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]

Raylan coughed over his soup, apologizing softly as he wiped his mouth before finishing his drink in one go and gesturing at an attentive waiter for another.

"Not lucky enough, I'm afraid," he offered, not confident enough to say who he was here with. He didn't want to cause trouble and really, he and Malcolm were just colleagues. Did these piranhas even really care? But his quip was almost visibly swept under the rug with the tension between the women. God, was this what Malcolm had to deal with all the time? No wonder he was on meds, it was the only other path besides a heavy addiction of some kind.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's scrutinizing gaze had fixed on Nancy's face and he ignored Ainsley kicking him under the table.

"You keep looking over there," he pointed out mildly, gesturing towards another table. "Did they put you up to coming over here?" he asked, but he didn't wait for her to answer because he'd already read it in her expression. "No, but you want them to see you. You have something to prove to them." He watched her carefully. "To them but also to everybody. Nobody in this room is worth more than the attention they get, right?"

"Malcolm..." Jessica hissed in warning.

Also ignored.

"You want the attention Jessica Whitly gets when she enters the room. You can't get it the way she does. You couldn't handle notoriety anyway; you don't have the spine to wear that hat. So you think you can just...skim a little off of her."

Nancy was starting to look rattled. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times but nothing came out.

"I'd suggest skimming elsewhere," he told her. "It's okay to want to be seen. It's normal. But maybe learn to sing or something," he suggested, picking up his spoon and digging into his soup again.

She gave him and then the table a dirty look and walked off. Jessica put a hand to her forehead.

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Malcolm asked innocently, putting a spoonful of soup in his mouth.

"You know perfectly well," she said with no real condemnation.

[tinstar]

In not knowing what to expect from the evening, the break from Malcolm's otherwise impeccable politeness was its own surprise but what surprised Raylan more was the almost vicious way Malcolm wielded his best skill. It was good and right for a son to defend his mother, and more than a little gratifying to watch an insecure ass get cut down.

"'Not the spine to wear the hat', huh?" An interesting turn of phrase but now that he'd seen both the elder Whitlys in action, he can see where Malcolm learned that particular edge skill from.

"All your dinners this exciting?" he asked Ainsley.

[abrightboy]

"It's a heavy hat," Malcolm said matter-of-factly, taking another extra-innocent bite of soup.

Ainsley rolled her eyes. "Not all of them." She gave Malcolm a look. "Only when someone gets him going."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Mm-hm."

A waiter came to collect their soup dishes before the next course. For a second, Malcolm looked like he was going to hold on to his, but he glanced towards his mother and then let the waiter take it, tapping the fingertips of his left hand on the table once it was gone.

"She looked familiar," he said pensively. "Who was she?"

"She was on the board of that charity that built housing for homeless people with me when you were little. She came to the house a few times when the board met there."

He nodded acceptance of that as the waiter set down the pasta course in front of each of them. It was several large ravioli, stuffed with wild mushrooms in a cream sauce. He was not going to eat it and didn't even pick up his fork.

Ainsley did pick up hers and she looked at Raylan. "They must have good barbeque where you're from. I found this excellent barbeque restaurant in Midtown a few weeks ago. I think I'm addicted to it now," she said with a laugh.

[tinstar]

"I bet," Raylan replied with a glance at Jessica before smirking at Ainsley and Malcolm's exchange. Yeah, definitely siblings.

Raylan leaned back to allow the theft of the only half finished soup and took a shallow pull from his scotch glass as he listened. He was starting to understand the biggest difference between his way of life and the way of life here. There was a difference between respect and deference. There wasn't any respect here, that he could see. Just varied levels of tolerance.

He leaned back again in invitation for the waiter to set down the new plate and picked up his fork, quirking a chuckle and a smile at Ainsley. "They do, but I imagine Tennessee would argue. No place does it quite the same, so you've got a broad base to try out. If you ever find yourself in Kentucky, I know a hollar that's got the best in the state."

No, he did not think either of the women sitting with them would ever show up in Kentucky unless they had to, but the offer was a polite one.

"But I promise you won't find anything like this there," he chuckled, cutting one of the raviolis in half so he could tuck it into his mouth.

[abrightboy]

He noticed Raylan hadn't been able to finish his soup either. He pushed his pasta plate towards him a bit.

"Do you want this?"

"Malcolm," Jessica said wearily, "can you not just eat it?"

"I cannot," he said reasonably.

She rolled her eyes and cut into her own pasta.

Ainsley took a bite of hers before looking at Raylan again. "I'd love to come to Kentucky some time. Sometimes I think I might get ahead a bit if I travel around the country and cover stories that nobody's really dug into."

"You're not going to get into the newsroom by riding the rails around America like a hobo, dear," Jessica informed her.

[tinstar]

To be honest, it was all just a little... Well, rich. Raylan had only just opened his mouth to answer when Jessica sighed her weary opinion, leaving the Marshal to offer Malcolm a crooked little smile and a faint shake of his head. "I think this'll be plenty, and I don't even know what the other two courses are.."

