of lush foliage, tall trees and rolling hills is prospering, Prospect Park has become something of a ghetto within the city's bowels. Brooklyn has grown steadily following the destruction of Midtown, but not everyone in New York City can afford to live in Brooklyn, and those that cant have resorted to vagrancy across the city. Some brave the southern edge of Central Park on Manhattan, but the lion's share of mainland New York's homeless are here in Prospect Park.

Where once was a blossoming park pulling itself up from a nadir of abandonment and disuse in the seventies, Prospect Park has sunken back down into a state of disrepair and squalor. Tracts of forested land are laden with blue tarp tents, fire pits and makeshift shanty towns. The park is no longer officially maintained by the state of New York due to budget constraints, so the park's once pristine boat house and other facilities have been made into a makeshift homeless community, such as they are.

The Prospect Park Zoo, which once featured over seven hundred animals, was closed shortly after the bomb and the facility rests in decay in the park behind rusting iron gates and sturdy fence.


When he finally gets Luke to stop enough that they aren't tripping through snowdrifts, the Fed's face is red with annoyance. "Don't bother to lie," he says, tone drily irritated. "We've got pictures of you with Gray. Try again. I'm really, really, really trying to be a good cop here. I'd prefer your willing cooperation to me dragging you down to the station in cuffs, okay?"

"You can try." Luke retorts belligerently at the threat. "I told you, I don't know anything aside from that he's in town, which you seem to know already. I saw him." pulling info from Luke will probably feel like pulling teeth for the poor Fed.

"Do you know where he might be found? Because the indications are that he's killing people, and we need to bring him in before there's another death," Fel says, and his tone is flat. "What do you know of what he's doing in town?"

"Aside from trying to kill people, nothing." Luke retorts, crossing his arms. "The only time I saw him was at that high school when the roof collapsed, but so did about five hundred other people, go bother them." Ohh, yes, painful indeed.

His eyes are patient, behind his ugly glasses. "Were you close to him before? How'd you know him?" he asks, as he takes them off, polishes them clear on his tie.

"I lived in the same town as him growing up." Luke replies after a moment, eying the Fed. "He took me birding a few times but I don't see how that's helpful in any way unless you want to try luring him out with a pigeon."

"I'd be willing to try it, if I thought it'd actually -work-," Fel says, patiently. "Tell me about him. Just whatever comes to mind. Samson, that's his name, right?"

"He's a taxidermist." Luke shrugs, and he's relaxing. This guy doesn't want HIM. "I told you, I haven't seen him in years, and then he randomly shows up and starts cutting open some bitch's head, but you probably know that already, or you wouldn't be after him." Luke's not an idiot.

Felix persists, and his tone grows more gentle, "How do you know what? Does he still count you a friend?"

"I doubt it since the last time I saw him he sent me flying through the air into a metal table." is the abrupt response, and Luke rubs his side. "Thought I broke my ribs." but hey, now you know the old man's capable of that, right?

'Did you know his son, Gabriel? What were they like, when you knew them then? Knew him then," he corrects himself, before craning his head. "Are you hurt now?"

"No I didn't, considering the old man sold his son probably before I was born, or so they say." Luke at least knows Samson had a son named Gabriel. "Never met him myself."

The Fed, apparently, didn't know that. "Sold him?" he parrots, blinking, even as he sets his glasses back on his nose, a little crookedy.

"I have no idea." Luke shrugs at Felix. "My mom had a lot of bad things to say about that guy, and look how…" he waves a hand, gulps, and quickly moves from there. Right, don't talk about THAT. "I don't think that had anything to do with much of anything else."

"What did your mother have to say?" he says, the little lapse having not gone unnoticed. "What had anything to do with anything else?" It's a disturbingly predatory stare, really.

"Nothing good." Luke struggles a little. "Listen, can we not talk about my mom?" she did just die a few days ago. Maybe Luke's unease could be interpreted as grief, or something?

The Fed hesitates…..but it doesn't stop him. "I'm sorry if it's a sensitive subject. But this matters a great deal. People are dying at Samson Gray's hands, and any little thing might be what lets us bring him in."

People are dying at Luke's hands too, but it's not like he's going to just say that. "I really don't know anything at all, like I said, I haven't seen him in years and then he just shows up behind me in line one day. He disappeared right afterwards." so did Luke.

"And did he recognize you? Did you speak?" Fel says, reaching up to take off his glasses. It's like he can't be comfortable with them.

"He did, and he didn't say anything important. Mostly just a comment about how he didn't expect to see me here. Then the roof collapsed." Luke shrugs. "We didn't chat much."

Felix reaches into his pocket, pulls out a business card, proffers it to him. "If you can think of anything I haven't already asked, please, get a hold of me. Call, e-mail, come by the Plaza," he says, in a weary voice.

Luke looks down at the card and sneers. "And just how am I supposed to do that with no phone, no internet, and no desire to go anywhere near that place?" he doesn't make any move to take the card.

Felix pinches the bridge of his nose. "Leave a message at the Nite Owl Diner, or at Old Lucy's. They know me there," he says, as he lets his hand fall. "And there are still payphones in New York, if you go looking."

The last statement has Luke regarding the guy with blatant scorn. "I think I'll pass." Old Lucy's, though, he might be able to do… if he can think of anything, which is doubtful.

"I can field you a quarter if you need," Fel says, in that dry voice. "Alternately, if you -ask-, in either of those places, and tell 'em you need to reach me, they'll let you use the phones there."

"No thanks." Luke turns away and starts walking, since to him, this discussion is over. But he did listen, after all. Who knows, maybe Felix will get a call. Maybe.

Well, he can't arrest him. Not and hold him for any length of time. Fel just watches him go, silently, eyes narrowed…..though he seems to be lost in thought.


Previously in this storyline…
Slaves to the Buns


Next in this storyline…

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