Chapter Text
“Okay, we got someone who said they saw a Mercedes speeding out of here when the gunfire was happening,” Sam read everything he wrote down as he joined the others at the table of the safe house. “Mercedes, down there? Mikey, it sounds like our boy was there.”
Deep in thought, Michael agreed before asking him, “How did he slip by without us knowing?”
Thinking it over, Sam musters, “Well, no one’s saw his face before, so he could’ve easily walked by without anyone knowing.”
He heard Fiona coming to the table with a drink as she proposed, “Someone was watching.”
She eyes Michael and Sam as she sat down.
“No, I don’t think so. No one stuck out,” Reese spoke up as he sat with his hand under his chin while he listened to the murmurs of the Machine in his ear as it’s working on locating Finch.
The cup in her hand, Fiona questioned Reese with, “How do you know?”
Gesturing with his free hand, Reese tells her, “If I was a faceless drug lord, would I be out at the same time as the people that works for me?”
Taking a sip before resting the cup on the table, Fiona agreed with his point.
With a laptop, Michael and Sam went through the DMV as they’re trying to find every Mercedes owner in Miami, which turned out to be a lot more than they anticipated, but time was of the essence.
“Doesn’t make sense, if he was there, why come in a Mercedes?” Michael questioned as he stood up from the table to go towards the fridge.
Grabbing himself a thing of strawberry and banana yogurt and a spoon, Michael sat back down as Sam typed furiously on the laptop.
Fiona gave the idea that their mysterious ‘E’ still acted flashy despite the need to hide in the shadows, but Michael counters that it was possible that the Mercedes was reported stolen.
“I would,” Michael gestures towards her as she rolls her eyes.
Auto-theft can be useful, so long as you’re willing to deface old cars to get them going or forcibly opening expensive the console of expensive cars, but otherwise, when using identities that carry weight and have more enemies attached than ticks, it’s a viable option.
With cars becoming more digital by the year, you don’t even have to do any of that, unless you’re feeling ritzy.
A USB, a specialized tool that only car manufacturers can buy that you can if you know where to look and don’t mind jumping the border for as well as paying an arm and a leg, and you can turn any car or a FOB to a car yours.
In all, if you’re willing to steal cars, you’re willing to go all the way in doing it.
“How many people steal Mercedes, though?” Reese brings up and Sam gestures as he estimated that quite a bit of “Miami’s finest” likes stealing them to sell overseas.
It was one of their “jobs” where they brought down a known gang stealing cars and selling them to places like Africa.
“If our guy’s a fearless drug lord, it wouldn’t surprise me if he whacked a guy to get a Mercedes,” Michael stirred the yogurt with his spoon.
Beginning to pace around the kitchen, Reese became agitated as he mustered that they needed to do something now, that Finch was in danger, before Fiona told him that if someone wanted him dead, shooting him at the festival during the gunfire was a good way of doing that.
“He wants him alive,” Fiona gestures.
Sam added, “To tell him how he’s going to die, of course.”
He jolted when Fiona reached over and smacked him on the arm.
Michael raised his voice at them, and they stopped.
Standing up, Michael suggested, “Why don’t we go to the source?”
Eying him, Fiona and Sam questioned what he meant, and he brought up that unless otherwise, Finch’s cover wasn’t blown, he was a drug dealer working for his employer, well, Reese was his bodyguard.
“Usually, drug dealers are red shirts, Mikey,” Sam pointed out that while he was seeing what Michael was getting at, it’s common not to shed a tear if a drug dealer gets killed.
Especially, if the drug dealer only has candy on him, and not the actual product.
“Then we better get going, then,” Reese was going to the door when Michael stopped him as he suggested an idea to him.
Granted, it won’t be pretty.
While they’re in the air about whether ‘E’ knows or not, a bodyguard that loses a drug dealer won’t look nice on the sheets, and punishment usually follows.
Not a good idea to kill them, unless they really screwed up, and a drug lord killing bodyguards outright would make hiring more impossible, but then again, you don’t become a drug lord shaking hands.
In his ear, Reese hears the Machine telling him to go through with it, that it has a lead.
Subtly gritting his teeth, Reese exhaled as he agreed to the Machine’s plan.
A busted lip and a shiner later, Reese was ready to hit the street.
A decanter worth of Turkish coffee in him and a bagel from a stand, Reese marched through the street looking for anyone who could point him in the right direction or until the Machine finds a tangible lead for him to follow.
Joining him, Michael shed his “skin” and took on another, a wise cracker who was dispatched to ensure that Reese completes his task.
With the power of hair gel, years of pretending to be other people, Michael was a whole different person, and it was a little too effective for Reese’s liking.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s only temporary, at least until I play Rickie, again,” Michael smiles at the disinterested Reese.
Becoming another person for Reese was simply answering whatever name the Machine gave him and going about whatever job it told him that he should take while working a number, but for Michael, it was more in-depth than he predicted.
“How’d you get into this, anyway?” Reese privately asked him.
Walking with one hand in his pocket and his other swaying, Michael answers, “Family business, I guess you can say, how about you, how’d you get into this?”
Shrugging, Reese responded with a brief, “Luck.”
Couldn’t tell Michael about a nigh sentient AI calculated the odds and created an event that he would meet his future employer, so he went with something simpler.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Michael opted not to press for more than that.
Part of the business can’t pry unless he has a reason, and the means to force it out of someone.
Walking with him, Michael led him to someone who knew everything about the seedy side of Miami, including anything about the stolen Mercedes.
“Not everyone has access to those neat little tools, so what they do’s rent them from people who do,” Michael sums to Reese as he led him to an off-beat area off the boardwalk.
Working as an “honest” electrician, Miguel was quick to answer any questions Michael had regarding any stolen Mercedes and so on.
Having spent more time in prison, Miguel had the tattoos to prove it, and the information regarding rippers, shop chops, so on.
“You hear anything happening about the festival last night?” Michael asked him.
Scratching his scruffy beard, Miguel responded that he did, but no one got hurt, and Michael confirmed that it was fortunate nothing serious happened.
“I want to know who did it and if they stole a Mercedes,” Michael eyed Miguel.
Lowering his hand, Miguel answers that his usual contacts didn’t say anything about causing trouble at the festival.
Gesturing at him, Miguel swore, “It’s Christmas, why the hell would anyone cause trouble?”
If someone caused problems, then they’d be looking at a barrel end for disrupting one of the most important days for drug dealers.
“We think someone moved up to kidnapping,” Michael gestures as he went on to describe Finch.
Listening to Michael, Miguel gestures as he casually replies how he heard women being trafficked, but he didn’t hear anything about a man matching Finch’s description.
He jumped when Reese grabbed him over the counter with seriousness in his hazel brown eyes as he stressed their need to find Finch.
Fear in Miguel’s eyes, he was quick to change his tune as he proceeded to tell Reese everything he knew, which was a lot, until Reese made him get to the point.
“I did hear something, but I don’t know if it’s any use to you two!” Miguel sweated as Reese was close to hitting him.
Crossing his arms, Michael turned his head disinterestedly as he snubbed this with, “Miguel, you’re wasting valuable time, my friend here is about ready to marry you to the ground.”
TO BE CONCLUDED… Stab A Lime Out of the Coconut