Yes, he ate and normally ate well, but he wasn't exactly comfortable and it was already a large dinner. His attention returned to Ainsley as she spoke again, but something in his expression hardened a little at Jessica's return quip.

"On the contrary. I think that's a great idea," he said supportingly towards the youngest Whitly. "Rails or otherwise. Perspective on the way the rest of the world runs and lives can teach you a lot about regular people. Unless white collar crimes-" And those of her father's "- is where you're most comfortable.. Professionally speakin'."

"Maybe one day you can talk your brother into a vacation, and I'll show you some hills."

[abrightboy]

"I actually cover a lot of homicides." She gave her brother a mischievous look. "And watch Malcolm avoid me at crime scenes."

He shrugged a shoulder.

"There'll be a meat course..." He told Raylan. "Hoping for chicken," he added, crossing his fingers. "And dessert."

"Where they will not serve jello," Ainsley quipped.

"One time they had sorbet," Malcolm pointed out.

"I hear that was because the health department shut down the bakery they normally used."

Malcolm made a face.

Ainsley looked at Raylan. "He does not take vacations, but maybe I'll ask you to show me some hills anyway. I bet there are stories in them."

Jessica didn't dispute Raylan's assertion. That sort of travel could certainly lend you a perspective. It was just one she didn't care to have. She sipped her wine and watched the exchange.

[tinstar]

It wasn't a great opinion to have but Raylan found most of New York's homicides boring. Cut and dry, with exceptions to the ones that Malcolm seemed to find. An opinion not worth sharing. He found bank heists, gun runs and small time bombings more exciting.

Malcolm and Ainsley's back and forth made him smirk, the expression slipping into a grin as he tucked another bite away.

"More than a few, between the mining industry, generational land wealth and drug addiction. Place has a rich history, if a little ugly. The scenery is nicer but if I'm honest, I'll be glad for the day its finally at my back."

Raylan glanced at Malcolm. "I can see how soup is just enough for you."

[abrightboy]

"Thank you," Malcolm told him with all the weight of vindication.

"Don't encourage him," Jessica deadpanned. "If they do bring us chicken, he'll pick it apart like a crow that found a carcass in the road."

"And thank you, mother," Malcolm added.

"The second psychiatrist I took you to when you were a child said all this food nonsense was psychosomatic," she pointed out.

"You fired him really loudly when he told you I was crazy."

"That doesn't mean he didn't have any valid points. But even so, I wasn't paying him to tell me what he couldn't do."

"I'm pretty sure he was more interested in what he could do and that was directed at you rather than me."

"I was never that drunk when I brought you there," she said with mild disgust.

He took a drink of scotch and didn't comment on that.

Ainsley rolled her eyes at them and looked at Raylan.

"Ugly makes the most compelling stories. Do you think people around there would talk to a reporter?"

[tinstar]

Somehow, without knowing it, Raylan has stepped into a war zone. Jessica's first comment made him lift his eyebrows a little and by the time she was onto her third, he was emptying what was left of the few fingers. With a lift of his own as he leaned back, Raylan swiftly ordered another.

This was seriously making him look at his already made mistake in having a kid of his own.

Ainsley's question was a godsend because he was running out of things to say, since he seemed to be causing more trouble than not.

"The ones in the lower hills might, the regular people, so long as you don't look too much like a carpetbagger. They might bore you to death with complaints on the Coal company though. The people up the mountain won't. There's still folks up there that don't have electricity but they don't trust anyone who's gone down the mountain. Even their own kin."

He glanced down at his refilling glass and murmured a thank you. The scotch was what was going to keep him going tonight, he could already tell.

"I had to go up there once for a case. The only reason I was allowed back down alive is because my mother is mountain folk and I was lucky enough for one of her cousin's to vouch for who I was. They don't take kindly to much of anyone."

[abrightboy]

"You're a mountain man?" Ainsley said delightedly. She looked at Malcolm. He gave her a warning look. She looked at Raylan again. "Do they not want electricity or do they just kill every ConEd man that goes up there to run a line?" she asked, clearly a reporter after a salacious lead at this point.

[tinstar]

"No," Raylan assured with a chuckle. "I am not. Just come from that stock is all. Capable of surviving anything. And the answer to your question is.. both. They're happy enough with the bubble that they live in and defend it viciously. Which I don't find much different from elsewhere in the world."

Expanding a world view was a kinder thing, in the end, for everyone.

"I suppose we could send a swat up, but I'm fairly certain they'd get them too. They might not have electricity but one thing Kentucky is not short on, is guns."

[abrightboy]

Ainsley's eyes got wide and sparkled.

"Do you have a gun on you right now?" she asked eagerly.

"Ains," Malcolm warned.

Jessica put her fork down. "All right, that's enough. You're bordering on unpleasantness now."

She turned her Social Face on Raylan herself. "You fit in easily enough here. You must have been somewhere other than the countryside of the deep south," she suggested.

