The Lengths That I Would Go To

[abrightboy]

The killer was moving around the country. Malcolm Bright could see the pattern, but he wasn't working for the FBI these days and they weren't exactly taking his calls. Short sighted of them, but they did fire him on suspicion of being crazy. The NYPD's jurisdiction was New York. With the killer beyond its borders, they handed it upwards and left it at that.

Let it go, Bright, had been Gil's sage advice. You can't catch every killer in America single-handedly.

Challenge accepted, some part of him retorted, though he'd only nodded mutely and forced a smile. Gil knew he hadn't simply let it go, but he wasn't going to have him followed to stop him doing anything stupid, either. He didn't have the will or the resources to keep tabs on Malcolm Bright 24/7 and Malcolm Bright knew it.

His mother, on the other hand, had extensive resources, so he simply didn't tell her he was leaving town. He did arrange for Ainsley to feed his bird, so the truth would come out eventually, but he'd be several states away by then.

He rode the bus. There was something oddly comforting about the anonymity of being in a crowd of strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. He stared out the window and watched the country go by. When he stepped off the Greyhound in Lexington, Kentucky, he walked to a nearby hotel and checked in, then headed straight to the US Marshals office. There was no point in trying to talk to the FBI. If he was going to stop a killer from killing again, he needed someone in law enforcement to listen to him. The pattern suggested the next murder would happen in one of the rural communities around Lexington and it would be precipitated by a young woman's disappearance. He needed law enforcement with local knowledge, specifically.

He wandered into the Marshals' offices in a tidy three piece suit, charcoal grey with a burgundy tie perfectly knotted at his collar. He got a few suspicious sidelong glances but nobody asked if they could help him. He cleared his throat.

"Um, hello? I'm wondering if there's anyone here I can talk to about murder." He held up his hands. "Stopping murder, specifically, not... like... smalltalk."

Comments

[tinstar]

Malcolm's itchy nature was setting something off in Raylan, an almost contrary need to linger and take his time but he was trying to be less of an asshole, sorta. Not that that meant he was going to move any faster than he already was.

Raylan hummed noncommittally as he pushed back too his feet, collecting the file and starting towards the door. "See, the thing about Kentucky is that most everyone has a gun and they are not too concerned about who they're pointed at. I know you're used to New York and whatever Mafia gangster ways they've got goin' on up there, but down here, you'll find tact and patience in low supply." He paused for a half moment, watching Malcolm's face.

"The chances of someone drawing down on you is highly probable."

[abrightboy]

"Yeah. I have that effect on people. Happens all the time."

If he was concerned about that fact, there was no indication of it.

"Or do you think everyone doesn't have guns in New York? Or that they do have tact and patience? ...Have you been there?"

[tinstar]

"Never had the chance but I can't say that I'm eager to change that. Closest I've gotten to cities like that is Detroit and Miami, which are just as gun happy as the Big Apple." He pulled the glass door open and lowered his head a fraction, a silent cue for Malcolm's welcome to go through the door first.

"If you can take that, I guess I can't really stop you from comin' but if you're not currently carrying, either we arm you or you stay behind me when we're walking into any property or place of business. You agree to that, I might even let you have control of the radio on the way up."

[abrightboy]

"If you're fine with me carrying a gun, I'll carry it."

Gil wasn't fine with it; he insisted that Malcolm was a civilian consultant and shouldn't have one. Maybe it was his protective streak or maybe it was the tremor Malcolm tended to get pretty frequently in his hands, but he'd carried one with the FBI and was comfortable enough with it.

[tinstar]

"If you're fine with carrying it," he replied casually before pointing his file at Tim. "You call local on this guy for me? See if anything pops up in their missing persons?" As Tim nodded, Raylan dropped the file on his desk before opening up a drawer and pulling out a pistol.

"Please don't make me regret this." The piece was set down and slid towards Malcolm before Raylan pulled his blazer off the back of his chair and swung it on. "Don't shoot anyone if you can help it, alright? The paperwork is somethin' of a headache."