[tinstar]

Raylan could read a room well enough that he knew answering was likely not in his interest, but still, he smirked and half winked one eye at her as he hid behind the rim of his glass. He'd gotten that question from a couple of kids and it never failed to tickle him.

He couldn't help the little scoff of a half laugh that came as he looked over at Jessica, shaking his head faintly. "I'm afraid not. Just raised well enough, despite everything. I've been abroad a few times for work, but Miami is about as metropolitan as I get. Work doesn't leave me the time for these kinds of get togethers." And it wasn't his style. He didn't need any more time here to tell him that.

"You're kind to have taken the chance to invite me. It's certainly quite the way to see the other side."

[abrightboy]

"Oh, any friend of Malcolm's," she said with a smile.

The waiter came and collected their pasta dishes, but paused at Malcolm.

"...Are you done with this, sir?"

Malcolm looked up at him. "Yeah. All done. Thanks."

The waited disappeared again.

"So you're a workaholic like my children," Jessica noted.

[tinstar]

"Mm," he hummed back, face curling in a show of utmost civility as he half cheers and took another draft of his scotch, eyes betraying the spice that Jessica was starting to stir in him. His patience was short to begin with in the best of times, despite the carefree cadence and tone he used, and the older woman was starting to grate at what he had left of it.

"If you mean I'm as dedicated to protecting and serving by getting dangerous and deranged murders, mafias and off the street as your children, than yes, I am," he replied, but this time when he turned to look at her, there was a little less humor and a hint more steel. He didn't want to do this, not here, not in front of Malcolm, but she would do well to be a little less careless with such broad terms. He'd lost a marriage to the job and despite his choices, he was still a little sore about it.

"When duty calls is part of the saying, after all. I hear you've also been one to help those who are unable to help themselves - how many years of Charity work do you have under your belt now?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm sat up a little straighter when the tension in Raylan's shoulders changed. He recognized that a line had been crossed, even if he didn't know what the line was.

Jessica also seemed to recognize that she was suddenly not doing well. She took a deep breath and considered the question. "At least thirty-five years now. I started working with some of these foundations before Malcolm was born," she answered politely.

Malcolm reached out and put a hand on the back of Raylan's arm.

Steady, now.

And maybe he could get them out of here early.

[tinstar]

"That's quite a while to spend in such an endeavour. I understand you're part of this one as well." All he needed was a little less everything, to be honest, and with the subtle shift in Jessica, he could just as subtly relax like nothing had happened and go back to almost sounding proudly approving of her efforts spent. "What keeps you in it? Instead of.." He glanced off into a brief thousand yard stare with a slight shake of his head as he tried to muster an idea of what, possibly, could captivate a woman like Jessica's attention and time. "Philosophy or art. Corporate business maybe. I could see you running as a CEO."

While Raylan was otherwise ignoring the cautionary hand on his arm, he was oh so sharply aware of it and did his best to ignore the injection of adrenaline he could just as easily blame on Malcolm's mother. He'd already gathered what they assumed; it was hard not to, but it riled a whole new and dark corner for him.

He was doing his best.

[abrightboy]

She laughed lightly. "A CEO?" She waved a hand at him modestly. "Flatterer. But I suppose it's something that was always mine."

Most of what she'd built her identity around before and during her marriage was denied her after its sudden end.

The waiter reappeared with the next course: a beef tenderloin medallion.

"You win some and lose some," Malcolm noted gamely, pushing it away and signalling the waiter for another glass of scotch.

[tinstar]

"Well it seems you do it very well," he assured, not prying any further.

As the food came and Malcolm declined, Raylan smirked. "Now that, I will take, if you're not going to." What could he say, he liked a good steak.

[abrightboy]

"Oh, you know I'm not going to," Malcolm said, sliding it over. "Be my guest."

"I thought he was your guest," Ainsley said innocently. It was his turn to kick her under the table, which only made her grin at him.

[tinstar]

Raylan grinned, guessing at what was happening under the table, as he cut into his steak. He'd collect Malcolm once he was done with his.

"His couch is very uncomfortable to sleep on," Raylan said, levity creasing his face again as he maintained enough grace to not glance at Malcolm. "But his scotch makes up for it." The mention of something more innocent than sleeping places allowed him to do just that, glancing at Malcolm with a curl of his smile behind a chew.

[abrightboy]

"You did say you'd never met a couch you couldn't sleep on; I took that as a challenge," Malcolm said.

Jessica watched the dynamic as she cut her meat, but it did nothing to prove or disprove her theories, so she refrained from glancing at Ainsley.

[tinstar]

It earned him a chuckle as Raylan cut another bite.

"I slept, didn't I? For a few hours, anyway." But he didn't know how open they were with Malcolm's issues, so he opted to not mention why he was woken up. Now that he knew the game, he was treading just as carefully. They were colleagues.. Or so he kept repeating to himself as he kept his knee where it was. There was still an urge to touch him back, to reciprocate that he was trying to keep well kept in the back of his mind.

"His floor does not have the same problem," he assured the ladies before occupying his mouth again.