Fixing his collar, Raylan adjusted his hat and nodded at Tim before heading towards the doors that led into the office.

[abrightboy]

"We're specifically looking for women in their twenties," Malcolm clarified to Tim, while Tim gave him the kind of look he was used to getting from JT. And it didn't deter him any more than JT's looks did. "Dark hair. Taken from rural areas."

Then he turned to find Raylan passing him the gun. He picked it up.

"I didn't get fired from the FBI for shooting someone," he assured Raylan, tucking the gun into his jacket as he followed the deputy.

[tinstar]

"But you were fired from the FBI," he echoed with a curl of his features. So Malcolm was something of a wave starter, wasn't he. Might turn out that he wasn't so bad. Raylan smirked at Tim before heading through the door to head out towards the front doors to the building proper.

"You ever been this far south before?"

[abrightboy]

"For punching a person," he clarified, holding up an index finger. "But yeah, I worked all over the country with the Bureau. I was what you'd call a specialist," he explained.

[tinstar]

Raylan scoffed, eyebrows arching in squinty unison as he pressed the elevator button. "Can't say I'd do better, considering the number of people I've shot." He had opinions on the FBI but that was neither here nor there.

As the elevator doors close in front of them, Raylan props a hand on his hip and looks over at his new company. "That why they won't take you seriously? Your man Gil said you were an.. acquired taste. That what he meant?"

[abrightboy]

"Oh. No. I would never punch Gil; he practically raised me." A beat. "Though that is typically how he introduces me to new people, now that you mention it."

[tinstar]

"That so." Interesting, to say the least. "And now you're workin' for him." Even more interesting. Of course, Raylan couldn't help but be curious as to why this NYPD cop was raising kids but that was too forward a conversation for a first meeting.

[abrightboy]

"Well, to answer your previous question: the FBI doesn't take my calls because they think I'm crazy. Gil hires me because he thinks I'm reasonably....not. Plus I catch a lot of murderers. He's not the kind of guy who hands out charity."

Unless you're eleven.

"I performed well at Quantico," he added. "Including on marksmanship," he explained as they stepped outside.

[tinstar]

"Quantico, impressive," he conceded with a bob of his head as they swaggared into the parking garage. "I trained at Glenco myself, if you know it." Swinging his car door open, Raylan slid in, hat and all.

"You really don't eat?"

[abrightboy]

He huffed another of his self-deprecating laughs as he slid into the passenger seat.

"Well, obviously I eat. I mean, I'm still alive. But most food makes me sick, so I tend to stick to....a minimal and very narrow sort of diet," he explained, demonstrating said narrowness by holding up his two index fingers maybe an inch apart. "It's easier on me and the plumbing."

[tinstar]

"Could be on that Soylent Green diet, for all I know. All liquid." Malcolm didn't look like a drinker, generally speaking. "Food out here almost tastes just as good on the way up."

But he wasn't going to harass the man.

"It'll take us about an hour to get up to those parts; suppose I shoulda told you to go to the little boys room before we left. Sorry 'bout that."

[abrightboy]

"I'll be all right," Malcolm told him in response to the length of the trip, after wrinkling his nose a little at the comment about how the food might taste on the way back up. That had never been his experience.

He was silent for a moment as the car began to move, then looked over at Raylan, going back to a remark it might have seemed he'd glossed past.

"You know Soylent Green is made of people, right?"

[tinstar]

He hadn't had Kentucky food and Raylan knew a little something about a liquid diet, more than a few meals consisting strictly of beers or Jim Beam. Not that he was admitting that.

"1973. We get T.V. out here," Raylan says, one eye squinting over his smirk as they pull out onto the highway. "California's been working on a plant based liquid solution. Vegans or somesuch." He shrugged, shoulder barely moving while the rest of the shrug was on his face and the way his lips downturned.

"The ideas that come out of some peoples heads," he clucked, tone full of humor.

[abrightboy]

"I'm not a cannibal," he promised with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, but even that attempt at levity was betrayed by his left hand starting to shake. He squeezed his own knee to hold it still.

"I do drink meal replacement shakes or smoothies when I can't stomach anything else," he admitted, just to keep talking like nothing had triggered his complement of nervous tics.

[tinstar]

Raylan caught the steadying grip on Malcolm's knee but made no move or comment about it. Just something else to file away until he had a better picture of the trim suit next to him.

"You'll have to go to a grocery store for stuff like that. Might find a Smoothie King in Lexington somewhere, but elsewhere, all you're gonna find is Slimfast. But, to each their own. Personally, I don't mind pulling a few light food days but I will admit that I am a sucker for a good steak."

[abrightboy]

"Oh, I brought my own," Malcolm told him, flexing his left hand wide open and then into a tight fist and then resuming the alternating hand wringing that he'd been doing earlier, squeezing one hand with the other and then switching, back and forth and back and forth absently.

"Basic life support: don't leave home without it," he joked awkwardly.

He looked at Raylan sidelong. "I would have pegged you as a red meat man. And... whiskey. Bourbon, specifically. Is that a stereotype?" he asked almost more to himself than Raylan. "Well, I guess stereotypes come from somewhere."

[tinstar]

For some reason, that struck Raylan as funny. What kind of man travels with his own food supply? But much like everything else, to each their own. Didn't bother Raylan at all - now he knew to not invite the man to lunch.

Valuable information.

"Just as much a potatoes and greens man," Raylan assured, still wholly amused by the character next to him. "Maybe it is, maybe it's not. Alls I know is Bourbon is a whole lot simpler than a lot of the alternatives. Tastes like a warm summer day. The stereotype can be useful, even for us." His face curled. "People come down here, see how people live, hear our accent and think we're backwater, backwoods hillbilly folk. All the more to their detriment."

The stereotype of people being less than intelligent in Kentucky was a lie too, if the vocabulary he used was any indication.

"Just like they'll see you as nothin' more than a carpetbagger from up north." There was a subtle warning in there, just to make Malcolm aware of the hostility he might find here. The country had teeth.

[abrightboy]

"I'm used to being judged as effete," Malcolm told him. Expensive suits. Precisely knotted ties. Wool coats. Italian leather shoes. An anaemic look to him. A big vocabulary. "There are few advantages as effective as being underestimated."

He understood.

"I've very occasionally enjoyed a glass of scotch. Or red wine."

Just one. He was heavily medicated.

"I mostly drink tea. That probably doesn't help fight my image, but I'm pretty much embracing that these days."

His hands continued their absent wringing.

[tinstar]

Raylan bobbed his head, but the shift of his eyes out his window before they locked back on the road suggested that he didn't quite agree with the equalization. Plenty of effete people lived and functioned here, but Malcolm would learn the difference between the assumption of inaction and the hyper assumption that anyone with fingers could pull a trigger.

Somehow, he thought Malcolm might be fine. He'd see - the first press of the reality of the place would tell him a lot and no amount of talking would hasten that informations coming.

"You ever drink it cold and sweet? Might earn you a few points with some Grandmama's and waitresses. Pro tip, you want tea down here, you'd best as for it hot otherwise you're libel to get somethin' else. You never answered my question from before about if you've ever been this far south or not."

[abrightboy]

He smiled self-consciously. "No. I suppose I didn't." He glanced over, watching Raylan's profile. "I made arrests in Alabama, South Carolina... most recently in Utah. I mean, most recently before New York."

I figure they're already late? Mbe they find one of the subs in the girl's house as a warning 2 her?

[tinstar]

"Might give you enough to pass by. Or at least not gawk at some of the shit you might see." He'd see.

50 minutes later, they were pulling up at an unassuming country house, semi-isolated from the rest of the town on basis of distance alone, as much was the case with a lot of houses across Kentucky.

"Stay polite," Raylan cautioned as he threw the towncar into park before turning it off and stepping out of the car with only an adjustment of his hat. He glanced at Malcolm as he joined him in stride and hoped that if there was someone in the house, that they wouldn't have a gun. Just because he'd trusted Malcolm with a firearm didn't mean he trusted his temper in using it.